Behind the WOMAD curtain

Happy New Year!

Chris Herlihy is one of the experienced team members working for WOMAD NZ again this year, and is hard at work with the rest of the team putting together an amazing world class festival for New Zealand to enjoy. Chris takes on three job roles throughout the year and the months leading up to the WOMAD festival.

Before the festival Chris’s roles are both Business and Logistics Manager. As the Business Manager Chris lets me in on some of the sorts of things he does leading up to the big weekend. “Organizing flights for all artists, booking accommodation for these artists while they are in New Zealand, also a large part is liaising with WOMAD Australia as they to have huge ties with the international acts that come to WOMAD NZ”. Chris tells me that there are 400 artists at this year’s WOMAD and he has booked over 200 hotel rooms. Another interesting job that Chris has organized is accommodation at a local marae for 100 of the performing artists who have requested to stay there.

As soon as WOMAD weekend hits Chris changes it up and becomes  Site Operations Manager, which means he is out and about onsite at the festival overseeing  technical elements such as coordinating gates and entrances into the festival, security, the information centre and St Johns (first aid medical care).

“Giving the best platform to the performers” is very important to Chris and the WOMAD team, this is so they are feeling happy to perform and have a positive view of the WOMAD festival and New Zealand.  One of the platforms and traditions that the artists receive when they arrive in New Zealand is a formal powhiri, which this year will be held at Owae Marae in Waitara. This event is Chris’s favorite part of the job as he describes it as a very spiritual and moving time for both him and the artists. Chris remembers how moved one artist was at last year’s powhiri. “A member from Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (New York, USA based band) turned to me and said I am blown away by this experience and my children and grandchildren will know of this moment”.

Lets Hear it for the Volunteers

Connecting with different cultures, music and people, while experiencing the wonderful world of the WOMAD festival is all part of the job if you are Ann Perquy volunteer and artist liaison for that special weekend once a year in March.

 Being part of the volunteer artist liaison team at WOMAD requires lots of energy.   There are no boundaries to Ann’s role as artist liaison. The most important aspect of the role is to “make sure the performers feel welcome so they can perform in good spirits”. Ann let us in on the sorts of things she did back stage this year at the festival “making sure the dressing rooms are set up, getting food platters ready for the artists and I also gained the task of translator for when French speaking artists arrived. Its also heaps of fun getting to know the artists, most love to make conversation about their experiences and how much they love New Zealand.”

For Ann becoming a volunteer started when she saw the 2008 WOMAD line up which included the band Toumani Diabate who are too many in New Zealand unknown but to Ann old friends that she hadn’t seen since she was back home in Belgium nine years ago.   Trying to figure out how she could reunite with old friends Ann decided to volunteer at the festival and was so happy she did as she describes the endless opportunities she received “the diversity in the programme of the performances, the people who are involved in creating the event, the atmosphere it’s an amazing festival. The chance to discover world music and listening to the artist background when they have their interviews, its just so inspiring”.  

A Stall Holders Story

Can you imagine what it takes to make and serve over two thousands coffees in one weekend?  Or how about over 500 “legendary” bacon and egg butties to hungry WOMAD punters? This would prove a challenge for most, but if you are Fran Bateman owner and operator of Sandwich Extreme café the only thing you will see or hear from her and her crew of 11 over WOMAD weekend are smiles and an unbelievable positive attitude.

There is always this amazing feeling and buzz before WOMAD.  Fran says she cannot describe it, and looks forward to the whole festival from start to finish.

The logistics involved to cater for a huge crowd over an intensive weekend is massive. Past experience tells Fran that she needs over one hundred kg bacon, fifty dozen  free range eggs and as for the coffee the team makes over one thousand cups a day so you can just imagine how much coffee is needed(Fair trade coffee of course) to survive the weekend.

Fran’s favorite moment at WOMAD would have to be: “having the performers Sharron Jones and the Dap Kings come and visit our stall, I can remember exactly what they ordered Sharron had a flat white and the Kings had long blacks and they all tried our bacon and egg butties of course. Just seeing Brooklands Park for the first time with our flags flying high and the sun shinning, I remember thinking how special it looked”.

If you are wondering where Sandwich Extreme is, the Café is located at 52 Devon Street East, New Plymouth and are onsite at the global village again next year in 2011 on WOMAD weekend.

A WOMAD Champion

Delightful Anne Dawson volunteered for WOMAD in 2010 and has been attending the event since the very beginning which was in 1997 at Western Springs in Auckland.   Anne is a mother and Grand mother who resides in New Plymouth.

You may ask yourself what motivates a person to attend a festival every year (or as it was every two years) and not miss out on a single moment of all its offerings.  Anne describes this as being “particularly moved by the honesty behind genuine world music”. Anne has also mentioned that the thing she really loves about WOMAD is “being able to share the weekend with the people I love. On WOMAD weekends the backyard becomes tent city as friends and family from all over New Zealand comes to stay and share the weekend with us”.

As for the volunteer work this year, Anne wanted to get a bit closer to the musicians and the heart of it all. Anne received the amazing opportunity to organize the CD signing sessions where she got to meet her favourite artists.

Anne’s advices as an intrepid WOMAD goer is not to be put off by unfamiliar acts as she says; “it doesn’t matter to me that I don’t know beforehand who is to be playing at WOMAD festival, because I just know that there will be at least one act that I know I will love, that I will totally lose myself in while they play”.