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Transcript – APAX 2020 Applications Webinar 1

TRANSCRIPT – APAX 2020 APPLICATIONS WEBINAR

TUESDAY, 9 JUNE 2020

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR KATHERINE CONNOR

Good afternoon everyone, thank you for joining us from wherever you are in the world

today.

My name is Katherine Connor and I am the Executive Director of PAC Australia, the

organisation which runs the Australian Performing Arts Exchange.

Here I am working on the lands of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation and I pay

my respects to their elders past present and future. I’d like to take a moment to

acknowledge where we are at in a national and global context in recognising the voices

and contributions of First Nations cultures but also the injustices faced by these people and

the roles we all play to correct these injustices, whether they be in our personal actions, or

our professional choices.

I’d also like to recognise that the COVID-19 crisis has shone the brightest light ever on the

inequities within our own industry and I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight that

while there has been much discussion of rebuilding our sector, we would like to

particularly acknowledge and confirm our support for calls for a commitment to establish

a First Nations national arts and cultural body that will provide a strategic, coordinated

and self-determined approach to the development of First Nations work into the future.

If you’d like to read more, I recommend you review the submission made to the Senate

Inquiry on COVID-19 submitted by ILBIJERRI Theatre, Yirra Yaakin Theatre, Mooghalin

Performing Arts and Blak Dance. You can find this simply by searching “Australian Senate

Inquiry COVID-19 submissions”.

With that, I’d like to thank you all for joining us today, particularly to the producers and

artists in the “room” thank you for sharing your gifts, your wisdom, your creativity and for

letting us all be a part of that.


I invite you all to use the chat to let us know where you’re joining us from today. We will

be monitoring the chat, but please use the Q&A function if there’s anything specific you’d

like to ask and we’ll run through them during a dedicated Q&A time at the end.

Joining me online is Liz Newell, who is our Projects Coordinator – Liz is your main point of

call for all application enquiries and she’ll be monitoring the chat and Q&A function for us

today.

We run a session like this each year during the applications process and this is certainly

the greatest level of interest we’ve received. And I’m going to start by saying something

pretty blunt and that is, one of the reasons we run this session each year is to ensure that

we’re actually not wasting your time. Even before COVID-19 hit, I know that amount of

time that was spent completing applications, often because there was an opportunity

available and you have to take up all those opportunities, even if you don’t completely

understand what it’s about.

I certainly know what that means – I’ve been an independent producer and had my fair

share of rejections. And even with the understanding that there’s only so much money

available for a grant round, or there’s only so many spots available to present at a

market – I do know it never stops being a kick in the guts if the result doesn’t go your

way.

So, the reason I say this is because we want to hear from as many voices as possible, we

also want to make sure APAX is working for the industry as best it can, so we deliver this

webinar to ensure that applicants have an understanding of what APAX really is,

particularly since it does look quite different this year, and that will help you to decide

whether to apply and if you do, to help you put the best foot forward in your application

as possible.

I’m also very aware that we have quite a broad range of producers and artists online

today. There will be information particularly for people who have been to APAX before

that won’t be new information. We will of course be looking at how this new COVID-19

online edition will look, but there’s quite a bit of content in today’s session as well for

people who haven’t been a part of APAX before, might not have been to a market

before, might just be interested to see what this is all about. So there is quite a broad

range of us online today.


One thing I did want to note is that I’ll do my best today to not use certain words – those

include pivot, adapt, unprecedented or uncharted. We won’t be taking any deep dives

and we won’t be unpacking anything. Because I don’t know about you but I have a list of

words that I’d be very happy to not hear again, so I’ll be doing my best to not use those

today.

There a lot of people joining us today who might not be familiar with APAX and PAC

Australia, so just by way of a super brief history:

PAC Australia is the national peak arts organisation representing performing arts

presenters and producers. Our roles are to connect performance makers and presenters,

to create shared understanding, collective impact, and extend the presentation and

mobility of performing arts activity. We identify members’ key issues and set the agenda

to progress those issues, both independently and through collaborative action with

strategic allies – and that’s never been more important than this particular moment in time.

We represent the values of our members, and we promote the value that they contribute

to community wellbeing and cultural identity.

We also provide information to our members and the industry as a whole, to develop best

practice in presenting and audience development.

One of our goals is to build the network and mutual respect, and develop the best

practice for performing arts presenting, and one of the things we try to achieve through

this is to enable the development of audiences, by driving courageous, diverse

programming across artforms, voices and scale. And of course the primary way we

achieve that is through APAX.

We were fortunate to receive some funding through the Australia Council to support APAX

this year, but otherwise, aside from the support received from our venue partners each

year and our industry sponsors, PAC Australia subsidises the entire cost to deliver APAX.

And while we would be defined as an arts market, there’s a few important distinctions to

make about how APAX is usually delivered, and these are principles that we’re bringing

to the online version this year.

So this is what we’re going to be talking about today.


We’ll be looking at APAX in general, what it is, where it’s come from, where it’s aiming to

go, what the new 2020 version is going to look like, we’ll review the key dates – so

application submissions, confirmation dates and actual delivery dates.

We’ll go through the application process and then we’re going to have a bit of a

discussion about tour-readiness and market-readiness.

We’ll look at some of the other opportunities available at APAX and we’re going to have

a look into the future, so we’ll have a look at what APAX will actually be delivering in the

future, as opposed to the more limited version that we’re able to do online this year.

So, to clarify: APAX. This event used to be known as the PAC Australia Performing Arts

Exchange and Conference, and in a strategic review of our organisation late last year to

focus our efforts and to maximise the use of our resources to benefit members, to

strengthen our support to the subsidised touring network, and based on some pretty

positive feedback over many years about how the Performing Arts Exchange and the

Conference are delivered, we actually came to the conclusion that these two major sector

events are actually entirely central to who PAC Australia are, what we do, and what our

members actually want.

So to that end, we decided it was time to bring these two events under the one banner,

and thus we rebranded as the Australian Performing Arts Exchange – or APAX – late last

year.

APAX is not a traditional, transactional market. Tour-building is often an immediate

outcome of attending APAX, thanks to super organisations like Arts on Tour and arTour,

but it’s not actually its primary purpose.

APAX has always been about building relationships and having discussions about new

work as much as it is about actually pitching work – so we have a much less transactional

focus than other markets and we certainly look at works in development as much as tour-

ready productions. And that said, that doesn’t mean that sales don’t happen and tours

aren’t built – on average about 70% of producers build a viable tour based on their

attendance at PAX.

For the presenters who attend PAX, there is similarly a focus on programming works in the

short to medium term, but for the majority it’s also about having a handle on who and


what will be coming through over the longer term. The format of APAX is largely in

response to how the industry has evolved beyond those older mechanisms of ‘shopping’

and voting for work.

APAX is the main market or showcase each year that attracts a national base of

presenters – usually around 140 to 150 presenters attend, so it really is the event to come

along to if you’re interested in national touring.

That said, this year has taken the sector’s way of operating and completely thrown it up in

the air.

So now we’re going to talk about 2020.

Along with the changes to our format for 2020 and considering how you will structure

your application this year, we thought it was worth taking just a moment to note where

some presenters are at in response to COVID-19 and how things are looking for them

moving forward.

Regional and metropolitan performing arts centres around the country invest at least $44

million per annum in programming local and touring performances. The staff in these

venues who program these works are really the curators of the cultural experiences of

their communities, they work alongside local government community development and

cultural delivery teams.

In 2018/19, these performing arts centres delivered over 64,000 performances with over

12 million attendances.

I don’t say this to preach the value of one part of the sector over the other, but it is

important that we understand the ecology in which we operate and what is influencing

decisions about the future of programming work.

So the predominance of local government ownership and management of performing arts

centres across the country has meant that only 9.5% of these organisations have been

eligible to access the JobKeeper scheme.

The average monthly overheads that performing arts centres are still needing to outlay

throughout the ongoing shutdown is $101,715.


And at the beginning of May, the combined total of programming losses that performing

arts centres have absorbed is over $10.5m.

Performing arts centres also rely on commercial and community hires of their facility to

underwrite the delivery of performing arts programs each year – and of course all these

revenue streams have been lost, not just during the shutdown period, but increasingly

expected for the remainder of the year and probably into 2021, as long as social

distancing measures are in place, because hirers just won’t be able to commit to an event

where the capacity of the venue, and thus their ability to sell tickets, will be compromised

by those social distancing measures.

All this data is just to contextualise that programming in the next 1-2 years may not look

the same as it has. And for a lot of reasons, we hope when touring is back it is going to

come back, bigger and better with broader opportunities.

The toll that coronavirus has taken on presenters is also important to note in terms of the

kind of work they’ll be looking for. An important resource for presenters has been the

Audience Outlook Monitor, and if you haven’t checked out already I would encourage

you to do so. It’s available on the Patternmakers website. This data will inform how

audiences are expected to return and will therefore inform the kind of work that’s going to

be programmed over the next 12-24 months.

So when we take social distancing measures into account, we’re certainly advocating for

presenters to look at making some riskier programming decisions at this particular moment

in time.

Because this moment in time could actually be a real opportunity to prioritise some

unusual suspects, or to take the opportunity when presenters know they’re not going to be

able to fill a house anyway to program work that might be a little bit more risky, or to

program outside their usual scope. So for example, if you believe you don’t have an

audience for First Nations work for example, to take the opportunity when you know you

won’t be filling a house anyway, to test that market alongside those works you know are

going to get your audiences back.


We also did a poll of our presenter members, and they indicated their current response to

programming or their current thoughts on what they’re going to be programming based

on things that have happened in 2020, and what that’s going to mean for 2021:

• 60% have rescheduled the majority of performances into 2021 and are still also

hoping to stage some or all of the performances that were already programmed

for 2021. So that means they’ve basically picked up anything that’s been

cancelled in 2020, and plonked it into 2021, hoping they’ll also be able to pursue

programs they had in place for 2021.

This data is also not a commitment from presenters, it’s just their thought process at the

moment.

• 16% have cancelled all 2020 performances and they plan to move forward with

the current 2021 programming that was already underway.

• 14% have rescheduled the cancelled 2020 performances into 2021 to honour

those arrangements, and that means they won’t be able to program what they

currently looked at for 2021.

• And sadly, 9% have cancelled 2020 performances and will not be actively

pursuing future programming. There’s a degree of reasons for why that might be

happening, that’s either absorbing programming losses, or to be frank, the future

of their arts centre is in doubt.

And also, just a quick note, 58% of presenters are in a position to think about 2022. As

you all know, things are moving and changing quickly, so we will re-poll the presenters to

look at this data again shortly.

While these results provide some degree of optimism about what programming might look

like in performing arts centres from 2021, these performance activities will still be

impacted by the need to absorb programming losses from 2020.

So hopefully this provides you a bit of insight into the positions of the presenters you’ll be

engaging with as part of APAX 2020.

As for the event itself, if you’ve read our media release and the content on our website,

you’ll know that it became clear pretty early on that even if we were permitted to gather

by September, our delegates' capacity to travel or to fund travel costs and registration


fees would be limited, and our own capacity to deliver APAX to our usual standard would

be compromised, and of course we also considered what we could reasonably expect

artists, producers and presenters to know about their future, amidst the ongoing

uncertainty of COVID-19. Had we been proceeding as normal, we would have actually

been doing a call for applications three months ago, and I can imagine at that point in

time, no-one was actually thinking about what they’d be able to put forward with any sort

of certainty.

But it did become crystal clear that the sector still needs to be talking to each other, more

than ever. So it was a logical decision to move the event to this series of online events.

We know there’s no way to replicate those amazing incidental and accidental

conversations that happen in the foyer and at networking events in person at APAX, but

that’s not a reason not to push ahead with a strong program.

And even though APAX was never just about the pitching program, we’ve had to look at

whether simply speaking to productions available to tour was the way to go this year, or

whether there were other angles that needed more attention.

Ultimately the answer was a little bit of both. We need to be talking about how we’re

recovering and what that’s going to mean for the future of our work, but also to look

optimistically forward and ensure presenters and producers still have that – I hate using

this word – but that mechanism to talk about collaborating or partnering on work into the

future.

So with that in mind, when we’re looking at applications this year, we’ll be looking to

organisations or individuals who can articulate how they want to move forward with their

touring strategy over the coming years, whether you just want to talk about your

organisation, or if you’d like to put a specific production forward – and what you hope

this will look like in terms of your relationships with presenters.

And of course, if you’re developing new initiatives outside actual productions to tour, we

absolutely want to use APAX to help you locate interested partners, whether they be other

artists, or producers, or presenters.

We’ll talk a bit more about how all this relates to applications in a bit more detail later.


In the meantime, to confirm what the actual revised APAX model for this year will include,

we’re looking at a series of online sessions:

- There will be two Presenter-led sessions, targeted at reaching the whole sector, to

discuss how they are coming through the COVID-crisis, focussing either on

organisations who are in a position to discuss what their future programming

framework might look like, or new strategies for delivering work in the short to

medium term.

- These sessions will be followed a couple of weeks later by the sessions led by

producers and artists – we’ve deliberately left a bit of a gap between these

sessions so that producers and artists selected to present at these sessions have

some time to adapt their presentation in response to the presenter sessions, if

necessary.

If you are selected to present at APAX, here’s a few things you’ll need to make sure you

can do:

- Presentations will be limited to a strict 10 minutes. We made the conscious decision

to limit each overarching session to 90 minutes, because who really has more time

or patience to sit through anything longer than that right now. Which means we

need to maintain a pretty tight schedule.

- There will be session hosts, and each session will be stage managed to keep us all

to time.

- Because the delivery of the online event will be much more than simply a mass

zoom gathering, which we’re all becoming pretty familiar with, the production

values are going to be pretty high – so we’ll be vision switching between speakers

and presenters, and there won’t be an opportunity for you to share your screen to

do your presentation, like you might normally be able to do in Zoom. So to that

end, we’re asking you to submit your typical “powerpoint” presentation as a pre-

recorded video. You’ll then be able to speak live to the online audience. One of

the major reasons for doing this is simply because you won’t be able to drive a

powerpoint in this online format, particularly if we’re looking at five to ten

presenters per session. Actually, if you saw the ISPA Pitch New Works format last

week, it will look a little bit similar to what they delivered.


- So before you apply, consider whether you’ll have the resources to pull this

content together. We are able to support some basic editing services, and we can

certainly pass you on to the person that we use if you’re looking for greater

support. Our videographer/editor Alex Sibbison is absolutely amazing and has

been doing most of our video content for many years.

So let’s just take a look at Key Dates for this year.

Applications are closing on Monday the 22nd of June, 7pm AEST / 5pm AWST

That’s about one week less than usual to get your application in, but bearing in mind the

ridiculous number of applications people are needing to submit right now, we’ve actually

scaled back the application form quite significantly. So hopefully this shouldn’t make too

much of a difference.

We’ll be letting everyone know one way or the other what the results of their application

is from Wednesday 1 July.

We’ll be announcing the APAX program and opening registrations from Thursday 9th July.

We’ll be running a similar session to this, except it’s for producers and artists as a pre-

APAX briefing session, so we’ll run through those final technical requirements, make sure

that you’re comfortable with how the format of the event is going to run. That will happen

on Monday the 17th of August.

The deadline to submit presentation materials is Wednesday 26th August. So that will be

ensuring you submit your presentation content, so that pre-recorded video, if you plan to

use that, and also the content we need to pop up on the website in support of your

presentation – that might be your production description, or it might be a summary of

your organisation.

In terms of the actual delivery dates:

Presenter Update sessions:

Wednesday 12th


Thursday 13th August

Producer Artist presentation sessions:

Tuesday 1st September

Thursday 3rd September

Tuesday 8th September

Thursday 10th September

We may entertain the possibility of adding more dates if demand requires, but we’re very

wary of the amount we’re asking people to commit to – and it’s our hope that about this

time in September, there will be many amongst us who are back delivering work on our

stages by then.

So, speaking of applications.

We’re just going to quickly run through the application process. I won’t be talking to

every question, this is more a little bit of housekeeping and little bit of picking out those

questions so that you know what it is that we’re asking for, because it’s not always

obvious and we don’t want to be making assumptions.

A couple of instructions:

You are able to save and resume your application. We opted for this method rather than

asking you to sign up for a new password and login.

What it means is you need to fill out the first page of the form, then move forward into the

next page before you can save that page’s content. And then at any point you can click a

button at the bottom of the screen that says “Save & Resume Later”, and what you’re

seeing on the screen right now is the prompt that you will get if you click that button.

So what you receive is either a prompt to have the link emailed to you – I would suggest

you email it to yourself, a colleague, your mother, you don’t want to lose that link. And it

also provides you with the link online as well. This link here is obviously not the one that

you want to use, that’s the standard template one.


So we can’t actually retrieve your application, it’s all encrypted until you hit the Submit

button, so if for some reason you can’t get back in, the first thing that we recommend is

that you send us your Save & Resume link and we’ll see if we can access it from one of

our machines, but otherwise we can’t actually access an application in progress.

We also ask that you keep any file uploads small. We did have someone once who tried

to upload a 35MB image and then wondered why it wouldn’t submit – that doesn’t work.

We ask that you keep your file sizes to 5MB total.

We will use the information that you supply in your APAX application to populate the

website if you’re successful if you don’t submit the final information to us later. So we do

ask you to tick a box before you submit, saying that you confirm the information you

provide can be used by us – things like an image that you might supply, we will use to

populate your profile on the APAX website.

You can also scroll through the whole application without completing all the required info,

so it’s not say for example like the old Australia Council applications where if you didn’t

complete a certain section you can’t move forward to the next page. You can actually do

that, you can scroll through every page without completing all the required information,

but you won’t be able to click the final Submit button until everything is done.

And then once you do click the Submit button, you’ll be emailed a copy of the text of your

submission.

If you do have any trouble completing the application online, there is a Word version

available that you can request if needed.

So now I’m just going to scroll through a couple of the slides of the application form.

Everyone gets asked to tell us a little bit about your organisation, or if you’re an

independent, just to tell us about your artistic practice.

And then the next question is really about contextualising what it is you want to talk about

at your presentation. So this is really about how your organisation has been impacted by

COVID-19, but how you’re also planning to move forward. We’re really keen to not just

have 90 minute sessions of talking about the devastation of what’s happened in our

sector, because I guarantee there’s not one person – particularly at PAC Australia –


who’s not actually aware of what the impact that this has had on every corner of the

sector. So we don’t just want to be presenting a series of sessions that might be more

useful for government to tune into, we want to hear about how you’re going to move

forward. So this is your chance to tell us about how you’re going to do that, noting that

it’s “as best you can” at this point in time. We realise that what’ll be happening in

September when we deliver these sessions might be completely different, but we’re not

living in a perfect world so we just ask you to supply the information as best you can, and

we understand that some information might be subject to change.

We also ask if you happen to have some sort of one-sheet artistic summary or program

that supports your application, you can upload this.

And if all you want to do is actually talk about your organisation, at the next question,

you can just select “No, I would like to provide a general update on my organisation and

future planning only”, and that’s pretty much the end of the application.

If you’d like to actually talk about a specific production, this is where you click “Yes”, and

you’ll get sent through to the usual production application information.

So I’m not going to go through every single question because there are things in there

that, there’s no question, you’ll absolutely know how to complete, it’s “what’s your

artform?”, “who does this work engage with?”, those sorts of questions.

But one question we do ask is to let us know what types of presenters and partners you’re

looking for, whether that’s the specifics of a venue size – “this is a work that can only fit in

a 1000-seat pros-arch theatre” or “this is a black box work” – or what you’re actually

looking for from a presenter. Are you looking for a straight buy, are you looking for a

partnership or a longer-term engagement with a presenter, is this something that you’ve

already engaged with a festival with and you’d like to expand that to include venues, is

this specific to a particular region, have you actually already identified a bunch of

presenters that you would like to engage with...

And do you have an audience or community engagement plan, or ambitions for an

audience or community engagement plan, directly related to this project? We know that

not every work needs to actually have that, it’s just your opportunity to let us know what

already exists or what you’re planning to do in that space.


We do also ask if you’ve pitched this production or concept at any other market. If you

have, it doesn’t negate your eligibility whatsoever, we just like to know where the

production might have been seen before and whether or not it’s something that producers

might have already seen at two or three separate events.

Then it’s just some pretty general information.

If there’s a single video you wish to use to support your application – generally we are

not looking for the full-length video of your work, we’re looking for not necessarily a

commercial or TVC, we’re looking for something in-between. So if you have a trailer or

such that you use, like you might have posted it on the National Touring Selector or you

might have already sent it to presenters, that sort of short video that contextualises what

the work is about.

To be really frank, it’s really hard to assess applications that don’t have video content

attached to them. Similar to a hero image – we do ask for a hero image, and if you can’t

actually supply that it does make it extra difficult to assess where your work is at,

especially if you’re not an organisation whose work has toured before.

And then a single review or quote from a past presentation or production. So this could a

one line, or it could be three paragraphs, we really don’t mind.

And then we ask here if you have a preference for what date you’d like to present on.

We can’t actually guarantee how that’s going to work, but if there are certain dates that

absolutely don’t work for you, we ask you just to let us know. You don’t have to let us

know – if you don’t tick any box, we’ll assume that you’re open to any date in general.

So moving on from application, we thought it might also be a good opportunity to talk

about tour-readiness stuff and market/showcase readiness cos it might help you decide

where you or your organisation is at in relation to preparing your applications for this, or

any other market.

One of the things that’s becoming more and more apparent is the need for producers or

artists to come along to a marketplace before they actually apply to pitch at one – it isn’t

a hard and fast rule, but we’ll talk about what that means and whether your production is

good to go nonetheless.


Because there’s a substantial volume of applications being written at any given time for

the raft of showcases and markets in Australia, though maybe not as many this year, and

there are a huge number of hours being racked up by producers and artists writing

applications that may not end up going anywhere either because the market isn’t the right

fit for them, or perhaps the work or organisation is not yet developed enough for the

particular needs of the market.

The next few minutes might actually sound a little bleak actually and what we’re talking

about is in no way to discourage you from applying; we certainly don’t want to put you

off touring, and we most definitely want you to jump on board.

But bear with me, because touring in Australia is a long game and the people who do it

well have been at it a long time, and it’s quite an intimidating process to jump in on if

you’re not already prepared and you haven’t done some of that leg work.

When we think about the big picture this is kind of how it funnels down. It’s a dramatically

simplified graphic, but the point is, what we’re trying to do is identify producers or artists

who aren’t quite ready for the market – certainly not the national market – so the

application process is not an unproductive use of your time.

The volume of applications we receive at APAX is usually between 170-220, with the

number of available pitching spots at around 40-50 – so the success rate’s only around

25% at best.

Then if you’re able to deliver your pitch, you need to think about whether you have the

capacity to immediately follow up with the interested presenters and if you have the

resources and again, capacity, to go through the tour-building process. Then comes the

funding application if you require Playing Australia funding or similar, and then the

number of works that can tour is reduced depending on the number of applications that

actually get funding, and then, of course, you have to get on with business of actually

delivering the tour.

And usually, if you have a long term-touring strategy you’ll need to start thinking about

your next production and starting the entire process again, around here [the pitching

phase].


Now, there are obviously other ways of getting a tour to happen that doesn’t necessarily

involve this process, and this is all very broad-brush strokes stuff, but the questions that

you should be asking before you apply, if you haven’t toured before, are around:

- Why do I want to tour?

- Do I have the capacity and resources to actually deliver a tour?

- What partners might I need?

- If I can generate interest in the work, what is my strategy to follow up?

- Do I already have a pretty good idea of where I want to tour to, and why?

This question is particularly relevant in terms of your relationships with presenters.

In Australia, as I’m sure is common in most regions, presenters generally tend to program

from producers and artists that they know. So the question is how do you become

someone they know – it’s almost like that age-old, how do I get a job that needs you to

have experience if you’ve never had a job to get that experience?

The answer is you have to come to a market like APAX and start to build the relationships,

so when you come back the next year to pitch, they know you and have already

developed trust in your work. Which is why we generally say that, at least on the national

level, you should attend a showcase before applying to pitch at APAX, so you have a

better understanding of how the market place works. And this year is obviously an easier

entry point, given that there’s no travel required to attend.

You also get to know the presenters and their audiences while at APAX, so that they can

become your audiences as well, so when you consider the question where do I want to

tour to, you already have a good idea of who would be interested in your work and why

your work would be of benefit to their audiences and community as a whole.

So, if you’ve not had much experience with touring, these are some of the things we want

to make sure you have considered prior to applying and what you should be thinking

about when you complete your application.

On a lighter note – here are all the benefits of touring and why you should totally do it!

[Refer to slide]


These slides will be posted on the APAX website if you want to come back and read it –

or you can go direct to the source material and download the National Touring

Framework on our website.

We’re very aware of the responsibility that we carry through the APAX curatorial process

that the work delegates are seeing is a large part, certainly not the entire part, but a large

part of how work ends up programmed on stages across the country. So of the 50 or so

works that are programmed each year at PAX – what becomes of the work from the

hundreds of other applications we receive? How can we create pathways for presenters

and producers to connect around that work, and particularly, how can we make sure that

the work of artists and producers who haven’t been to an arts market before still get that

critical platform to put their work in front of presenters, and other producers, and other

artists.

This leads into the Other Opportunities this year. The online platform will allow for virtual

breakout rooms for some online networking. We’re also providing an option for

producers outside the program to promote their production on our website, which will be

one of the few online spaces with the imminent, but hopefully temporary shelving of the

National Touring Selector. When we’re meeting in person, 98% of our delegates

reference the online production content, and on average there are 45,000 pages views in

that time, which includes productions in the program and otherwise.

But most importantly, if you’re not scheduled into the program, attending online this year

is a great opportunity to look-in on the event, particularly if you haven’t pitched before,

without having to invest in travel and other costs to attend the in-person event. And of

course, it’s just as important to see what other artists and producers are creating.

I’d just like to briefly touch on what the in person gathering looks like, above and beyond

the pitching program, so you can prepare for when we’re allowed to gather again next

year.

There is some advantage to not being funded – and that is, we’re able to be pretty

responsive to what the industry needs and how we can evolve the event to best lead and

serve the direction of tour building and presenter/producer relationships. So each APAX

looks a little different every year.


But here’s a few things that you can expect from the in person gathering.

First of all, it’s one place, at one time, over four days. There’s professional development,

there’s 400-550 people every year, basically within the same place, with the same

purpose of being there.

We run a program called Hooked Up, which is basically a matchmaking service, so

before you actually arrive at APAX, there’s work that’s already been done before you

arrive – particularly for producers who haven’t been before, and presenters who haven’t

been before, that there’s already some connections being made. It’s a pretty intimidating

thing to walk in to these events, I know the first time I did, I would’ve really loved to have

already had a bunch of contacts that I could meet with. So Hooked Up provides that

facility.

Like I said, there’s over 400 colleagues. We run our event app, which has every

delegate’s information, and you can actually connect with them during the event. If you’ve

seen something pitch, and you’d like to get involved, or you’ve seen a presenter talk and

you’d like to engage with them, that’s a really easy connection point.

We run an event each day called The Meet Market – this is not a boozy networking

junket, this is actually a facilitated networking session, in a social context, to make sure

that producers and presenters are actually having the conversations that they’re there to

have.

Tour building. Like I said before, there’s no mechanism in place through PAC Australia to

build tours immediately following APAX, however there are a bunch of people at this

event who do do that. We have a range of tour coordinators who attend and it will either

be with a work in mind, or [the opportunity to think] this is how you actually meet a tour

coordinator to help you moving forward with your own particular work.

In the last few years we’ve linked in with various festivals. In 2018 it was the Red Earth

Arts Festival in Karratha, and last year it was the Horizon Festival on the Sunshine Coast.

This year we were hoping to partner with the Sydney Fringe Festival, and there are still

things that we’re going to be doing with them this year.

And part of that is linked in to our First Base program. So again this links into that concept

that it’s difficult to – or we would never actually put a producer or an artist in a position


where they’ve never been to a market before, and they get a pitching spot and they have

to speak to the entire delegation without actually having that experience of what pitching

looks like. So with First Base, this is a more intimate experience where we partner a

producer with a presenter to kind of dry-run their pitch. It happens at the actual event, and

it means that the presenter then is able to give you some feedback on what the presenter

is looking for in a particular pitch, and more importantly, they can actually also identify

other presenters in the room that you should be speaking with. Presenters generally tend

to have a pretty good idea of what other presenters are looking for, so if the work’s not

right for them, they’ll be able to set you on the path of finding presenters that might be a

really good match. We ran this program for the first time last year and I’m already aware

of a bunch of commissions that have happened, even though the purpose of it was just to

start actually making those connections, we’ve seen some work being created as a result

of that, which is very exciting.

So that’s what the in-person version looks like, aside from the pitching program, the

networking, those incidental and accidental connections that you make when you actually

attend.

In closing, before we start the Q&A, my final point would be, we don’t predominantly

measure what happens at APAX in terms of the numbers. Our outcomes aren’t just

measured in the number of tours built directly from a pitch – our outcomes are measured

in that less-quantifiable value, and it’s right there in our name, and it’s “connection”.

Because that touring and engagement that we all talk about all fall out of the relationships

we build at APAX. And these relationships are at the core of successful touring – to create

true impact in communities across Australia and empower presenters and producers and

artists to make progressive and meaningful programming decisions and embrace new

business models, which I really think we’re going to see a lot more of that coming out the

other side of COVID.

So that was a good 45 minutes, thanks for hanging in there.

Q&A

I did see every now and then my chat function lighting up, I haven’t had a chance to

actually monitor the chat, but we are going to move to Q&A now. So let’s have a look.


Q: Are you able to share how many responses you had from your presenter survey?

We have 135 presenter members, and we had a 93% response rate. I can’t do the fast

math on that, but needless to say it was a pretty significant response. Like I said, that

particular survey was seven weeks ago now, so we’ll be looking at doing that again.

Q: Programming losses of $10.5 million, can you provide a bit more info on that, money

spent on fees? Lost box office? Secondary question: 60% of presenters moving 2020

programming into 2021 and will proceed with 2021 plans, that’s a lot of content, do you

think that they’re being realistic that they can manage that quantity of work? Point being,

do you reckon we should focus on 2021 opportunities or 2022?

That is a lot of content, and I would suggest that while they’re saying that they intend to

move forward with 2021, if those contracts aren’t already in place, I would not want to

cause any panic or alarm, but certainly part of what we’re advocating for in terms of

packages for government is some funding to support presenters who do want to move

forward with 2020 and 2021 works, so that they don’t have to drop out of 2021 touring.

Again, don’t mean to cause any alarm, that’s a conversation that you’ve probably

already had with presenters. My point of view would be that you probably would be

better focusing on 2022, unless you already have some programming in place, unless

you’ve already started that conversation.

Q: Would you be interested in a proposal from a group of 2-3 individuals or orgs, looking

at a specific art form or area of practice? For example, a discussion about how we might

collectively build audiences for contemporary dance, or sharing 2-3 artists working in site-

specific practice?

Yes, is the short answer. Absolutely. At this point in time we’ve sort of framed the

application to talk about organisations or specific works, because there’s probably a

whole raft of other ways we could’ve framed it, or a huge number of other opportunities

or things that people might want to talk about, but we are open to anything. So if you

have an extraordinary strategy, or if you have a particular area of interest, and that might

be two or three partners coming together, absolutely. Those sort of collaborative

presentations are going to be really important.


Q: You mentioned something about being able to see data of audiences and encouraged

us to take a look, my internet froze just as you were explaining this, can you please

repeat the segment?

What I was talking about there was a research study undertaken by Patternmakers and

WolfBrown called The Audience Outlook monitor. It’s available on The Patternmakers

website. There was actually a webinar that the Australia Council and Patternmakers

presented last week which did delve into some of the specifics of the data around

performing arts specifically, so that was recorded and I’m expecting a recording of that to

be made available in the next 24 hours or so, so we’ll be able to circulate that as well. So

that’s the Audience Outlook Monitor.

Q: Could you please explain the format for presentations a little further – is the pre-

recorded essentially what we would pitch in person, i.e. a powerpoint presentation

perhaps with video and voiceover talking?

Yes. If you would prefer to do a straight conversation with the online audience and not

have any pre-recorded content that is also totally fine, but because people won’t be able

to drive powerpoint themselves – and that’s really important when you’re presenting is to

be able to drive your own powerpoint – what we’re suggesting is, it can be as long or as

short as you’d like, but it is essentially that powerpoint presentation that you would

normally do at a pitch. So it could be two minutes, it could be five minutes, but it’s kind of

any visual content that you want to have included. I’d probably recommend having a look

at the ISPA Pitch New Works recording, which I will see if I can track down and distribute

to the people who’ve attended the webinar today, because that was a really good insight

into how we’re planning to run as well.

Basically a 30-second introduction from the facilitator, who then threw to the organisation

who was presenting, they spoke for 30 seconds to a minute, and then it crossed to videos

of various lengths. So it actually showed content from the performance, and it had

voiceovers that you would expect from a powerpoint presentation as well. Then after that

depending on how much time you have left, you’d have say 5 minutes of just talking direct

to the online audience, without any visual component. And that if you would like could

include a facilitated Q&A with the session host. So I hope that was helpful.


Q: I know there’s been a building engagement with New Zealand artists over recent

years, how do you think this sits with this year’s bespoke COVID version? Also in terms of

pitching, where would a work in development sit, as part of a general update? And if

successful, can the ten minutes cover both the tour ready work and to introduce upcoming

works?

In terms of the Australia/New Zealand stuff, we are absolutely open to receiving

applications from New Zealand. I would suggest that unless you’ve already had some in-

roads or can demonstrate an existing touring strategy for Australia that that would

probably have a greater chance of success. It’s not necessarily the year for applicants

who haven’t already demonstrated a relationship between Australia and New Zealand to

try and put something forward, purely because we’ll be working with less application

spots this year. By that I don’t mean it’s necessarily a conversation that you might have

had with an Australian delegate at the PANNZ arts market, but say for example at last

year’s APAX, Auckland Theatre Company put forward Still Life With Chickens, and that

was based on a collaboration with Critical Stages. So there was already an existing

relationship there. So I’d say yes it’s probably not the best use of an applicant’s time if it’s

not already a relationship that exists in Australia, to put something forward cold.

And “in terms of pitching, where would a work in development sit, as part of a general

update? And if successful, can the ten minutes cover both the tour ready work and to

introduce upcoming works?” Because it’s ten minutes, I kind of feel like the more you cram

in there, the more you actually compromise what it is you really want to talk about. We

don’t have a problem with that but it’s probably a question for yourself of how you

actually want to present, and if it’s just five minutes on one work and five minutes on

another, that could be totally fine, because we are also talking about how people might

like to do five minutes about an organisation and five minutes about a production. And

work-in-development, look it probably does sit under pitching a production, but in terms of

your application, it depends if you’re also applying for an existing work as well. So I’d be

more inclined to actually put a work in development under an organisation update, but

drill down specifically into “this is a work in development… any adaptation we’ve had to

do because of COVID-19” and not necessarily put it forward as a tour-ready work.

Q: Would you be interested in a proposal for a premiere of a new work?


Yes, absolutely, and I think particularly because you have an existing tour about to go out

(thanks to APAX last year!) I think that presenters who have built that relationship with you

would absolutely be happy to hear what you’re doing next. So it’s not just “here’s what

we’re looking to do over the next 12 months” but “here’s what we’re looking to do

further down the track”.

Q: With presentation dates, is there any priorities/focuses on any given dates, or are

these open-ended and can include any pitch?

I think what you mean there is “Are we drilling down into specific focus areas for each

pitching session?” and at the moment the answer is no. There are overarching

considerations of, we want to make sure that we’re covering a range of artforms, a range

of companies, a range of sizes, a range of individuals, but at the moment no, we definitely

don’t bundle works or bundle companies into specific presentations. It’s the same thing

that we do at APAX, we’d never do a pitching session just about dance or we’d never do

a pitching session just about musical theatre.

And thank you, Alison, yes: Just a comment, captioning and audio describing videos and

powerpoints makes them accessible for everyone.

Yes, thank you, we did actually have an integration set up with Zoom and that failed us at

the last minute, so I tried to actually put on the powerpoint subtitling feature, and it turns

out that powerpoint doesn’t do subtitling great. So I made the conscious decision that bad

subtitling is worse than no subtitling at all. Our plan when we put the video out is to also

provide a transcription of today’s session, so thank you for raising that, absolutely.

And I should also note that there will be captioning and Auslan during the online sessions

for APAX as well.

Q: I perform and create theatre for children with a production ready to tour and has been

performed once already, would you have any recommendations as to where we should

aim our energy in the application? Developing relationships or partnerships?

I would always put developing relationships at the heart of everything, in terms of an

application. When you talk about a production that’s already toured or has only been

performed once, I’m sorry I don’t know if that means that this is the first production that

you’ve had ready to tour, if you already have existing relationships with presenters, or


whether this is like the ‘seed’ part of this particular work, but I would always put

developing relationships at the forefront. I think it’s always really important to do a bit of

leg work, do some research on the type of communities that might be right for your

particular work. Something that we do look at with APAX is not just looking for a work

that might reach 40 communities, we’re actually looking for the works that might also

reach 3 communities but the impact it’s going to have on that community is going to be

really immense. So we always put relationships right at the start, but I think it’s important

to identify the kinds of partnerships that you need as well. So I think it’s worth doing a

little bit of research before looking at your application and just having a think about what

kind of partnerships you need and who you want to build relationships with, and making

sure that you articulate that.

So two minutes overtime, which is not too bad!

I’m just going to throw up on the screen our contact information, so if you need to reach

out to any of us, Liz is your port of call for applications. Deanna is our fabulous Business

Manager for any sort of general admin enquiries. I’m the Executive Director and I’m

taking a large role in producing this year. We are actually based in Perth, so you’ll see it

is a Perth phone number, so if we don’t answer at 9am on the east coast, that’s probably

why. And just to note that there is the PAC Australia website, which has quite a lot of

historical information about APAX, some previous videos, and then we’ve just launched

the new APAX website, which will become the hub for what we’re doing this year, so I

would refer you to both.

Thank you everyone for joining us today and for bearing with me, I hope that was really

useful, we will make this session recording available. Thanks for joining us and reach out

any time! Cheers.

END OF TRANSCRIPT

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