There are more such things than there were a while ago, which is excellent, so it's perturbing there are serious questions surrounding the Otago Festival of the Arts, one of the most significant.
The festival held its first edition in 2000. It is a biennial event and largely the creation of its founding director, Nicholas McBryde.
There were other people of course, in fact many. There is a board of trustees, others have been employed as well as Mr McBryde and there are many, many others involved with each edition.
On the festival's website Mr McBryde describes it ''as a boutique festival in a boutique city'' and establishing such an institution in a small place is no mean feat.
Mr McBryde achieved this, finding good acts, supportive audiences, steady critical success, commercial sponsors and modest city and central government funding.
Mr McBryde also says on the website that ''having produced six festivals we are very proud to have always remained fiscally solvent while offering a fabulous arts event for our region''. Few would disagree.
For many years Paul Dallimore was the board chairman. He hasn't lived in Dunedin for a while but his interest in the city and its arts is well-known and he was presiding over what was widely recognised as a welcome new arts phenomenon.
The last festival was staged from October the 5th to the 14th last year.
Well before that Mr McBryde had advised his board of his intention to resign 12 months later. He felt the festival might benefit from the change and wished personally to seek new directions. About this time Mr Dallimore stepped down, or perhaps up, to become the festival's patron.
The new chairman was Mr Malcolm Farry.
Advertisements were placed in New Zealand and overseas for a new creative director. The process saw the appointment of Ms Alec Wheeler, formerly of Young and Hungry in Wellington and originally from Canada.
I attended many of the events at the festival she organised. Not everything was an outstanding success but several acts were very good and a few really impressive. Hahn-Bin and Play were only two. Attendances seemed good and audiences appreciative. The festival seemed refreshed, perhaps more youthful and full of vigour.
But all was not going well. On the 15th of December, the Otago Daily Times reported there was financial disarray. Artists hadn't been paid and the board was struggling with the paperwork, or lack of it. Ms Wheeler had resigned, replaced by an interim manager, Kerry Buchan. It was reported that, historically, acts had been paid before they performed. At this time, some were still waiting for their money.
On the 9th of January, Mr Farry reported that most creditors had been paid just before Christmas. My understanding is some accounts are still unsettled. The festival's office has been vacated and there has been no advertising for a new creative director.
In the blogosphere there has been sharp criticism of the board and its chairman on whose watch this debacle happened. They were too remote, too uninvolved.
At the time of writing I haven't been able to get Mr Farry's comment. If you ask around privately there are people who blame Ms Wheeler and don't only criticise her financial management. I imagine there's some truth in the charges aimed at all these different parties but the larger questions are about the festival.
It's taken a hit. Confidence in it is shaken. There's much repairing to do and with only 19 months to the next edition, no sign of a creative director. I understand Mayor Dave Cull is concerned. It isn't difficult to see why. The festival is significant for the arts in Otago and vital in the city's calendar.
Probably no time is a good time for an organisation in trouble to make a substantial public statement, describing the extent of its problems and what it means to do about them. But staying mum in the middle of a mess doesn't inspire much confidence.
One understands the board may not yet see its way ahead. Even so, enough time has passed for some sort of statement to be necessary.
Institutions like the Otago Festival of the Arts depend heavily on the confidence of artists, volunteers, audiences and sponsors. A number of these would now welcome further disclosure which shouldn't be unduly aggressive or defensive.
There's an unfortunate tradition in Dunedin of being too inclined to keep official lips pretty tight, unless of course there are bouquets to award. This fosters a growling and unbalanced reaction which doesn't help matters either.
Let's hear what's happened and happening with the festival's affairs and what help is needed to fix them.
- Peter Entwisle is a Dunedin curator, historian and writer.
