An exciting weekend is shaping up in the form of escape! the 2016 Tauranga Festival says ARTbop’s Marcus Hobson.
A quick conversation with Claire Mabey, one of the escape! organisers, revealed that tickets are selling well. The Travel Writing Workshop with Steve Braunias and the Cooking Demonstration with the very popular Peter Gordon have already sold out. Get in quick if you still want to see the brilliant Donovan Bixley’s workshop for kids.
Claire’s best advice is to get hold of your tickets before the weekend, but there should be some on sale at the Baycourt Box Office throughout the event.
At the moment my phone is telling me that it is going to be sunny all weekend (but don’t hold me to that, as my phone doesn’t always tell the truth). Sunshine will be a great bonus for the outdoor storytelling and the great range of foods that you’ll find on the front lawn at the Baycourt Theatre on Saturday & Sunday.
If you haven’t already, check out the festival website at www.taurangafestival.co.nz There are some great highlights throughout the long weekend.
I’m looking forward to listening to Dame Anne Salmond talk about her work and then attending one of the Storytelling sessions called “The Great Escape” at which six storytellers explore their topics in seven minutes each. There is some performance too, in the form of a one-man play to showcase Shakespeare like never before, and on Monday there is tea with famous author Nicky Pellegrino.
One feature of the festival this year is called the Human Library, a great concept that has been tried in other places around the world and originally came from Denmark. The Danes rank themselves as the Happiest Country in the World so it should be well worth joining in. Here in Tauranga The Wright Family Foundation are bringing us an event at which you ‘check out’ people, much as you would a book from the library. The various people involved will tell their story to a small group through a Q&A session. The motto is “don’t judge a book by its cover” and I love to see different ways to engage with peoples’ ideas.
I asked Claire what she is looking forward to most. Her picks are the lively debate that is bound to be stirred up by “Don’t Mention the Flag” and also “The Great Escape” story telling event.
So, make the most of the long weekend and get into town for some lively literary adventures.
AND TAKE A LOOK AT STUFF TO SAY: escape! the little festival with big ideas – we’ve reproduced the programme items. http://artbop.co.nz/escape-the-little-festival-with-big-ideas/
Marcus Hobson is the ARTbop Literary Editor, regular book reviewer, writer, and the Secretary of the Tauranga Writers group Marcus has been, and continues to be, lots of things. An aspiring author of both novels and reviews, he has always said he wants to be a writer and 40 years later is making that come true. He has in the past done such varied things as study ancient and mediaeval history at Uni in London, worked as an archaeologist, as an economist in central and southern Africa, and as truck driver in a quarry. About two years ago he relocated to the beautiful Bay from a finance job in Auckland. He is a lover of art, the written word and a full-time fanatical book collector, with over 3,000 volumes on his shelves. He lives close to Katikati with his wife and sometimes their three daughters, two cats, a library and the odd chicken. Marcus is currently working on a “factional” work about World War One.
If you would like to contribute your original book reviews to ARTbop WORDS please forward them to info@artbop.co.nz for the attention of the Literary Editor Marcus Hobson. We prefer the work is emailed in docx format We appreciate one or two jpg images (not enormous ones as they become an uploading issue for ARTbop)
