The Twenthe Guitar Festival, the Organisation
The Twenthe Guitar Festival was established in 2006 when a number of young guitarists made their dream come true: an accessible guitar festival for both professionals and amateurs with the town of Enschede as the ‘crime scene’. A perfect spot to bring guitar events back to life again, since the disappearance of the Segovia Festival and the Guitar Series with regard to the guitar it had become awfully quiet around the Oude Markt.
The first edition took place in the Concordia Theatre. All events -including masterclasses- were held there.
The first edition was a success, so the organisation comittee -Bobby Rootveld, Jaap Majoor, Niels Ottink en Paul Driessen- decided to upscale the event, requiring two locations instead of one, the Concordia Theatre and the Artez Conservatory. Fortunately both are within walking distance, yet with a little challenge to catch the lunch concert with a sprint after a little delay in the masterclasses.
Starting with the second edition of the festival, the Artez Conservatory was the stage for Masterclasses, worshops, the preliminaries of the competitions, and the Concordia Theatre was perfect for the concerts and the finals of the competitions.
Since the first time in 2006, three more editions wrote history. Consequentially this year’s edition is the lustrum.
Lustrum.. funny word. Yet it’s a word with a historical background. In the Roman Era, people once in five years made a sacrifice to the god Mars -the god of war- on a field in the city of Rome. This field was called Campus Martius, Latin for the Field of Mars. On the present day Campus Martius is built over, and it is generally known as the district Campo Marzio, the location of places of interest like the Pantheon and Piazza Navona.
The Romans were quite good at warfare and they wanted it to keep it that way. So they ‘sponsored’ their war deity. They called this once in five year sacrifice ‘Lustrum’.
This fifth edition of the Twenthe Guitar Festival rightfully is an illustre lustrum! Which guitar event in the East of Holland exists longer? Only the Zwolle Guitar Festival has more editions yet.
There is not much news to report about the organisation, it is just like last year. A successful formula does not need to be changed. A novelty this year is a web based evaluation for the participants of the festival. It provides a useful feedback for the last details and offers the option to present wishes like ‘what guitarist would you like to appear on the festival?’
Speaking about sponsoring: Fundraising is an important activity of the organisation to bring in sponsors. This year the festival had a new main sponsor, who connected its name to the competitions of the first, second and third categories.
The new sponsor is the Dutch company Axis Media Ontwerpers, a branch of Axis Media Groep. The company is involved in communication in all kinds of fields, from technical documentation to video productions, from communication strategy to web design. Their web site gives a nice impression of their activities, there is an abundant number of flash animations.
A part of the deal was the upgrade of the Twenthe Guitar Festival web site and all promotion material like the flyer and the posters. I must say that it looks licked, in a nice and balanced colour scheme.
As a technical author I have been involved with Axis for a while. They did organisational research in my company and we have attended their courses in target group analysis and user profiles. It appeared that Axis is a versatile company with an innovative approach.
Axis is not the only contributor to the festival budget, many other sponsors contribute financially and materially.
Funds and materials are of little use if you don’t have people who want to work for the event. The Twenthe Guitar Festival has those people, a crowd of volunteers who dedicate themselves to the smooth course of the event.
Again this year the first aid and emergency service (statutory for large events), competition-, masterclass- and workshop management and not to be forgotten catering and CD sales were top class.
A big pat on the back for the organisation and volunteers!
