14 Weeks Out. Meet Gabi.

It’s not all programming that’s going down at St Kilda Festival HQ at present.
Ever wondered who organises all the stalls, or how many icecreams are sold at the Festival?
You're about to find out. This week, we meet Gabi…

Hi Gabi, introduce yourself please:

Hi I’m Gabi, Festival Trader Liaison Coordinator. I work with the permanent St Kilda traders and Festival Sunday stallholders, organising the participation application process, issuing permits and then making sure they’re all happy on Festival Sunday.

What are you doing at the moment?

At the moment, permanent traders are applying to extend their footpath trading areas on Festival Sunday. The extra area has to be permitted by Council and they also apply for a special liquor license to cover it. I help them with both applications. We’ll submit all the liquor license applications on behalf of the traders very soon.

[There’s usually about 20 venues that decide to extend their trading = approx 1,000m2]

I spend a lot of time on the phone (as well as visiting the traders in person).

Aha – and what else?

Well, we also have applications open now for stallholders (food and market) wanting to have their stall at the festival. Again, I help them with their applications, permitting and then organise where their stalls will be located on Festival Sunday.

Sounds like you know a lot about permits?

Yes I do.

How many stalls are usually at the Festival?

There’s about 230 stall spaces altogether…

When I’m planning where they all go, I have to make sure there’s a good mixture of food and market stalls and that everyone’s got good spots.

About Festival Sunday:

I’ll be on site from when the stalls begin to be bumped in, making sure its all going smoothly, then throughout the day, I’ll make my way round the site, checking in on everyone to see that they’re all happy.

What time will you start in the morning?

About 5am – the stalls are bumped in from 6am.

What time will you finish?

Around 2am, when everyone’s left, the roads are open and the site’s back to being the St Kilda it is the other 364 days of the year, when the Festival’s not on.

That's a long day... a lot of ground to cover... and a lot of people to check in on.
You'll get to drive a golf buggy right... and have a walkie talkie?

Yes, I’ll have a buggy and a walkie talkie

and I’ll also have a folder

and a clipboard? Clipboards are good

hmm, maybe

oh, and a hat, I’ll be wearing a hat – it gets hot down there.

It's been fascinating speaking with you today Gabi.

Now give us some stats please:

• There are 1,350 square metres of stall marquees on site
• If all the trestle tables (in the stalls) were placed in a continuous line they would stretch to ½ a kilometre.
• The festival hires enough chairs (in the stalls) to seat 22 full size Orchestras

Throughout Festival Sunday the following are consumed from stallholders:

• 1,500 bags of ice
• 94,000 bottles of water
• 86,000 bottles of soft drink
• 1.5 tonnes of hot dogs
• 4 tonnes of chips
• 48,000 ice creams

Nice one, thanks. And it’s back to permits for Gabi.