10 Weeks Out. Meet Dave.

You may have noticed that we missed a posting of the most interesting blog in the world last week. Apologies, I hope you all coped without your weekly instalment.

We’ve been busy finalising all the programming - making a music festival and now have a full house of St Kilda Festival team members.

Here we all are in our weekly update meeting:

As well as making a festival, some of us have also been busy in the kitchen. You’ll be interested to know, the results of the great gingerbread bakeoff: it was a close competition, but plate 3 won.

Back to the Festival..

This week, we meet Dave.

Hi Dave – introduce yourself please

Hi my name’s Dave Wilko… I’m the Festival Operations Manager. Working under the direction of the Production Manager, I manage all the operational aspects of the Festival and am responsible for engaging all the temporary staff – stage managers, site managers, logistics crew… and other site staff.

Aha, so, what are you doing at the moment?

Well, there’s about 60 temporary staff that come on board, the first starting from about 4 weeks out. At the moment we in the production team are recruiting for these positions, we’re also updating the task lists so they all know exactly what they need to do when they start.

And what else?

I’m updating policies… like the hire vehicle policy.

Golf buggies?

Yes, buggies and others – utes etc, every vehicle we use on site. Basically to make sure staff know how to drive them safely.

I’m also updating the Emergency Management and Transport Management Plans.

Yes?

The Emergency Management Plan details the Festival’s response to any incident on site or those that may affect the Festival. It’s endorsed by our Emergency Management Committee - made up of representatives from all the emergency organisations in Melbourne – Police, Ambulance, Fire Brigade, St John, Festival Security, Council…

And the Transport Management Plan?

This document is large like the Emergency Management Plan. It details all the road closures and changes for Festival Sunday... and all the transport options on how to get to the Festival. With over 300,000 people coming to the Festival, the best option is to get public transport. Leave the car at home!

Right

The plan is endorsed by our Transport Management committee with representatives from the trams, buses, taxis , Department of Transport, Vic Roads, CoPP Traffic, Festival Security, traffic security …

And as well as that, what else are you up to?

I’ve started speaking with all the people who are running special events on Festival Sunday, like the biketrails demonstrations, beach volleyball, football and others. This year there’s about 25. I sort out their production requirements, order PAs, sound systems, lighting...

We also help them getting their documentation like risk assessments together.

And on Festival Sunday - what do you do?

I don’t see much of the actual Festival – only through CCTV camera screens. I spend most of the day on the radios, monitoring what’s going on around the site through 6 channels and respond to requests…

Clever – 6 channels? Many conversations, and many requests, yes?

Yes.

What kinds of requests?

.. someone might be late on stage..  performers need to be transported from the car park to one of the stages.. “can we get more water” “we need more sunscreen”  “there’s cars parked in the Dance Zone” …. those kind of things…

What time do you start?

About 4.30am when signage crew start installing the final signage and so we can organise the road closures which start happening from 5am.

And finish?

I work through til about 2am when the roads are all open again, the site’s cleaned and St Kilda’s back to being the way it is all the other 364 days of the year.

That’s a long day on the radios

Yes it is.

And by the end you finish every sentence with “over”

Yes I do …. Over!

Roger that.

Well Dave it’s been a blast speaking with you this afternoon. I’ll let you get back to your policy updating and staff recruitment.

Over. And. Out.