An annual festival held by Backbone Youth Arts, '2high' aims to provide hands-on experience in festival making for young people who wish to develop networks with artists, industry professionals and mentors.
Introducing volunteer festival organisers with industry mentors, the iconic multi-arts festival is the first and last remaining mentorship program for artists in Queensland. “The point of the festival has always been to develop relationships with emerging practitioners and industry professionals. That’s why the festival is called '2high', because it's actually a circus trick where one person stands on someone else's shoulders and that represents the mentoring relationship,” Producer of Backbone's '2high' festival, Katherine Quigley says.
Katherine Quigley“Everyone has a mentor and it's specific to the area that they’re working in. So that for this year the people that are doing producing have producers that are their mentors, for the people that are doing marketing they have mentors that work in marketing in the arts industry as their mentor.”
Suffering from massive funding cuts to the youth art sector earlier this year, Backbone and the '2high' festival was hit hard. But by creating a Pozible campaign and asking folks to help support them, '2high' greatly exceeded their target of $8,000 and they're well on their way to producing an exciting festival in 2015 titled 'Forgotten Treasures'.
Katherine Quigley on '2high', Backbone and Flipside Circus on '2high', Backbone and Flipside Circus
The exciting event will be held over three days and for the first time will be separated into seven categories (instead of three) to provide opportunities for emerging artistic directors to develop their own curatorial voice. These categories include: Indigenous Storytelling, Cabaret/Classical/Opera, Visual Arts, Queer/Performance/Transmedia, Community Connections, Contemporary Music and Writing, and Digital Cultures.
Marketing Manager Vanessa Fuchs says that with a dedicated 23 strong person team, the target they set was achievable but still comfortably ambitious. “Given we raised just over $9,000 we may have even been able to reach $10,000 in hindsight! However, being our first attempt at a crowd-funding campaign, it was important to be safe and realistic and we are all proud of the result.”
2high 2013
With a total of 147 pledges coming from all walks of life, Vanessa says the average pledge was around $60. “Not only do we have a dedicated team of volunteers behind creating, managing and delivering the 22nd Backbone '2high' festival, but we have an invested alumni base... Our pledgers were in fact quite generous and we really can't thank them enough.
“Our story and our impact in the youth arts community is one to easily fall in love and connect with. Given the current lack of funding I feel like people in the arts community are doing everything they can to help one another out. I have to admit, the rewards we offered to our supporters were also really lucrative. We have rewarded our pledgers with everything from festival passes to having their name printed in the programme to receiving specially crafted gifts.”
Lead to '2high' from her love of festivals, Vanessa says the idea of working behind the scenes seemed both challenging and fascinating to her. “There's no other opportunity quite like volunteering with the Backbone '2high' festival because it is the first and last remaining mentorship program of its kind in Queensland. I knew it would be my opportunity to build upon my skills and get hands on experience within the arts marketing industry. I thrive on working in a team and the idea of being a part of creating something from the ground up and seeing it come to life seemed so rewarding.”Backbone's '2high' festival will be held at The Old Museum from the 9-11 January 2015.
