SO MANY nice words were said about John Clarke and John Wolseley when the two good mates took to the stage for the closing session of the Bendigo Writers Festival on Sunday that the eccentric painter grew slightly abashed.
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“I’m beginning to think the whole reason we got up here is because we’ve both got inferiority complexes and we need to say nice things about one another,” Mr Wolseley said.
But perhaps the biggest tribute to the pair was paid in ticket sales.
“John and John sold out two weeks prior to the show,” festival general manager David Lloyd said. “There was enormous expectation for that show.”
Mr Lloyd said it was indicative of a festival which significantly raised its profile in 2015.
“For the very first time we sold out our Saturday, Sunday and weekend passes, that’s 900 passes a day,” he said.
“Over the whole weekend we had 3600 people attend, not including the 2500 students who attended on Friday.”
To accommodate the extra numbers, the festival spilled over into new venues.
“We used Trades Hall for the first time but, of course, the really exciting addition was Ulumbarra Theatre, where we had our Friday night opening and Saturday night keynote speaker, Tariq Ali, and we had over 600 people go to each of those,” Mr Lloyd said.
Other capacity crowds included Bob Brown on the opening night and the two Johns at the closing session. Both of which were at the Capital Theatre, which holds about 500 people.
"Takings were up by around 100 per cent this year, which reflects how this was a significantly larger festival than it’s been in the past, spread out over three days,” Mr Lloyd said.
The general manager said growth was so significant organisers would explore the possibility of a custom built, medium-capacity theatre for future festivals.
But despite the number of attendees reaching into the thousands, Mr Lloyd reserved his highest praise for a much lower number.
“We had just under 50 volunteers give up their weekends, and that's one of the most important contributors to the success of the festival,” he said.
“Reading through the survey results, I’m seeing what I see every year – one area in which we get terrific responses is the friendly atmosphere of the festival and that comes down to our volunteers who do everything from greet people at the door to pick up writers from the airport.”
Mr Lloyd said the festival’s intimacy was its strength.
“The writers don’t just give their talk and go, they mingle, so it really gives the local community a chance to meet their idols.”