multiplier THE efect
This report captures the positive impacts of Lake Macquarie’s converged model, which brings together three areas vital to our City’s ongoing transformation: arts, culture and tourism. These are early days, but already the statistics point to a natural synergy that is having a multiplier effect on the benefits we can deliver.
We are seeing the extension of arts, culture and tourism in all aspects of lifestyle delivery in Lake Macquarie – they are now part of our events, master plans and development projects.
Our city wraps around a vast lake, which means we need to spread our resources across a large geographical area. Convergence creates an economy of scale and agility to deal with major challenges - such as COVID - and orient our City for the future, with all the uncertainty and promise it holds.
Despite COVID, the Arts, Culture and Tourism department (ACT) was able to reach broad audiences across all our venues. The past year has seen record investment of $22 million in quality cultural infrastructure, online engagement across arts, culture and tourism of 12.5 million, extension of our online destination marketing reach to 9.1 million and to a TV audience of 3 million+, as well as new major events, such as the Dobell Festival.
During this time, we have made innovations in delivery which are creating social cohesion while building new audiences and markets.
We have also been living our commitment to Awabakal culture and language, including through a major dual naming project.
Jacqui Hemsley Manager Arts, Culture and Tourism
Despite COVID, the Arts, Culture and Tourism department was able to reach broad audiences across all our venues.
Justwow!
Innovation and evolution
Extended reach
1.365 million visitors
110 per cent engagement rate across programming despite COVID
575,000 people attended a Council cultural facility, despite being closed for two months
2188 programs were held–including library literacy programs, workshops and online presentations. This was 300 more than planned
Record new cultural assets
$22 million projects completed, under construction or due for completion in 2022
$3.2 million construction of the Multi-Arts Pavilion, mima
$3 million refurbishment of Rathmines Theatre, nawayiba and Warners Bay Theatre, baramayiba
$400,000 development of Wangi Library Creative Hub
yapang Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts mentoring program commenced
Launched Let’s Fish
Lake Mac – 1100 entries and $20k prize money
Launched Write Now, our City’s first writers festival
Five Lake Mac Libraries offered our Digital Mentor Program
$25K inaugural National Lake Art Prize
Our dual naming project saw dual names developed for all of our cultural facilities
Unprecedented support
$1.5 million grants for cultural programs
$125,000 grants for tourism
Funding support received from: Australia Council for the Arts
Create NSW Crown Lands – COVID-safe equipment for 4 major events
Destination NSW
Great Southern Nights 2020 Live Music Australia Heritage NSW National Australia Day Council Grants Program
NSW Government Stronger Country Communities Fund
Regional Recovery Event Fund
Regional Tourism Bushfire Recovery Grants
State Library Infrastructure Fund State Library NSW
2188 programs held
$22 million cultural infrastructure investment
575K people attended our cultural facilities
12.5 million online reach across arts, culture and tourism areas 32%
DESTINATION MARKETINGBreakthrough
2020 Recovery Campaign
2020 recovery campaign to boost the post-COVID recovery process. It promoted self-drive visits, outdoors and adventure.
Target market: Under 45s from Sydney and regional NSW
28,209 website hits 10 million impressions
Channels: TV, social, digital native, content marketing
Partnered with influencers
PLACES WE SWIM
We partnered with Instagram tourism phenomenon Places We Swim to show off our swim spots to an audience of 35,000 mostly affluent Sydney-based followers.
PHASE ONE 106,600 reach PHASE TWO 113,634 impressions 4,557 total ad clicks and 2,982 visits to the blog article on visitlakemac.com.au
Found partners in adventure
We partnered with Destination NSW for a co-operative outdoor adventure marketing campaign featuring the Lake Macquarie destination and selected local adventure tourism operators.
/
719,478 impressions 185,304 engagements
37,856 visits to the specially-created campaign landing page on visitnsw.com
Secured over 200 national media articles
AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
12-page destination feature.
AUSTRALIAN COMMUNITY MEDIA’S EXPLORE feature cover story.
News Corp’s Escape inclusion as one of NSW’s best short break destinations.
Regular coverage by high-profile online publishers Australian Traveller, Broadsheet, Delicious, Escape, Holidays with Kids, News.com.au, Pedestrian.TV, Traveller (Fairfax), Time Out, Urban List, Vacations & Travel, Yahoo Lifestyle Australia and 9 Honey.
Attracted a record national audience
Lake Macquarie was showcased to record national audience through programs broadcast in October 2020.
Channel Seven
WEEKEND SUNRISE
2.3 million national audience $184,436 airtime value
6 live weather crosses from Speers Point Park . Featured local tourism operators (Lake Macquarie Cruises, Matt Hall Racing and Table 1 Espresso).
Qantas named us a top family destination
Network Ten
THE LIVING ROOM
678,000 national audience $650,000 airtime value
Lake Macquarie destination led a piece on the best family-friendly holiday locations in Australia in Qantas Magazine in January.
1.36 MILLION VISITORS
9
3 TV CAMPAIGN REACHED MILLION VIEWERS
Featured local food and adventure operators, including the Boolaroo Bowling Club and Matt Hall Racing.
Network Ten
DESTINATION DESSERT
Visited Lake Macquarie in September and filmed local food and adventure operators.
CLICK TO WATCH
Our Love the Lake 2021 TV commercial, launched throughout NSW in May.
MAC yapang DEVELOPED
core strength
For our community
The Museum of Art and Culture, yapang (MAC yapang) continued to strengthen its connection to the community through arts education programs and the Art in Your Community series. 0:15 0:00 / 0:15
Aboriginal
arts leader mentored
ACT funded an arts placement for emerging Aboriginal arts and cultural professional Wanjun Carpenter to work with MAC yapang.
Wanjun led a yapang project with 10 Aboriginal students from Clontarf Academy, Toronto to produce Gammin: a story of young mob in cyanotype. This collaborative exhibition celebrated the supportive relationships these young men share through sport, playful interaction, and a connection to their culture.
Lake Art Prize launched
We proudly introduced the Lake Art Prize in 2020, a new national biennial acquisitive prize for contemporary art valued at $25,000 attracting 600 entries.
600 entries
$25K PRIZE MONEY
5 ARTWORKS ACQUIRED
7000 reconnected to MAC yapang
MAC yapang presented Reconnected: a recovery story. This exhibition was a great success in supporting and reconnecting artists following COVID lockdowns, as well as showcasing the wealth of local creative talent. Sales of work totalled $23,000 and the exhibition attracted close to 7000 visitors.
1.35 MILLION ONLINE ENGAGEMENT THROUGH ALL MAC CHANNELS
1.1 MILLION FACEBOOK REACH
116% INCREASE IN USERS OF MAC WEBSITE NEW MAC website went live
24,076 VISITORS TO MAC
$530,000 VALUE ADDED TO OUR CULTURAL COLLECTIONS
MAC yapang acquired the photographic work 'Baaka Nhuungku', a collaboration between Jasmine Craciun and Lotte Hilder.
Next-level local theatres
A $3 million refurbishment of Rathmines Theatre, nawayiba and Warners Bay Theatre, baramayiba jointly funded by the NSW Government through its Stronger Country Communities Fund and Council has delivered state-of-the-art facilities.
Our theatres can now host unique programs and exhibitions ‘unlike anything Lake Macquarie has experienced before’.
tookMAP mima shape
RATHMINES THEATRE
64 performances 4100 attendees
WARNERS BAY THEATRE
23 performances
17,450 attendees
We’re getting ready to open one of the most exciting new cultural facilities in Australia. The Multi-Arts Pavilion Lake Macquarie, mima (MAP mima) is an agile space designed to host national and international contemporary art installations, theatre performances, music and more.
A key component of the build is a series of innovative artist commissions designed to activate the new building and create unique visitor experiences. Construction has progressed at a cracking pace over the past eight months, following a sod-turning ceremony in December 2020.
$3.5 MILLION INVESTMENT
$1.6 MILLION GRANTS
$140,000
9 MONTHS CONSTRUCTION
12 UNIQUE ARTWORKS
14 ARTISTS EMPLOYED
ARTWORKS COMMISSIONED IMMERSIVE BOULEVARD LIGHTING. DELIVERED THROUGH UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP SOUNDSCAPE 24 HOUR 7 DAYS ILLUMINATION
CAFE CONTRACTOR APPOINTED
Breathtaking
PUBLIC ART
Commissioned artist Hiromi Tango
Mima : Beautiful Space
Hiromi Tango is a renowned Japanese-Australian artist whose work spans sculpture, drawings, photography, installation and performance. Her work commissioned for the Multi-Arts Pavilion is called Mima : Beautiful Space. This large illuminated sculpture responds both to the Awabakal name for the pavilion, mima, meaning ‘cause to stay’, and the homophonous Japanese reading of mi and ma meaning ‘beautiful space’.
The work, soon to be installed, will gently glow on the walls of the building, with healing colours and circular contours intermingling to create something new and vibrant.
Munibung Road
Sculpture by the Sea winner David Ball has created Eolian, a landmark 4.5-metre sculptural work on the corner of Munibung Road. Co-funded as part of the NSW Government’s Munibung Road extension, the sculpture reflects the area’s industrial past, while framing views of Munibung Hill and the surrounding landscape.
Pearson Street Mall
The Pearson Street Mall upgrade integrates digital technology, soundscapes, projections and creative lighting to engage visitors to the mall. Highlights include illuminated and interactive furniture designed by local creative and education company, Codewise, which uses gaming technologies to empower and excite children about digital innovation.
David Ball with his sculpture Eolian
Sound artist Huw Jones
Artist's impression of Mima : Beautiful Space
LIBRARIES OF
thefuture EMERGED
Augmenting accessibility
Lake Mac Libraries expanded its digital engagement offering with new daisy players that enable vision impaired readers to access literature and printed information, and merge cubes (augmented reality) which allow users to ‘hold’ and explore digital objects.
Lake Mac Libraries App campaign
The multi-channel Lake Mac Libraries app campaign resulted in 2971 new app downloads and generated a 184 per cent increase in the average number of unique monthly users. The campaign reached a total of 88,842 people on social media and the landing page generated 7433 page views.
Rover to the rescue
We led a delivery program for vulnerable community members during COVID, resulting in a 15 per cent increase in patrons, servicing 409 patrons with deliveries every four weeks during 2020-2021.
Digital Mentor Program
As part of the Be Connected – Every Australian Online campaign, we established a Digital Mentor Program at five libraries, with sessions on working with computers, tablets, eBooks and smart phones.
106 online learning programs
delivered with 12,000+ views
Creative ageing
Our writer’s festival attracted an 18% increase on attendance
Holding the City’s first Creative Ageing Forum, 35 participants Art wellness
Delivery of first art wellness program during COVID
Innovation festival
Actively supported Council’s participation in the Hunter Innovation Festival with two ACT events and supported eight Smart City events
crowd OUR EVENTS WERE magnets
3300 tickets sold
Up in the Air festival
Australia’s top stunt pilots showed off their skills for the inaugural Up in the Air Festival in May. Featuring aerobatic performances diving to within metres of the lake’s surface, the festival drew a large crowd to Rathmines foreshore. On the ground, classic car displays, kitemaking workshops and roving entertainers kept crowds amused between the airborne stunts.
127,835 online reach
908 tickets sold
Live Music Lake Mac
A multi-layered campaign resulted in a number of sold-out gigs including Ash Grunwald, Nathan Caveleri and Andy Firth Quartet.
60,000+ campaign reach with 2500 clicks to the landing page.
15,000 attended
Float Your Boat
More than 15,000 people lined our foreshores for Float Your Boat 2021. Warners Bay and Toronto live sites were ‘lit up like Christmas’. This year’s flotilla featured a giant humpback whale, Eric Carle’s Hungry Caterpillar and a Sydney Opera House complete with a real-life opera singer.
105,000 campaign reach with 5000 clicks to the landing page.
5700 attended
Festival celebrated Dobell’s genius
The inaugural Dobell Festival provided a monthlong celebration of art and creativity, shaped by the works and life of Lake Macquarie’s most famous artist, Sir William Dobell. The festival program was a hit, attracting more than 5700 attendees. Highlights included BILL: A musical tribute to William Dobell, an evening of music and ‘Dobell for Kids’ art events at Rathmines Theatre, and the Real Worlds: Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial 2020.
Kids loved our kitemaking workshops
Ash Grunwald at Warners Bay Theatre
The Very Hungry Caterpillar was a hit
Dobell for Kids art events proved popular
130,000 campaign reach 3500 clicks to the competition website
1145 competitors (KPI 400) 98,158 social campaign reach
Let's Fish Lake Mac
Our major new event
Let’s Fish Lake Mac saw 1145 anglers competing in a COVID-safe format to take home $20,000+ in prizes. Approximately 45 per cent of participants were from outside the local government area - a great outcome for our accommodation and other local providers.
Good morning, Lake Mac Libraries,
kawumalyikilba!
We connected OUR PAST TO OUR FUTURE
History Illuminated
History Illuminated ran as a postlockdown COVID-safe cultural festival with 34 events.
Family and local history research support
We delivered support to 77 locals through in person support sessions and over 300 by email and phone.
Heritage interpretation projects
We completed four heritage interpretation projects – Rathmines Park (10 new signs and digital trail), Warners Bay Foreshore (8 digital trail stops and 780 engagements), Wangi Wangi WWII Gun Emplacement (2 new signs) and Argenton Shared Pathway, former tram way (2 new signs).
Rathmines Heritage Centre
We held three exhibitions at the newly opened centre.
Digitising our collections
We were one of six local governments in NSW successful in funding to digitise historic collections, providing public access to 500 significant objects and stories.
Cultural Collections Strategy
We completed and released the Cultural Collections Strategy to guide and support collecting across all Lake Macquarie City collections.
users and sessions each month
users and sessions
The dress code was 1940s glamour at the opening of History Illuminated
Heritage signage at Warners Bay
Max Dupain exhibition at Rathmines Heritage Centre
Good morning, Lake Mac Libraries,
kawumalyikilba!
This the greeting you may hear from our staff, reflecting a new dual naming protocol that recognises local Aboriginal people, language and cultural connections.
In consultation with Miromaa Aboriginal Language Centre, we developed dual names for all our cultural facilities, including library branches, Rathmines and Warners Bay Theatres, the Museum of Art and Culture and Multi-Arts Pavilion.
These dual names reference sites, places, events and objects of significance to local Aboriginal peoples. Each cultural facility has its own individual Awabakal name with a unique meaning, while Lake Mac Libraries has one overarching Awabakal name, Kawumalyikilba.
The project has involved a major signage project and development of training resources for our customer service staff.
Thefuture
Sugar Valley Library Museum
Construction of the Sugar Valley Library Museum at Cameron Park is anticipated to begin in early 2022 following recent development approval.
This innovative cultural destination will be at the forefront of public libraries in the region, with capacity to exhibit thousands of historically significant items. West Wallsend District Heritage Group’s collection of some 7000 items, telling the cultural and historical stories of the region, will form the backbone of the new library museum’s programming.
Creative industry growth
As part of our commitment to COVID economic recovery for the City, ACT will be undertaking a number of initiatives that will provide platforms for artists, musicians and tourism businesses to recover and grow. Projects include completing a mapping report for the creative sector, expanding our Open Studios, a live music program and major events that support local business.
yapang Emerging Art Prize
The inaugural yapang Emerging Art Prize, MAC yapang's new national biennial prize will celebrate, promote and support emerging Aboriginal artists. Council and Create NSW have committed $15,000 to purchase the winning and highly commended works for the MAC yapang collection.
Little Libraries
Little Libraries is a service transition strategy for Windale. We will work with men's sheds to create Little Libraries to be placed around the suburb and surrounds. Little Libraries will then morph into a city-wide program.
Artist's impression, interior of Sugar Valley Library Museum
First NSW Fab Lab
NSW will get its first Fab Lab in early 2022 at Speers Point Library, providing access to skills, materials and advanced technology, such as digital printers, to inspire and enable local innovators and creators.
Under construction
Construction of the Windale Cultural Hub is due to commence in 2022. Home to Windale Library, the Windale Cultural Hub will be a high-tech facility featuring flexible social spaces and library functions.
3D printers to be on offer at Fab Lab
Artist's impression of Windale Hub
