Logistics Coordination Regional Flavours Celebrity Chef Program

PROJECT OVERVIEW

• At the time of Carolynne Hassall's involvement, Regional Flavours presented by The Courier Mail was regarded as Queensland’s premier free food and wine festival.

• At its height, the two-day weekend event held at Brisbane's South Bank Parklands was attended by more than 80,000 people and incorporated multiple consistently-branded and beautifully-stylised precincts dotted across the event footprint.

• The event's purpose was to showcase food and beverage producers from local government regions throughout Queensland and provide an entertaining annual activation of Brisbane's iconic lifestyle destination, South Bank Parklands.

• A centrepiece - and increasingly popular attraction - of Regional Flavours, was its extensive program of celebrity chef cooking demonstrations, attracting such calibre of established talent as Matt Preston, Maggie Beer, Miguel Maestre, Paul West, Gary Mehigan, George Colambaris, Adam Liaw, Annabel Langbein, Darren Robertson, and many up-and-coming food industry identities.

DHC ENGAGEMENT

• Brisbane Marketing engaged Carolynne Hassall to assist their in-house events team with the coordination and delivery of live-entertainment cooking demonstrations by celebrity chefs and cooks.

• Carolynne Hassall's capacity for detail and complex logistical coordination was desired as an augment to the existing multi-disciplinary team, to help ensure a streamlined, professional and engaging presentation of Regional Flavours to audiences.

• Working with Brisbane Marketing and their Regional Flavours partners and suppliers, Carolynne was responsible for managing and collaborating with the Chef Preparation Team (appointed contractor Caxton St Catering), performing chefs, and MCs representing high-profile media partners.

KEY SERVICES & INPUT AREAS

• Over 3 consecutive years (2014-2016) Carolynne Hassall coordinated the extensive program of celebrity chef cooking demonstrations across multiple stages.

• The 2014 event involved 27 cooking demonstrations by 15 chefs, held across 3 concurrently-running stages in separate precincts of the Regional Flavours event site.

• Each annual program increased upon the previous year, with additional precinct stages and tailored produce and cooking demonstrations enhancing the entertainment schedule to surprise and delight guests.

• At the outset of her initial Regional Flavours contract in 2014, Carolynne created a range of mechanisms (processes, systems and tools) to better manage performing chef contractual obligations and create door-to-door itineraries for chef and MC talent.

• Carolynne served as liaison between Brisbane Marketing, talent management, talent themselves, and the chef preparation team to ensure all recipes and performance requirements were submitted by talent to strict deadlines.

• This enabled Carolynne to break down recipe ingredients, equipment, utensils and staff and volunteer resources that would need to be purchased, hired, loaned or otherwise in place, for every cooking demonstration or media-commitment timeslot.

• Development of all talent briefing notes, induction materials and contribution to large-screen audio-visual materials were also key areas of work.

• Contribution to creative strategy played a large role in Carolynne's Regional Flavours scope; year-on-year she developed relevant, exciting session titles and copy for each year's program of chef and producer performances site-wide - in keeping with the thematic framework established for each new annual program.

• In 2015 and 2016, Carolynne's contract included providing advisory support to a full-time staff member assigned as a liaison with talent and travel booking providers.

• Responsibilities also included the training, support,and oversight of Brisbane Marketing staff in using an existing base of briefing documents and Excel spreadsheets, which Carolynne originally developed in 2014.

• In the lead up to event, Carolynne contributed to venue layout design and furniture, fixtures and equipment requirements for all chef preparation areas and stages.

• At showtime, Carolynne was on-site in capacity as cooking demonstration-show director and event control, providing support to staff and talent and troubleshooting venue and event operations as required.

• 'Retiring' from cooking demonstration coordination in 2017, in her final year on this major annual Brisbane event Carolynne changed role to focus on managing stakeholder relations with Queensland's participating regional Councils. Across the program of demonstrations by celebrity chefs and food and wine industry leaders, Carolynne worked closely with each region to integrate 'showcase moments' that would equitably highlight producers and specific produce from each Council area.

• Post-event scope included contributing to event debriefs, providing written summaries for continual improvement purposes and preparing full suites of files for handover in preparation for forward event planning.