Michael Chubb

Experience

Whilst my main experience lies in Festival development, arts, events, marketing and sponsorship/income generation I have always used as a base a community arts legacy. What is relevant is my wide experience in delivering programmes with the community in mind but to a level that both demonstrates an ability to work across art forms in new and exciting ways, finding funding streams for their delivery and to create the marketing opportunities to ensure long term legacy.Also to create the support mechanisms that are inclusive and financially credible.

In both Cardiff and Birmingham, I managed a large staff base delivering arts, event and Festival planning across the full range of statutory, community and charity services. These ranged in scale and diversity from fixed venues to temporary venues. The wide remits of the events I was responsible for delivering included the development and implementation of policy with the necessary expertise to interpret the values and aspirations of both the host community, visitors, Council, artiste, and investors into tangible delivery/promotional targets. All events and planning processes were set within financial. political and community frameworks that required tact and understanding to achieve success. All involved the ability to network across public, private voluntary and artistic bodies, budgeting as appropriate within set financial parameters, together with the ability to service contractual requirements to artiste, event and investor. All demanded a high level of marketing and sponsorship knowledge together with the ability to broker tangible results for community, public and private sector organisations.

As Principal Officer, I also had prime responsibility for the conception and delivery and budget management of strategic arts and events planning and management

An integral part of that strategy was the development of partnerships and mechanisms, to support broad sector collaboration of cultural planning /events and their promotions, throughout public and private sectors. Partnerships ranged from the implementation of a cultural partnership event strategy, to a percent for arts programme and the co-ordination, direction and marketing of all major city events. I was also responsible too for setting up Cardiff’s event liaison panel, a one stop shop to support event organisers. I was also responsible for the development of the community arts fund with the necessary attendant key city targets to ensure longevity of development, training and exposure.

I sat on a number of Arts boards during this time, Chapter Arts centre, Cardiff Visual Arts Forum, AADW.

Income Generation

In five years I secured over £3,500,000 of private sector sponsorship and European grants that brought to the city over 80 European performance premieres and artistic collaborations in a range of music, literature, comedy, theatre, community and visual arts with attendant national and international promotions-profiling the city to a world wide audience

During this time I became the initiator and Director of;

Europe International Festival – in association with: The Cardiff European office/WDA/Cardiff City Council - for five years a month long festival celebrating Cardiff’s role in Europe with special focus upon the expansion of Europe and the opportunities this would provide for Cardiff and Wales. This involved a host of collaborative ventures from Dance companies to South Wales Intercultural Arts to developing community arts links between Cardiff and Valencia delivering a massive spain/wales europa finale resulting in the first UK Fallas and gigantica. In addition Europe Week included the development of an annual free city centre outdoor music stage with complimentary european food and drink village. To support the artistic development of such new festivals I set up a pioneering voluntary arts working group. The "arts collective", made up of experts in all arts genre who worked with me to ensure the artistic programme reflected the broad range of tastes that would both engage the Cardiff Community and the tens of thousands of visitors attending the festivals events. The festival received two european gold awards for its unique programming.

The Cardiff International Festival – The Cardiff International Festival became under my Directorship, one of the largest free festivals in Europe, featuring a wealth of large and small scale events from huge international street theatre events, The Big weekend- a three day and evening free concert programme including the largest travelling fair in Europe, Time Flies Rave Night in The City Hall and the largest travelling fun fair in europe all set within the City centre, The International Children's Festival, International story telling festival, Cardiff visual arts festival, A Cardiff £1.99 cabaret all starts programme, Welsh National Opera and BBC Symphony Orchestra free concerts, free Hayes Island world music concerts and populist music, and theatre in entertainment venues around the City. The festival won a national business award for its business arts sponsorship and a european award for its visual arts programming.

Sponsorship from Cardiff bay Development corporation enabled the festival to further its international credentials by hosting five major events per year for six years of International proportion including huge waterfront music fiestas, major International open air extravaganzas from the likes of Bubuja, Malabar, Ilotopie, Daddadang,Xarxa, Nil Admirari, Plastician Volants.... contibuting to the 80 British and European premieres the festival enjoyed during my directorship.

The Festival took over a whole shopping centre prior to its redevelopment to create a unique Visitor attraction with over 500 artistes providing gallery spaces and childrens workshops. Thereafter during the build programme, a unique hoarding arts scheme created an award winning hoarding which lasted 3 years with no Graffetti  and with a city wide Hoarding arts policy

In Birmingham, I was responsible for the management and support of over 400 events a year. Delivering and budget management of mega and Hall mark Festivals and events events including; Winterval (a six week city wide festival) , Fireworks Fantasia, Birmingham Summer Festival, l was responsible too for implementing the city's Cultural diversity programmes, which included amongst others, supporting a number of Birmingham communities in the delivery of their own community celebrations/Festivals, including ;Birmingham Gay and lesbian Pride, Eid, Vaisakhi, Chinese New year, Diwali and St. Patrick’s Day. Delivering cultural ideals/actions throughout voluntary and public bodies, promoting cultural values in all service areas - enabling valuable social, cultural and financial linkages to be made throughout the city

( Winterval, New Years Eve, Fireworks Fantasia, Dhamaka and Euro '96 cultural programme)

As Director for Cardiff Marketing I was responsible for the strategic development of the marketing of the city including at the behest of the Board the development of a proposed events strategy for Cardiff -part of which is contained at the following web site location http://www.theideasfactory.biz/events.asp

As Director of Cardiff Marketing, my team and I delivered above and below the line promotions, press and pr management.  and the developm,ent and implementation of a wide ranging strategic plan to sell the Capital of Wales at home and abroad. As Director I was responsible for the companies buisness planning monitoring and evaluation.

I led a multi-disciplinary team of marketing professionals or as appropriate agencies undertaking a comprehensive programme of above and below the line activity.

Delivering a wide range of marketing programmes, I was responsible for marketing The Rugby World Cup, creating marketing initiatives for all the football fixtures at the Millennium Stadium, created linkages with the development sector – promoting Cardiff as a tourism and commercial destination – bringing 25 commercial organisations together to promote Cardiff at MIPIM (Cannes) which included a unique Wales event Day at MIPIM on board a chartered 19 th Century sloop and bidding for and delivering a world event for 6000 people “Interhash” ( value to the Cardiff economy of £3 million)which included an outdoor bid party for over 2000 in Goa.

The position meant that it was my responsibility to bring all sectors of the city ( arts, festivals, commerce, community and voluntary sectors) to work together for the collective good of all and the furure prosperity and profiling of The City.

I beieve passionately that a festival has to work in this way, with all agencies, public private, community and voluntary sectors involved in the process and always to be able to demonstrate the values behind the festival brand.

I have over 25 years experience delivering a wide range of Festivals, arts and exciting events in both public and private sectors together with the marketing and revenue generation understanding that has equipped me with the necessary knowledge to undertake complex programmes. From large scale involving audiences of up to 100,000 to supporting community aspirations where the emphasis was on the Council providing an enabling/advice function.

Budgetary control is a pre-requisite to a successful Festival strategy as is the ability to create new income streams,. And by necessity to engage with a raft of partners to increase financial sustainability. In all posts Identified in my work history, I was responsible for these.

As a confident person who enjoys challenges I have learnt the whole gamut of what constitutes an excellent Festival programme and its jigsaw pieces, and what are the necessary skills, creativity, marketing, empowerment, budgetry control utilising the latest technology in their safe and successful delivery

All the Festivals, arts and events I have created and managed necessitated both working as an individual and in partnership.All have been developed within the following frame work

Securing our future

• Providing a significant and dynamic plan that supports tourism, destination planning, income generation, job creation, sustainability and inward investment
• Providing a a stimulus to visitors, strengthening image building and town/region profiling and providing value and benefits in the competitive business relocation stakes
• Delivering Quality Promotions that supports community participation and pride

Involving local people

• Delivering a strategy that is designed to be relevant to the communities it serves and which reflects the wishes of the populace as crucial to the strategic review planning process and integral to a sense of ownership and pride
• Encourages dialogue and partnership through celebration of cultural diversity as an asset of the region

Helping tackle inequality, discrimination and disadvantage

• Delivering quantifiable results measured against community aspirations for development
  reflecting social and cultural values that have broad subscription and relevance
• Providing an accessible service that is non discriminatory and relevant to its audience
• Delivering accessible educational opportunities irrespective of the social/cultural and financial circumstances of its clients

Improving quality of life

• Creating an awareness of community and identity that encourages a sense of belonging and pride
• Providing opportunities for individuals and communities to develop skills, understanding and confidence and reflect and support the needs and aspirations of the community pertinent to their lifestyles and aspirations
• Being open and accessible in line with the social, cultural and economic circumstances of its audience
• Extending educational fulfillment, life -long learning and leisure opportunities and a source of enjoyment

In a freelance capacity as Director of The Ideas factory , I have been stretched by both the variety and complexity in working in a range of contracts ( please refer to my web site www.theideasfactory.biz which provides a more comprehensive review of my Freelance experience- and the enclosed Career CV)

An example of one such 6 month contract for The Vale of Glamorgan Council was the creation and delivery of a new summer season and festival for barry in South wales.

(Click on the post cards above to see newspaper coverage of The Barry Festival body painting day)

All the events identified on this web link have been created by me from scratch since March 10 th 2010 when I embarked on the contract. This includes all programming,marketing, income generation for the creation of two new major events ( Barry Festival and Barry Waterfront Festival), and development of the concept and delivery of the overarching season brand with its component sub brands. All this set within a local authority that I have never worked in before, thereby proving, I hope, my ability to hit the ground running, being able to understand very quickly the dynamics of the authority and community, engagement of other sections of the authority to create a joined up approach to collaborative events development and this as a single events officer with no other events support apart from people who have confidence in my ability to deliver programmes of note.

example of just one festival event "Le Jardin Flambee" which brough 1/4 of the towns population to a unique fire event in the Towns new Central Park

(more pics)

Although Educated to degree level at Birmingham University gaining Hons in Drama and Education as part of my teaching qualification, the majority of my training has been on the ground. Having started the Cardiff Festival at a time when events were really not understood, I quickly had to both learn from others and by degree of trial and tribulation. Over the years with many large scale and community events under my belt in many parts of the country, I feel I am experienced enough to be able to slot in, take stock quickly and help an organisation deliver programmes of note to time and budget and relevance.

I am very well motivated. Managing and delivering Festivals arts and events requires a certain type of individual. Certainly not a clock watcher , I am able to communicate at all levels, have an eye for the original, well able to create relevant marketing strategies, engage communities, develop and fund business planning and more over, be a team player - all of which are vital for any programme to have a positive and relevant impact.

Michael Chubb

References

" Michael has formidable creative talent "

Helen Conway

Managing Director - The Cardiff Initiative ,Chief Executive - Cardiff Chamber of Commerce

"Michael was at the forefront of the team that developed the City Centre Strategy and demonstrated how events could assist in the regeneration of the city centre. His ability to bring people together to share a vision was fundamental to our success in turning Cardiff into an event-full city"
Michael Kelly Cardiff City Centre Manager 1999-2003

" Mike Frequently works with me at Save the Children advising on fundraising, event co-ordination and promotional issues. Mike has been an asset to Save the Children in Wales and the organisation has benefited from his enthusiasm, energy and creativity"

Leesa Harwood Marketing Manager, Wales

Michael is now an independent events organiser and has the events expertise and imagination to provide the necessary drive to deliver local, national and international profiling.

His considerable experience in events, marketing and sponsorship would provide a very firm foundation for those that require an all round set of skills to enhance their own aspirations.

I have no doubt that organisations that contract Michael will receive events programmes of flair and originality to help drive their ambitions

Paul Jenkins, Chief Officer, Cardiff County Council

"Mike is an incredibly skilled and confident player in the field of events management. He is keen to share ideas and resources and makes everyone who works with him - be a member of, and share in the success of each event"

E.A Walder FRSA

Director Royal Society of Architects in Wales 

" Mike’s vast experience, imagination and creativity will be a huge asset to any organisation wishing to develop an innovative events programme. He demonstrated his creative flair by developing an innovative events programme unique to the region which had wide audience appeal and generated increased media interest"

Claire Evans

Tourism and Marketing Manager

Vale of Glamorgan Council

Career details

Surname: Chubb

Forenames: Michael Christopher

Address: 5, Pitman Street, Cardiff CF11 9DJ

Telephone: 0442902211846 / Fax 0442920344092 / mob: 0447944826562

Email address: mikechubb@theideasfactory.biz

Web Site : www.theideasfactory.biz

DETAILS OF EMPLOYMENT

DETAILS OF EMPLOYMENT

DETAILS OF EMPLOYMENT

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