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Albury-Wodonga New South Wales Australian Cultural and Creative Activity: A Population and Hotspot Analysis Albury and Wodonga

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Strategic summary Albury-Wodonga promotes itself as a highly liveable region, attracting young families for its lifestyle, work opportunities and cultural life ● Albury-Wodonga is home to the Wiradjuri people, who have congregated around the Murray River for aeons. The Indigenous community is active on both sides of the river, supported to be part of local decision-making by the NSW Government Regional Alliance network. ● Albury-Wodonga’s location is critically important to its economy. With key air, road, rail and digital infrastructure in place, its proximity to Melbourne, Sydney, and Canberra, and with wineries, snowfields, mountains and lakes all within easy reach, the region has a significant and strategic advantage. Cultural and community assets are seen as a powerful attractor. Federal and State Government policies and funding have been crucial to the success of the region ● Albury-Wodonga still benefits from Whitlam-era decentralisation processes, and links to the work begun by the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation are still strong. ● Federal Government arts and cultural development programs offer consistent funding to organisations in both Albury and Wodonga. The Australia Council, and the Department of Infrastructure and Arts and Cultural Development, have a range of active programs. ● The National Broadband Network (NBN), vital to the creative industries in the 21st century, connects Albury-Wodonga directly to the world, although with some connection, service and speed issues. Mobile coverage is patchy, necessitating workarounds in the digital sphere. ● Cross-Border Commissioners manage both problems and opportunities embedded in long-term border relations, manifest at municipal and state levels. ● State governments are proactive. Create NSW and Creative Victoria fund programs for organisations in both locations. The Victorian Regional Development body fund smaller projects. The Create NSW Regional Arts scheme supports Murray Arts, providing projects and mentorship for local artists, particularly Indigenous artists. Creative Victoria has been a significant supporter for HotHouse Theatre, a performing arts organisation. Local Council policy initiatives include promotion and support for the Creative Industries ● The AlburyCity Council, in its Creative Economic Strategy 2017-2021, has aimed to maintain economic growth for the creative economy locally while Wodonga Council’s Cultural Services Plan 2012-2017 committed to cultural development and demonstrated this through planning, infrastructure, resourcing, programming and events.

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● Albury-Wodonga has multiple facilities to support and exhibit visual artists’ work, and the Councils have merged these assets. Albury-Wodonga has very low numbers of creative specialists working in the Visual Arts sector, and yet both councils have developed and maintained galleries and museums that are unable, because of the funding models, to provide incomes for local artists, indicating an interesting structural issue hinged on production versus consumption policy frameworks. Specialist, support or embedded employment across both Cultural Production and Creative Services is vital in ensuring the Creative Industries ecosystem thrives in this region ● The combined Creative Industries workforce share is 2.5%, with Albury carrying a slightly higher share. The average employment growth figure across CI trident for 2011-2016 was 0.3%. 1 ● The Creative Services sub-sector includes architecture and design, advertising and marketing, web design, software app development and games, and these are significant parts of Albury- Wodonga’s Creative Industries. Architecture and Design employed the most workers; 192 drawing a mean wage of $53,500. Software and Digital Content had 182, earning $65,300. ● The Cultural Production sub-sector consists of visual and performing arts, music, film TV and radio, and publishing. While media ownership changes exacerbated a significant downturn, the contraction in the publishing sector is due to loss of newspaper readership and advertising, exacerbated by a move online. ● The Albury-Wodonga performing arts sector is impressive, characterised by national leading but regionally based organisations. The cities boast a professional circus, theatre and conservatorium, with a strong music industry. Film indicates a growth of 2%, while TV and radio are nationally networked and stable. There is a merging of CI sub-sectors around fashion. ● The highest growth in occupations in the CS sub-sector was in architecture and design, with a 3.9% increase in an actual employment figure of 91 employees. This sector benefited significantly from the Federal Government Building Education Revolution (BER) after the GFC hit globally. The Creative Industries, as a whole, have been able to support and take part in other forms of critical entrepreneurial activity within the broader economy, but the extent of this is limited ● Advertisers and marketers are more likely to be embedded in non-creative industries than employed with creative specialist firms. However, though low in number, these specialist agencies do exist in Albury-Wodonga and many have national and international clients. ● Software and digital content is a growing sector for Albury-Wodonga, with the most growth again occurring with embedded creatives in other industries, at a rate of 4.7%. ● Many of the high-profile cultural activities are driven by energetic, entrepreneurial and internationally savvy locals running small businesses, events and festivals.

Recommendations ● Ensure the ongoing promotion of the Albury-Wodonga region as a liveable locale for young families and professionals continues apace. ● Inform and educate government bodies on the extent of the region’s Creative Industries. ● Accelerate the ongoing diversification of the broader economy through the Creative Industries. ● Ensure key digital infrastructure is rolled out successfully and is accessible to all Creative Industries operatives as they trade locally, nationally, and globally. ● Continue to streamline bureaucratic processes, particularly at the state cross-border level, with an increasing focus on the Creative Industries. ● Provide more targeted support for Indigenous Creative Industries activities, strengthening community voice and presence. ● Advise all levels of government that a determination be made to rebalance policy frameworks toward production of culture to ensure viable incomes streams for artistic activities.

1 CI trident presents three workers categories: specialists, embedded and support workers

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Table of Contents STRATEGIC SUMMARY ...... 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... 4 BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT ...... 5

POPULATION ...... 6 ECONOMY ...... 6 STATE AND LOCAL CROSS-BORDER POLICIES AND INITIATIVES ...... 7 CREATIVE ECONOMY ...... 9 LOCAL GOVERNMENT POLICY CONTEXT ...... 12 STRATEGIC THEME 1 WHAT ARE THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS ACROSS THE SUB-SECTORS OF THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES? ...... 15 CULTURAL PRODUCTION ...... 15

ARTS GRANT FUNDING FOR ALBURY-WODONGA ...... 15 THE PERFORMING ARTS ...... 17 THEATRE VENUES ...... 18 THE MUSIC INDUSTRY ...... 19 FILM AND TV ...... 21 RADIO ...... 22 PUBLISHING ...... 23 LIBRARYMUSEUM: A VALUED CULTURAL ASSET ...... 24 VISUAL ARTS, MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES ...... 24 INDIGENOUS ARTISTS AND COMMUNITIES ...... 27 FASHION ...... 28 CREATIVE SERVICES ...... 28

ARCHITECTURE ...... 28 ADVERTISING AND MARKETING ...... 29 SOFTWARE AND DIGITAL CONTENT ...... 30 STRATEGIC THEME 2: THE RELATIONSHIP OF CULTURAL AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY TO THE WIDER ECONOMY ...... 31

EDUCATION ...... 31 THE NATIONAL BROADBAND NETWORK (NBN) ...... 33 LIVING ON THE BORDER, CULTURAL TOURISM AND CULTURAL POLICY ...... 33 STRATEGIC THEME 3: HOTSPOT COMPARISONS ...... 35 REFERENCES ...... 38 APPENDICES ...... 40

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Acknowledgements The research team gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the following people and organisations for providing the information and insights that made this report possible: Albury Participants Wodonga Participants Damien Cox, COXTECH Justine Ambrosio, Art Space, Wodonga Council Carina Clement, Museums & Libraries, AlburyCity Rebecca Bennell, The Cube, Wodonga Council Ruth Darcy-Davys, Riverina Murray Regional Alliance Graeme Cook, Jazz Club Anni Davey, Flying Fruit Fly Circus Ellen Ebsary, Border Mail Monica Egan, Go-Lo Magazine Alyce Fisher, Murray Arts Regional NSW Network Jillian Franklin Couture Michelle Fracaro, Library, Wodonga Council Tahni Froudist, Flying Fruit Fly Circus Vicki Gray, By the Banks Festival Jo Hewitt, AlburyCity Council Simone Hogg, Wodonga Council Richard Hull, Flying Fruit Fly Circus Debbie Lane, Riverina Murray DPC Regional NSW Krystal Kaye, Dressmaker Deidre Liston, TAFE Kevin Mack, AlburyCity Mayor Tania Martini, TAFE Michael Moran, MAMA Curator Mick Merricees, TAFE Bree Pickering, MAMA Director Helen Newman, Nomad Films Alison Plasto, freelance filmmaker Belinda Papas, TAFE Ben Simpson, OGA Creative Paul Pfeiffer, Riverina Murray DPC Regional NSW Julia Simpson, OGA Creative Leigh Rizzato, JWC Architect Bernadette Torresan, Go-Local Magazine Tim Sigmund, TAFE Narelle Vogel, AlburyCity Council Zachary Simpson, TAFE Andrew Walker, 2AY Radio Bec Simpson, Library, Wodonga Council Dirk Wallace, Turks Head Gallery Kim Strang, Wodonga Council Ian Wittingslow, All Music Bethany Thornber, Burraja Gallery Megan Zawertailo, Kindred Design Lyn Wallis, Hothouse Theatre Tiffany Ward, Burraja Gallery Luke Wilson, Cross-Border Commissioner Wodonga Vic

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Background and context Albury-Wodonga is home to the Wiradjuri people who congregated around the banks of the Murray River for aeons. This river has become a defining feature of the twin towns that now exist there. Albury, part of the Riverina Region of southern NSW, sits geographically on the northern banks of the Murray. Wodonga, on the southern side of the river, forms part of north-eastern Victoria. A log punt built in the mid-1840s provided travellers with a river crossing as they moved between these frontier settlements. A busy regional airport now links these cities to their state capitals, with flights of only 1 hour 20 minutes to Sydney, and 1 hour to Melbourne. Rail links to Melbourne and Sydney are conveniently standard gauge all the way and this vital link to major national ports has been important for regional beef and wool growers and others. The heavy rail necessary for many businesses now runs in competition with fleets of trucks. The Hume Highway cuts through Albury-Wodonga as it crosses the Murray, offering a convenient respite from the Melbourne-Sydney journey. The NBN connects Albury-Wodonga directly and equally to the world, although mobile coverage is patchy in places. Key infrastructure and the proximity to Australia’s two largest cities, Melbourne and Sydney, as well as the nation’s capital Canberra, give the region a significant and strategic advantage.

While, as Victorian Cross-Border Commissioner Luke Wilson indicates, historically ‘Albury was the richer centre and Wodonga was the poor cousin’ (Wilson iv, 24 May 2019), Albury’s economy has had to become ‘diverse and resilient’ (AlburyCity 2018, p. 10) enabling it to survive multiple boom-bust cycles. Albury Mayor Kevin Mack puts it down to the latent investment by the Federal Government in the 1970s:

They actually attracted some money into regional Australia which was never done before … Suddenly, you had transport, logistics, rail … and then you had growth in housing, you had growth in land purchases … Billions of dollars later, they pulled out. But if we hadn't had the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation, we'd be nothing. We'd be two very average cities doing average stuff. (Mack iv, 24 May 2019).

Albury’s economy now consists of major manufacturing, retail, commercial, administration and cultural sectors, while past economic drivers such as wool and beef have not completely disappeared.

Wodonga's economy is equally ‘diverse and resilient. From small niche businesses to multinational companies, there are approximately 2,683 businesses that fuel the economy, which has a workforce of around 17,700 people’ (RDV, 2020). It is ‘a major logistic hub, stock-selling and food and metal manufacturing centre between Melbourne and Sydney’ (ibid). Light industry is a feature of Wodonga and the work attracts significant inbound and outbound migration as a result of the military presence and since much of the industry is ‘logistics based because of the confluence of road and rail’ (Wilson iv, 24 May 2019).

A number of vineyards, the Snowy Mountains and Lake Hume, which provide a diversity of indoor venues and outdoor attractions, are located near Albury-Wodonga, and each city has flourishing sports, arts and cultural scenes which intersect on Gateway Island and the floodplains of the Murray River. This makes the region attractive, particularly to middle-class professionals. While Albury is in NSW, both cities are ‘oriented to Melbourne. The dominant sport is AFL and if you're going to go somewhere to see a show, you go to Melbourne. We also get Melbourne news, so anything like that is always Melbourne-based rather than Sydney [and] Melbourne's closer by road and rail’ (Wilson iv, 24 May 2019). Both cities feature tertiary education, with one of Charles Sturt University’s regional campuses in Albury, and a La Trobe University campus in Wodonga. Riverina TAFE, also in Wodonga, offers a range of diplomas including those focused at Creative Industries.

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POPULATION Albury’s population is close to 54,000; Wodonga’s is smaller at approximately 41,500 (REMPLAN, 2019). With a combined population of 95,500, Albury-Wodonga presents as a significant regional economy.

Figure 1 Demographic profile by place of residence, Albury and Wodonga local government area 2016

Note: Totals are included in Table 2 on page 39 Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016)

Both Albury and Wodonga have younger populations than state averages, with a median age of 35. Albury’s residents are more highly educated than the NSW regional average. However, unemployment in both cities is higher than their respective state averages, while youth unemployment in Albury is half a percentage point below the NSW average. Wodonga’s youth unemployment is the same as the Victorian regional average. The Indigenous population percentage in Albury is half the state’s regional average, whereas in Wodonga it is larger than the Victorian regional average. Other ethnicities in Wodonga include Croatian, German, and Italian (Wodonga Cultural Plan, 2012 p. 7) with more than 90% of all residents speaking English at home. Albury has a marginally older demographic, but both cities have experienced population growth, drawing internationally, nationally and from surrounding regions.

ECONOMY Albury’s Gross Regional Product (GRP) valued in mid-2018 was $3.88 billion and its Output (Gross Revenue) was $7.725 billion. Albury’s economy supports more than 26,000 jobs, representing 0.8% of the people working in NSW (REMPLAN, 2019). The prominent industries are Health Care and Social Assistance (17.6%), followed by Retail Trade, Education and Training, and Accommodation and Food Services. A prominent local manufacturing business is Norske Skog’s newsprint mill that supplies up to 40% of Australian newsprint. The Australian Taxation Office has an administrative centre in Albury.

Wodonga’s GRP was valued at $3.32 billion and its Output was $7 billion, which is 19.5% of the Hume Region. Wodonga supports 19,854 jobs, with Health Care and Social Assistance being the region’s largest employer, representing 14.38% of total employment. Manufacturing makes the greatest

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contribution to economic output in Wodonga at $1.8 billion, which accounts for 26% of total output (REMPLAN, 2019). Other prominent sectors are Public Administration and Safety, Manufacturing, and Retail Trade (Wodonga Annual Report, 2018 p. 7). The region’s industries include agriculture, hydroelectricity and tourism, with the proximity of the Victorian Alps contributing to the region’s reputation for extreme outdoor sports such as mountain biking, wakeboarding and snow sports.

Table 1 Economic indicator summary, Albury and Wodonga local government areas, 2016 Population GRP, 2016-17 Total Total ($m) employed businesses Albury Measure 51,080 2,657 22,905 13,549 Avg annual growth 1.3% 0.0% 0.4% 1.1% % of state 0.7% 0.5% 0.7% 0.6% Wodonga Measure 39,347 2,535 18,193 7,872 Avg annual growth 2.1% 0.0% 1.5% 1.1% % of state 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% 0.4% Note: Totals are included in Table 2 on page 39 Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016), Australian Bureau of Statistics (2018), .id (2018), .id (2019) Regional Australia Institute (2014)

Figure 2 Economic activity by ANZSIC subdivision, Albury and Wodonga

Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016), Australian Business Register (2019), .idcommunity (2019) REMPLAN (2019)

STATE AND LOCAL CROSS-BORDER POLICIES AND INITIATIVES Historically, the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation, established in 1974 via the Whitlam Labor Government’s decentralisation process, provided some key economic initiatives through the Albury Wodonga National Growth Centre Project. Unfortunately, this visionary project, which developed over 6,000 residential lots, seven industrial estates and conserved 4,000 acres of hilltops (Corporation, 2014, p. 2), was terminated in 2014 by a parliamentary Abolition Bill, and the Corporation returned more than $3.2 million to the Federal Government in 2014 (Government, 2018). In 2017, in an effort to continue working together, the Two Cities One Community historical partnership agreement was signed by the mayors of AlburyCity and City of Wodonga (AlburyCity,

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2018, p. 18). The cross-border partnership, a first in Australia, aims to share resources through ‘reduced duplication of services and new opportunities to more effectively leverage funding opportunities from the Commonwealth, NSW and Victorian Governments (AlburyCity 2018, p. 4).

In 2018, the Victorian Labor Government appointed Luke Wilson as Cross-Border Commissioner. He reports to the Minister for Regional Development, but is located in the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions, where Creative Victoria sits. Wilson is responsible ‘for promoting the interests of Victorian border communities, resolving issues, and developing common approaches with neighbouring states’ (Victorian Government, 2018). In NSW, the Cross-Border Commissioner since 2014 is James McTavish. A 2015-2018 business plan lays out a strategy designed to enable effective delivery of government services and ensure that ‘legislative, regulatory or policy impediments to business, economic and social development are appropriately addressed’. It is a strategic framework designed to resolve issues that might impact on those who operate across state borders and ‘highlights the critical role played by government agencies, communities and businesses in this process’ (Dept of P&C, 2015).

Luke Wilson suggests that Wodonga is ‘in some respects like the new suburbs on the outer ring of Melbourne, except a lot nicer, because they tend to be more cramped. The layout is different in that it's far more flowing with the landscape, but it's still a lot of new as opposed to a lot of old … A lot of the residential development to the south has come from Army land that was opened up’ (Wilson iv, 24 May 2019).

AlburyCity Mayor Kevin Mack has been instrumental in trying to reduce border anomalies. In October 2018, Albury and Wodonga signed a memorandum of understanding and have been ‘dragging, kicking and screaming’ State and Federal governments into the discussion (Mack iv, 24 May 2019). In October 2019, they received a commitment for a ‘$3.2-million city deal with a potential for a $40- to $50- million investment’ (Mack iv, 24 May 2019). Mack says arts and culture, and small business development in IT, are high on their strategic planning agenda, and both are part of the Smart Cities Initiative (Mack iv, 24 May 2019).

Both Albury and Wodonga have prioritised connectivity and smarter business, enabling access to international markets and encouraging investment, ‘whether it's IT investment, whether it's small businesses, start-ups, whether it's entrepreneurs. We need to be the drivers of our own destiny’ (Mack iv, 24 May 2019). The Councils are looking at ‘joint event strategies’ and ‘joint development of our arts and culture footprint’ (Mack iv, 24 May 2019).

While these initiatives provide ideal cross-border collaboration, it is often still the case, as Luke Wilson suggests, that the border provides barriers to some combined activities. Wilson gave as an example ‘a sporting event, but with a lot of tourism attached. One state said, "Sorry, you're on the wrong side of the river". The other state, where it was going to be in, said, "Sorry, too much benefit goes the other way”’ (Wilson iv, 24 May 2019). Albury Mayor Kevin Mack said there was still ‘in some quarters’ competition between the two cities, but increasingly there was cooperation: if [AlburyCity] can't provide to you as a business, can Wodonga provide it? Or can we get both state governments to work together to get that one business to Albury-Wodonga’ (Mack iv, 24 May 2019). He said the communities were connected:

50% of Wodonga people work in Albury and 50% of Albury people work in Wodonga. So why should we be two communities? We are actually one community. I use their library, they use our art gallery, they use our pools, they use everything, our football

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grounds, our sporting fields. Well why not make a formalised arrangement? It's like being in a de facto relationship but never getting married (Mack iv, 24 May 2019).

CREATIVE ECONOMY The hypothesis that rural creative people work nationally and internationally and choose to live in rural areas for lifestyle, family and affordability, was confirmed by a 2013 report on the Creative Economy for Victoria. The report found that there were ‘5,500 creative businesses … located in rural Victoria, representing approximately 7% of all rural businesses’ (2013, p. 19). The study found the Gross Value Added (GVA) was $710 million, which included volunteer contributions. That represents 3.7% of the Victorian GVA (2013 p. 19). The top 20 rural locations with the highest portions of creative businesses in 2011 were benchmarked, with metropolitan Melbourne sitting in fifth place with 16.7% of total business share. First location was Macedon (21.2%) followed by Castlemaine (19.4%), Queenscliff (18.1%) and Torquay (17.6%). These cities are close enough to Melbourne to do business but far enough away for lifestyle and affordability, confirming Victoria as the ‘just so’ state – small enough to allow minor decentralisation and efficient transport to and from the hub of Melbourne. Wodonga was not included in this list.

From this report, the CI sectors were calculated to hold 6.8% of rural Victorian businesses, with other industries such as Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing representing the highest percentage of businesses (2013 p. 22). Approximately 11,030 rural residents are employed in the creative sector (representing 3.5% of all rural workers), but only 6,860 creative sector jobs are provided in rural areas (2013, p. 19). While 3.9% were occupied in creative activities, which was 12,360 rural workers, again ‘only 8,470 of these creative people undertake their activities in rural locations’ (2013 p. 19). It is evident that a large number of these creative sector workers calculated to be living in the regions were commuting to the city for work.

Figure 4 Employed persons in creative and other industries by creative occupation type, 2016, Albury and Wodonga

Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016)

From the data gathered by this study, overall mean income across all CI sectors in Albury-Wodonga sat at $58,700, based on employment of 1,113 ‘creatives’ in total. The Creative Services sub-sector, consisting of architecture and design, advertising and marketing, web design, software app development and games, is a significant part of the Creative Industries. Architecture and Design employed the most workers, with 192 ‘creatives’ drawing a mean wage of $53,500. Software and Digital Content was the second largest employer in the Creative Services sub-sector, with 182 ‘creatives’ earning a mean wage of $65,300. The Cultural Production sector, that is, Visual and Performing Arts, Music, Film TV and Radio, and Publishing, presented some significant and unique

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data. The highest salary in Albury-Wodonga was $98,800, earnt by creative specialists working in Music and Performing Arts, quite possibly those working with the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Australia’s leading Youth Performing Arts Organisation, or via the Hothouse Theatre and The Cube in Wodonga. Embedded creatives, those working in creative occupations in other industries, are in a growth cycle (Figure 4) and this is a trend seen across all regional hotspots. In Albury-Wodonga this is particularly evident in the Advertising and Marketing sector

Comparing Australian Business Number registration and employment at the 2011 and 2016 Census data provides insights into the nature of growth in each creative sector (as depicted by the comets in Figure 5). In both Albury and Wodonga, creative business registrations are growing more rapidly for smaller businesses with no GST registration—and therefore earning less than $75,000 per annum— than for larger businesses, although this trend is not uniform across all industry sectors.

Figure 5 Creative industry employment, total earnings and mean income by place of work compared with business registrations, 2011 and 2016, Albury and Wodonga

Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016), Australian Business Register (2019)

The trends in Creative Services are: ● Advertising and Marketing—Decrease in employment with stable business numbers and stable earnings in Albury suggests some contraction. Wodonga is stable. ● Architecture and Design—Stronger growth in business registrations (both with and without GST registration) than in employment suggests that more practitioners are working as freelancers or sole traders. ● Software and Digital Content—Increases in business registrations and employment in Albury points to growth, while in Wodonga employment has fallen in parallel with an increase in business registrations.

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The trends in Cultural production are: • Film, TV and Radio—Small falls in employment in Albury, and increases in Wodonga. • Publishing—Business registrations and employment are static, while total earnings has fallen. • Visual and Performing Arts—In both Albury and Wodonga, small business registrations outnumber those registered for GST, with small increases in business registrations while employment has decreased. Creative Services employment visible in the heatmaps, below, shows that there are different locations for the concentration of CS and CP professionals, counted as a proportion of total employment. For Creative Services, the concentration is in Albury North and East, and West Wodonga and Wodonga (Figure 6). For Cultural Production, the concentration is smaller and visible in West Wodonga and North Albury (Figure 7).

Figure 6 Creative services employment by SA2 region

Figure 7 Cultural Production employment by SA2 region

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LOCAL GOVERNMENT POLICY CONTEXT The cultural and community assets in Albury-Wodonga are seen as a powerful attractor, drawing skilled CI workers back to their family networks, and encouraging others because of affordability. With the median house price in Albury-Wodonga at $367,000, AlburyCity’s Team Leader for Economic Development, Jo Hewitt, explains that ‘we're pushing the message to Melbourne and Sydney around that affordability, no traffic, but still having the facilities and the services that you expect in a city, just on a smaller scale’ (Hewitt iv, 22 May 2019).

The AlburyCity creative sector was valued at $481.5 million in December 2016 and had grown ‘by 8.6% between August 2015 and December 2016’ (PositiveSolutions, 2017, p. 27). Its Creative Economic Strategy 2017-2021 has aimed to maintain this economic growth ‘at 5% per annum for the creative economy locally’ (PositiveSolutions, 2017, p. 53). Arts and culture are a tourism drawcard, with Albury boasting the Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA), LibraryMuseum and the Pump House Maker Space, developed with NSW Government funding.

Wodonga also delivers a strong cultural program including events staged at The Cube Wodonga, the Bonegilla Migrant Experience, and Gateway Village, owned by Wodonga Council. On an island of the Murray River, Gateway Village offers affordable ‘community rates’ to a vibrant group of cultural organisations such as Murray Arts, HotHouse Theatre, Burraja Gallery, GIG’s Gallery, GIG’s Studio, Albury-Wodonga Artists’ Society, Jazz Basement and the Creators Art Space. Simone Hogg, the Cultural Services Manager for Wodonga Council, says: ‘It’s a really unique little hot spot that allows those connections, whether it be emerging or professional artists, to collaborate, work together and produce, and I think that’s quite unique. And without that it would be a very different landscape’ (Hogg, iv, 24 May 2019).

AlburyCity’s Creative Economic Strategy 2017-2021 highlighted a ‘general sense that the sector in Albury is gaining momentum and on the cusp of big growth’ (PositiveSolutions, 2017, p. 28). The Positive Solutions report identified the design sector as a standout performer for Albury, with strengths in graphic arts, consulting services, product design and fashion design (PositiveSolutions,

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2017, p. 3). Similarly, in terms of the digital economy, Albury’s early participation in the NBN meant it was potentially in a better position when this was combined with its location and lifestyle, compared to capital cities. A need was identified for more creative spaces, including music venues, Indigenous and non-Indigenous art spaces, affordable creative studio spaces for interdisciplinary collaborations, and subsidised commercial spaces to support a creative hub (PositiveSolutions, 2017, p. 29). The strategy targeted events and festivals as potential growth opportunities for AlburyCity. Existing events include Music in the Gardens, a series of free outdoor concerts held in Albury’s Botanic Garden’s amphitheatre, supported by Murray Conservatorium and sponsored by Johnsons MME, a local accounting firm (Albury City Council, 2019). The QEII square hosts a range of events throughout the year, including the Twilight Market where handcrafted gifts are sold by local makers, and Carols by Candlelight, a community event for singers and musicians in December, held since 1977.

In 2019, the Pump House Maker Space project became AlburyCity’s focus. The Council secured ‘$1.3 million from the NSW Government’s Regional Cultural Fund to upgrade two residences to improve accommodation for local and visiting artists and to transform the heritage listed Pump House at Water Works into a Maker Space’ (AlburyCity, 2017). The Pump House Maker Space project was scheduled to have a soft launch in August 2020 and officially open in 2021. Jo Hewitt, AlburyCity’s Team Leader for Economic Development, explains that this project is aimed at diversifying the economy by developing professional regional artists:

So, potentially getting them after they've completed education and putting them in an environment where they can actually grow within their own art form. It's about the professional artists, not so much the hobbyist. We see that sector as really important to diversification of the economy (Hewitt, iv, 22 May 2019).

The Council is dealing with potential growth barriers, seen in the relationship between economic development and entrepreneurs, by shifting the creative economies strategy from Cultural Services to the Economic Development team. Narelle Vogel, AlburyCity’s Cultural Development Coordinator, believes this is a significant and fundamental shift that will see the cultural services strategy being delivered well by the Council’s Economic Development Team (Vogel, iv, 22 May 2019).

Wodonga Council has a similar team operating in Cultural Services. Up until 2018, this council has had a female CEO who has a community development background, and Simone Hogg, the Cultural Services Manager, felt that this situation was unique for a local government (Hogg iv, 24 May 2019). Hogg says they have always worked closely with AlburyCity: ‘By necessity we’ve had to offer the city as a dual city because we’ve needed both sets of resources and assets to pitch’ (Hogg, iv, 24 May 2019). She concedes that Albury has a suite of cultural programs and venues that are ‘much older, more mature, established and embedded in the community’ (ibid). By contrast, Wodonga’s ‘programming is younger … our community is younger’, and budget smaller: ‘As a result of that we’ve been forced to be fairly agile in our approach, so there’s a lot of collaboration’ (Hogg, iv, 24 May 2019). She explains that Wodonga Council doesn’t want to own and manage a large art collection; instead it wants to engage with community at the grass roots level. Their ‘key driver’ is engaging with ‘a high proportion of young families that make up our demographic, matched by a visitor profile that has a high proportion of visiting family and friends’ (Hogg iv, 24 May 2019)

Wodonga Council’s main cultural assets are Arts Space Wodonga, The Cube Wodonga, Bonegilla Migrant Experience and Gateway Village, which sits on the border between the towns. Gateway Village is Council owned and operated, with leases or MOUs in place with community groups (Hogg, iv, 24 May 2019). HotHouse Theatre and Murray Arts are based there. Wodonga Council’s 2017-2018

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annual report emphasised the Council’s event focus; it hosted 65 community events and 417 events at The Cube Wodonga, with 90,000 guests taking part (Wodonga Annual Report 2018, p. 6).

Hogg says the Council has master planning in place for Bonegilla Migrant Experience, which is 95% complete. They are ‘presently working with some funds from the Building Better Regions fund on executing some final elements there, and then we’ll be due for a new master plan. But we have invested … through federal and state funds … quite heavily in that site over the last few years’ (Hogg, iv, 24 May 2019). Hogg points out that, through their cultural venues, which the Council owns, they are able to offer opportunities for contract work as well as commissions in the gallery and through co- productions of theatre work. Arts Space Wodonga is a vibrant and accessible contemporary art gallery and multipurpose venue managed by Wodonga Council. Located in the central business area, the gallery sits within the prominent arts precinct incorporating the Wodonga Library and The Cube Wodonga performing arts centre. They also hire these venues ‘so if we’re talking about the creativity and productivity of the Creative Industries in the region, I actually attribute part of that to having spaces to create, produce and present in’ (Hogg iv, 24 May 2019).

Wodonga Council’s vision for arts and culture was presented in its Cultural Services Plan 2012-2017. The Council has committed to cultural development and demonstrates this through planning, infrastructure, resourcing, programming and events. The Cultural Services Manager says that ‘the feedback we get is that we come from a community-up approach’ (Hogg iv, 24 May 2019). And the council is integrating visual art into many aspects of the community, and encouraging participation through four strategic priorities: Spaces and Places, Celebration and Activation, Creative Capacity, and Participation and Engagement (CityWodonga, 2012, p. 5). Wodonga hosts annual festivals including the Australia Day celebrations, Wodonga Children’s Fair that celebrates families and young people, and Wodonga Senior Celebrations, a 10-day event coinciding with Victorian Seniors Festival.

In performing arts, the two Councils have different strategic positions. Rebecca Bennell, from The Cube Wodonga, explains that Albury Entertainment Centre ‘sits under the economic wing [and] is more about tourism and money’ whereas The Cube Wodonga ‘sits under the cultural services arm, which is more about serving community and presenting cultural experiences’ (Bennell iv, 24 May 2019). Both Councils have deployed large teams to deliver a diverse range of arts and cultural offerings through strategic programs. For Wodonga, the focus is community engagement, whereas for Albury, the focus has moved beyond that into areas of Creative Industries economic development strategies.

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Strategic theme 1 What are the interrelationships across the sub-sectors of the creative industries? Albury and Wodonga are both significant centres in their own right, and when combined they become a much larger regional player: ‘If you put us together in population and economic power and cultural activity, then we are actually bigger than Wagga’ (Vogel iv, 22 May 2019). The geography of these cities reinforces their autonomous attitude towards the Creative Industries. This can be seen with the combined Creative Industries workforce share sitting at 2.5%, with Albury carrying a slightly higher share (See Appendix A1). The average employment growth figure across CI for 2011-2016 was 0.3%. A poor occupational growth rate is evident in two sectors: Advertising and Marketing is down 11.1%, and Publishing is down 9.1%. Global journalism retrenchments were evident in publishing, with ownership changes of the regional paper The Border Mail significantly affecting sector employment. The decline in advertising and marketing shows a shift of employment away from creative specialists to embedded occupations, meaning other industries are choosing to employ advertising and marketing people in-house.

CULTURAL PRODUCTION The Cultural Production sector showed another significant occupational decrease, with creative specialists in Visual, Performing Arts and Music down 15.3%. This decline is ameliorated when embedded and support occupations are calculated, showing an overall occupational decline of 0.7%. It’s possible that changes in occupation classifications across the CI sectors, and specifically in Arts Education, caused this significant decline with specialists2, because interviews conducted through fieldwork show the Visual and Performing Arts sector to be established and mature.

ARTS GRANT FUNDING FOR ALBURY-WODONGA Albury-Wodonga’s visual and performing arts organisations are acutely aware of the range of possible funding offered by local, state and federal agencies, for projects, infrastructure development and educational programs (see Figures 6 and 7). Albury has been awarded a number of million-dollar grants from local, state and federal agencies over the past four financial years. Cultural grant and infrastructure funding has been received from the three government tiers, with Albury receiving significantly more than Wodonga (see Figure 6). The largest sum was from the Federal Government’s The Arts and Cultural Development programs, offering Flying Fruit Fly Circus $5 million in 2015-2016. There has also been consistent funding to organisations in Albury and Wodonga through programs offered by the Australia Council, and the Department of Infrastructure and Arts and Cultural Development.

At state level, Create NSW and Creative Victoria have funded programs for organisations in Albury and Wodonga, and the Victorian Regional Development body has funded a smaller project. In NSW, interviews confirmed that the Create NSW Regional Arts scheme is the reason for the existence of Murray Arts, which directly provides support, mentorship and projects for local artists, particularly

2 The Music and Performing Arts occupations by 4-digit ANZSIC (industry) shows an increase of 27 people between 2011 and 2016, in the Arts Education industry. So, a classification change provides a plausible reason for the overall decline in CI specialists recorded in our Census data, who were previously classified as Performing Arts Operation, and Creative Arts industries.

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Indigenous artists. Creative Victoria has been a significant supporter for HotHouse Theatre, a performing arts organisation. At the local level, AlburyCity has raised a significant sum, $3.5 million, through a special variation to rates for the Cultural Precinct Master Plan. Usually, their community organisations are supported through smaller grants and donations, from $1,000 to $30,000. Wodonga’s Community Impact grants are mostly $2,000 to $3,000.

Figure 6 Federal, state and local cultural grant and infrastructure funding by source, 2015-2016 to 2018-2019

It is interesting to note that the same allocation of funds can be sorted by cultural grant or infrastructure funding (see Figure 7) for mature arts organisations such as Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Murray Arts and HotHouse. The Federal Government offers grants through the Building Better Regions Fund, with the Bonegilla Migrant Experience receiving significant support (Hogg iv, 24 May 2019). Victoria offers Stronger Cultural Regions through Regional Development, and Regional Partnerships through Creative Victoria.

Figure 7 Federal, state and local cultural grant and infrastructure funding by funding type, 2015-16 to 2018-2019

Note – the $6 million in Albury in 2015-16 includes $5.1 million from the Federal Department of Communications and the Arts where ‘operational funding is provided to seven elite performing arts organisations to ensure access to the arts and opportunities for our most talented Australians to excel in their chosen field’.

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THE PERFORMING ARTS The Albury-Wodonga Performing Arts sector is impressive. Beginning 40 years ago, Victorian College of Arts graduates established the Murray River Performing Group, out of which HotHouse Theatre and the Flying Fruit Fly Circus were born. This mature professional creative community is seen as an attractor for the region. As Narelle Vogel from AlburyCity Council explains, ‘you're not coming to a cultural desert. We've got a professional circus, a professional theatre, a LibraryMuseum, an art museum and a conservatorium. Wodonga’s about to go through an amazing redevelopment over there’ (Vogel iv, 22 May 2019).

The Flying Fruit Fly Circus is a leading and innovative national organisation that is seen as the quintessence of the Creative Industries in the region. This circus took its name from the Fruit Fly inspectors situated on the NSW-Victorian border, although the first show they staged was as the Murray River Performing Group in 1979. Celebrating the Flying Fruit Fly Circus’s 40th year in Albury- Wodonga, CEO Richard Hull explains they are a contemporary circus operating as a Youth Performance Arts organisation. They develop original touring shows, teach circus performances to school-aged children in a specialist educational program, and offer a residency program for local and international artists. Their original youth circus performances tour nationally and internationally. For example, Junk, a show that toured nationwide and to New Zealand, was an original work conceived around the idea of the neighbourhood street that is used as a playground full of adventure and make-believe (Flying Fruit Fly Circus, 2019). In 2016, it opened at The Cube Wodonga, and toured successfully for three years, including a performance at the Opera House (Davey iv, 23 May 2019). Artistic Director Anni Davey said other opportunities for young performers include an experimental season in the Spiegeltent in Melbourne and performing outdoors at the Albury Festival (Davey iv, 23 May 2019). The company’s full-time educational program for children in Years 3 to 9 provides select entry to the school, housed in a purpose-built facility (Froudist iv, 23 May 2019). In 2019, the Circus School had 79 students, and primary students can graduate to Wodonga Middle Years College for their secondary years (Flying Fruit Fly Circus, 2019). The program developed from collaborations between the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, the Victorian Department of Education, Create NSW and Creative Victoria (Hull iv, 23 May 2019). Circus Executive Producer Tahni Froudist said the circus training feeds into lifelong learning, without the need to move into the industry ‘and become circus artists’: ‘We think that circus is going to have a major impact on their life anyway’ (Froudist iv, 23 May 2019). In May 2019, a couple from Copenhagen, Denmark, spent three weeks in Albury on the Fruit Fly residency program, designed for local and global performing artists to develop work in the company’s world-class acrobatic facility (Froudist iv, 23 May 2019).

Richard Hull says $2 million a year, that is 40% to 45% of the Circus’s funding, comes from various levels of government, through project funding schemes and the education system. But Hull reiterates they are a performing arts company and also create their own revenue stream: ‘We have our own commercial activities like fees and performance fees from our tours … So, it's not just a training institution, but we do create original work that we tour around Australia and around the world’ (Hull iv, 23 May 2019). The organisation has managed to straddle the funding issues that come from operating cross-border. Tahni Froudist, explains:

Being on the border is sometimes a curse, in that it makes more red tape, more funding acquittals and applications … but actually having it set up with the school in Wodonga and the training facility in Albury … it does really help and it means that we can have a really strong relationship with the Victorian state government, for example, because we're part of the education system there, and we are also funded as an arts organization through Creative Victoria. And then on the flip side, because our training facility is in

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NSW, we have a strong relationship with NSW state government, so I think that’s ideal really (Froudist iv, 23 May 2019).

The creation of intellectual property is often the key to certain creative enterprises (Sigthorsson & Davies, 2018) and the Flying Fruit Fly Circus has a process in place to ensure they can continue to create original work. Their residency program invests in the creation of mature work, and they generate income from original productions as they tour. Narelle Vogel, the Cultural Development Coordinator with AlburyCity, has noticed that a transient group of creatives would come to town to work with Flying Fruit Fly Circus, and when their tenure was up, they would leave. However, she suggests that is changing: ‘The former artistic director of Fruit Fly has left that role and stayed in the community because her partner and family moved here. It's the same with the artistic director from HotHouse Theatre’ (Vogel iv, 22 May 2019).

The HotHouse Theatre is another example of a performing arts organisation in the region taking an innovative and long-term approach to their activities. The outgoing Artistic Director and CEO of HotHouse, Lyn Wallis, held that position for four years. Born out of the Murray River Performing Group, the HotHouse Theatre has been running for 22 years and is ‘one of the last remaining professional theatre companies in regional Australia. HotHouse has a rich and celebrated history in commissioning, producing, nurturing and presenting new contemporary Australian theatre within a vibrant regional setting’ (HotHouse Theatre, 2019). The company has worked on original pieces such as Embers, co-produced with Sydney Theatre Company, which toured twice, and presented The River at the End of the Road in 2018, made in partnership with Sport for Jove, a Sydney repertory company (Wallis iv, 24 May 2019). In 2019, HotHouse offered seven subscription shows, completed seven creative developments and produced two independent theatre shows. It offered masterclasses with playwrights, hosted visiting artists, and held drama workshops for young people and skill development for local artists (HotHouse Theatre, 2019). It employs eight staff on full-time and part-time contracts and draws on volunteers to assist with larger shows. Principal sponsor is the Hume Bank, and there are other corporate sponsors. HotHouse, on Gateway Village, presents its work at the 160-seat venue, The Butter Factory Theatre, which it manages on behalf of Wodonga Council. Unlike many other of the region’s organisations, Wallis confirmed HotHouse is funded from both sides of the border, from Create NSW, Create Victoria, AlburyCity Council, Wodonga Council, and the Australia Council. Previously HotHouse and Flying Fruit Fly Circus were funded through NSW Arts for $1.4 million across three years, but funding expired in 2018 (Bunn, 2015).

CEO Lyn Wallis said that HotHouse was ‘an anomaly’ and mused on why it had survived when many other regional theatre companies had folded: ‘I think it is because of the community. The community has fought for it at every point at which it looked like it was going to go. They kind of backed it. Like the community owns it in a way and that doesn't happen for all companies’ (Wallis iv, 24 May 2019). She also believes that creating new work that involves the community helped create an audience: ‘People want to say what their part in it was … they did those interviews, or they did those meetings and they contributed information. And so suddenly we get an audience that's got a stake in it’ (Wallis iv, 24 May 2019).

THEATRE VENUES The Cube Wodonga is owned and operated by Wodonga Council. It is a state-of-the-art entertainment centre in Wodonga’s CBD and has a partnership agreement with the Murray Conservatorium and the HotHouse Theatre. Rebecca Bennell, The Cube Team Leader, says that membership subscriptions are for the three spaces – The Cube, HotHouse and Albury Entertainment Centre – giving the same benefits for each venue, and venues synchronise their programming. Bennell said that ‘Albury does

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the larger more commercial stuff, HotHouse does the smaller, intimate new works, and [The Cube] do families and that commercial product’. Albury Entertainment Centre seats 818, The HotHouse seats 160 and The Cube seats 300. Bennell notes that ‘when The Cube was officially designed it was to complement the two spaces as opposed to try and compete’ (Bennell iv, 24 May 2019). The Cube is the home venue for the Flying Fruit Fly Circus and presents a season of diverse professional and community performances, including contemporary music, dance, theatre, circus, stand-up comedy, and musical theatre. The Cube receives funding from Creative Victoria of $60,000 annually, which enables it to purchase popular programs such as The Gruffalo. These purchases are a mix of show fee hire, where the whole show is purchased, or deals are negotiated around splitting ticket sales, known as ‘door splits’. They have ‘several performing partnerships’ including an MOU with dance company Projection Dance (Bennell iv, 24 May) and present six to seven locally co-produced events a year as well as offering some commercial products aimed at children. The Cube presents the work of four local theatre companies who put on ‘eight major musicals every year which are shared with Albury’ (Bennell iv, 24 May). These ‘sell really well’ (Bennell iv, 24 May 2019) and are so popular that they companies are ‘running out of band members! They are very, very active in presenting that big commercial stuff on an amateur scale. And there’s also a local company who does create and produce new works as well’ (Bennell iv, 24 May 2019).

Flying Fruit Fly Circus has a partnership agreement with The Cube that was developed by Bennell. This agreement allows The Cube to premiere new work every two to three years and then that show will embark on a national tour. Purchasing the rights to the Flying Fruit Fly Circus is quite expensive for a regional venue, so the agreement means The Cube ‘gets the show essentially for a three-night season without having to pay for it, and we cover the costs for their pre-production work, so we give them access to the space for two weeks, which means that they’re able to do all of that tech rehearsal, finessing, et cetera’ (Bennell iv, 24 May 2019).

Albury Entertainment Centre is a multipurpose facility that offers concerts, musicals, comedy and all types of live performances, and is a conference venue. The main auditorium has facility for tiered seating for 818, and there is an attached theatrette that seats 177. A Members’ season is available. There is a Convention Wing on the ground floor which can accommodate up to 1200 people (AEC 2020 online), and a ground-floor Banquet Hall can be configured for exhibitions, presentations, gala dinners and weddings, with conference break-out rooms. Movable walls can create three spaces, and there is removable staging, in-room LED lighting, audio visual equipment, wi-fi, a fully licensed bar, cloakroom and reception areas (ibid).

THE MUSIC INDUSTRY The music scene in Albury-Wodonga is diverse and dynamic and, like most regional centres, it is held together by a significant number of amateurs, a limited set of pro-amateurs, and very few fully professional musicians. There are enough musicians playing live – mostly amateur and pro-amateur who do not show up in the data as they declare day jobs – to support several retail music outlets. All are fully stocked with a wide range of instruments, each catering to a slightly different market. Blackline Music Shop and Music School aims at the rock market, Megas Music aims at families and hobbyists, and Haynes Pianos is a dedicated outlet employing piano tuners such as David Jones from Wodonga.

Ian Wittingslow’s store, All Music, is a full-service music store in the main street of Albury. Wittingslow was initially involved with audio and music projects, recording CDs, sales and a few film projects, and has developed his store into a full-service music retail space with significant online presence. The store offers repairs for instruments and audio equipment, and music lessons with ‘tutors who hire rooms

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off us and tutor and help support the business here as well’ and supports schools (Wittingslow iv, 5 May 2019). Wittingslow says they help the music industry in any way possible because ‘that’s pretty much what the music industry is, it’s that association and connection with people’ (ibid). He’s willing to promote all cultural events, because ‘if we can get a few extra bums on seats … that keeps the theatres and the arts all happening’ (ibid).

The local music scene is connected to the global community as ‘any travelling acts that are heading between Melbourne and Sydney generally come through Albury-Wodonga’ (Wittingslow iv, 5 May 2019). Many of them perform in venues such as the Commercial Club Albury, which is fully rigged to service international touring acts of all types and genres. The Albion Hotel and Birallee Tavern also provide live music. The SS&A Club offer three bars of entertainment and hosts big names such as James Reyne, The Angels, The Whitlams, The Eurogliders, Thirsty Merc, Jebediah, The Black Sorrows, Vika & Linda Bull, Wendy Matthews, Renee Geyer, Archie Roach, and British India. Local players have the opportunity, as support acts, to absorb the playing, performing and touring knowledge exhibited by internationally skilled players and crews who come through. Other live venues offer performance spaces in both Albury and Wodonga, primarily weekend gigs with occasional mid-week gigs, and a limited number of cafes, restaurants and coffee shops hire occasional soloists.

One important jazz venue, the Jazz Basement, is run by long-time pro-am jazz musician Graeme Cook, who also runs a building design business with his brother (Cook iv, May 2019). Cook says there are a number of renowned jazz musicians in the region – such as trumpeter Greg Spence – and that many notable jazz musicians who are touring internationally book directly with Cook. To make income, he sub-leases the space on ‘a cheap lease’ to groups including dancers, choir singers, and educators, but the venue itself runs on a largely volunteer basis, with a dedicated crew of local musicians and club members spending time away from their day jobs to fit out the venue, paint it and renovate its acoustics: ‘The musicians loved the room because of the acoustics. They can play whisper quiet and they can hear themselves’ (ibid) and its reputation has carried to New York and beyond.

Given the reach into the snow fields and the wineries that are part of the Albury-Wodonga region, there is a full range of music on offer – classical, country, jazz, folk, covers, a smattering of self-funded indie rock artists, Indigenous artists and DJs. Lisa Wilson, who sang in a church choir and entered singing competitions and talent quests in her early days, has sung in bands and duets and now runs a disco and karaoke show, entertaining at various gigs from weddings and birthdays, to the races and corporate functions, and has a following in the pubs and clubs around Albury. One of the most notable musicians is country singer Tania Kernaghan, who comes from a prominent musical family in the region. In 2005, she was the first woman to be inducted into the Australian Country Music Hall of Fame, and ‘internationally, she has become steadily better known and has appeared successfully at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee’ (Allmusic 2020 online).

Festivals are a feature of the regions. The Albury Chamber Music Festival, run by Helena Kernaghan, offers a series of three afternoon concerts featuring some of Australia's finest chamber musicians (AlburyCity online). Many of these are aligned with the Murray Conservatorium, which has been running since 1981 and is partially funded by the NSW Department of Education. It offers individual and group tuition, in-school concerts and workshops, ensemble opportunities, musicianship and theory lessons, professional learning for teachers and musicians, and optional AMEB or ANZCA exams in contemporary and classical music.

Vicki Gray runs the By the Banks Festival on her Murray River farm just outside Albury. Her experience with event management started when she was working in middle management in office administration with financial planners, and in 2012, she studied a Diploma in Tourism and a Diploma

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in Event Management. She was approached in 2017 by James Eggleston and Paul Dyason from local band The Northern Folk about putting on a local music festival: ‘I just thought it was a fantastic idea. There was an initial committee, which was James and Paul, myself, Annette Baker from the Winter Solstice, and a couple of other people. And we worked over the course of that 12-month period to get the music festival to fruition’ (Gray iv, 24 May 2019). Her family farm was the site for this first major and ongoing event. ‘After a long and arduous development application process with AlburyCity, we got approval ... No infrastructure was allowed, so everything has to be brought in and taken out for each event’ (Gray iv, 24 May 2019). Patron numbers are limited to 1,000. The event has run successfully for three years, but the 2020 festival will not be held because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Gray has also held weddings, concerts and corporate events including ‘luxury vehicle launches’ on the farm (ibid). She uses local graphic artists and marketing agencies such as Wildlime Marketing to help her business. Now called Kindred, those designers are also responsible for the look of the Winter Solstice. Gray says most of her business is generated through ‘word of mouth’, ‘but with the Winter Solstice, this year we'll have drone coverage, which is W Media; we've had Nomad Films’. Employing local creatives is important: ‘Very much local content in putting it all together and obviously the support of the local media is essential’ (Gray iv, 24 May 2019).

FILM AND TV The occupational employment data for Film, TV and Radio shows a stable sector with a very small decline, while the Industries data indicates growth of 2%. Regional media in Albury-Wodonga operates through commercial broadcast and community licences, with local news content created by the public broadcasters, commercial radio and TV networked offices of WIN and Prime. For the screen sector, film and video production houses such as Digital Impact Productions support the commercial television broadcasters by making local and national advertisements. Interrelations across the CI sub- sectors exist with sole-operated businesses such as Out of Line and Nomad Films, who make promotional, news, and social issues films.

The cinema outlet in Albury is Regent Cinema. Now owned by Village, it was previously a family business for 70 years. In Albury’s main street, The Regent is a heritage-listed building with nine screens and a 500-seat theatre. There are five digital Real3D projectors with enhanced digital sound and two Gold Class cinemas with waiter service and bar facilities. The Regent hosts the Albury-Wodonga International Film Festival, held annually, and screening over 50 films from around the globe (Chanter, 2016). The BANFF Mountain Film Festival is held in Albury Entertainment Centre in May. When feature film companies want to film in the region, location film permits are managed by AlburyCity’s Event Team Leaders (AlburyCity, 2018).

Television local news is reported through two regional networks Prime Television (PRIME7) and WIN Regional Victoria. WIN’s Network News Director Stella Lauri explains that WIN offers a ‘dedicated half- hour local news bulletin in all markets. There are no composite bulletins’ (Lauri iv, 15 April 2019). This local content is created for Albury-Wodonga audiences, which is 15% of regional Victorian audience share (WIN Regional Network, 2019). PRIME7, also offers local news five nights a week and they service local advertisers (A/W CommunityGuide, 2019).

Local film and television production houses provide advertising services to the television networks. Digital Impact Productions, which has been operating for 35 years and has produced over 10,000 TV commercials and 3,000 videos, is one of the biggest TV commercial production facilities in Albury- Wodonga (Digital Impact Productions, 2019). Owner Tony Grace has more than 40 years of TV broadcasting experience, and his business offers a standard range of filming and post-production services, and does media buying. Clients are local, national, and international TV commercials for

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companies such as Barbeques Galore, CLAAS Group, Oz Design, Dunlop, The Marketplace Wagga, and advertising agency JAM Media (Productions, 2019).

Creative specialist Helen Newman is a documentary filmmaker who uses her skills to raise awareness around community issues. Newman co-directed Anthem (Cambis, 2002), which focused on the plight of Kosovar refugees during the Tampa Crisis, and was funded by the Australian Film Commission (The Age, 2002). Her most recent film is Solstice (2019) about ‘suicide and survivors of suicide’ (Newman iv, 23 May 2019) particularly those who are left behind. Solstice premiered at Regent Cinema in Albury in 2019 (Boyd, 2019). Newman earns a regular income working across the CI sub-sectors with her production company Nomad Films, making promotional videos for other creative businesses. In 2019, Newman was commissioned by Flying Fruit Fly Circus to make a 40th anniversary documentary, and she is also working on a film as part of an Indigenous community health project. Newman was trained in community development and uses film to identify social issues that resonate with communities. She doesn’t have a day rate, and frequently chooses to accept film work that is underpaid, because she is more interested in how the film medium can reach a broader audience (Newman iv, 23 May 2019). Another creative specialist, filmmaker Alison Plasto, has a sole-operated business Out of Line (Plasto, 2019). Plasto makes documentaries, works on television series and is moving into fast turnaround drama production as a director. Regional work has been scarce, so Plasto has diversified across the CI sub-sectors by taking work as a digital video producer with the ABC and in news media. Plasto was an ABC Open producer at ABC Western Plains who had trouble finding work when she moved to Albury- Wodonga: ‘I was doing projects away from this area but also starting to meet people, but things were fairly lean’ (iv, 20 May 2019). She took a video production job with Fairfax Media based at The Border Mail, then went to work on a factual SBS TV show Struggle Street that was being made in Griffith, doing casting, shooting and producing. Plasto’s $1,000 day rate is typical for a shooter-producer, and she collaborates with local filmmakers to support the telling of local stories (Plasto, 2019). In May 2019, Plasto secured a position on Seachange a Nine TV series, through Screenworks Director Pathways Program, where she was mentored by director Kevin Carlin (Plasto iv, 20 May 2019). This opportunity could see her transitioning into directing television drama series and it is likely that will mean working away from Albury-Wodonga.

RADIO Radio is well catered to in Albury-Wodonga. Joan Warner, the chief executive officer of industry body Commercial Radio Australia, said ‘Albury is a growing, vibrant area and the local radio stations are an important part of the community’ (CRA 2020, online) with national and local advertisers supporting each of the stations. Commercial stations include Triple M The Border 105.7 from the Southern Cross Austereo national network, and hit104.9, a contemporary hits station which passed from NOVA to DMG and is now also part of the Southern Cross Austereo network. 1494 2AY (1494AM) has been in operation since 1930 and is a news, talk and sports station which is run by a family-based network. This ACE network ‘has a list of radio stations around regional Australia, both AM and FM, as well as southern NSW’ (Walker iv, 23 May 2019). It is owned by the Pattersons, who have a ‘family connection to the Murdochs, but by no means do the Murdochs have any influence in the running of our network’ (ibid). Walker said, ‘it’s very family-orientated, very community-orientated’, giving ‘a distinct advantage in each market by being so local’ (ibid). While there is ‘a level of networking’, the company puts ‘more emphasis on local content; they tend to really want to do that local presence rather than networked presence’ (ibid). Walker said the station could be streamed worldwide, and they used the web locally to break news: ‘The beauty of radio of course is that we’re instant, so as soon as something happens, we can get it to air’. They are considering introducing webcam into the studio ‘so that you will get a visual account of what’s going on as much as just the audio account’ (ibid).

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ABC radio has its own extensive internet presence in the region. All its digital networks are available via the ABC Listen app, giving the region access to networks such as Triple J, Radio National, Classic FM and others, as well as their ABC Murray Goulburn Murray Local Radio presence through 106.5 FM focused on Albury-Wodonga and Wangaratta. Over the years the station has broadcast from five separate locations in Albury before relocating to a purpose-built facility in Wodonga in 1995. They switched from AM to FM in the early 1990s ‘ensuring a clearer and better-quality signal’. The ABC Goulburn Murray team ‘provides news and information to local communities with a team of news journalists, local presenters, features reporters and a specialist rural reporter’ (ABC, 2020 online).

Community radio has a strong presence in Albury-Wodonga. 2REM-FM, which has been broadcasting for 30 years, is ‘on air 24 four hours a day … with volunteers presenting programs as varied as Country, Rock`n’Roll, Jazz and Blues [and airs] a multitude of alternative programming not available from commercial or ABC stations’ (2rem, 2020 online). It keeps running through fundraising, including ‘radiothons, which have raised enough money to help with the running costs and equipment to keep the station on air’ (ibid).

PUBLISHING Regional newspapers have been the predominant publishing employer in most rural areas but have been subject to the winds of worldwide change. The global downturn in print media can be seen in the employment figure for Wodonga, which has been in decline with a 9.1% decrease for more than a decade. This has affected newspapers such as The Border Mail. Independently owned by the Mott family for over 100 years, it was purchased in 2006 by Fairfax Media, and in 2018 was absorbed by Nine in a $4 billion merger with Fairfax. In 2019, The Border Mail was purchased, along with other dailies, by Australian Community Media (ACM), a privately owned business run by Antony Catalano and Alex Waislitz (Joyce, 2019). These changes of ownership of The Border Mail reflect the challenges faced by the newspaper publishing industry over the last decade and explain why the Census statistics for publishing have significantly declined since 2006. The Border Mail’s website notes that it has contributed $12 million annually to the local Creative Industries through capital expenditure, salaries, and sponsorship (The Border Mail, 2019). It has a monthly readership of 278,000, a figure that combines print and digital (ACM, 2019) and publishes six editions a week, with the Saturday edition having the largest readership (ACM, 2019). ACM’s AdCentre page describes local media’s role as being ‘digital, mobile, and social’ and claims The Border Mail has a ‘capacity to connect, engage, and ignite discussion’ by advertising through multi-platform campaigns that can build brands and drive sales (ACM, 2019). Nonetheless, there has been a significant contraction through loss of readership and advertising as a result of competition from other online information sources, which have at worst replaced or at best supplemented the long-standing hard-copy outlets.

Ellen Ebsary has been a journalist with The Border Mail since 2015. She says she has always written copy for web and print because doing both is ‘definitely considered of more value these days’ (Ebsary iv, 23 May 2019). For a few years The Border Mail employed a video producer to create video content, but the strategy has changed and now video is used to ‘complement a colour piece or a feature piece’ (ibid). Ebsary says they are now more inclined to use Facebook Live for breaking news stories.

An independent fashion magazine, Go Local (GoLocal, 2019) has delivered eight volumes. Founder and editor Bernadette Torresan said the magazine would move to an annual single issue and was working to deliver a new interactive free digital publication called Border Life Magazine (iv, 24 May 2019).

The Write Around the Murray (WAM) Festival is held annually in September and has been running since 2007 in conjunction with Albury’s LibraryMuseum. Beginning as a community festival it is the

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only literary-based festival in the region and attracts high-profile and emerging authors and presenters. WAM traditionally attracts women over 50, and receives funding from Destination NSW, (Clement iv, 22 May 2019). Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 festival was held online. Regional writers include local poet Jane Downing, who has published short stories around Australia and overseas and has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She has published in Cordite, Rabbit, Poetrix and The Canberra Times, and is noted for awards such as Best Australian Poems 2004 and 2015 (Downing, 2019a). She recently released a book of poetry, When Figs Fly (Downing, 2019b), described as ‘deftly capturing the beauty of the natural world, the bitter-sweetness of childhood and memory and exploring the all-too familiar foibles of human nature’ (ibid).

LIBRARYMUSEUM: A VALUED CULTURAL ASSET The GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) sector has been a valuable adjunct to the Creative Industries in this region. AlburyCity was the first council in Australia to combine two cultural services into the one facility, in LibraryMuseum. Celebrating its 10th birthday in 2017, it is described in the Council’s annual report as ‘one of our most beloved institutions’ (AlburyCity, 2018 p. 4). Over the last decade, LibraryMuseum has had 2.3 million visitors ‘with more than 2.4 million items borrowed – a success story for a community that values its cultural assets as much as it enjoys its sporting facilities’ (AlburyCity 2018 p.4). As AlburyCity’s Team Leader for Libraries and Museum, Carina Clement, explains ‘we're part of the cultural life and creative life of the city’ and a facilitator as ‘we have the technology and the space that means people can participate in events and exhibitions’ (Clement iv, 22 May 2019). The building, designed by Ashton Raggatt McDougall and built by local company Zauner Construction, has won international and national design awards. It has four permanent exhibitions: ‘Crossing Place’, about the settlement of Albury and first contact with the Wiradjuri people; ‘Sharing Bonegilla Stories’, about the experiences of people who passed through the migrant camps; ‘Wiradjuri Talkback’, which explores the history of Wiradjuri County and showcases original artefacts such as a preserved canoe scar tree, Riverina bark paintings and possum skin cloaks; and the ‘Robbins and Porter’ exhibition, featuring local inventors and mechanics who created an early monoplane, a replica of which is suspended from the ceiling at LibraryMuseum. The facility also hosts traveling exhibitions such as ‘The Dressmaker’, which attracted women 50 and over who came to see the costumes that were used in the movie of the same name. In May 2019, ‘The Da Vinci Machine’ was on display and attracted families (Clement iv, 22 May 2019).

Wodonga Library also services its community well. With a small collection of 40,000 books, it is connected to the Victorian library network, Swift, which takes capacity to 2.4 million books (Fracaro iv, 24 May 2019). Librarian Michelle Fracaro explains ‘we can thrive as a library service because of the Swift service, which means we don’t need to have a lot of relationships with Albury’ although ‘people bring Albury library books to us all the time [and] ‘we regularly swap books’ (Fracaro iv, 24 May 2019). It also has a strong educational program with a focus on STEM. An upgrade to the library is part of Wodonga City’s redevelopment of the cultural precinct (Hogg, iv, 24 May 2019).

VISUAL ARTS, MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES Also serviced by the GLAM sector, visual arts is commonly seen as the sector where ‘creatives and artists reside’ and is therefore frequently seen as the ‘creative industries’, often to the exclusion of other sectors. While art galleries offer the general public their primary access to works of art, the primary source of income for most artists does not come through these venues. Albury-Wodonga’s visual artists’ average income sits at $3,900 per annum, calculated from the 2011 and 2016 Census statistics. In contrast to this limited source of income for visual art specialists, support workers such as art gallery employees earn $50,700. An embedded creative, that is someone working as an artist in

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another industry, might take home an annual income of $40,500. Given this data, it was not surprising that it was easier to identify those who support the visual arts sector than it was to locate someone earning a full-time income as a visual artist in this region. A significant number of support workers were Council workers who have provided and maintained the infrastructure and facilities to support the community’s galleries and museums.

Albury-Wodonga has multiple facilities to support and exhibit visual artists’ work, and the Councils have merged these assets. Arts Space Wodonga is in the same building as the Library, which is being upgraded throughout 2020 (Hogg iv, 23 May 2019). In Albury, there is the LibraryMuseum and the Murray Arts Museum Albury (MAMA), which completed its $10.5 million redevelopment in 2014. On the border is the Indigenous Burraja Gallery, funded through NSW Government funding for the Murray Arts Region.

MAMA offers an all-encompassing contemporary art experience with international touring exhibitions and regional and cultural heritage exhibitions (Johnston, 2014). It is run by a nine-member board of arts professionals from the National Gallery of Australia and Art Gallery of NSW, and local arts and business representatives. The redevelopment at MAMA has brought in a number of new income streams. These include an income from the lease of the Retro Café, a gallery shop, creative industries hub educational precinct, corporate support and sponsorship program, and special events hires (ibid). Making additional income from these assets has become necessary for the survival of these council- owned facilities.

MAMA director of three years Bree Pickering said there was a huge spike in attendance over the first nine months, with 100,000 visitors, and this has dropped back to 85,000 annually (iv, 23 May 2019). Pickering explains they are interested in furthering the development of an ‘art ecology that's local and national, and international, so we really think about what MAMA adds to this community, and that is a significant museum’ (Pickering iv, 23 May 2019). MAMA offers four major exhibitions a year and commissions one annual solo exhibition from an artist. Pickering explains that this is ‘usually an early- to mid-career artist, so this represents a significant opportunity for them to expand in space and have the resources to do that’ (ibid). MAMA curator Michael Moran says the museum has ‘four areas of collection priority. One of which is to support local artists through acquisitions of work, and to create a record of cultural activity within the region, and the artist stories within the region’ (iv, 23 May 2019). The National Photography Prize is hosted here every two years. Founded in 1983, it is one of the longest running photography prizes in Australia, offering a $30,000 prize with a $5,000 fellowship (MAMA, 2019).

MAMA’s open call for exhibitions is a way it fosters local artists. This call is assessed by independent members of the community, including the Artistic Director of Gertrude Contemporary Gallery in Melbourne and local Wiradjuri artist Lorraine Connelly-Northey from Holbrook, who Moran explains is ‘deeply embedded in activities here at the museum’ (iv, 23 May 2019). However, MAMA no longer offers to sell local artworks on exhibition. Curator Moran explains that ‘we're not a commercial gallery or a museum and we don't have the in-house expertise to sell work’ (iv, 23 May 2019). Instead, MAMA offers artists a small commission:

‘Artists deserve to be paid. Their work is labour. That effort requires reward. Pay your artists. Even an organisation that may not bat an eyelid about artists fees for a major national survey show, perhaps still may not pay. Which is completely inequitable. The work is the same, the effort is the same, the labour is the same (Moran iv, 23 May 2019).

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In contrast, Arts Space Wodonga is run like a commercial gallery. Artists can hire the space for $1,200 for six weeks and the gallery assists in selling the works, taking 30% commission (Ambrosio iv, 24 May 2019). The redevelopment of the gallery will give it more space and it is hoped it might be eligible for Creative Victoria funds to begin to build a local collection. Arts Space Team Leader Justine Ambrosio said they do support local artists, but the ‘gallery is quite small’ and attracts ‘mid-career’ artists from Victoria and NSW: ‘We’ve had some very prominent artists such as Maree Clark come and exhibit with us, so it’s quite mixed’ (ibid).

Outside the local Councils’ remit, Murray Arts is the regional arts development organisation, funded by the Create NSW Regional Arts scheme. While there are 14 organizations across NSW, Murray Arts is the only one that works across a border. They lease council premise on Gateway Island. Murray Arts works with six councils, AlburyCity, Greater Hume, and Federation in NSW; and Wodonga, Indigo and Towong in Victoria. The Regional Arts scheme pays each regional organisation $140,000, and each region has its own fee agreement with each council to help deliver regional arts services (Fisher iv, 22 May 2019).

The Executive Director of Murray Arts is Alyce Fisher. Fisher is a practising artist and moved from London to work at Murray Arts. She has been in the position since 2016. She says, ‘we work within all art forms and our role within this community is to identify the areas that are lacking, that are under- resourced, and to champion those initiatives here’ (iv, 22 May 2019). Fisher says her organisation lacks the ‘resources to quantify the amount of artists that we engage with and the amount of artists that are working in this region’ (iv, 22 May 2019). Part of her role is ‘to advocate for artists to be paid and for the arts to be respected as an industry’ (ibid). She said the many volunteers should be ‘compensated for our time’ (ibid).

Fisher has been integral in setting up opportunities for all forms of art and has particularly championed Aboriginal arts. She secured funding to set up Burraja Gallery and to employ two people. Bethany Thornber is Aboriginal Arts Curator, working three days a week, and Tiffany Ward is Aboriginal Arts Co-ordinator, employed two days a week. Both have specific duties, with Ward facilitating projects around Aboriginal arts and helping professional development of Aboriginal arts with the performing arts (Ward iv, 22 May 2019). Burraja is the only dedicated Aboriginal art gallery in the region, and exhibits ‘works from Aboriginal artists who live, work and connect to the Murray Arts footprint, so we exhibit work from artists from all different nations and backgrounds. As long as they fit into what we define as local, so live, work or connect, they are free to access this space and show their creative practice’ (Thornber iv, 22 May 2019). Like Fisher, Thornber and Ward are also artists who maintain themselves as support workers while leaving room for their practice. Thornber had an exhibition at MAMA scheduled in late 2019. Ward recently produced a reading of a play, Stolen, by Jane Harrison, and drew together a cast of eight Indigenous actors.

Turks Head Gallery is being set up as a photography studio by Dirk Wallace. The professional photographer, whose business is Create Network, has taught classes at MAMA and runs a photography group with 2,000 members: ‘it's quite an enthusiastic photography community already in Albury-Wodonga’ (Wallace iv, 23 May 2019). In setting up Turks Head Gallery, he ‘thought it would be great if we just had a spot that we could exhibit our work and get together and do more as a community of photographers’ (ibid). With MAMA hosting the National Photography Prize biennially, this venture has plenty of potential.

Given all these opportunities, the visual arts community appears to be thriving in Albury-Wodonga, but the low number of creative specialists, that is, actual visual arts workers earning an income directly

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for their art practice, means the sector relies on volunteers, with most artists earning a secondary income in the sector in order to maintain themselves and their practice.

INDIGENOUS ARTISTS AND COMMUNITIES Ruth Dacey-Davys is a Wiradjuri woman and well-known local artist who co-runs a Wiradjuri language business, Giilangyaldhaanygalang, and is highly active in the community. Her principle profession is as a childcare educator and she is the Chair of the Riverina Murray Regional Alliance, funded through Aboriginal Affairs, NSW Government (Aboriginal Affairs NSW Government, 2019). Dacey-Davys is very motivated and receives great encouragement from Wiradjuri elders. She has been told her work with language ‘is your cultural responsibility. And I've taken that very seriously. So, if I have any opportunity to promote our culture, promote our way of being, that's what I'm going to do’ (Dacey-Davys iv, 24 May 2019).

Launched in June 2017, the Giilangyaldhaanygalang business is a 100% Aboriginal-owned partnership founded by Dacey-Davys and Pettina Love (Ebsary, 2017). They teach and fundraise to support the Wiradjuri language through educational programs in schools and community centres. The language classes have attracted ‘up to 40 people in attendance, and they're from 80 years old right down to six’ (Dacey-Davy iv, 24 May 2019). She first opened the Wiradjuri Family Daycare from her home, and it attracted ‘the Aboriginal community because I had some knowledge of our culture and was able to share that with our children. So, it became quite popular’ (ibid). She sees many possibilities to motivate and empower the Westside Community to cultivate a deeper understanding of the Wiradjuri community (ibid).

Dacey-Davys describes herself on her Facebook page as ‘bundadhaany’, meaning artist in Wiradjuri language: ‘I've been an artist for a number of years, but it was always in my home. It was actually not a public thing' (iv, 24 May 2019). However, her art drew the attention of AlburyCity and she was invited to make a sculpture, creating The Bogong Moth Migration, commissioned for The Yindyamarra Sculpture Walk on the banks of the Murray and it is part of the broader Wagirra Trail. This trail showcases 11 works inspired by the narratives of the Wiradjuri people (AlburyCity, 2019). In 2019, Dacey-Davys participated in the painting of a mural at Westside Community Centre (Ebsary, 2019) which was funded through Family and Community Services. Dacey-Davys was one of six Indigenous artists funded through The Arts NSW Aboriginal Regional Arts Fund. They received $10,000 for a mentoring program conducted through a residency on Wiradjuri country, which allowed them to create artworks from the Albury art gallery’s pressed metal ceiling. Along with Dacey-Davys, the project enabled Aboriginal women artists Patricia Cerminara, Sharron Edwards, Tamara Murray, Sharon Reid, and Bethany Thornber (McPherson, 2014). Dacey-Davys’ artwork can be seen on the painted NBN boxes in Albury’s main streets. She designed carpet for the refurbished interiors of MAMA and exhibits her artwork at Burraja Gallery on Gateway Island. While she may be a talented artist, she knows that ‘art isn't always going to pay the bills’ (iv, 24 May 2019).

In her work as the Chair for The Riverina Murray Regional Alliance Dacey-Davys is focused on prioritising community needs: ‘bringing that all together to start looking at other ways of how we can successfully produce positive outcomes’ (ABC News, 2016). The Chair’s appointment is a four-day-a- week position to help with local decision-making, particularly ‘around Aboriginal community, service delivery from government and non-government that's coming into our area’ (Dacey-Davys iv, 24 May 2019). The Indigenous National Technology and Telecom Network (INTTN) is planning to expand into Albury-Wodonga and employ 44 Indigenous people from the Hume Region (Ebsary, 2018). The network was founded by chief executive Jade Miller two years ago and is supported by the Victorian Government and GoTAFE Shepparton to deliver a new Certificate in Information Technology

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Networking. Miller said ‘the key thing we've achieved is Australia's first national call centre for Indigenous communities, giving support around telecommunications’ (Ebsary, 2018).

FASHION Albury-Wodonga can boast a merging of CI sub-sectors around fashion, with the publication of a local independent magazine, plentiful retail services, marketing and events, and couture designers. Retail fashion outlets are not often spoken of as being part of the Creative Industries, but like music and art retail shops, they do offer the public access to seasonal fashion trends. Albury’s main street has a range of fashion retail outlets; some are chains, others independently owned boutiques. A nationally renowned couture house, specialising in the creation of exquisitely crafted handmade gowns for brides, can be accessed off Albury’s main street. Jillian Franklin Couture offers bespoke dressmaking services using traditional couture techniques complemented by contemporary styling, and has clients from Sydney, Griffith, and Melbourne as well as locals (iv, 24 May 2019). Operating in Albury for 20 years, Franklin trained in the mid-1980s when her profession was called fashion technology: ‘All I ever wanted was to be was a designer’ (iv, 24 May 2019). Franklin has encouraged others to pursue fashion design, and her design protégé Krystal Kaye, who worked at Melbourne Fashion Week, has returned to Albury to set up a shopfront (Kaye iv, 24 May 2019).

Franklin advertises her services in the local independent lifestyle magazine Go Local (GoLocal, 2019), which has diversified into events, hosting two fashion shows in Albury (GoLocal, 2019) which showcased a range of Australian designers, including Jillian Franklin Couture.

CREATIVE SERVICES It is notable that while there has been a decrease in employment at the intersection of both the Publishing and Design sectors, which now exists as negative growth of minus-14.8%, the highest growth in occupations in the Creative Services sectors in this region was in Architecture and Design, with a 3.9% increase in an actual employment figure of 91 employees. Not only are the numbers important, as small as they are, but value can be seen in this sector culturally. Albury Mayor Kevin Mack is proud of the city’s architectural heritage and believes residents and building owners should be too, ‘because they are pivotal to who we are, they're part of our identity’ (Mack iv, 24 May 2019). He wants to identify notable architects and promote their works: ‘That works for business, that works for tourism, that works for investment, that works for local economies, local people, because it makes them proud of what they’ve got’ (ibid).

ARCHITECTURE For more than a decade, JWP Architects from Wodonga has been one of the largest architectural firms ‘within the two-to-four-hour radius’ of Albury-Wodonga (Rizzato iv, 23 May 2019). This Creative Services business has been operating for 30 years and has three directors, Bernie Jovaras, Leigh Rizzato and John Guthrie. Rizatto described their bread and butter work as ‘schools, local government, healthcare and aged care’ (Rizzato iv, 23 May 2019). JWP’s clients are 90% regional, and the company prefers to take jobs that are within a two-hour travel time, for economic reasons. The bulk of their work is on projects with a $1 million to $5 million budget and, while part of the expense involves complying with two sets of state building codes and safety requirements particularly when working on educational buildings, health facilities and council buildings, in getting their work, JWP focuses on client relationships:

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We could be doing a $50,000 toilet block. It's not exciting work but you do it because it maintains the relationship and the goodwill. At the other end of the scale, we're working on a $50 million project locally for a new hotel, so pretty broad scale … Local, $50 million, jobs, they don't come up very often, but we're able to gear up for that’ (Rizzato iv, 23 May 2019).

When larger projects come in, Rizzato said the firm can expand quickly. In 2019, they were employing 13 people but then ‘ramped up to 17 or 18 people in a short space of time’, including increasing part- time workers’ hours (Rizzato iv, 23 May 2019). JWP has full-time, part-time and contracted staff, the majority of whom are drafts people and ‘two-thirds of them are actually studying architecture’ (ibid). He said Albury-Wodonga had ‘two or three’ similar-sized architecture firms in past years, but they are ‘led by baby boomers who are either already retired or are only a couple of years away, and have been scaling back’ (ibid).

Historically, regional architecture has been part of Albury-Wodonga’s push toward a diversified economy. This sector benefited significantly from the Building Education Revolution (BER) after the GFC hit globally. More than 23,500 construction projects went to Australian schools as the Federal Labor Government created a ‘$16.2 billion infrastructure program, designed to combat an expected economic downturn due to the 2008 global financial crisis’ (AAP, 2011). The NSW and Victorian governments ‘were responsible for delivering 37% of the program’ (AAP, 2011) and Creative Services firms such as JWP Architects benefitted.

ADVERTISING AND MARKETING Advertisers and marketers are more likely to be embedded in non-creative industries than employed with creative specialist firms. However, though low in number, these specialist firms do exist, and many have a national and international client base. SMEs such as the agencies Dutch Media, Kindred, WMedia and OGA Creative, all offer specialist services that extend the advertising and marketing skillset into design, software development and media.

OGA Creative is a well-established agency operating in Albury. Owned by Ben and Julia Simpson, it specialises in strategy and creating media assets that are tailored to clients’ business needs. OGA have 300 clients across Australia, and they have worked on commissions ranging from government projects through to the local trucking company, and project budgets range from $20,000 to $80,000. In 2019, they completed a national campaign for Royal Lifesaving, ‘targeting 18- to 24-year-old men, about water safety’ (Simpson, B. iv, 22 May 2019). Ben said their clients tend to be ‘private net-wealth individuals that own big, successful companies. So, we deal a lot with the owners, or the decision- makers, so we don’t have to go through committees’ (ibid).

OGA began in a design studio on the Simpsons property at Mullengandra. They found they needed to employ more specialists to deliver on their client strategies, and outgrew their studio, moving their business to South Albury. The size of the business now suits their ethos: ‘That corporate-to-corporate thing doesn't work for us. Our clients do not tolerate being palmed off. Our staff in our office have direct relationships with really important, successful people. So, if you homogenise that off like those big agencies, then we'd get dumped’ (Simpson, B. iv, 22 May 2019). In the future, Julia sees the video production side of the business growing from three to six employees (Simpson, J. iv, 22 May 2019). They support the local performing arts industry, mainly through Flying Fruit Fly Circus and HotHouse Theatre. Julia calls those jobs the ‘ten-percenters’ and OGA are happy to work on ‘anything that culturally enriches this area. I want a slice of it and am happy to make that sort of showcase work rather than a huge profit job’ (ibid).

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Kindred is a marketing and design business that delivers what they call agile and integrated strategy. Their senior team are account specialists who do strategy, brand, design and digital content. This all- female team is led by Creative Director Megan Zawertailo, who is supported in-house by a senior designer, digital designer, and a studio manager. Kindred collaborates with clients and trusted content suppliers to create work that stands apart. Their local campaigns include the local shopping centre ‘Myer Centerpoint’ and the Albury-Wodonga Visitor Information campaign, and ‘Upper Murray’ guides for food, visitors and residents. Located inside Kindred is a co-working space called K-Lab, which offers a hot desk for designers.

Wmedia offers design, photography and graphics. Run by a couple, Nic Wilke is also a pilot who does aerial photography and video production, and Mel Wilke is a designer and creative director with over two decades of experience (Wmedia, 2019). This SME does a wide range of media and design products from broadcast work with ABC TV program Australian Story to local TV commercials and media campaigns.

Dutch Media, located in Wodonga, is a typical modern advertising agency offering a diverse range of services that move it from a pure Advertising and Marketing agency, across into Media, Design and Software development sectors. Opening in 2010, it now employs just under 20 specialists with services in media and strategy, graphic design, branding, audio and video, web and software development and photography. Ben Hollands is the Managing Director, with a background in advertising. Dutch Media pride themselves on designing and implementing a unique campaign ‘with its own planning strategy, because every product and every client is different, there’s no “one size fits all” approach in sight’ (Dutch Media, 2019).

There are co-working spaces in the region that house sole practitioners. For example, in Albury there was one co-working space called Hustle and a few smaller desk sharing, co-working spaces. There were no accelerator co-working spaces in Albury-Wodonga.

SOFTWARE AND DIGITAL CONTENT Software and Digital Content is a growing sector for Albury-Wodonga, with the most growth again occurring with embedded creatives, at a rate of 4.7%. One specialist SME operating in this sector for 12 years is COXTECH, which employs 10 people (three women, six men, and a few part-time contracts). It’s owned by Damien Cox, who calls himself ‘Head Geek’:

My staff are all geeks whether it be IT geeks or web geeks. So, we've tried to play to the fun side of IT but at the same time we want to deliver professional services. So, we're casual more in our dress than traditional IT companies, but we're still following a lot of cutting edge, industry best-practice type methodologies (Cox iv, 23 May 2019)

COXTECH offers three services: computer maintenance and repairs, on a contracted or subscription basis; web design; and software and custom app development. Cox provides an example where a manufacturer of a few different products wants to monitor the efficiency of the manufacturing product line ‘so we've written some software that allows the line operators to put in a few key metrics as part of their shift and then that gets fed up the tree to management and senior management. And then they can make more educated decisions on what's working and what's not’ (Cox iv, 23 May 2019).

A new line of business is with cryptocurrencies, where they are trying to create a decentralised version of Bitcoin. Cox also has a client who is building a virtual reality app with games attached in which the user can look for online currency so ‘rather than collecting an object, they can potentially collect hard

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cash, or a voucher that can be redeemed in a store’ (Cox iv, 23 May 2019). This type of coding requires a sophisticated understanding of financial security. Cox worked for the Commonwealth Bank during the dot-com boom. Although a ‘kid’ at the time, he worked on the development of CommSec’s online stockbroker software (ibid). This experience led to a bold attitude: ‘We haven’t been scared at really having a go at anything in the technology space’ (ibid). Most business is ‘client referrals and word of mouth’. Rates depend on the services that are required. They charge an hourly rate of $115 for maintenance and computer builds and have project rates between $10,000 and $20,000 for setting up a new network, supplying new computers and deploying and configuring it to the Cloud. Website work can begin at $2,000 and move to $30,000 depending on the level of complexity around e- commerce and shopping carts. The COXTECH crew have developed IP for WordPress that has resulted from the successful e-commerce work that they have done (Cox iv, 23 May 2019). The poor quality regional NBN has also brought in specialist work for COXTECH, as creative solutions have been required for ‘some of our clients that have got troublesome NBN connections, to give them mobile phone, 4G-type backups and other scenarios to just ensure that when these spikes come and go, that they are not affected by that’ (ibid). Cox said there are companies embracing the Cloud, ‘regardless of the age of the business owner. If they're motivated enough, they'll learn it, or they'll get staff on which they can delegate that responsibility to’ (ibid).

Strategic theme 2: The relationship of cultural and creative activity to the wider economy At the same time as Councils are engaged in having Albury-Wodonga ‘recognised as a cultural and creative region, that embraces and celebrates diversity’ (TCOC 2017, p. 8) they are developing and promoting, through their Two Cities One Community initiative, the Smart Communities Framework program. This aims to develop a ‘multipurpose space for Council and technology partners to showcase smart technologies and support the digital economy as well as instigating a laboratory for co-creation and innovation, developing and testing ideas such as mobile apps’ (ibid).

To attract investment and population, Mayor Kevin Mack says Albury has been a long-term partner in the Evocities campaign, which also runs across Bathurst, Dubbo, Tamworth and Wagga Wagga. The Albury website pages from Evocities highlights, among other things, ‘a business environment that is consistently buoyant, providing excellent job stability and security’ and ‘an active cultural and artistic scene’ (Evocities, 2020 online). Mack said the ‘one-click portal’ will ‘tell you everything about Albury. It'll tell you where to go for property, jobs, lifestyle, education. And then you'll have a drop down where you can contact someone’ (Mack iv, 24 May 2019). It promotes an active cultural and artistic scene and provides links to the Creative Industries it draws on and supports.

The website is a very able demonstration of what the Creative Industries are doing in relation to the broader regional economy. It’s set up required creatives to design and build the site, write text, design logos, take photographs, shoot and produce videos, record and mix sound, and produce a marketing campaign and blog. This creative work is all done locally: ‘We've actually commissioned all this video work locally. On local people’ and the ads are ‘streamed on national television, on the Today Show’ (Mack iv, 24 May 2019).

EDUCATION There are at least 20 primary and secondary schools in Albury-Wodonga. In terms of tertiary offerings, Charles Sturt University’s purpose-built Albury campus opened in 2009, and apart from Information Technology it offers no courses related to the Creative Industries, having transferred CI offering

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including multimedia and film to Wagga Wagga (CI focus group, May 2019). Among its offerings, La Trobe University campus in Wodonga has a Diploma in Arts, but if a local student wants to take on a CI-related program they need to attend the Bendigo, Ballarat, or Melbourne campuses. Currently, neither university offers a Visual Arts or Fine Arts degree. However, they had previously, and Simone Hogg from Wodonga Council said, ‘we do know that there are people who have been introduced to the region because of the [visual arts program] and stayed’ (Hogg iv, 24 May 2019). Justine Ambrosio, the Arts Space Wodonga Team Leader with Wodonga Council, said the reduced tertiary offerings in Albury-Wodonga is ‘quite clearly a gap for a regional centre’ (Ambrosio iv, 24 May 2019). They are aware that regional tertiary offerings in CI degrees are important to places such as Albury-Wodonga and link these to emerging and mid-careers artist commissions. Simone Hogg said, ‘a lot of the artists that we work with for a range of commissions and projects are people who participated in visual arts courses here’ (Hogg iv, 24 May 2019). And the ‘ageing demographic in our visual arts workforce … I do put that down to having a course locally, and then not (Hogg iv, 24 May 2019).

While there are no media-related courses taught here, the Riverina TAFE on the Wodonga side of the Murray does offer a Certificate III in Information, Digital Media And Technology through its School of Creative Arts, Design and Digital Media. It also offers a Diploma in Graphic Design and Visual Arts, a Diploma and Certificates in Interior Design, a Diploma and Certificates in Photography, a Diploma in Sound Engineering, and a Certificate IV in Music Industry. Teaching staff include two professional photographers, a fashion designer, a sound production engineer, an interior designer and a graphic designer, all of whom have significant industry experience (CI focus group, 25 May 2019). The students they teach come from a wide catchment, typically from Albury-Wodonga, Wangaratta, Benalla, Beechworth, with some from as far as Lockhart, Tumut, Wagga, Young and Bendigo (ibid). Students from all over Australia enrol in online courses. Overall demand for these TAFE courses appears to be good (ibid).

Educational opportunities come from other unexpected quarters. The Flying Fruit Fly Circus School is funded as a national centre for arts training excellence and boasts purpose-built circus arts training facilities in Albury, while the school itself is in Wodonga. This school is part of the ARTS8 group, elite performing arts training institutes that work together towards a shared vision of artistic excellence and innovation to train tomorrow’s cultural and artistic leaders. The ARTS8 are funded through the Department of Communications and the Arts under Prime Minister and Cabinet (NICA, 2019). As mentioned previously, Flying Fruit Fly Circus is also funded ‘for the artistic program from Create NSW and Creative Victoria’ (Hull iv, 23 May 2019).

The program began in 1985-86, and in 2019 there were 79 enrolled students, with 50 auditioning for the in-school training program that took 13. Tahni Froudist explains how the curriculum works: ‘Items like drama and dance that would usually be done at school are done here. So, part of their sport, PE and creative arts curriculum is done here. And then after-school training as well’ (Froudist iv, 23 May 2019). The school also offers a two-week intensive training program, taking people age 12 to 35 years at a cost of $1,100, and Saturday recreational programs (ABC Goulburn Murray, 2019). The Fruit Fly Circus School is a training ground with a global reach. Froudist describes the success of graduates from the last two years:

We have three that are at ANU in Canberra doing engineering, science and maths. We have two that left straight from Fruit Fly to contracts with Cirque du Solei in Montreal. We have students making work in fringe festivals and working with smaller contemporary circus companies across the country (Froudist iv, 23 May 2019).

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THE NATIONAL BROADBAND NETWORK (NBN) The NBN promised regional Australia the potential to compete on an equal footing with metropolitan businesses and the ability to take their goods and services to the world. This network promised to help ‘homes and businesses to access the benefits of fast internet, such as on-demand entertainment options, access to online learning tools and the ability to work remotely’ (NBNCo 2018, online). This promise has become crucial for the Creative Industries, which increasingly relies on digital infrastructure. The NBN was offered as early as 2016 (Albury Northside, 2016) and while some extolled its benefits, such as Danny Jones a freelance photographer in Wodonga (NBNCo 2018, online), for others the delivery has been problematic, with a number of businesses and residents continuing to be disappointed with the quality of the service.

Advertising and Marketing agency OGA said the NBN service in Albury is hugely problematic, noting it took them two years to get their set-up right: ‘Telstra kept getting our account set-up wrong, so we kept going to the bottom of the pile’ (Simpson, J. iv, 22 May 2019). OGA worked from their property in a design studio for a number of years: ‘At home, we pay a fortune and we can't even get NBN. We actually have the pipeline going through our farm and we can't get internet service’ (Simpson, B. iv, 22 May 2019). Wodonga Council wants to upgrade the digital interpretation exhibition at the Bonegilla Migrant Experience but is unable to: ‘It’s an absolute nightmare. It’s not a black spot, I’d say it’s part- black, it’s grey. It’s a grey spot. We’d love to be able to do more digital interpretation on site; but that’s just not going to happen’ (Hogg iv, 24 May 2019).

Luke Wilson, the Cross-Border Commissioner operating out of Wodonga, says that satisfaction with the NBN depends on where you are. He spends time on the road and relies on it to do his job:

In some areas that I'm dealing with, electronic connection is a theory; it simply does not exist, or if it does exist it's pretty ordinary …There's swathes where there's nothing. If you haven't got a ‘sat’ phone, you're off the grid. Then there's areas elsewhere where it just gets a bit patchy. Usually if you're in the towns it's OK. Then when you go beyond just using a mobile phone, more uplift, it can get patchy. Even in areas with major highways where you think the coverage would be solid it can still be a challenge’ (Wilson iv, May 2019).

Those in more remote parts of the region, such as farmers in the Riverina, often need practical solutions because of poor quality NBN, given that farming equipment such as self-driving tractors that operate 24 hours a day seven days a week rely on wi-fi networks. Some farmers are spending up to $15,000 on software solutions to help with poor reception. COXTECH, a software business mentioned above, is employed by farmers to solve poor quality NBN services. Damien Cox said for one farmer the solution has been to ‘put a shipping container on the top of a hill where we can get the NBN and then we're relaying that internet back to the farmhouse or the farm office to create this wi-fi mesh network’ (iv, 23 May 2019).

LIVING ON THE BORDER, CULTURAL TOURISM AND CULTURAL POLICY

Living on the border can have positive and negative effects. At times, as OGA owner Ben Simpson points out, it feels that the NSW Government forgets about Albury: ‘We've actually missed a state election because it didn't even make it on to the radio that there was a state election. In Victoria, there's a massive amount of money from the Victorian Government going into Wodonga’ (Simpson, B iv, 22 May 2019).

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Figure 8 Tourism activity, Albury and Wodonga

As would be expected, there is a reasonable level of cultural tourism occurring in the region, through festivals, winery visits, museums, art galleries and so on, and many of those operating these attractions need to work across the border. Luke Wilson, the Cross-Border Commissioner in Wodonga, said the cross-border challenge is a ‘recurring thing’ in tourism, with organisations ‘looking to develop programs or hold events that would really warrant support from both states, and they're going to generate benefits for both states, but you get this standoff’ (Wilson iv, May 2019). The suggestion is that the process doesn’t work as well as it could because decision-makers will say the candidate is on the wrong side of the river. They will say ‘Oh no, we can't because most of the benefit will go to the other side’ (ibid). While Wilson said there are some funding sources ‘with geography in the rules’, it is ‘far less common for there really to be a rule, than it is to say that there is a rule’. He advises organisations to ‘ask to be shown the piece of paper that has that rule on it’ (ibid). If there are rules, Wilson said part of his job is to challenge them: ‘It doesn't mean that I'm saying to the state, you should just spend money that possibly NSW should spend’, rather it’s encouraging Victoria to ‘come to the party … Don't just walk away. Find a way’ (ibid).

AlburyCity’s Cultural Development Coordinator Narelle Vogel said the location of Albury-Wodonga is ‘quite removed from Melbourne and from Sydney’ and this was a challenge.

So, when you're talking about Ballarat and Bendigo and even Geelong, the day tripper, that kind of commute sort of audience or participation is quite close in Victoria, not so much for us either to Sydney or Melbourne. Really, Canberra is probably the place we might try and reach out to (Vogel iv, 22 May 2019).

One of the cultural attractions for visitors is the Bonegilla Migrant Experience. In December 2007, Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre Block 19 was recognised as a place with powerful connections for many people and is now on the National Heritage List as a symbol of post-war migration that transformed Australia's economy, society and culture. Simone Hogg, from Wodonga Council, said the Councils had worked jointly on the project. The ‘site, the huts’ are in Wodonga’s collection, and the ‘artefacts, the Bonegilla connection’ are in Albury’s. The Councils had an MOU and

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worked together: ‘the same with event attraction, where the opportunity exists’ (Hogg iv, 24 May 2019).

Strategic theme 3: Hotspot Comparisons The constraining and enabling effects of policy actions were observed in all regions studied and these are particularly strong in Albury-Wodonga. A variety of CI initiatives were supported in all hotspots by Regional Development Victoria, Launch Vic, and Creative Victoria. There is also a very deep connection between digitisation and the ability for regional players to operate competitively in the local and global environment. With this connection between digitisation and the ability to be competitive, it is worth noting that Wodonga has the poorest internet quality of the four Victorian sites studied.

There is no doubt that Victoria has stolen a march on all other states in attracting the Creative Industries. Across all Victorian regions in the study, there was evidence gathered of ecological interdependence, where the regional Creative Industries are interconnected across sectors, and networked within and between each other, exhibiting complementary activity at all scales. In terms of the ability of regional centres to weather economic cycles, each hotspot demonstrates the resilience and benefits of diverse and mixed economies. Across all the regions in NSW in the study there was evidence gathered of ecological interdependence, where the regional Creative Industries are interconnected across sectors, networked within and between each other, and exhibiting complementary activity at all scales. It also remains a fact that individuals are vitally important as drivers of the CI in all of the regional communities studied. Each has exhibited a patterned set of demographic movements and strong connection to locality. Geelong and Ballarat, as well as Ballarat-Bendigo-Wodonga, are connected through rail and road infrastructure that has developed over a long period of time, proving beneficial to each region as it has allowed Creative Industries workers to commute between regions and to Melbourne, a national hub of Creative Industries. The Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) is strong in both Bendigo and Ballarat. A view is held that the City of Bendigo has been a leader in heritage and town planning, and there exists some rivalry between Ballarat and Bendigo in this regard. Greater Bendigo occupies a broad physical area with 15-17% of the population living in rural parts of Bendigo, whereas, Ballarat is virtually an urban area, ‘so if there is a lower proportion of people working in the Creative Industries in Bendigo it’s because of the rural areas, that actually drags down our percentage, while Geelong is the urban area plus the Bellarine Peninsula, which is a pretty wealthy creative area’ (Budge iv, 24 June 2019). While generalisations between the creative capacity of regional Victorian towns can be made, looking at the specialties of each in this study highlights each region’s strengths, which have developed over time. When examined systematically, the complexities and networks that typify the Creative Industries tend to benefit not only each region but the Victorian state as a whole. In contrast to areas such as La Trobe, where ‘economies have been singly focused on their manufacturing’, Ballarat, Geelong and Bendigo, have developed economies that are ‘much broader and that has allowed for that broadening of infrastructure across a whole gamut of professions to emerge’ (White iv, 26 June 2019). While it is a common theme that the liveability of regional cities makes up for lower wages, it also remains a fact that active agents, that is individuals who ‘get things done’, are vitally important as one of the drivers of the Creative Industries. In all these communities, Creative Industries clusters have exhibited a patterned set of demographic movements, with sea changers and tree changers taking advantage of the regional lifestyle and real estate prices, commuters moving daily between

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Table 1 New South Wales hotspot comparisons Coffs Harbour Marrickville & Wollongong Albury & & Bellingen Sydenham LGA Wodonga LGAs SA2s LGAs ASGS remoteness category Inner regional Major cities of Inner regional Inner regional Australia Australia Australia Australia RAI region type Regional city Major Regional city Regional city / metropolitan Industry & service hub Resident population, 2016a 85,612 34,380 203,630 90,427 Average annual growth 2011-2016 1.1% 1.6% 1.1% 1.6% Employed persons, 2016b 32,495 19,030 79,222 43,915 Average annual growth 2011-2016 2.7% 5.4% 1.8% 3.0% Total creative employment, 2016 b 915 1,496 3,217 1,113 Average annual growth 2011-2016 2.1% 6.8% 2.6% 0.3% Total earnings from creative $46.9m $89.5m $208.1m $64.1m employment, 2016 b Average annual growth 2011-2016 3.9% 6.3% 2.6% 3.8% Total businesses, 2016 22,064 12,576 44,083 21,361 Average annual growth 2011-2016 0.8% 1.4% 2.1% 1.0% Total creative businesses, 2016 1,484 2,428 4,100 1,125 Average annual growth 2011-2016 1.4% 5.1% 4.3% 2.9% Proportion of all businesses 49.7% 49.9% 45.9% 51.4% registered for GST, 2016 Proportion of creative businesses 39.2% 34.9% 33.4% 39.9% registered for GST, 2016 Regional domestic product, 2017-18 $3,857m $1,929mc $11,012m $5,192m Average annual growth Mean age a 42.4 38.1 39.6 38.7 Unemployment ratea 7.3% 5.6% 7.7% 6.9% Youth unemployment ratea 15.3% 11.4% 16.3% 13.3% Youth unemployment ratioa 48.0% 43.4% 48.5% 42.0% Indigenousa 4.8% 1.7% 2.6% 2.6% Volunteera 17.1% 14.2% 15.2% 17.4% Note a. These statistics are provided by place of residence, and b. are by place of work c. RDP for Marrickville/Sydenham is estimated by multiplying RDP for the Inner West LGA by the proportion of employed persons located in Marrickville/Sydenham Source: ABS (2016), ABR (2019), .idcommunity (2019), Regional Australia Institute (2014)

Melbourne, Geelong and Ballarat, and from surrounding regions to the Surf Coast at holiday times. It is notable that the relationship between innovation and start-up culture within the Creative Industries, which is very strong in Ballarat and Geelong, has become more entrenched and interconnected, while there is an increasingly wide array of approaches to gaining an income, particularly in micro businesses where highly skilled creatives sell their services or products. Ballarat has Federation University and with State Government investing over decades into tech parks here and in other regions, Software and Digital Content is a key area of growth for the broader economy.

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Table 2 Victoria hotspot comparisons Greater Ballarat LGA Greater Albury & Geelong & Bendigo LGA Wodonga Surf Coast LGAs LGAs ASGS remoteness category Inner regional Inner regional Inner regional Inner regional Australia Australia Australia Australia RAI region type Regional city / Regional city Regional city Regional city / Connected Industry & lifestyle region service hub Resident population, 2016a 262,828 101,689 110,479 90,427 Average annual growth 2011-2016 2.1% 1.7% 1.9% 1.6% Employed persons, 2016b 103,752 45,794 45,051 43,915 Average annual growth 2011-2016 3.8% 3.3% 3.5% 3.0% Total creative employment, 2016 b 4,316 2,137 1,367 1,113 Average annual growth 2011-2016 5.7% 2.0% 2.9% 0.3% Total earnings from creative $260.2m $119.1m $77.0m $64.1m employment, 2016 b Average annual growth 2011-2016 4.8% 4.4% 4.7% 3.8% Total businesses, 2016 66,897 23,499 22,709 21,361 Average annual growth 2011-2016 2.3% 2.9% 1.7% 1.0% Total creative businesses, 2016 5,060 1,668 1,444 1,125 Average annual growth 2011-2016 4.7% 4.1% 3.0% 2.9% Proportion of all businesses 49.4% 52.0% 51.2% 51.4% registered for GST, 2016 Proportion of creative businesses 38.0% 40.5% 38.0% 39.9% registered for GST, 2016 Regional domestic product, 2017-18 $13,852m $5,632m $5,305m $5,192m Average annual growth 5.0% 8.4% 0.8% 0.1% Mean age a 40.1 39.0 39.5 38.7 Unemployment ratea 6.5% 7.6% 6.8% 6.9% Youth unemployment ratea 13.2% 15.0% 14.0% 13.3% Youth unemployment ratioa 45.3% 46.7% 44.8% 45.3% Indigenousa 2.6% 1.5% 1.7% 2.6% Volunteera 17.4% 17.8% 18.7% 17.3% Note a. These statistics are provided by place of residence, and b. are by place of work Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016), ABR (2019), .idcommunity (2019), Regional Australia Institute (2014), REMPLAN (2019)

Geelong has a very large urban area including the Bellarine Peninsula, and there has been significant State Government investment in the Geelong Arts Centre the Library and the Gallery. Geelong also has Deakin University with a number of Creative Industries programs on offer, including architecture, which has massively increased capacity. In Bendigo, the Art Gallery works very closely with Bendigo Tourism and also has a developed relationship with La Trobe University’s Bendigo campus and the La Trobe Art Institute, a higher education partner with Bendigo Art Gallery. Cultural tourism was strongly featured in the four sites, with an increasing importance placed on strengthening the connection between Creative Industries and cultural tourism. The economic

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injection from out-of-town visitations means these regional centres can prosper. Wodonga delivers a strong cultural program including events staged at The Cube Wodonga, the Bonegilla Migrant Experience, and Gateway Village creating a vibrant group of cultural organisations that attract visitors to Murray Arts, HotHouse Theatre and the Jazz Basement. Bendigo has the Bendigo Easter Festival, Bendigo Blues and Roots Music Festival and Bendigo Art Gallery, which are impressive visitor attractors for Bendigo’s economy. For Ballarat, there are museums and family experiences to be found at Sovereign Hill, Eureka Centre, and the Gold Museum, and the Archibald Prize has been hosted by the Art Gallery of Ballarat. Other visual and performing arts events are the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, The Royal South Street Eisteddfod held at Her Majesty’s Theatre, White Night and the Meredith Music Festival. In Geelong. there is the Mount to Mouth Arts Walk, Geelong After Dark and National Wool Museum, and the Surf Coast has Falls Festival, Lorne Sculpture Biennale, Surf Coast Arts Trail and The Australian National Surfing Museum.

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Appendices Data tables and heat maps are available via the following hyperlinks:

Appendix A Census data Appendix A.1 Creative employment: counts, growth rates, intensities and heat maps Appendix A.2 Creative earnings: total earnings, growth rates, intensities and heat maps Appendix A.3 Creative incomes: mean incomes, growth rates, intensities and heat maps Appendix A.4 Creative employment by sector, heat maps Appendix A.5 Creative employment by ANZSIC4 industry category, state comparisons Appendix A.6 Creative employment by ANZCO4 occupation category, state comparisons Appendix B Australian Business Register data

Appendix B.1 Creative businesses: counts, growth rates, intensities and heat maps (forthcoming)

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