2012 PuSh Festival Wildly Entertaining and Delightfully Provocative
February 10, 2012
Thank you to everyone who made the 2012 Festival a success! Audience members, PuSh passholders, sponsors, donors, artists, volunteers, partners, staff and contractors – you are all part of the Festival family and we couldn’t have done it without you.
The eighth annual PuSh International Performing Arts Festival took place in Vancouver January 17–February 4, 2012, and proved an artistic, critical and popular success. Executive director Norman Armour said this about the 2012 Festival:
“We set out this year to achieve a series of curatorial, audience awareness/development, earned and contributed revenue, management and board goals. We met them. With any rigorous art practice, each stroke is not only an act of creation, it’s a test and form of experiment in content, in genre, in aesthetics, in engagement and community relevance. Our approach to this year’s PuSh Festival was no different. Standouts are three undeniable, irrepressible weeks of Club PuSh with Theatre Conspiracy, and the ground-shifting Aboriginal Performance Series presented by Vancity. This year’s Festival had a remarkable team—both paid and volunteer. Their investment and support, alongside PuSh Pass holders, other audience members, public and foreign agencies, corporate sponsors, individual donors and organizational partners, were an ongoing source of inspiration and renewal in the face of countless challenges. Thank you all! Have a healthy and prosperous year of the dragon.”
Overview of the 2012 Festival
• Total audience numbers were approximately 20,000 with an average house capacity of 80%.
• The Festival included an opening gala at The Waldorf Hotel, 17 Main Series shows, three full weeks of Club PuSh with 12 Club Marquee Acts and six evenings of Late Nights at Club PuSh, and industry/networking initiatives The PuSh Assembly and The Attacks Lab workshops, all totaling almost 150 performances and events at 14 venues in Vancouver over 19 days.
• An Aboriginal Performance Series was presented by Vancity, which encompassed 13 different performances of five different shows that profiled work by contemporary indigenous artists. A corresponding community ticketing accessibility initiative, supported by Vancity, distributed over 650 tickets to Aboriginal individuals and groups.
• Over 250 artists presented work from Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Japan, Lebanon, New Zealand, Argentina, The Netherlands and Mexico.
• PuSh was involved in the commissioning of 5 new works (one of which involved a new Commissioning Circle of individual donors), and housed 15 artists in residence.
• The Festival sold 400 PuSh passes to loyal audience members.
• A dedicated roster of 87 volunteers worked over 1,200 hours in support of the Festival.
• 27 performances sold out, as did two collaborations with Dine Out Vancouver.
• PuSh connected heavily with audiences online, engaging with 3,500 fans on Facebook and 2,700 followers on Twitter.
“What a great Festival this has been! The expected mix of wildly entertaining and delightfully provocative programming has once again found the kind of audience, sponsor and donor enthusiasm that makes PuSh one of the city’s healthiest non-profits. In a less than ideal economic climate the Festival has flourished through a mix of agile and thrifty management, flexible responses to challenges, a concentrated joint campaign by staff and board to boost non-government income and an equally intense campaign to boost public awareness at every level, particularly through social media. PuSh’s time has come—and PuSh is ready for it.” – Board President Max Wyman, OC.
Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata (presented with Arts Club Theatre Company) has been held over until February 18, 2012.
The dates for the 2013 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival are set for January 15 to February 3, 2013. Join our mailing list and be the first to know the details. See you next year!