This activity is part of a three-year capacity-building programme on festival management launched by the British Council in Hanoi in cooperation with the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
As well as helping to promote the arts, the British Council also put
British festival organisers in touch with their Vietnamese counterparts.
The first training workshop is held by UK festival director Nick Dodds.
Arts promoters and festival organisers from Hanoi, HCM City, Quang Ninh, Khanh Hoa, Hue and Binh Thuan are in attendance.
The programme, which is part of the British Council’s global project
entitled “New Work New Audience”, includes a series of training
workshops on arts festival organisation led by UK directors and a series
of wraparound events to showcase UK and Vietnamese arts to audience in
the two countries. “The British Council hopes through this project,
festival organisers will be better able to contribute to the development
of the country’s cultural infrastructure,” said Simon Beardow, deputy
director of the British Council Vietnam.
Nick Dodds was chief executive of the Brighton Dome and Brighton
Festival from 2000 to 2008, where he was responsible for artistic and
commercial operations.
Dodds oversaw the relaunch in 2002 of the Brighton Festival Fringe-
England’s largest arts festival. He was also responsible for the capital
refurbishment of the Brighton Dome and Museum.
Dodds was formerly chairman of the British Arts Festival Associations
and the International Festival and Events Association- Europe.
Dodds has been organizing arts events for nearly 30 years.
“I have been waiting for this kind of event for a long time,” said Huynh Tien Dat, Deputy Director of the Hue Festival Centre.
“Vietnam
has no school or centre offering training in festival organization. I
attended a course for cultural officers but it was a general workshop
and did not focus on festival organization,” Dat said.
The programme will be held every three months in different locations. The next workshop is scheduled to be held in Hue in June.