What a week.

First week in my new full-time job outside of directing the Festival. Combine this with keeping on top of my uni work and making a new piece in my own artistic practice, and I have never been happier to approach the weekend. And, I think, never more wrecked as I sit here on my Saturday with a pile of work still to do.

We had our fortnightly festival meeting this week, which as always was overcomplicated. I am of the opinion that meetings of this nature should take no longer than an hour - any longer and it is a sure sign of inefficiency. We can consistently reach an hour and a half, which in the past was fine but these days with the new job is a little unacceptable. I would love to be able to take things in hand and chair the meeting, but I don't really feel that that's my role. I'm not the Festival Director - I'm the Artistic Director, and technically only in charge of the artistic side of the festival. But I have to admit me that it drives me a little crazy when people go off on long tangents about unrelated matters. I compare this to the staff meetings at my work, in which a meeting of fifteen staff with a much bigger program is usually concluded within 45 minutes, and I wonder how I can bring the philosophies behind that meeting to the festival meetings without appearing to be in a rush or too brutal about cutting people off.

I'm feeling frustrated in general this week by the lack of clout I command, not so much for pride reasons but just because it inhibits my attempts to simply do my job. In the meeting my boss said that 'we have to talk' about the visual art program, much of which I inherited from her when I was employed - not necessarily a bad thing because there are some amazing artists in there, but does manifest a bit of a struggle to reconcile my own curatorial integrity with the festival she envisages. This need to 'talk' arose from the fact that about half of the artists have said that they are interested, but have yet to absolutely confirm their participation. This is a valid cause for concern, but from my point of view we're still six and a half months out - I'd rather focus on rectifying our dire financial situation and concentrating on where we can get more sponsorship. When that's done, at least I'll know what I can offer the artists, which is my biggest problem when approaching people at the moment. I aim to have the artistic program more or less confirmed by the end of April, because we need to apply for council permits in May. But saying all this makes me feel as though I might come across like I'm just making excuses. But seriously, they're artists - and as an artist myself, I know that I'll say 'yes' to something months and months before, but there's no way I'd be thinking about exactly what I'll do six months out. All I'd have is vague ideas, and they just need time to get their ideas together.

I've had a similar problem with the live music I've suggested - the two bands I've so far put forward are 'more for young people,' and the committee launched into telling me that I needed to get more diverse music to suit different audience groups. I had to explain that I appreciated this, and that accordingly I have a list of other groups that I will be approaching, from folk duos to reggae to jazz, but that, again, as I don't have an idea of what I can offer them for their time, I've been holding off approaching them until the money is sorted.

I'm sorry, dear reader, that this entry is such a winge-fest, but at least it's an accurate reflection of what I'm dealing with in this role. I feel beset on all sides by doubters, and I feel that any power I do have to make this festival awesome is in danger of being slowly stripped away from me. And then, as I said last entry, when the festival isn't awesome, it can be nobody's fault but mine.

I guess I just have to keep plodding on and let it just wash off me. At the end of the day, while I have to respect my boss and the committee, I need to do it in a way that doesn't compromise my vision.