by Candide McDonald, editor.
“Pattaya is manky.” By comparison, Kings Cross is chaste and Surfers Paradise, elegant. (If you’re not Australian, neither of these are our crowning glories.) My first impression of Thailand was…interesting.
Because Pattaya is a real culture shock at 2.30 am on a Sunday morning. As my driver pointed out – one lurid detail at a time – 2.30 am is not the best time to view the seaside resort town.
I found out next morning, when I went for a walk before work, that Pattaya is manky all the time. There’s no good time to view it if you’re expecting a beauty shot. By day, there are fewer people beckoning you into massage parlours, fewer street vendors, few homeless people asleep by the side of the road. Smaller street crowds. And the sleazy nightclubs that run cheek by jowl along Walking Street are all “asleep”…but you notice its decay more.
After a few days, you get to love that. Except for the fact that pedestrian crossings are considered to be dart boards and you the bull’s-eye, the town’s seedy nature and laconic mood is endearing. Australia really is a nanny country.
Adfest, on the other hand, is meticulously groomed. It has moved into the opulent resort complex, Royal Cliff Hotels Group, for the awards judging and festival, and accommodated its crew, Buzz team, jurors and speakers across the group’s three hotels, which surround the conference centre, PEACH, where the working part of the week is taking place.
There seem to be almost as many pools as guests in the complex’s maze of gardens. Who would complain about that.
Adfest is also meticulously run. Judging runs like clockwork and everyone’s work is beautifully presented in viewing rooms, screening halls, installations and company booths.
Speakers sessions and workshops are flawlessly choreographed.
I was invited by Curious Film to moderate Matt Noonan’s question time. When my moment came to walk onto stage, I was handed “my mic”(from a cast of twenty, at least), which was already switched on, linked to all the tech on and raring to go (much more than I was, I admit. I had a few seconds of major league stage fright before my heart stopped trying to break out of my chest.) That happened without a full rehearsal, just a meet and greet the day before.
A daily broadsheet newsletter, distributed with a selection of trade magazines throughout the festival area, kept everyone in the know. My articles were included in its stories – interviews, talk and workshop round-ups, and need-to-know information – that were written, laid out and published “on the go” every day.
OK, that got hectic. But unless you were on the team, you’d never have known.
And the service, both at the festival and in the resort was – well, Asian – which is a synonym for utterly superb. That really counts when you’ve accidentally wandered into the tech room or can’t find the infinity pool for your Fadi Yaish interview (that was a bit of a nasty moment). And it’s so cool when the highlight of the week is not chatting with Ted Royer, getting up on stage with Matt Noonan or making an ad with Simon Lister and Hamish MacDonald, but watching a stern-faced uniformed security guard dissolve into laughter when you return his formal salute with a your cheeky one of your own.
Thank you, Adfest. It was an honour to give you a little bit of a hand with the magnificent event you put on for the Asia Pacific region. And, by the way, the work you presented was superb (OK, uneven – but I’m going with superb). Kudos to creativity in the region.
