Festival Artistic Director

Want to showcase and celebrate the diverse literary culture of the NT? We are looking for a skilled and uplifting Festival Artistic Director who can fulfill our aims and direct our unique, place based, inspiring festival.

Your new organisation

NT Writers’ Centre (NTWC) supports, develops and showcases writing and storytelling in the Northern Territory, celebrating the unique contribution of NT stories and storytellers to Australia’s cultural identity.

We play a significant role in the national arts sectors, delivering a range of events, programs, publications, writing awards and the festival, ensuring that NT writers and writing are celebrated in the national canon. We are a national leader in platforming First Nations voices and writers with up to a third of artists at our annual festival being First Nations, from the NT and interstate. We are also a leader in Asian engagement, making connections in the region through our biennial Darwin festival.

Our cornerstone event – the NT Writers Festival (NTWF) – is the Northern Territory’s premier literary showcase. It is an extraordinary festival that brings readers and writers together to celebrate ideas, words, stories and languages. Held alternately in Darwin and Mparntwe/Alice Springs, the festival takes place in iconic outdoor locations that celebrate the NT’s unique environments and that reflects the NT’s distinctive culture, including its rich First Nations heritage.

A little about the role

You will be part of a small, skilled, experienced and motivated team who are caring, bold, respectful and inclusive in the arts and literature sector. You will be responsible for running the NT Writers Festival in June 2025 in Mparntwe/Alice Springs.  This includes the artistic process from concept to delivery, supported by the established networks and procedures developed over 10 years of delivering the Festival.

The job is mainly office based, with some flexibility of work hours, days & WfH. On occasion, there is a requirement to work evenings and weekends. Job start date is early August, with an invitation to attend this year’s Festival in Darwin, 27-30 June 2024.

You will be focused on:

• Programming
  • Researching and developing a theme and program of events for the 2025 NT Writers Festival, in consultation with NTWC staff, the Festival advisory committee and local Arrernte community.
• Partnerships, Funding & Financial Management
  • Responding to funding, sponsorship, partnership and in-kind opportunities.
  • Developing, manging, recording and acquitting Festival budgets, including overseeing invoicing.
• Program Management
  • Ensuring delivery of a safe and professional multi-day event and identifying opportunities to increase NTWF impact, engagement, profile and reach, whilst meeting key milestones.
  • Ensuring Ticketing and Website enable maximising ticket sales.
  • Engaging and supervising Production Manager to ensure all technical requirements of the Festival are met.
• Marketing & Publicity
  • Overseeing the development of all design and marketing material for the Festival including poster, program, bookmark, and other online and print collateral.
  • Write copy for the printed program, overseeing its design.
• Artists Management
  • Negotiating all Artist contracts and engagements and develop artist schedules.
  • Collecting accurate artist promotional information.

How to apply

Please let us know any access requirements you may have so we can help with your application or interview process, as well as your pronouns. We welcome applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse people, and people from the LGBTQI+ community.

Send your resume, including two referees, and responses to these 4 questions to executive@ntwriters.com.au. Relate your responses to the essential selection criteria (max 2-3 pages).

Here is a link to the selection criteria and a full position description  Enquiries are welcome, please contact SezzaJai Sykes, NTWC Executive Director,  executive@ntwriters.com.au or call on 0405 980 944. Application deadline: Midnight, Sun 15 June 2024.