Communicating Culture

Gina Fairley, ‘Would you pay $2K to attend a conference?’ ArtsHub, 8 September 2014

You’re mad if you don’t. You are paying your way to the table with the world’s great museum communicators including MoMA, the Louvre, the Getty, the Tate and more.

It’s a lot of money for an individual – less so for an organisation – but as the adage goes, ‘you have to spend money to make money’.

While dollars are less the topic of this conference, it is an indirect thread that runs through it. The bottom line for museum’s communication is about getting people through the door.

And this conference is all about the business of communicating culture.

We are talking about the world’s leading museum communications conference, which will hosted in the Southern Hemisphere for the first time from 4 – 8 November.

Parisian-born Corinne Estrada, CEO of the communications agency Agenda and founder of this professional ‘pow-wow’ along with then Director of Communications at the Tate, Damien Whitemore, said: ‘This is the first time the biggest museums in the world will be here on same platform as Australian museums – the Louvre, MoMA, LACMA, Getty – they will all be here.’

‘[Australia’s museum professionals] can meet all these people when they go to the US or Europe – so why should they attend CTM? Because those museums are coming to Sydney with the appetite to build partnerships,’ Estrada explained.

For the first time in the conference’s 14-year history it has introduced pre-scheduled One-on-One meetings for visiting international delegates with Australian museum partners.

The carrot has been dangled.

Estrada added: ‘This is the first time in organising conferences that I found a country has been so dedicate to welcoming international participants. Our museum partners here have been so impressive – and that translates a willingness to listen and to work with others.’

Read more here.