00:00:00:01 - 00:00:07:29
Daniel Franco
So welcome back to the Creating Synergy Podcast. Today we have the amazing and wonderful Heather Crowell on the show. Welcome.

00:00:08:10 - 00:00:09:00
Heather Croall
Thank you.

00:00:09:01 - 00:00:32:20
Daniel Franco
Very excited. There's big things happening in South Australia with the Adelaide fringe and you obviously head up the Adelaide Fringe Festival, so kudos to all the amazing work that you're doing there. Before we jump in, I just want to just rattle off a few things about Heather that I've sort of conjured up and some of the accolades that you've that you've received recently.

00:00:33:03 - 00:01:12:08
Daniel Franco
So obviously CEO of the Adelaide Fringe seven second biggest fringe festival in the world has seen an increase in turnover, been met with critical acclaim and delivered increased ticket sales and expanded audience demographic. Ever since you've taken role of the of the piece and then but some recent accolades CEO of the year 2022 from the CEO magazine festival management CEO of the year and the CEO monthly magazine winner of the SA Tourism Awards in major festivals and events, winner of the best festival in Australia, named in the top 50 most influential people in South Australia.

00:01:12:27 - 00:01:25:26
Daniel Franco
You have your own Wikipedia page, which I've found is really cool and I'll throw this in is not exactly an accolade, but you're a lover of all things, rollerskating as well, which is not a bad little line up there. Well done.

00:01:25:27 - 00:01:37:08
Heather Croall
Yeah, it's been an amazing couple of years of I keep getting these emails saying you're nominated for this and you've won that and it's been pleasantly surprising.

00:01:37:08 - 00:01:37:26
Daniel Franco
Well done.

00:01:37:26 - 00:01:38:08
Heather Croall
to be honest.

00:01:38:13 - 00:02:02:25
Daniel Franco
We are running the second biggest, second biggest fringe festival in the world. So I think you're doing something right. Before we jump into all things Adelaide Fringe, and I'd love to understand who Heather is and the amazing human being who's sitting in front of me. And what do we need to know about your earliest context to understand how you ended up where you are today?

00:02:03:23 - 00:02:37:20
Heather Croall
Well, when I graduated from university, I was a documentary maker for many years. I was a documentary maker. And I mean, still to this day I make documentaries, but as my early years of working in film and television, I made documentaries for ABC and SBS and BBC channel for things like that. And I used to travel the world a lot, going to festivals and conferences to try and find international collaborators to co-produce films with.

00:02:38:02 - 00:03:13:06
Heather Croall
And in those days there was not that many Australian documentary makers traveling to places. In the early nineties. I'd often be the only Australian film maker at big film festivals, and I thought, Oh, it's, you know, this these film festivals have got these amazing market places, you know, can a documentary festival in Amsterdam called it for big festivals across America, and they really had these amazing marketplaces.

00:03:13:06 - 00:03:48:23
Heather Croall
They were more a marketplace than they were actually a general public film festival. And so then I made a lot of connections with a lot of industry in those early days. And the people that I continue to work with and stay connected with 30 years on. And when I was appointed to run the Australian Documentary Conference, which was in the early 2000, I really wanted to build this marketplace there.

00:03:48:23 - 00:04:29:02
Heather Croall
That was I guess really heavily influenced by what I'd seen in Europe and America and other places where they had strong marketplaces in festivals. And so I built this market called the meat Market, and then we called it the MEAT market, and it became an incredibly fruitful marketplace for co-productions and to sign deals. And and so that was I guess when I set that up, I thought, I want to build the market that exists in an Australian film festival that I wish existed when I first started as a filmmaker, so that I didn't always have to I overseas.

00:04:29:11 - 00:05:17:03
Heather Croall
So that was something that I still think influences what I do to this very day because, you know, we can talk a bit more about it as we talk more, but I also have grown a very big marketplace behind the scenes at the Adelaide Fringe as well. So I really understanding that industry networking and matchmaking and helping artists, whether they're film makers or performers, whatever genre, helping those creative people make deals and close touring deals and funding deals is like a really important driver for me because it's just that acknowledgment that arts needs help in that business side.

00:05:17:03 - 00:05:41:22
Heather Croall
It's that the show biz, we often think about the show, but not so much the business. And yeah, so that's my early days as a filmmaker. I got very heavily influenced by attending these film festivals and markets and, and then I was always actually doing stuff for the Fringe as well with like alongside I was working in different venues at the Fringe.

00:05:41:22 - 00:06:14:26
Heather Croall
I was a manager at the Star Club, which is like one of the wonderful venues in the nineties down at the Lyon Arts Center. We had Stomp where Stomp was a sell out lions down the street every night. We had big shows that went on to become television shows and fantastic, you know, Doug Anthony, All Stars and the fantastic performers like that and that was my, I guess, job that I did while I was studying.

00:06:14:26 - 00:06:27:04
Heather Croall
But also even later when I was a filmmaker, I still used to work at the Fringe. It was just a love that I had to always come back and work at Fringe. And so I've always been involved in Fringe for many years and.

00:06:27:05 - 00:06:37:24
Daniel Franco
I'd love to jump in. We jumped straight into becoming a filmmaker. What? Where? Let's go back. Early days. Early days. So you and your family from the UK born over in the UK, is that correct?

00:06:37:24 - 00:06:44:04
Heather Croall
Yes. So my parents, my parents are from Glasgow and we moved here when I was a few years old.

00:06:44:05 - 00:06:51:26
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Okay, great. So what was the reason for them? Your parents got some work over here or just starting a new life? Why did you guys come over to Australia?

00:06:52:11 - 00:07:10:05
Heather Croall
Well, my. My father was an obstetrician gynecologist, and this was in the £10 day. And so the doctors were one needed. Yeah, Australia needed doctors and doctors were coming in from all over the world and we moved first. We moved to Griffith. Okay.

00:07:10:08 - 00:07:12:21
Daniel Franco
Just a very so in New South Wales. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:07:12:23 - 00:07:41:04
Heather Croall
Fleeting moments, not very long at all. And then that was where we were just stationed, just to set up to have a look around. And then my dad being a Glaswegian who basically wanted sunshine and blue skies. Yeah. And so the different, there were different organizations throughout the different health systems. They were sort of basically fly doctors all over Australia and say, Where do you want to live?

00:07:41:05 - 00:08:01:27
Heather Croall
Yeah. And so my dad got flown to Tasmania and Mackay in Queensland and he got taken all over the place and then he got to Whyalla. And the only question he ever asked at every town that he went was how often does the sunshine here and in Whyalla they were like every day because you know, it's in the desert basically.

00:08:02:19 - 00:08:26:09
Heather Croall
I mean it's where the desert meets the sea, but at least it is still a desert climate and so he was like, Great, we'll move here. So we moved to Whyalla, which was a steel town. BHP Yeah, and so we, we set up there and my dad and my mom actually both loved Whyalla, like with they were the biggest Whyalla flag waving, they thought it was the best.

00:08:26:09 - 00:08:51:20
Heather Croall
And so my father really stayed there and you know, until he died. Yeah. So you know, 40 years of delivering babies, three generations by the time he retired he was delivering people who he had delivered the mother who was giving birth and the grandmother. Yeah. So that was pretty funny. And so it's delivered three generations of babies and everyone in the town knew him and.

00:08:52:01 - 00:09:00:19
Daniel Franco
He has no doubt I got my wife's mum was someone was families from Royal Air and there's probably no doubt he's delivered some of my wife's family I mean which is.

00:09:00:23 - 00:09:23:21
Heather Croall
Probably true. And he was also, he was quite a big environmentalist and um, when we first got there, he was like, Where's all the trees? There's not enough trees. So one thing that when I was a child before school, it almost every day we used to go out and either water trees that he'd planted or we were collecting seeds from gum nuts.

00:09:23:21 - 00:09:41:05
Heather Croall
We used to drive around and get gum nuts off the trees and then plant them and turn them into, you know, little seedlings. And then all over Whyalla. Now when you go to Whyalla, there's thousands and thousands of fully grown gum trees that my dad planted in the seventies and eighties.

00:09:41:06 - 00:09:42:08
Daniel Franco
What an amazing story.

00:09:42:08 - 00:09:54:09
Heather Croall
And a great legacy. But before school we used to drive around with buckets of water in the old Volvo that he had and the water would be sloshing all over the place. Mean because there was no hoses or anything.

00:09:54:17 - 00:09:56:15
Daniel Franco
You know where he had planted these trees.

00:09:57:00 - 00:10:07:07
Heather Croall
And so we had to water those seedlings. And now when I go to Whyalla, I just look around and go, Wow, I never thought of it at the time. I just thought it was a bit annoying.

00:10:07:15 - 00:10:09:23
Daniel Franco
To go and watering trees, but now.

00:10:09:23 - 00:10:11:01
Heather Croall
I can see the impact.

00:10:11:26 - 00:10:37:10
Daniel Franco
Oh, that's a beautiful story. I love that. How did you how did you end up in the in the world of the arts from there? So you're obviously Dad's a doctor. Environmental thinking wants to create a beautiful, beautiful country town in Whyalla. Where does the arts come? Where is that the string come from in your family? Was it something that your mother or your family bought board over with you?

00:10:37:22 - 00:11:00:11
Heather Croall
Yasi Probably well, both was both my mom and my dad, but my mum was very strong about always. Whyalla was a thriving town in those days. I mean it was a really young town and it was booming. A lot of everyone had a job. Yeah, there was a lot of money, even though a very working class town, but there was a lot of money.

00:11:00:19 - 00:11:16:27
Heather Croall
Everyone was spending money, everyone was earning money and they'd built this amazing theater there and they had a lot of touring acts would, would be like Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Whyalla, the International touring acts. Whyalla was on the map, you know.

00:11:16:29 - 00:11:17:14
Daniel Franco
Yeah, well.

00:11:17:14 - 00:11:47:02
Heather Croall
So you'd get like a French puppet like Phillipe Genty would like come to Whyalla and we'd go to that and Billy Connolly would come to on his tour and go to Whyalla and, and then of course Cold Chisel, sure, but all the bands there too. So we were at everything all my life and when that was just we, mum was always taking us to every cultural thing and always bring us down to Adelaide for the Fringe in the festival as well.

00:11:47:03 - 00:12:04:18
Heather Croall
Yeah, when we were young and yeah, so I guess that was my, my mum's influence mainly, but, but my dad as well in lots of other cultural stuff, but my mum mainly in terms of theater and performance and making sure that we got to go and see a lot of live shows. Yeah.

00:12:04:18 - 00:12:19:10
Daniel Franco
Now so you get into the docu in a documentary world, you study in that space, the film film world, you've created a documentary on your father, haven't you? Is that correct? That was called You're a year Old, You're old.

00:12:19:12 - 00:12:39:20
Heather Croall
You're old father, which is like a Scottish word for father. That's how my dad used to write a lot of letters. So we I went to boarding school and he'd write to us almost almost every day, every couple of days, we'd get a letter. It was almost like the Diary of Dad's Day. And he was a fantastic writer and very funny.

00:12:40:05 - 00:13:04:25
Heather Croall
And so I he would often sign his letters off your old father. That was his way of signing off. So I'm. I filmed with my dad a lot over his over my studies and not often use him as my character for things. So I had a lot of old footage of Dad. And then as he was getting near the end of his life, you know, he was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.

00:13:04:25 - 00:13:27:02
Heather Croall
So we were given a few months with him to live. And so at the time I was living in England, I was running a film festival in England, and I came home to help mum and I sort of came home thinking, Oh, it was three months to live. He'll probably be lying down in bed or something. But no, he was watering trees every day with.

00:13:27:02 - 00:13:28:11
Daniel Franco
Buckets and even.

00:13:28:11 - 00:13:52:24
Heather Croall
When he was like frail and dying, he was still doing that. And so I just went back into that rhythm of like watering trees with him. Even though it was 40 years later, it was really quite amazing experience. And so I started to film on just anything on my phone, you know, just like I didn't have proper camera people with me or anything.

00:13:52:24 - 00:14:05:02
Heather Croall
But and then when one time I sort of got him to agree that we could bring a camera person in and do some interviews, but most of it was just me filmed running after him, you know, With him.

00:14:05:02 - 00:14:05:11
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:14:05:12 - 00:14:09:09
Heather Croall
Like sort of just fly on the wall camera. And then.

00:14:09:09 - 00:14:10:27
Daniel Franco
Did he ever get to see it?

00:14:10:27 - 00:14:32:14
Heather Croall
No. So he would. I don't know. I think he would be because he kept on thinking, What are you filming that for? What are you doing? He wouldn't he would have been probably horrified that so many people ended up seeing the film when it's been at film festivals all over the world and it won the audience award in the Adelaide Film Festival and they had to keep putting more and more shows on because it was selling out.

00:14:32:25 - 00:14:54:13
Heather Croall
He would it was a thought, why do people want to watch that? But he was a fantastic he really was an amazing character and he was funny, but he was just beautiful and people loved being in his company in the cinema for an hour. Yeah. And his wisdom and his humor and and we talk and obviously I'm filming him with these trees.

00:14:54:13 - 00:15:31:25
Heather Croall
And. And then I had a friend of mine who I studied at film school with, and he animated a lot of the early days my childhood when we didn't have footage. And so there's it's an environmental film, but it's also a film about looking after someone whose days are numbered. Like, I mean, I think that was partly why so many people connected with the film and loved it because so many people have looked after their grandparents or parents when they're dying and there's something there's a sort of quiet dignity about people who know their days are numbered.

00:15:32:05 - 00:15:52:20
Heather Croall
And my dad really had that, like he wasn't panicking about dying or anything, but he and he was sharing so much love and wisdom, you know, And it was you could really see that on the camera. And I think people related to that because I thought, oh, that was what was my grandma was like, or my aunty when I looked after her.

00:15:53:01 - 00:16:21:09
Heather Croall
And, and so yeah, we've I film with him right till he dies basically and his funeral. And so it's a story of a, a man who true, he trod very lightly on the planet. He was a very environmental person before the Green Movement or anything like that. Yeah. And he was quite obsessive about water, like recycling things until the point that it was a bit weird.

00:16:22:07 - 00:16:32:12
Heather Croall
And so he trod lightly on the earth. And then, you know, the end of the film, he's going back into the earth. And so it was really powerful.

00:16:32:12 - 00:16:46:09
Daniel Franco
Time Beautiful story. Yeah, I'm all right. I'm a I journal. I write my own thoughts down. And you said your father wrote letters. What was the context of those letters?

00:16:46:27 - 00:17:18:26
Heather Croall
They were just his what he's been doing that day, but also just him commenting on anything around the world, sometimes political, sometimes just. He's like, what's been going on at work? But he was very funny. I mean, he was a Glaswegian. Yeah, hilarious. But like he had that humor and he used to write to me, my sister and all the nurses.

00:17:18:26 - 00:17:38:10
Heather Croall
After he died, I met a lot of his nurses he worked with, and they said that he used to write enormous patient notes that were just amazing and sometimes really funny and like the whole life story of the patient that he got and then he wrote it down, they said, Oh, they used to always want to collect them as a book because they said that was so funny and so amazing.

00:17:38:16 - 00:17:41:27
Daniel Franco
So very stoic, isn't it? Like he wrote a lot. Yeah.

00:17:42:04 - 00:17:46:12
Heather Croall
And then he also wrote endless letters to politicians.

00:17:46:17 - 00:17:46:29
Daniel Franco
Okay.

00:17:47:01 - 00:18:08:27
Heather Croall
So I found a lot of them because his secretary used to type the letters for him as a doctor. Yeah. And then he would dictate these letters to premiers, you know, South Australian premiers in the eighties and stuff. And he would write to them saying that they should set up solar farms in Whyalla and wind farms and things.

00:18:08:27 - 00:18:11:15
Heather Croall
I mean this is like you know in 1980.

00:18:11:15 - 00:18:13:29
Daniel Franco
Four he's Yeah that's right, that's him.

00:18:13:29 - 00:18:25:01
Heather Croall
And he was like, you know, Whyalla is a perfect place for a wind farm and if you would, you know, and he was always having a dig at, he thought, premiers of South Australia only cared about Adelaide.

00:18:25:01 - 00:18:25:27
Daniel Franco
So yeah, he used.

00:18:25:27 - 00:18:32:07
Heather Croall
To say things like if you ever came to Whyalla you'd be the first Premier to even notice that we exist.

00:18:32:07 - 00:18:32:22
Daniel Franco
Or you.

00:18:32:22 - 00:18:37:12
Heather Croall
Know, I mean it was sort of having a dig, but yeah, it was prolific.

00:18:37:12 - 00:18:40:24
Daniel Franco
Writer Yeah, yeah. You must be very proud.

00:18:41:20 - 00:18:57:09
Heather Croall
Yeah, it was. Well I loved the response. I couldn't believe the response when people saw the film and then they were like, ah we just love, you know, we felt like we got to know him and you know, what a great sort of person. What a great legacy that he left.

00:18:57:15 - 00:19:16:07
Daniel Franco
Yeah, I love it. So you then see, like during that you mentioned that you were on you were in England and you were running a conference festival festival over the first few festival. Was that the Sheffield? So you see all of. Yeah. So tell us about that role and how you transitioned into that world.

00:19:16:18 - 00:19:23:04
Heather Croall
So the so the Sheffield I mean British documentary is, I mean Britain is the center of documentary in the.

00:19:23:04 - 00:19:24:24
Daniel Franco
World, right? So is it.

00:19:25:09 - 00:19:51:08
Heather Croall
David Attenborough You know. Louis Theroux That's just everybody. Michael Palin And so you, you just have the BBC and Channel four. But BBC has been just an incredible generator of the best documentaries in the world. Yeah. And so it is the epicenter. And so there was a documentary festival in England, which was really like the gathering of the British documentary industry every year.

00:19:52:05 - 00:20:25:20
Heather Croall
And the chairman of that was Steve Hewlett, who was a big media mover and shaker. He was head of certain television channels over his time and and worked at the BBC in other places. And he was the chair of Sheffield Doc Fest, and he came to the documentary festival that I was running in Australia. And on the final night at the party he said, Look, we really need a new director and CEO to come to Sheffield and shake it up into an international festival because it's a gathering of the British.

00:20:26:00 - 00:21:01:11
Heather Croall
Yeah, but we need the world now because now the world was changing. It was all about co-production. Yeah, it was all about working across countries and so on. And that was my, I guess that was identified as my skill set because I'd created this meat market, which was all about the international co-production world and so on. So I, I went over, I flew to England a few days later and met the board, and then they offered me the job and, and I moved to England, like within a few weeks because I was born there.

00:21:01:11 - 00:21:05:16
Heather Croall
So I have a passport. Yeah. So there was no I was just like it was really.

00:21:05:16 - 00:21:06:18
Daniel Franco
Fascinating, right? Yeah.

00:21:06:23 - 00:21:38:05
Heather Croall
And so I, I took up the role at Sheffield Doc Fest and it, it was in a bit of a state, It was in a moribund kind of state. Yes. On the way down and really been becoming flagging. You know, it wasn't really thriving and so it needed a massive turnaround and will injection and we we we did turn around and we turned into one of the absolute best documentary festivals in the world.

00:21:38:05 - 00:22:18:10
Heather Croall
We were right up regarded with Sundance. Tribeca We were in a pit. All the industry used to descend on Sheffield, which you know, is is quite a feat to get the world to come to Sheffield. I mean, speaking of Whyalla and steel towns, it's a bit like without the beach. And so, you know, it was we, but we had so much fun and then we we set up a roller disco as a little one of our fun because what we went well most commissioning editors grew up in those days, that era when I was doing Sheffield, most of those commissioning editors grew up in the seventies when it was all rollerskating, and so we brought

00:22:18:10 - 00:22:37:06
Heather Croall
back Think Fun discos and roll with these guys and things. And it was so funny seeing some of the most senior television executives in the world rollerskating at a roller disco was. But, you know, we we played hard at night, but we also worked the day. So we we created a marketplace which we called the meat market again.

00:22:37:06 - 00:23:04:22
Heather Croall
So we took the meat market to Sheffield. Yeah, it became enormous. It was funded by the EU, funded by the British Film Institute. I mean, all the big guns got behind it. We created a marketplace that generated tens of millions of pounds worth of deals every year. And so we had hundreds of commissioning editors from television investors , distributors.

00:23:04:22 - 00:23:24:22
Heather Croall
Everybody from the film world was there. And it was quite amazing because Sheffield's, you know, it's quite a small city center, even though it sprawls out into the hills and so on. But in the city center, and it was a true takeover. I mean, we just took over the town and it's an it's a really beautiful town and it's something that people don't realize.

00:23:24:22 - 00:23:43:03
Heather Croall
Sheffield's actually really beautiful, so when they get there, they're like, Oh, this is a beautiful town. I thought it was going to be an old rundown steel town. It's actually really beautiful. And so I ran that for ten years and it just was on an exponential curve growth every single year that I was there.

00:23:43:18 - 00:24:02:16
Daniel Franco
What did you what did you do in reality? You said you got all these investors in all these all this interesting. You grew and and turned it into what was, you know, a iconic event. What does that look like when you walking through the doors? Day one of CEO, What did it look like? And then what was your vision like?

00:24:02:16 - 00:24:15:22
Daniel Franco
How does it how do you turn something around with that much impact And you know, we're obviously seeing the same thing you're doing here with the Adelaide Fringe, but it'd be I'm really interested in to just understanding your thought process into turning something like that around.

00:24:16:12 - 00:24:46:14
Heather Croall
When I arrived at Sheffield and I asked the finance head of finance, so what's the state of finances right now? And they said they had £20,000 in the bank and that was it. And they'd lost almost all their sponsors and they'd become sort of like it was it people weren't really intending to register this year because it just had been sort of fallen off the cliff and forgotten to reinvent itself to be relevant to the new industry.

00:24:46:21 - 00:25:16:06
Heather Croall
Yeah. And so I was quite shocked because I didn't realize it was quite that bad. But I thought, okay, well my my approach is mainly I always want to go into understand the everybody's what what are people's experience and what do they expect their experience to be. So whether they're the film makers that we need to come and register as delegates or whether they're the decision makers, the investors, we want them to come and say that the market is worth attending.

00:25:16:06 - 00:25:41:26
Heather Croall
Yeah. And so I literally went out and just met hundreds of people and listen to what they want and why don't they want to come anymore? What's the problems? What would they what would make them come? What's the change I need to see? So just all that stuff about understanding stakeholder needs and expectations and what's not being met, what's the you know, what's the worst thing that is happening right now that I can change and I can fix?

00:25:41:26 - 00:26:09:29
Heather Croall
And so we just what opportunities do you want me to create what's described to me an ideal world of what you want from a great documentary festival. And people want connection. They want to meet the people they need to meet. They don't want to meet all the people that if this is a if I'm buying science shows in, you know, for for PBS in America, I don't want to come and meet everyone pitching to me about documentaries and things.

00:26:10:06 - 00:26:35:17
Heather Croall
So I need some sophisticated sort of matchmaking done in and all that sort of stuff. So we, we and we we made that happen. We created a very bespoke experience for all the different people in the different genres of documentary. But even though we were servicing all the different genres, but everyone felt like they were getting the really visual experience.

00:26:36:05 - 00:27:01:22
Daniel Franco
Isn't that amazing? Right? So we're a company that specializes in organizational change and as you can imagine, within that is stakeholder engagement in communications. And it's the same thing across all industries, not just in the arts and film industry. It's people want connection. They want to understand what is the what's in it for me, how is this going to impact me, my work and my community and our customer and all the above.

00:27:01:22 - 00:27:26:01
Heather Croall
So it's every every industry. Yes, the same thing. I mean, I'm currently studying at MIT and I'm doing a course in exactly, you know, business growth, innovation and things like that. So it's all about that again. And this is what I've been doing and have generated amazing exponential growth both in Sheffield and in Adelaide Fringe over the years.

00:27:26:10 - 00:28:02:02
Heather Croall
But now I'm really understanding even more about that deeper surveying, deeper engagement, understanding much more about the user journeys. I mean, when I first I remember when I first came to both Sheffield and Adelaide and I talk a lot about to the staff about let's paint a persona of typical customers, like let's paint a typical artist customer, a typical venue, a typical ticket buy, you know, and some I think it was a new model for a lot of the staff that hadn't really done that before.

00:28:02:02 - 00:28:36:27
Heather Croall
And festivals. But now we just use those. We, we refer to those personas all the time. What would Harry want us to do like Harry wants? And so our aim was always to make a I mean, both in Sheffield and in Adelaide, I was always driving big digital transformations. So bringing in new digital platforms for how people bought tickets, how people engaged in the event and so on, and trying to draw a seamless user journey that didn't have any speed humps, any road blocks.

00:28:36:27 - 00:29:11:29
Heather Croall
Let's get rid of them. What's making people hesitate when they come on? Why aren't they buying a ticket or and so to make it, we can't do that unless we're getting the head of the personas, the typical customers. And then like, you know, step in their shoes because when you're on the inside creating something and creating a festival program or whatever it is that your business is doing, if you don't say, Well, I'm going to be the grumpy customer, you know, you can assume that's the problem, that you make assumptions that people are just going to smooth.

00:29:11:29 - 00:29:35:21
Heather Croall
Leigh Sales through this ticket buying purchase journey and they don't. And if you don't listen to I always say to my staff, well, if there's compliance, they're actually like, don't take them personally, like write them down. And we're like, that's a great problem for us to solve, you know, for when we do our planning for next year. What's what's the most common thing that people are ringing up that stopping them to buy the ticket, Right.

00:29:35:22 - 00:29:36:02
Heather Croall
Yeah.


00:30:49:08 - 00:31:31:00
Daniel Franco
No, no, we were good again. Yeah, great. So I love that. I love the idea of of really working towards what the people want. And, you know, I think there's a there's a lot of organizations, businesses, leaders who really set out to create really amazing products but actually don't deep dive enough into, like you said, the user experience it's it's exactly it's paramount to the success of any of any organization.

00:31:31:00 - 00:32:05:04
Daniel Franco
And so kudos for you for picking that up. What happened then? Did you see I mean, you mentioned earlier turned into this this amazing event on I'm initiative here your growth as you become a CEO discover more confident in yourself. Do you become more confident in your abilities? You know it was your first CEO gig. So how did you deal with all the emotions whilst just trying to connect with people, which is really what it felt like your main method was, was understand who I'm speaking to and just connect the right people to the right people isn't It's just a beautiful way of life.

00:32:05:04 - 00:32:05:19
Daniel Franco
It almost.

00:32:06:02 - 00:32:34:21
Heather Croall
Yeah. So, yeah, so I mean it was just about so it was about listening to all the different stakeholder groups. And so, for example, film makers, they wanted to meet potential investors in their films, they wanted to meet potential collaborators and but they also wanted it's quite a lonely documentary. Making is very solitary experience and so they also wanted a group party.

00:32:34:21 - 00:32:55:08
Heather Croall
They want to get together and celebrate with their industry. So and so I knew that we had it wasn't just about a business deal. It wasn't just about a business conference. It was about creating a true festival experience that people loved and had a great time at. But when they left, they had a potential deal in their pocket.

00:32:55:08 - 00:33:18:07
Heather Croall
They had a new producer that we're going to work with. And so we when we started, when Sheffield started really immediately from the first year and I think the Brits, you know, they the Brits really like wild times, eccentric people, outspoken opinions. And and then everyone said.

00:33:18:18 - 00:33:19:02
Daniel Franco
Well, I.

00:33:19:02 - 00:33:44:15
Heather Croall
Think I think it a bit more so in Britain, actually. If you go to Britain there can be to festivals and stuff. There's always great eccentric elements to them and and there's just a real eccentricity around Britain anyway. But my chairman said to me, like, Heather, don't you don't have to hold back here. Like you can just push the boat out and make this make this festival as wild as you want and as fun as you want.

00:33:44:25 - 00:34:05:02
Heather Croall
And that was like a freedom that he, you know, he gave me that as a he didn't just say, oh, you know, we want to improve it. We need to look after the corporates or anything like that. He said, Let's take the corporates and make them, you know, push the boundaries and, you know, so that was really a liberating thing.

00:34:05:02 - 00:34:20:05
Heather Croall
And I was so lucky to have Steve as a chair for ten years in Sheffield because I got to learn to grow as a non and not come from a point of fear and come from a let's take lots of risks.

00:34:20:05 - 00:34:22:17
Daniel Franco
Yeah. And explore. Isn't that the arts?

00:34:22:18 - 00:34:34:19
Heather Croall
How to take lots of risks and sometimes they don't work but you know luckily we as seem to be working and people just were were blown away about what a great fit, you know, what great experience they had.

00:34:34:19 - 00:34:41:23
Daniel Franco
What isn't that what the art industry is about? The arts industry is about the exploration. It's not living within the confined boundary.

00:34:42:01 - 00:34:51:02
Heather Croall
Well, it is, But you know, it's interesting how often you see even in arts and festivals, that people almost do a sausage factory and.

00:34:51:09 - 00:34:52:15
Daniel Franco
Stick within the lines is that.

00:34:52:28 - 00:35:23:21
Heather Croall
And it's like, well, this has always worked. I'm really believer that what got us here isn't going to get us into it. So what got us here is fantastic and we're standing on the shoulders of giants and great things. But let's like if we stay so stationary, we're going to go down. So what's the you know, the there's that S-curve theory with the business of, you know, you can be on the growth, but if you're not innovating and creating your next S-curve.

00:35:23:21 - 00:35:44:18
Heather Croall
Yeah you know you can drop down and that you see that I mean speaking from a festival point of you do see that you see festivals that either have that great growth and then they drop down or they just plateau and they just sort of do a bit of a renaissance repeat sort of style, you know, Whereas I'm always saying, what are we going to do next?

00:35:44:18 - 00:36:11:12
Heather Croall
Sort of we had a massive digital transition and transformation in Sheffield with a whole new digital platform. We did the same thing here. We were always looking at like, for example, bringing in as a genre, bringing in the intersection of art and technology and immersive shows, as that was when I did that in Sheffield, people were like, What's that got to do with the film industry?

00:36:11:12 - 00:36:39:20
Heather Croall
You know, this is like 2004, like this is now. You couldn't find a film festival that doesn't have interactive now, but that's 18 years later. But, you know, it was very early days in terms of that interdisciplinary bringing code We eyes to bring coders and games designers in and put them in the program and things like that. And there were some traditional film people who were like, well Hang on, this is a film festival.

00:36:39:27 - 00:36:46:08
Heather Croall
No, this is about screen industry. And these we, you know, and then, you know, you're.

00:36:46:08 - 00:36:55:06
Daniel Franco
A visionary really in this in this space from like being able to see the future. This is no difference. You're dead with the trees, right? I like your to see. Yeah.

00:36:55:22 - 00:36:56:08
Heather Croall
That's funny.

00:36:57:00 - 00:36:57:19
Daniel Franco
But yeah.

00:36:57:27 - 00:37:20:26
Heather Croall
I don't, I don't think so. I think I just was I was lucky in that because I'm curious and because I like meeting people. I was always really interested in meeting people that are on the forefront of things and early adopters. I, I met some really inspiring people in the beginning of the nineties who were doing some really great stuff around the Internet.

00:37:20:28 - 00:37:41:06
Heather Croall
Yeah, and I met them in Banff and I also met some in Adelaide and those people had a big influence on me. Like I was like, Wow, this is this slow dial up thing that was but we were like, We could make things. But of course we couldn't because the slow dial up couldn't even do text. But we thought we can have like the idea.

00:37:41:06 - 00:38:03:01
Heather Croall
Yeah but the, we could see the idea of it and we, I worked with this fantastic guy in, in Canada who sadly passed away now but Peter win tonic and together between Australia and Canada we set up things in the nineties of we called them Digg Docs and Digg Fest and all this. We were trying to create virtual film festival.

00:38:03:01 - 00:38:31:07
Heather Croall
We did so we were trying to create things in the, in, in the, in the sort of intersection of technology and film, but when before anything could really happen. But that influenced me forever. And when I first came to the Adelaide Fringe eight years ago, I introduced a new genre called Interactive. And you know, it's it's going so well.

00:38:31:07 - 00:38:52:18
Heather Croall
I mean, now we've got some of the most incredible shows of these artists who are like coders working with dancers, working with big schools. I mean, and they're making these immersive shows that I have no doubt are going to get picked up in the marketplace and go touring the world. Yeah, because they're so cutting edge and so fantastic.

00:38:52:24 - 00:39:01:28
Heather Croall
But it was driven by I saying, you know, let's let's give them a home, let's give them a genre and see what happens within the, within the mix of the fringe.

00:39:02:13 - 00:39:04:00
Daniel Franco
It's opening the door, isn't it, really.

00:39:04:00 - 00:39:32:06
Heather Croall
We're having a I've got this fantastic group that come here from Britain and actually the electric Dreams People and Electric Dreams Conference has been happening, you know, for a few years now in the Adelaide Fringe and it's on February the 20th. So it's one day only the conference, but they've got a lot of other shows as well. And there's like an amazing the head of the Games Network in Scotland is the keynote speaker and he's got some fantastic stuff to talk.

00:39:32:06 - 00:39:54:07
Heather Croall
He talks about how games are going to be ubiquitous in every industry in the not too distant future, where the games developers are going to be required in every field. Yeah, because it is how we like the how we experience health or anything is going to require games.

00:39:54:07 - 00:39:55:02
Daniel Franco
To vilification.

00:39:55:14 - 00:39:59:09
Heather Croall
And gamification is, you know, coming at us quickly and.

00:40:00:06 - 00:40:02:13
Daniel Franco
Again introduce me we're getting on the podcast. Yeah.

00:40:02:21 - 00:40:31:29
Heather Croall
You get him for sure. He'll be great. Brian Bagley And he's the head of the Scottish Games Network and he's just amazing, very inspiring. Speaker But he talks about that in some ways, a bit like what we were saying before, user journeys. A lot of that user journey mapping has come from that industry. It's come from the gaming industry, it's come from the Web's website, the Internet, sort of, you know, Silicon Valley.

00:40:32:09 - 00:41:04:01
Heather Croall
That's where I guess I learned a lot of that stuff was by working alongside a lot of techie people. And, you know, in in the nineties when I was working at the Star Club and then I'm happily so coincidental and fantastically met these early adopters of the Internet who really changed my way of thinking. And so I had these three streams going, I was doing filmmaking, I was working at the Fringe, but I also was being influenced by these people in technology.

00:41:04:08 - 00:41:28:24
Heather Croall
And those three lines are sort of, I'm still in those three lines, but I'm in them in a different way now and trying to bring more people in. I mean, I'm always about everybody's invited and everybody should be involved in that. I'm not an exclusive. I'm not very interested in exclusivity at all. I'm not interested in VIP this or that and this.

00:41:29:06 - 00:41:55:12
Heather Croall
But you're curating, you're in and you're out. So I'm very much about everybody can be involved. You know, anyone who wants to put a show on Love that about the Adelaide Fringe has always been inclusive like that. Yeah, but it's to me it's like that bringing in the technology, bringing in the designers in that sort of games area and the web area, it doesn't seem odd to me at all.

00:41:55:12 - 00:41:59:12
Heather Croall
It just seems like, well, aren't we all going to innovate when we get together?

00:42:00:15 - 00:42:04:24
Daniel Franco
Yeah, I'm a closet gamer. I got to play with you guys.

00:42:04:24 - 00:42:05:15
Heather Croall
You love these.

00:42:05:27 - 00:42:26:29
Daniel Franco
Things. Yeah. So for me, the the that gaming load of actually even speaking to a few people about the gamification of business and how you can bring it into a consulting world is just something that's of, of interest to me. I'm mucking around with that concept in the background but kudos to you. Great work in the dog fest.

00:42:27:00 - 00:42:59:08
Daniel Franco
It was named by the Variety magazine as the Premier League of the Dog Fest. So well done. You did extremely well there. I'm now interested in your towards the Adelaide fringe and becoming the CEO, being a South Australian boy through and through grew up in this state. I've the growth and growth and rise of the of the Adelaide Fringe and it's actually something that as a South Australian I feel very proud of as a state that we're putting on something that's so amazing.

00:42:59:08 - 00:43:21:02
Daniel Franco
And as you're talking there, I couldn't quite put my finger on it over the past couple of years and obviously cover obviously ruined some things here and there and everywhere, but what you said in regards to what you did with the dog, first, you made it this community thing like you made it this you engulf the state or you engulfed Sheffield.

00:43:21:02 - 00:43:44:19
Daniel Franco
I should say you're doing the same thing here, right where I feeling go. I feel like I'm just I'm getting swarmed and picked up and taken on this ride. And it's wonderful. It's wonderful. So kudos. So can we start back at the start 2015, You've you've joined the Fringe. And just so for everyone, so understand, it's not just called the Adelaide Fringe Festival.

00:43:44:20 - 00:43:57:10
Daniel Franco
The Fringe Festival is a type of festival. Can you just draw on your understanding of what is a Fringe festival and then what is this actually supposed to do? And then how we then how we then grew in your career at the Fringe?

00:43:57:18 - 00:44:32:29
Heather Croall
Yeah. So well, the Adelaide Fringe is an open access festival, which means that anybody can put on a show and Edinburgh Fringe is also an open access festival where anyone can put on a show. There are hundreds of festivals in the world that call themselves a fringe, but they don't often embrace the open access curation. But there's still there's still quite a few open access fringe festivals around, but the word fringe has morphed into just sort of almost meaning festival now because hundreds of fringes are not actually open access.

00:44:33:01 - 00:45:00:26
Heather Croall
Yeah, but the reason it was called Fringe in Edinburgh and Adelaide is that Adelaide and Edinburgh have had major international arts festivals. In the in Edinburgh's case it was in the mid-forties that it started and in Adelaide it was 1960. So Major Arts Festival began, but it was a curated festival where they invite a ballet from Russia and opera from Germany and.

00:45:01:04 - 00:45:01:09
Daniel Franco
That.

00:45:01:19 - 00:45:28:10
Heather Croall
And, and then they that was a very top down curated invite only style festival. And then local artists both in this happened both in Edinburgh and Adelaide, very sort of mirror image experience. Local artists were like, Well, how can we be involved in the festival? And they were like, Well, this is a festival of internationals. We're inviting international shows that you're not part of the program.

00:45:28:13 - 00:45:54:24
Heather Croall
Yeah, And so the artists said, Okay, well we're going to start something on the fringe of the festival. So that's what we're going to start the fringe. And so they, you know, very brave artists in the sixties putting on theater shows in the Adelaide Uni, putting on visual art exhibitions, you know, all sorts of things. And it has always been there.

00:45:54:24 - 00:46:21:07
Heather Croall
The fringe has always been there along the side of the festival. So the the open access nature of it was how it was born and we are very strong that that's how it will remain. We, you know, we, we don't have any targets to grow the number of shows or anything like that. We, we certainly have targets around selling more tickets because that helps helps the artists in the in their box office.

00:46:21:16 - 00:46:40:21
Heather Croall
But so we we've always said anyone can come along, you can put on a show, anyone can put on a show, help will help you find a venue. We'll put the show on our ticketing and we'll sell it for you and then we'll give you that whatever money you get. It's a bit like, Yeah, if you put your house on Airbnb and no one books it now, you don't get paid.

00:46:40:28 - 00:47:01:26
Heather Croall
If people book it, you get paid the same. So we have in the 60 is the fringe, you know, really just these brave artists putting on shows here and there, whatever they can eke out. And then in the seventies it really a bit more formalized and Don Dunstan was instrumental.

00:47:02:11 - 00:47:02:21
Daniel Franco
In.

00:47:02:29 - 00:47:34:28
Heather Croall
It, former premier and then in in the late seventies early eighties it really cemented with getting a board, getting a chair started to become really significant size. And then around the nineties we start to see a lot of cabaret and comedy people that have gone on to become big names in Australian television and so on. But they really saw Adelaide Fringe as the launchpad for their career.

00:47:34:28 - 00:48:00:23
Heather Croall
They, they thought it's a great town too, great city to come and test their new shows, she continues. And so we were and in those days, Adelaide Fringe in the early nineties selling around about 100,000 tickets per season, That's a lot of tickets, especially for the nineties, but some really successful arts festivals in Australia. So around about 50,000 tickets, right?

00:48:00:23 - 00:48:26:14
Heather Croall
So that's, that's a really healthy ticket sales. So if you think the scale of Adelaide fringe is something to behold, when even in the nineties we were selling 100,000 a year, that's so impressive and it meant that people just were coming out from everywhere. Every demographic was the age range of the fringe audience has always been extremely wide and so it's very, as you say, Adelaide people are very proud of it, they feel ownership of it.

00:48:26:14 - 00:48:36:09
Heather Croall
And when I think when people from Adelaide go elsewhere and they go, Oh, so where's your Fringe festival? And they realize, no, not everyone.

00:48:36:12 - 00:48:39:21
Daniel Franco
Has something like this. There's only one or two cities in the world.

00:48:40:01 - 00:49:05:09
Heather Croall
That have a festival that truly transforms the whole place. And so then as we're coming up through 2015, selling around about 400, 500,000 tickets, and then that's when I take on the took on the role of CEO. And I was, you know, I brought all a lot of my typical sort of approaches to let's look at what we can do.

00:49:05:17 - 00:49:11:02
Heather Croall
Let's understand what the artists want, what are the problems, what are the things we need to fix for them? What are the venues.

00:49:11:04 - 00:49:12:09
Daniel Franco
Digital piece as well?

00:49:12:18 - 00:49:34:08
Heather Croall
Yeah, exactly. What's all the challenges for buying tickets? What's all the anything? What can we what can we do in our S-curve? What's our new innovation, What's our next S-curve going to be? And so over the next few years, we will brought in a whole new ticketing system, a whole new digital registration platform for the artists and so on.

00:49:34:17 - 00:50:03:12
Heather Croall
And the meat market model is like we call it the honeypot. Yep. But that is absolutely was absolutely instrumental as well. So now we have in our marketplace, in the honeypot marketplace, we attract about 300 programmers from all over the world, from Soho Theater in London to the Lincoln Center in New York, to festivals in Germany and Singapore, Malaysia, everyone.

00:50:03:21 - 00:50:24:18
Heather Croall
And they come here to find new talent and new shows to book for the future, for touring. So again, that means that the artists, not only are they doing it because they're going to try and make some box office and try some new shows on audience, but they're also hoping to get picked up for touring. Yeah, and we even have like America's Got Talent, Britain's Got Talent, Australia's Got Talent.

00:50:24:18 - 00:50:27:03
Heather Croall
They're sitting in the audience. You never know who's sitting next to you. And like.

00:50:27:04 - 00:50:28:14
Daniel Franco
Right now cruise.

00:50:28:14 - 00:51:06:17
Heather Croall
Ships are they're finding shows and then theaters are there. So so theaters are they're looking for some really unusual creative plays. And then the cruise ships are they're looking for the most populist kind of wild cabaret shows. I mean, everyone's looking for something different. And that's the beauty, because Adelaide Fringe has got something beautiful and so in my first four or five years we had 20%, so double digit percentage growth on ticket sales every single year until we got off after after 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

00:51:06:28 - 00:51:13:26
Heather Croall
So on my fifth year we sold 850,000 tickets and I started it sort of.

00:51:13:26 - 00:51:15:26
Daniel Franco
Four and doubled this size.

00:51:15:26 - 00:51:44:04
Heather Croall
And that's when COVID came just right at the end of of Fringe 2020. And but, you know, bizarrely and thankfully, we were still able we're one of the only festivals in the world that didn't miss an addition. We didn't miss a year ever. And the restrictions opened and close, open and closed and the borders opened the the lot sort of the stay at home that whether or not you operate.

00:51:44:15 - 00:52:04:28
Heather Croall
But every time in 21 and 22, every time we were so lucky that restrictions opened enough that we could run the fringe and we sold 700,000 tickets in each of those years, which is unbelievable. Yeah. Even in the pandemic when we could only so every second seat. So everyone had to have a seat between then.

00:52:04:28 - 00:52:22:01
Daniel Franco
Yes. Yeah. Oh yeah. I remember I went to a few shows. It was actually quite nice because I'm a big guy, so sometimes like it's see, sometimes I get squished in. So just on that, like the, you Fingers crossed. This year we cracked the million ticket sales. Right.

00:52:22:02 - 00:52:29:03
Heather Croall
Like I mean we're going to, we're on the way right now. We're tracking around about 10% ahead of where we were. And yes.

00:52:29:03 - 00:52:40:15
Daniel Franco
So then we have it. So you're at 8900 with around 900. So we could if we can get over the over the million dollar mark, that that'll be, that'll be amazing.

00:52:40:15 - 00:52:41:08
Heather Croall
Million tickets.

00:52:41:23 - 00:52:43:13
Daniel Franco
Sorry, a million tickets I should say we do.

00:52:43:13 - 00:52:55:03
Heather Croall
About 24 will do. Probably do $24 million at the box office I think. Yeah. Maybe 25 million but, but then that gets paid out to the artist and that's a massive in shoes.

00:52:55:06 - 00:53:03:04
Daniel Franco
But is it the injections in South Australia. I read, I think I read some statistics. It brings in 50 million of new money a year of new money to the London.

00:53:03:14 - 00:53:06:22
Heather Croall
$100 million of gross economic.

00:53:06:22 - 00:53:29:11
Daniel Franco
Yeah, it's just it's absolutely brilliant. But what is there a limit to the. So to put it in context, the Edinburgh is the the number one and so to 2.2 million to 2.2 million tickets I should say per event is that within reach like you said or is that just can Adelaide accommodate for something like that. Yeah.

00:53:29:12 - 00:54:00:28
Heather Croall
100%. So Edinburgh is, Edinburgh has about 3000 events and they sell around about 20% of the ticket inventory. So some. So 100% Yeah. So far. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We have around about a thousand events and we've had around about 1000 events for a long time, probably ten or so years. Yeah. Sometimes it's 1100, 1200. We don't, we don't have any targets of growth around the number of events in the festival.

00:54:01:06 - 00:54:19:02
Heather Croall
But what we have is a target of our growth in tickets. So we now sell 42% of the ticket inventory, which is actually a lot better than in Edinburgh, is about 20% of the reason they sell. So that's much better news for the artists here because more bums on seats, they're getting better box office back.

00:54:19:07 - 00:54:19:28
Daniel Franco
Yeah, yeah.

00:54:20:01 - 00:54:42:03
Heather Croall
And we know that we, we attract around about 30,000 tourists a year now. When I arrived it was 10,000. So we are aiming to get more like 60,000 tourists or 80,000 tourists. And if we can get up to that and you know the hotel, it's fantastic because all the new hotels.

00:54:42:09 - 00:54:48:05
Daniel Franco
Yeah. So there's definitely positive around running running as the crown. All the above. Yeah.

00:54:48:12 - 00:55:09:15
Heather Croall
And so if we can get our tourism numbers up because it's over, the range happens over 31 days and nights as tourists coming for four days, three days, something like that, and not all coming all at once and, but they spread out over the month and if we can get up to 60,000, 80,000 to tourists will buy more tickets then somewhat like people do.

00:55:09:16 - 00:55:10:27
Daniel Franco
Because they want to do more when they here.

00:55:11:09 - 00:55:16:05
Heather Croall
And they don't have to go to work. Yeah. So there's more daytime jobs, more daytime shows.

00:55:16:10 - 00:55:16:14
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:55:16:18 - 00:55:38:26
Heather Croall
And so tourists might buy six or seven tickets while they're here. Adelaide Fringe guys are buying that for 3 to 4. So, you know, this is we've got big growth potential in because we've we're selling 42% of the ticket inventory at the moment. Yeah. And if we can get that up to about 60% of the ticket inventory which is amazing.

00:55:38:26 - 00:55:48:00
Heather Croall
Yeah. Most festivals are selling, you know, half of their inventory. It's not a, you know, you don't just sell 100% of your inventory. Maybe that would be a dream.

00:55:48:00 - 00:55:48:08
Daniel Franco
But.

00:55:48:13 - 00:56:15:14
Heather Croall
You don't if we can get more tourists up. And the thing is that we can guarantee that tourists are going to have an amazing time. You cannot have a bad time at the Adelaide Fringe. It's just like there's there's beautiful weather that's out under the starry skies, lovely balmy nights. There's great theater, there's great circus, there's cabaret. If you want something quiet and orchestral, there's that.

00:56:15:14 - 00:56:39:15
Heather Croall
If you want something really wild and late night drag show, there's that. Yeah. So there's something for absolute everyone. And the town just comes alive. If you, if you come to Adelaide any other time of year after you've been to Fringe is what's happening. Where's it all gone. So you know because of all the eagle tents and all the tents and everything that pop up.

00:56:39:15 - 00:56:45:28
Daniel Franco
Just even the roads opening. And Lucky said on a balmy night sitting out on Rundle Street having a wine, It's phenomenal.

00:56:46:03 - 00:56:46:26
Heather Croall
It's amazing.

00:56:47:01 - 00:57:07:01
Daniel Franco
You one thing we spoke about last time was there's a lot about the fringe that's not public facing that people don't actually know about it. Can you give us a little bit of a, you know, sneak peek to behind the scenes? What does it look like? Is it is it the duck on water sort of thing? Yeah, Nice and calm on the top of the legs is sort of scrambling underneath.

00:57:07:01 - 00:57:08:16
Daniel Franco
What does it look like behind the scenes?

00:57:08:21 - 00:57:41:08
Heather Croall
Oh, absolutely. We're all ducks floating along that really madly flapping underneath. Yeah. So the fringe has 400 venues and so there's all those venues that have, you know, on any day during Fringe there'll be north of eight, nine, 10,000 people employed for in those in those venues running the venues like, you know, running the Garden of Earthly Delights, running gluttony, running the venues in the in the Victoria Square or Hindmarsh.

00:57:41:12 - 00:57:41:19
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:57:42:03 - 00:58:17:12
Heather Croall
And then all the bricks and mortar theaters and pubs and so, oh, it's amazing what's going on and how many people it takes to make the fringe happen. And then there's 6000 artists, so around 25% interstate, about 20% from overseas and 55% from South Australia. So we've got probably I mean right now I think we're I think at the moment we've got about a thousand visas done for the international artists that are coming in and that's just, you know, it's.

00:58:17:12 - 00:58:19:13
Daniel Franco
Just so you help them through that whole process.

00:58:19:14 - 00:58:46:06
Heather Croall
Well, you know, we get them to do they do it themselves. Yeah. Guide them and know them. Yeah. And so we know we, we, we know that there's north of a thousand visas getting done just for the artists alone. And so this is the scale that I'm sort of like it's just hard to even imagine 6000 artists descending on a town and turning into such a festival play ground and so public facing, you see all the razzmatazz.

00:58:46:06 - 00:59:04:24
Heather Croall
Yeah, you know, you see all the fun and the glitter and the sequencing and, and the arts. But behind the scenes, the artists are working so hard to sell their tickets. They've got to sell their tickets. No one's paying them to be on the stage. So, you know, they're, they're doing the hustle. They're out on the streets giving out their fliers.

00:59:05:04 - 00:59:29:16
Heather Croall
And then they're also getting meetings with all these people that we've brought in for Marketplace. And we have people from 27 different countries coming in to discover new shows, to book them, you know, And so that's what that's what the artists a total of, I think I was saying before about the show business, it's like there's the show, but there's also the business.

00:59:29:16 - 00:59:51:18
Heather Croall
Yeah. And so the artists learn a lot in the fringe. They learn how to be a producer, they learn how to make the business side of the of their career were new. And so the ones who really nail that do very, very well. And it isn't just the most sort of commercial and populist shows that sell the best.

00:59:51:27 - 01:00:11:06
Heather Croall
There are actually a lot of really innovative and experimental and new work that so well. But it's it's just down to whether or not they've really worked out how to help get those tickets. Yeah, things like I mean, social media now plays a massive role. Huge. And so all the artists are learning how to do their own social.

01:00:11:06 - 01:00:45:09
Heather Croall
Yeah, they're learning how to make the most of every get word of mouth out to spread the word. And they're all hoping that not all of them, because some artists, some artists in Fringe are doing a show for fun, but a lot of them are doing it because it's their career and their livelihood. And they're really hoping that that the director from the festival in Singapore is talking to the festival director in Canada and Malaysia and France and whatever, and suddenly out of Adelaide fringe yeah, they've got an 18 month world tour.

01:00:45:11 - 01:01:07:28
Heather Croall
Yeah. And that literally is a reality that happens and often you'll see things in Sydney Opera House a year after being an Adelaide fringe and the ticket price is triple and you know, so Adelaide fringe tickets are very affordable. Yeah, you know the average ticket price is around $34. Yep. And so you'll, you will see things first here.

01:01:08:00 - 01:01:38:21
Heather Croall
Yeah. And then when you see them interstate and having a great run and in Brisbane and Melbourne and over in London I mean our fringe ambassador Reuben Kay from last year, he just won a major award last night in London and he'll be coming back again this year. I mean, we watch out, we watch the Adelaide, we watch the Adelaide fringe artists absolutely thrive on the national and international scene after they've done their season.

01:01:38:26 - 01:01:50:07
Daniel Franco
Is is it like a story you talk about, Reuben? Is there a story that sticks out with you that you go, I am so proud that I was involved in the growth of this act person Well.

01:01:51:02 - 01:02:24:06
Heather Croall
Oh, there's so many I mean, so many great stories out of the marketplace as well. So a South Australian great success story is gravity and other myths who are a fantastic circus. They come out of the circus school kids and then they put on a show in the Adelaide Fringe and really nailed it in the marketplace they got booked for years of touring to the point that they had to have a number of troops.

01:02:24:12 - 01:03:00:14
Heather Croall
They had one trip over Europe, one trip in America, one troupe in Australia touring incredible deals, and then they got commissioned by a joint commission by the Edinburgh Festival and the Adelaide Festival, and they actually opened the Adelaide Festival last year to tens of thousands of people in the audience at the Adelaide Oval. And that is an incredible success story of a South Australian act that knew how to, you know, really do well in the ticket sales in Adelaide Fringe.

01:03:00:14 - 01:03:36:09
Heather Croall
But behind the scenes they also did really well in the marketplace. And another one is Michela Berger, Amelia Ryan, Michael Griffiths. They're just fantastic cabaret stars from South Australia who have gone touring the world after Adelaide Fringe and they've actually done a lot of their individual shows have been huge hits and this year they have actually joined forces, the three of them, and they're putting on a show called simply Bril, which is a wonderful show, and it was commissioned by the Adelaide Cabaret Festival earlier this year.

01:03:36:09 - 01:03:39:23
Heather Croall
They did their pilot run there and now they're doing it in Fringe.

01:03:40:25 - 01:04:02:17
Daniel Franco
It's it's brilliant and I think that's what's the most exciting thing when I think about excuse me, I'm thinking more through what I think about the Adelaide Fringe and what you're talking about here. I don't know. My mind goes to football, you know, like an AFL camp or the young talent of the world, you know, in, in Australia.

01:04:02:17 - 01:04:10:11
Daniel Franco
Go to one thing with all the scouts coming in to look at them. It's almost that that appeal and it's really exciting. Simply Bru, I'm going to go check them out.

01:04:10:14 - 01:04:40:24
Heather Croall
See honey, the football and I like the number of tickets that we sell is actually like if you imagine both, both Adelaide football teams, Port Adelaide and the Crows selling out every single game for the entire season at Adelaide Oval, that's how many tickets Adelaide Fringe is. Yeah. And there's, you know, there's not many arts festivals that can even look and can get up at that sort of like massive stadium ticket selling thing.

01:04:41:00 - 01:05:17:14
Heather Croall
We sell during Fringe when, when as we're rolling out for the month, we sell between 20,030 thousand tickets every single, every single day. So just an amazing thing to think that there's all that engagement of such enormous numbers of audience. But also there's talent development, there's you know, launchpad happening for people. So there's a lot of comparisons that you could make between AFL and Fringe.

01:05:17:14 - 01:05:38:20
Daniel Franco
So I'm so sorry I got this scratch on my throat. This is killing me. Yeah, I'm. I'm good, I'm good. But in regards to the in regards to the comparison, talk about the ticket sales. What about what the Fringe is doing? I mean, I sometimes just go down Rundle Street and have a meal and just get involved in the whole event and don't even buy a ticket.

01:05:38:20 - 01:06:14:10
Daniel Franco
Right? So it's not only that's what it's doing for the state, which is absolutely amazing. One thing that I'm going to I'm really interested in and I'm conscious of your time, so I want to sort of burn through this last bit. I got so many questions I want to ask, but one thing that stood out for me, there was a quote you said is that and I quote you on this The fringe is so important to South Australians and you could feel the magical atmosphere of the fringe envelop us all in our audience surveys is that 93% of attendees told us that the Adelaide fringe positively impacts their mental health and.

01:06:14:10 - 01:06:41:07
Daniel Franco
And so I'm really interested in that statistic alone because you talk about benefits to the state and benefits the human beings. This is having a remarkable impact. What made you want to survey about mental health? That was something that kind of first is actually such a brilliant question to ask the public How does this make you feel? But then secondly, how does that make you feel knowing that you're having such an opposite?

01:06:41:07 - 01:06:45:22
Daniel Franco
You in the team are having such a positive impact on on so many human beings? Yeah.

01:06:46:16 - 01:07:11:03
Heather Croall
I know. It's because we're always asked to measure economic impact and we're always asked to measure these things because of return on investment that we have to report back to if we get a government grant or a council grant and they want that sort of thing. But we are really aware that there's other return on investments that are much harder to measure and qualitative.

01:07:11:18 - 01:07:38:16
Heather Croall
Exactly. And so we were like, well, we and this is a work in progress and this is we've only just touched the tip of the iceberg in terms of how we can measure. There's a lot of work going on. And I would say Britain probably leading the way in this area at moment. But in terms of measuring what a positive impact art can have on people's mental health and it engaging in art.

01:07:38:16 - 01:08:19:07
Heather Croall
Yes. Like being in in the in the arts and being part of a show. But not only that, but actually just attending. And you know going along and experiencing art to the point that now in Britain there are prescribing to go to a show is something doctors will do that well, that's how recognized it's becoming now in Britain that, the work that's been done, there's been so much research around the fact that art can have a more positive impact on our mental health than prescribing drugs, and we just haven't done very much work in that area.

01:08:19:07 - 01:08:37:20
Daniel Franco
There is a there is a podcast that I listened to recently where there's an expert who is an expert in or a WG or Bryant, and he says that just being in or even going for a walk outside and being in awe of your surroundings or the environment, is it was it was this was the DA of the SEO podcast.

01:08:37:21 - 01:08:42:19
Daniel Franco
I can't remember the name of it. Oh, that's a different guy. Yeah, it was. But I can't remember the guy who read.

01:08:42:21 - 01:08:43:10
Heather Croall
Jason.

01:08:45:15 - 01:09:03:00
Daniel Franco
Moore. Yeah, I remember that 100% who it might be. It might be you might. We might be thinking about the same the same person, but on camera but, but he talks about the idea of being in awe, even if it's a couple of minutes a day, has a drastic improvement to your mental health. And so if you're thinking about the arts, you're going in just having a look at a painting.

01:09:03:00 - 01:09:12:18
Daniel Franco
You'd be in awe of this painting or a show where you're in awe of these acrobatics or these musician or whatever. I mean, naturally it's going to have a positive.

01:09:12:18 - 01:09:15:26
Heather Croall
Yeah, I think. I think, I think it might be. Jason Silva.

01:09:16:00 - 01:09:16:17
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Okay.

01:09:17:06 - 01:09:40:13
Heather Croall
So Jason Silva, he talks like an incredibly inspiring. Yeah, he's really inspiring guys. And yeah, I follow him on Instagram. He's amazing. And yeah, shots of or he calls it he talks about shops. Yeah. And how you need, you know, to see your wellbeing. And definitely what we're doing is we're giving people shots of all at the Adelaide Fringe.

01:09:41:11 - 01:10:11:24
Heather Croall
We are trying to measure not I mean it is the first thing is about measuring. Do people feel it, Do people feel that they feel better and they feel happier and they feel that their mental health improved by having fringe happening and find them coming. But then I think the next step we have to look at is what's because the health budget is the biggest budget now, that's the biggest money and everyone wants to find out how to save money, health.

01:10:12:03 - 01:10:31:15
Heather Croall
And my feeling is art can save money in health. And so engaging in art, getting the whole of the population engaged in art can actually have a big impact on saving the health budget. Well, that's that's the sort of that's the line I'm to be.

01:10:31:15 - 01:10:32:11
Daniel Franco
Exploring.

01:10:32:20 - 01:10:38:20
Heather Croall
And I'm hoping to be able to, you know, go to the politicians and find some great research as well.

01:10:38:20 - 01:11:00:26
Daniel Franco
There has to be some connection there. There has to be some parallel with it. If you're enjoying and you're you're enjoying a moment, you're enjoying an act, you're enjoying a song and a small hits across your face and you're part of a community, You're in amongst people who are enjoying the same thing that you're enjoying. Like there's got to be some positive benefit.

01:11:01:07 - 01:11:02:03
Daniel Franco
It has to be.

01:11:02:03 - 01:11:23:01
Heather Croall
And I think there's been a lot of recognition as well that sport does that. So yeah, and you know, the money, the amount of money that goes to sport compared to the amount of money that goes to are, is you know, like it's polls of the time. Right. So but I do think that engaging in art has that same that people are recognizing that sport does as well.

01:11:23:01 - 01:11:30:14
Heather Croall
So there's there's a lot of work to be done around that and finding ways to measure that is the challenge coming us.

01:11:32:04 - 01:11:53:11
Daniel Franco
So I'm going to jump in to you as a CEO now. And just to round off the Adelaide fringe for everyone, it's starting in the next couple of days, isn't it? Yeah. So, you know, go and buy a ticket. Let's get up to a million sales. That'd be amazing. I am interested you as Heather, as a CEO, right?

01:11:53:12 - 01:12:19:07
Daniel Franco
You've been nominated. Well, you've, you've won some awards, I should say not nominated, but the of the year for multiple magazines. You know, kudos there. What is it What does that mean for you? What is what is CEO of the year look like? What I think you obviously from what we can hear you're doing wonderful things inclusion, diversity, innovation all that is you've built this beautiful concoction of what it is to be a great leader.

01:12:19:07 - 01:12:26:10
Daniel Franco
What does it mean to you to be CEO of the Year and what do you think you're getting recognized for?

01:12:26:10 - 01:12:56:17
Heather Croall
Well, I mean, I'm I also have an amazing team. So no doubt I have an incredible team at the Fringe. And also I am because I've been very open about the fact that I, I always want us to be continuously improving and ever learning agile, responsive to what people are telling us. I never want to just be style.

01:12:56:17 - 01:12:57:11
Daniel Franco
Repeat. Yeah.

01:12:57:26 - 01:13:11:28
Heather Croall
Yeah. And and so the sorts of staff that have ended up coming to work with me at the Fringe are those people. They're the people who also really love being agile.

01:13:11:28 - 01:13:25:28
Daniel Franco
And that's a testament to this is one of the main of a CEO is to attract the right people, get the right people on the bus. Yeah. And so you've been able to do that by setting that vision. Yes. And then obviously going after and sitting values around that as well.

01:13:25:29 - 01:13:36:17
Heather Croall
Yeah. And we it's take it took a few years to get that right. And I know they always talk about the storming norming and performance.

01:13:36:17 - 01:13:37:13
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Yeah.

01:13:37:19 - 01:14:02:23
Heather Croall
And we did a bit of that but we you know we are a team that is very committed now to this how it's not we don't just talk we walk the walk we we do listen to how can we improve. We, you know like in the last year we've launched our reconciliation action plan. We've, we've launched our Disability and Inclusion Action Plan.

01:14:02:23 - 01:14:31:02
Heather Croall
We've launched our sustainability action plan. And these things are deep within the organization and they're not done by consultants. We actually do them in-house. So through lots of consultation, we have a lot of the staff are just deeply connected to all this stuff and communication in the organization is something we've worked really hard on. Cross, departmental communication, vertical, horizontal.

01:14:31:24 - 01:14:55:14
Heather Croall
It's all those things that you have to make sure that. No, I mean, I always say I don't want anyone to say I didn't. I never knew about that or I was the last to hear about that. Yeah, I want everyone to know everything. Really? Yeah. I try to make myself are very open door CEO, so I try to make myself available to any one in the order any time and without anyone feeling undermined someone comes direct to me.

01:14:55:15 - 01:15:16:28
Heather Croall
Right. But I do make even because we have 40 year round and then hundreds in the short shorter term. But I do my my time in my diary for about a half an hour, one on one with absolutely every single person in the org. Once a year that is separate to not nothing to do with performance reviews or anything like that.

01:15:17:07 - 01:15:27:15
Heather Croall
It's just like this is your time to just tell me whatever. And so even though that doesn't sound like a lot, I have a lot of communication with them all the time. But I'm talking about just like, I just want to.

01:15:27:15 - 01:15:28:24
Daniel Franco
Make your present for them.

01:15:29:00 - 01:15:37:15
Heather Croall
Yeah. And everyone knows I can come any time, but just they never do come through. I just want them to know they can come in a time and tell me anything.

01:15:37:15 - 01:15:55:09
Daniel Franco
Well, I mean, this is what your job is. To go out in the world, right? Bringing great to help you run this business. Your job is to go out of the world and bring in great acts and great performers and great industry to come in. So it's about building this groundswell of amazing human beings, which seems like what you do.

01:15:55:09 - 01:16:15:18
Heather Croall
And also because it is it's a lot of out, as I see you looking out. Oh, right. So, I mean, I that's where my executive director level staff are important are looking in as well. So I can't be looking in as much as everyone might be because I'm also looking out doing a lot of stakeholder engagement. Yeah. On onto the outside.

01:16:15:28 - 01:16:40:07
Heather Croall
And then we, you know, we do things like every year since they arrived and I did this in Sheffield as well, but we go away for planning days. We don't just do them at the office, we go away to some way, I really believe, get out in the green, go to the country. We stay in motel, take over some little village somewhere, a little country town or somewhere up in the hills or whatever.

01:16:40:07 - 01:17:10:10
Heather Croall
And we do. That's when we talk about our personas and our user journeys. And what about things that we want to improve and and that. Yeah, we do a lot of work that we I don't think you can do it as well if you stay in the office. So we do that at least once a year and a lot of opportunity for I like to make sure that there's a lot of opportunity for staff to develop within the organization.

01:17:10:14 - 01:17:29:03
Heather Croall
Right. So we've had now, you know, I've done eight fringes. There's quite a few people that have done all of them with me in the organization, probably eight or so. Yeah. And then there's probably another eight or ten who have six or seven. Some have done five, and there's always a few that are just, you know, been 91 or two years.

01:17:29:04 - 01:17:56:16
Heather Croall
Yeah, but now we're getting, you know, we've got we've got people that are really in, in that stride of knowing that we were always listening where we are, where we're if you want an opportunity to move to a different department or to move up or we often we have internships and a lot of the staff that work at the Fringe in my time started as an intern.

01:17:56:26 - 01:18:18:05
Heather Croall
So there's a lot of opportunity for people to step in new opportunities in the organization or new positions or step upwards or sideways. Yeah, So always trying to make sure there's a lot of professional development learnings. Um, yeah, I mean, I try to learn more and more as well, like I did the year long governor's leadership.

01:18:18:05 - 01:18:18:12
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:18:18:15 - 01:18:22:06
Heather Croall
Which I really enjoyed and learned a lot and that was a great.

01:18:22:12 - 01:18:29:25
Daniel Franco
The demanding of your time then that's putting that time and effort in. Yeah. Do you believe that that's something all leaders should do, put time and effort into their own growth.

01:18:30:08 - 01:18:39:00
Heather Croall
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean the governors was I mean I'm doing this course at a meeting at the moment saying I have to be on the I'm on Zoom till three in the morning.

01:18:39:00 - 01:18:39:05
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:18:39:05 - 01:18:58:18
Heather Croall
Well because I'm on Boston time for it. But it, it is important I think because like you just learned so I'm so many you do learn new methodologies or new ways of thinking I always try and bring things. I'm very practical. Yes. And so I always try and bring what I'm learning in the course almost immediately back to the I.

01:18:58:26 - 01:19:25:00
Heather Croall
What about this? And, you know, sharing it all with them and and one of our directors is doing the l f at the Ladies Institute this year. But it's it's compulsory attendance. You're not allowed to miss anything. And I mean you know it's very much give up your weekends, you know, all that sort of stuff. But once you make connections with people that I'm still friends with, as you would be cohorts from the GMF.

01:19:25:01 - 01:19:33:25
Heather Croall
And yeah, I like to make sure that I keep my brain and agile and thinking I love it.

01:19:34:01 - 01:19:58:05
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Now I'm really conscious of your time because you have to shoot off in the next 10 minutes or so. Um, I just want to ask one last question before we, we jump into what is our quickfire questions at the end of the end of the podcast. Have a bit of fun just towards the end. What I'm really interested in next steps.

01:19:58:05 - 01:20:08:25
Daniel Franco
Let's, let's, let's look beyond the fringe, right beyond the Fringe Festival for Heather. What does that look like? What does the world take you outside of the Fringe Festival? Um.

01:20:09:24 - 01:20:14:05
Heather Croall
Well, I mean, I don't really know. I'm at Fringe for a little bit longer.

01:20:14:08 - 01:20:16:23
Daniel Franco
Are you contracted to know the above? I get that, but yeah.

01:20:16:26 - 01:20:50:21
Heather Croall
I think I would love to step into some sort of cultural leader role that is about the broader creative industries. I think there's some real work that can be done in bringing together different parts of the creative industries. There's some interdisciplinary connections that could take us on a real step, change and growth, bringing at the moment we're a bit siloed with the visual arts and you know, the games are over here and the films and so on.

01:20:51:00 - 01:21:23:26
Heather Croall
I think creative industries as a whole is something that we can really bring together a bit more and understand and respect it as a, as a job creation industry. But there's opportunity there. So I'd love to step into something like that. I think in some sort of leadership role around boosting the creative industries opportunities across Australia. Amazing and help help more people realize their dreams in the creative industries.

01:21:24:26 - 01:21:44:16
Daniel Franco
And I think everyone will be calling you out for in that in that role eventually. So because, you know, you have the ability to make an impact, which is fantastic. So we're going to jump into some quickfire questions as we round off the podcast. I had a thousand other questions to ask you, so I'm a bit bummed that it's going to be all right.

01:21:44:18 - 01:22:03:00
Daniel Franco
No, that's fine. You're a busy human being. I'm lucky. No, no, that's right. I'm lucky to look, we've got this podcast happening right before the Fringe Festival, so I can imagine your time is limited. So I appreciate the hour and a half with you. As we jump into, are you be graded? Do you read much? Do you get any great book?

01:22:03:00 - 01:22:04:28
Daniel Franco
What are you reading? What are you reading right now?

01:22:05:16 - 01:22:09:11
Heather Croall
Oh, right now. I mean, right now I'm reading the fringe guide. Yeah.

01:22:10:14 - 01:22:12:21
Daniel Franco
That's probably what I'm radioactive for. Yeah.

01:22:14:05 - 01:22:52:12
Heather Croall
Actually, I'm reading a book by Fenton Bailey, who is the producer of RuPaul, and also the producer of many, many great documentaries and other things. And it's called Screen Age. And it says stories of producing Amazing. And he's he's the creator like he was. He was at the forefront of reality television. He's at the forefront of those early shows that used to give people cameras and they could make diaries and film themselves and film their lives, which was obviously now it's different because everyone's got to find.

01:22:52:19 - 01:22:52:23
Daniel Franco
It.

01:22:52:27 - 01:23:01:29
Heather Croall
Back in those days. Yeah. And actually, Fenton Bailey, he's actually coming to Adelaide Fringe to launch his book. And so I'm reading that right now.

01:23:01:29 - 01:23:09:03
Daniel Franco
Well done. Very good. Is there any book that stands out from the crowd for you that you like, the one that you've have gifted more than any other?

01:23:10:05 - 01:23:29:25
Heather Croall
I've probably given Miguel St by voice and Paul to people a lot. Yeah. It's a book that I just love the dialog in that book. It's very funny. It's like it's on who lives on Wall Street and just a day in the life kind of vibe of Yeah, yeah.

01:23:29:29 - 01:23:38:21
Daniel Franco
Brilliant, brilliant. What's one lesson that's taking you the longest to learn? Hmm.

01:23:39:11 - 01:23:46:14
Heather Croall
Uh, well, probably the.

01:23:46:14 - 01:23:47:08
Daniel Franco
Um.

01:23:50:15 - 01:24:16:20
Heather Croall
Well, I think, you know, we're all we are all the script writer of our own life. And sometimes I would get stuck if you're really big, if you are an outspoken person like me and always shaking things up. And sometimes, you know, you can get a lot of judgment from people on the sidelines, sometimes negative judgment. And I would sometimes listen to it too much.

01:24:16:20 - 01:24:21:25
Heather Croall
And now I just think not they're not writing me. They're not the script writer of my life on.

01:24:21:25 - 01:24:24:29
Daniel Franco
This good writer that I mean, you just.

01:24:24:29 - 01:24:28:00
Heather Croall
Try not to let those negatives, you know?

01:24:28:01 - 01:24:32:01
Daniel Franco
Yeah, well, there's always going to be someone that doesn't like the movie or the screenplay or whatever it is, right?

01:24:32:01 - 01:24:48:00
Heather Croall
So and the more the more you move up as a woman, see, the more people you know have a go. So. Yeah, yeah. So I just think, well, I'm the script writer of my life and I whatever I do is what I mean. I can be sure that I need to work again.

01:24:48:00 - 01:24:50:28
Daniel Franco
Why? I live within the confines of work. That's right. Yeah.

01:24:51:07 - 01:25:12:22
Heather Croall
And I think, yeah, a lot of the innovation that I've pushed for has sometimes. Yeah. Rattled people or ruffled feathers or whatever, but in the end it's been amazing to have gone on the journey and then come out and think, Wow, that's, that was so exciting to, to collaborate with people that wanted to sort of jump.

01:25:12:26 - 01:25:28:21
Daniel Franco
Well, I think the great thing from what I'm hearing about you is that you do this because you want the better of the Fringe Festival, you want the better of the organization, the community. So it always comes from a good space. So yeah, kudos. If you could have three people to invite for dinner, who would they be? Oh.

01:25:29:15 - 01:25:38:21
Heather Croall
Okay. Well, this year at the Fringe, it would be Penny Arcade. Uh, Queen Kong.

01:25:38:29 - 01:25:40:25
Daniel Franco
Queen Kong? Yes.

01:25:41:12 - 01:25:54:07
Heather Croall
And, well, Sarah Millican is a great comedian. I mean, I'd invite. Well, I'd love to win. I'd love to invite loads of people to dinner party, but I think this year they would be the.

01:25:54:07 - 01:26:17:12
Daniel Franco
Ones that would be the ones I love how you turn that into a fringe. And in my mind. In my mind I'm so stuck on the fringe. No, it's brilliant because it actually anyone listening, they go, they're going to take these guys that which is fantastic. More tickets. They'll say, I know what you're up to with some of the best advice that you've ever received.

01:26:17:12 - 01:26:55:12
Heather Croall
Um, probably just breathe. Take a minute. Pause. Pause. And what was one of the, one of the, one of the trainers in the leadership course at the jail called the pro pause, reflect and open from the heart. And so if something happens that you really just want to jump, like have a reaction to yeah just breathe and pro pause, reflect and open from the heart.

01:26:55:12 - 01:26:57:24
Heather Croall
Yeah. So I do love that.

01:26:57:26 - 01:26:58:24
Daniel Franco
Yeah, that is great.

01:26:58:26 - 01:27:04:10
Heather Croall
Sometimes when you just want to go Why did someone say okay pause, reflect and open.

01:27:04:10 - 01:27:13:10
Daniel Franco
Yeah. You know, answering from an emotion that's more of a logical style. That's brilliant. If you had access to a time machine, where would you go?

01:27:14:15 - 01:27:32:19
Heather Croall
Oh, dear. I don't really know. I mean, I think my immediate thing is I want to go to a to see a gig of one my favorite performers or something, which isn't really. I know the time machine can go back to the pyramids.

01:27:32:19 - 01:27:34:03
Daniel Franco
Oh, boy. You know. Right.

01:27:34:03 - 01:27:38:13
Heather Croall
Or most times in human history, it will be quite smelly, I think.

01:27:38:28 - 01:27:41:10
Daniel Franco
Because there's a very small.

01:27:41:21 - 01:27:44:01
Heather Croall
Time that we've all got to show.

01:27:44:02 - 01:27:56:10
Daniel Franco
Oh, I don't know. I've always wondered that. Oh, what's maybe sometimes a guy, you know, I haven't had a shower for two weeks. I wonder how that is. Oh, yeah.

01:27:56:10 - 01:28:25:10
Heather Croall
I just mean, I. I'd love to go. Um, I'd love to go back to, like, my even. Just, like, seeing the life, my parents. But when they, um, when they grew up in Glasgow and just they were this, it's the, there's all the trams running around and, you know, a real fantastic time I think. So I wouldn't mind going back to see my child.

01:28:25:11 - 01:28:26:18
Heather Croall
My parents childhood was.

01:28:26:18 - 01:28:29:25
Daniel Franco
Like, bring some good soap.

01:28:29:25 - 01:28:39:09
Heather Croall
Probably quite a hard time, you know, there'd be a lot of it would be quite harsh. But wouldn't it be great to sort of get a little bit of a sense of what your parents or your grandparents?

01:28:39:09 - 01:28:52:06
Daniel Franco
Yeah Well, it's one of my favorite answers on this show is almost you've nailed it. Someone said to us one time that he would go back and visit his grandfather when he was 18, just to see how he reacted and acted. And and.

01:28:52:20 - 01:28:53:22
Heather Croall
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm.

01:28:53:23 - 01:28:54:04
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:28:54:06 - 01:29:05:00
Heather Croall
To be like. I quite like to go back and see and when you see old archival footage of, you know, the forties or something or photograph albums and you think I wouldn't just want to.

01:29:05:00 - 01:29:27:20
Daniel Franco
Get in there, go in then yeah, it's like I'm maybe a hundred. If you had, if you sir, if your house was on fire or your pets and family, everyone was safe. Is there anything that you'd go back and grab? Oh, oh, everything. Everything's online these days. So that makes it. We had that question.

01:29:28:06 - 01:29:49:20
Heather Croall
Uh, I think I'd go back for art. The art of paintings. Yeah. That I just adore. On my walls with, my, my partner and I. Just to the point that there's no room left on the walls. Yeah. So I think. Yeah, we go back for the painting. Yeah. We've got an amazing painting by Gavin Wanganeen.

01:29:50:12 - 01:29:53:24
Daniel Franco
To that has been on the show. I love his paintings, you know.

01:29:53:27 - 01:30:13:12
Heather Croall
And also Zachariah Fielding, who is in electric fields, is an incredible painter from the APY Lands, and I'd love to make sure I got my Zacharia painting. Yeah, and a few others. And my son, an amazing artist as well. So I'd grab as many paintings as you know.

01:30:13:12 - 01:30:19:25
Daniel Franco
All right, last one. If you had one superhero power or av0.

01:30:20:26 - 01:30:51:19
Heather Croall
Hero power, um, to make sure that there's enough funding for all artists that want to perform and make sure there's enough money for the arts to thrive and, you know, we could all conspire to make our life a bit better if we can all get involved in more art. So I think, yeah, my superpower would be to try and make a lot of artists a lot better.

01:30:52:15 - 01:31:11:28
Daniel Franco
Excellent. I love it. Luke, thank you so much for your time. It's been an amazing chat with you and, to be honest, to hear your journey all the way from the UK through to Australia and all the things that you've done here. I want to thank you on behalf of everyone for the amazing work that you and the team are putting together down there at the Fringe.

01:31:11:28 - 01:31:31:24
Daniel Franco
It's a remarkable event. It's putting South Australian, particularly Adelaide on the map, you know, keep up the good work and keep striving. I want to see, I want to see us take on the number one and become that in the future years. Is there is there in any any way people can get in contact with you through LinkedIn?

01:31:31:24 - 01:31:35:05
Daniel Franco
Is that the best way that people could connect with you on LinkedIn?

01:31:35:26 - 01:31:45:25
Heather Croall
I'm I'm not great on the message is ever down again I guess. No, no no. Oh there's 50 messages I haven't seen, but no. Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn just to be the best way.

01:31:45:26 - 01:32:01:06
Daniel Franco
Just to follow you. Perfect. Yeah. Don't bombard with, but just to follow me. It's not very like, Oh, we're not. We get bombarded anyway, right? You have a C in front of your title and all of a sudden your inbox fills up very quickly. But thank you again to you and the team. Thank you for your time today.

01:32:01:18 - 01:32:05:05
Daniel Franco
I'm looking forward to watching what the future holds for you on the Adelaide fringe.

01:32:05:12 - 01:32:06:13
Heather Croall
Thank you so much.

01:32:06:17 - 01:32:07:17
Daniel Franco
Thanks, guys. Take care.