We love the arts here at Motone and we are keen as to give as many opportunites to artists and partners as we can making things work for us and for them. But just one thing that really gets us frustrated and usually means we will drop working with an artist is when you offer opportunites and suddenly you are working with  Chris Brown and Rihanna. Hiliarious to watch but not productive. you see when we put on events our company is infact investing in the artist, financially, with our time and resources and with our contacts and PR. We are a business where  attitude is everything and getting one to early on or thinking that you are great or an ARTIST of Adele or Bruno Mars status only makes you look like a dick. It is an instant see you later from Motone. We love artists who love working with us and not ones who think we are doing our gigs just for them! So consider this a serve young rising stars.

 LOCAL COMPANY TO ATTEND  AUSTRALIAN
WORLD MUSIC EXPO – www.awme.com.au


Local creative events company Motone productions have been provided delegates passes to attend AWME – the Australian World Music Expo in Melbourne next week. 

Motone will be attending the Expo to again promote the Cook Islands as a destination for music events and further connections with the Australian market for arts events destination travel. 

“We are only a small company but have already established excellent profile in both the NZ and now the Australian market through our events OPERA IN PARADISE and our recent event DIVAS IN PARADISE. The offer of free attendance to the event is something we could not pass up” said Tuaine.  “We fund all our projects largely ourselves at the moment so with limited support we need to continue trying to build off shore relationships to develop our business and the message of the Cook Islands as a great place for music and arts events. “

 AWME is a unique expo that is celebrating its 5thyear in 2012. The event brings together musicians, industry representatives, and festival audiences from across Australia and around the  globe for four days of the finest indigenous, roots and world music from the
Australasian region and the world. To add to that AWME hosts one of the most extensive industry conferences where the delegates are afforded unlimited access to all showcases workshops presentations meetings and connections to the world’s  leading festival directors, booking agents, label managers, and music media.

 “To be serious about the Cooks as an arts event destination you  have to be attending these sorts of events, it is fantastic that the Australian organisers of AWME recognise we know what we are doing and understand the importance of professional exchange and advise sharing.” Said Mo of Motone. 
 
“We are excited to be able to be there to support local talent Jaik Berg who will be performing at the ABC Network Special Pacific Break Broadcast and to have a small Cook Islands contingent at an event such as this is a huge plus even if we have to fund it oursleves”.

It has to be said that when a good idea comes your way often you can find yourself getting carried away. This was my drama when I saw a link between a New Zealand event in Europe and a Cultural Group who I knew would be on tour at the same time. Could I make all of this work where by the Cooks got brillant exposure at a NZ event and the group could perform amongst some of New Zealand finest, Shapeshifter, Warren Maxwell, Te Matare, Donna Deans, Flip Grater .. the list went on.  Could I get Tourism and Business and Trade involved? Long story short yeap we did it and attended a  Stellar event which was brlllant to be a part of.
So what is concerning me? Well the fact that when you jump too quickly you end up having to do all the work that infact some of the other people who are involved in the tour or executives or managers who love the title but are not into the work screw with you and you end up having to clean up their mess!  On the road you end up with drama queens who really as adults should know better but behave badly and then expect you to stroke there ego's. You then come back to find agencies who agreed to pay for certain parts of trade now renegging! PEOPLE this does not make for companies like mine doing anything like this with you again. That does not mean we wouldn't create tours - we would, but we control it right from word go. I am not a control freak - well may be I am ... but I really have standards and believe in treating people as equals with a mature approach. Sadly on some of this Tour prior to our super duppa event with New Zealand,  the behaviour of some and the organisation of the group and the festivals we attended was appalling.

So let's get this straight - If you are sending people to Europe or on any tour anywhere in the world, make sure you have negotiated all parts of the contract properly and all areas concerning responsbilites and obligations are clear.

And finally if you agree to supporting international relations and development of business by an external company who is prepared to do your work for your orgnisation, then pay the meagre amount you agreed too to support the project!

I love the Olympics - the opening ceremony WOW what a amazing achievement in staging, production, artistic direction....... you name it Danny Boyle you rock. I loved how Great Britian took pride in telling the story of their history thru thearte, music, cinematography, film, fashion and comedy. Now that would suggest that the govenment  bodies in Great Britian recognse the importance of the Arts and support it to the levels that result in award winning directors and epic opening ceremonies.  Now the Cook is a long way off opening ceremonies of this calibre but the message is simple support art and look what can be achieved!!!!!!

As you guys know Motone is about staging events in Rarotonga and the Pacific. We are honest about what can be acheived and know what can be delivered and more inportantly what can't.
 
In the events and festival game you are far better off knowing your limitations than having dellusions that you can deliver huge events when you don't have the skilled labour nor the toys and venues to make them happen.  So I have had some really out there conversations with some people who  although have the best intentions and want to see big events here don't seem to grasp that we need to upskill our labour force, focus on the events we currently have building on those and fund when you have the dollars people who are succeeding and delivering instead of dicking them around. Yeah can you hear me..........you see I have a propsoal in for a small amount of $ to bring a tech expert in to the country and some equip to stage a show in October - yes DIVAS and do you think I can get an answer about whether I can get support to run a workshop for our local techs, provide worldclass sound at our gig and showcase to our tourists that we can hold the best events here!!! Well apparently not!!!!

Recently I went to an event at our National Auditorium that infuriated me. Why is it that some people seem to think that being brillantly mediocre at your job is acceptable to the point where production values are non existant and pride in being a part of the creative industry means absolutely nothing.

To start with the show started 1 hour late. The stage hands walked acorss the stage pre-during and post performances. The projectionist thought the laptop desktop was the image to show as a default when he could not work out what was suppoed to be shown. and the sound tech had no idea on levels!!!! Come on people this is not acceptable. Never will be and makes the National Auditorium and the staff connected with it look like a Monty Python skit. Shameful when their are people in the community that take production and live performance seriously. If you do not know how to do it get some professionals in that do and stop mascarading as technicians, stage managers, and producers.

The topic for today is event bullying - yes you heard me right it seems that one of our event names has the same name as another event in another country on another island. The organisers contacted us and were extremely rude and condescending about requesting us to change the name of our event. Hmm we thought and then proceeded to contact our lawyers and all other people "said organiser" listed stating that they had been in contact with a number of people in our country and were in fact bringing events to our country and that we the Cooks Islands owned and run event company were jeopardising there the off shore not Cook Islands owned nor registered companies livelihood!  Now I find this all strange... if I had been that person I would have seen the opportunity to co- market (when relevant) our events  and get double exposure in an amicable and clever way. There event is in a completely different country to mine and in fact there is no confusion my country is called the Cook Islands there country which shall remain nameless at this time has a completely differnt name.  However the organiser began to stalk us over the internet and on facebook to the point where I had to ban the organiser from having access that was after the 10 aggressive posting in one day!  When I asked if any one was working with this organiser to bring events to the Cooks a loose story developed but nothing that was confirmed or real. What I have learnt from this is simple, the said event organiser is a bully plain and simple. We will change the name of our event next year ( we couldn't this year as all marketing had already been put in place).  The reason for the change is simple I really do not want to be stalked by this person anymore and I believe the quality of your event is what sells it not the name! If you are that protective of your name then trade mark it ( which said organiser had not done at the time of this publishing. Only because of our situatiuon did they finally buy the domain names for the event something we looked at but chose to focus on Motone as our domain.  Our Opera event is a stellar event that we are extremely proud of. We make Opera accessible to established and new audiences and as for the high brow approach that said organiser in said country that is being a stalker and event bullying us  well you can have it but just on message to anyone out there who is thinking of being a event bully our rules of business are that We  market professionally, we are at all times decent and respectful in our communications -  pulling high brow condescending language and behaviour out as your modus operandi only makes you look like a CLASS A TWAT!