Thousands of visitors and locals alike have embraced Artlands Dubbo 2016, as the biennial festival and conference continued throughout the city on Friday.
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“I'm getting a lot of very positive feedback … about what a welcoming town and how good the infrastructure is and how nice it is to be able to walk between the venues,” Regional Arts NSW chief executive officer Elizabeth Rogers said.
“We hope the local community will continue to enjoy the festival and enjoy the level of arts we’ve been able to bring here.”
It’s the first time Artlands has been held in NSW in 14 years. Ms Rogers said Regional Arts NSW didn’t even call for bids before choosing Dubbo as the host city.
“We knew the ratepayers had paid to build this first-class cultural infrastructure,” Ms Rogers said.
“We thought that bringing this national event to Dubbo would actually help underscore the value to the ratepayers of their investment for seeing it used as an arts event bang in the middle of the CBD.
“It wasn’t about return on investment...the concept was really about strengthening the arts sector in the Orana region by being able to bring an event of this scale, professionality and size into Dubbo.”
One group not impressed by the event was the Federal Arts Response Team (F.A.R.T.).
The team attended the Dubbo Regional Theatre and Convention Centre (DRTCC) on Friday to confiscate and burn unauthorised art.
“We’re protecting our borders from weird ideas,” the team said, determined to stay in character.
“Given that there’s a whole bunch of arts workers in town...we decided we would go and cleanse the area.
“Dubbo’s now safe in the knowledge that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday.”
While they declined to comment on “operational matters”, it is believed the F.A.R.T. is planning a crackdown at the Fire Station Arts Centre tonight following reports of “untoward cultural activity”.
Visit www.artlands.com.au/festival-events/ for event details.