eCentral Business Show^©

Recovering from devastation in festivals and business, Bill Hauritz, Woodford Folk Festival

Fri 8:57am 22 Dec 2017
Podcast Audio


In the final of this three-part series speaking with Bill Hauritz from Woodford Folk Festival, we focus on the devastating rain and floods that affected the festival in 2010/2011.

Bill speaks about the drama in a positive sense naming it as a blessing in disguise. The festival is a long-term success story and it's had to deal with challenges in the past. It seems that the rain and drama associated is seen in the same light. Bill goes all to detail how the festival has become stronger because it's overcome the challenge and learnt that it needs to save quite literally "for a rainy day".

In business and life, it's quite natural for to take an optimistic view of the future and for the most part optimism is a key factor in success and happiness studies have shown. However, a truly balanced view of the future and some crystal ball gazing to determine the possible challenges and how to mitigate possible loss and damage to a business's livelihood makes sense. History is a great place to look for past failures and unforeseen challenges so that they can be planned for or avoided completely in the future.

Bill's wise words about creating a cash surplus are food for thought in any successful business strategy. Businesses running with few cash reserves will not survive costly challenges and/or not be able to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves.


Video transcript: recovering from devastations while we're talking about today in the east central business show I'm John Nayler and I'm joined by Bill Hertz the festival director for the Woodford Folk Festival and the executive director of would 40 I think very much your time bill you welcome okay now recovering from disaster recovering from something terrible we're talking about of course the 10010 2010-2011 floods and the effect on the festival that year I mean how do you recover from that bill it wasn't easy it's funny though when we look back it was you dog you was one of the best things that happened to us okay we were heavily geared our margin for surplus was very small we emerged as a nonprofit body and sometimes breakeven was a great result okay yeah and that that's never good enough so you say expectations a bit low and we had and we spend any excess dollars might get better and better and of course we had the pressure of building infrastructure was always very tight so we were vulnerable and ready for the taking okay by an event and that happened was in 2010-11 and I think looking back we were lucky we had fantastic support through our communities through our traders and a fantastic board by regional council mayor and councillors who helped us out and that was a tremendous period looking back but we had to realign our thinking sure knowing that this is going to happen again and if we wanted to survive we had to restructure our thinking be a bit cleverer about the way we spend our money and our organizing I don't think we're quite there yet the recurring problem of infrastructure because we were the as I understand it the first festival in the world to go out and buy its own land yeah okay that means we had to build their own infrastructure so as a sewage treatment plant we make it around town water we built 55 amenity blocks sure so it's been a big business plan yeah sure I remember recall some sort of conversation with you about the fact that even the valley or the venue was you know seen as a pretty poor excuse for a cattle property year but you've turned it into a we we always said we've sort of made of a joke that we we purchased a very tidy dairy farm and turned it into an untidy Park but a park it is it's the people's parkland issue and we've we planted one hundred and ten thousand trees on the property rainforest trees some of those are now 40 foot high Wow and we've changed the whole amenity of the place and over the years over 20 years now it's turned into a beautiful park we're still a bit untidy yeah sure but so what so you're coaching around sort of anybody in terms of run the festival and or in fact a decent business is quite literally you need to say for a rainy day and you need to make sure your margins yeah it's our responsibility really and we came to the realization even last year where we had our biggest festival ever we had a turnover of around 12 million in revenue way and our surplus was you know a couple hundred thousand cash surplus there's a bit on top of that in terms of interest extra savings but it's not enough because we know when the rain comes back we have to be better gear than that or we're risking you know a lot of things and what we're risking is not just the business itself we're risking 30 years of contributions and volunteers and people who have given to it because it's the people who have given to it are actually our owners exactly we're custodians and we have to have a stronger financial underpinning for us to hand to the next generation and beyond which is what we'd like to do okay no that's fabulous but and so many other points in terms of like so it's just a resilience so that that resolution that you guys had that I hope we do need to say for the rainy day you think that's probably the key point out of that that whole event it is and that it's it's much the saving but the the structure of decision-making we needed to be more financially sustainable we need to invest in the infrastructure in a way that gives the returned so we've got a you know we've got to watch like every business as to watch that that bottom line and it's not just about the P&L in one year it's about the balance sheet the assets and the liabilities is looking at that bottom line and looking at that melon sheets critical and trying to sort of see where that's going sort of five years out yeah yeah okay fabulous bill that's a rule in so I don't do appreciate your time today so that's that's it for now if that's all good and there's nothing else or to add at this point of thing from you yeah I can talk all day oh well we've only got eight minutes and I think we're pretty much used it thank you the next time bill the next time place maybe I look Woodford folk festival out here Woodford and what forty hours coming up at Christmas New Year Festival and the best place you can get information about is a Woodford Folk Festival condo may you I'm John Nayler from Indy central business show not out yet Oh Woodford folk festival calm staying correct at the second time thank you