This year’s PADC Festival of Ideas at The Rose and Crown in Guildford proves to be a big success with over 60 members attending

The 2012 PADC Festival of Ideas held recently with over 60 PADC members, creative professionals and students in attendance at The Rose and Crown in picturesque Guildford.

The Festival program started with Nick Garrett, MD of Colenso BBDO in New Zealand talking about ‘How to Sell Creative Work.’ Colenso is currently rated as the fifth most effective agency in the world. One of the case studies that Garrett energetically spoke about was for “The Pedigree Adoption Drive”, which utilised groundbreaking cinema technology allowing viewers to see two entirely different films on the same screen, which created two parallel stories about an abandoned dog.

After Garrett came the inspiring Christiaan Van Vurren, AKA the Fully Sick Rapper. Van Vurren went through his personal story of how contracting tuberculosis and being quarantined in hospital for 6 months led to him creating the viral hits including The Fully Sick Rapper, Bondi Hipsters and a long-form comedy series that is now in development with and Australian TV network.

Local graffiti artist Drew Straker gave a 45 minute painting demonstration over lunch which was enjoyed by all in the courtyard. In Straker’s presentation he spoke about the irony of graffiti artists such as Banksy, whose work has gone from being cleaned off walls to being protected by local councils.

Next was the charismatic Bradley Eldridge, Executive Creative Director and Partner at Soap Creative in Sydney. Eldridge’s talk was entitled ‘In real life’ and he spoke on how to bring story-telling from the digital world into the real world. He demonstrated this with the Lynx Anarchy campaign, the world’s first invisible ad.

Last but by no means least was Jonathan Samway, Executive Producer at Prodigy Films in Sydney. Samway’s talk was entitled ‘The Demise of the 30 Second Spot’ which went through his own history and the history of the TVC. Plus, his exciting view of the future of branded content online.

The presentations were followed by small intimate master classes and then drinks and dinner in the courtyard followed, with a great time had by all.

Spencer Battista, President PADC said, “I would like to thank all the sponsors, members and agencies that supported the Festival of Ideas, it was a great success. A special thanks to Karen Marks, our Club Manager, for her extraordinary efforts in making this year’s award judging process and Festival such a great success. It’s events like these which are truly rewarding especially to see the creative community come together and be inspired to create better work and create their own opportunities as demonstrated but the Fully Sick Rapper.”