Helen King’s road trip down to Margaret River

303Lowe were one of several Perth agencies that supported this year’s Emergence Creative Festival down in Margaret River. Young creative Helen King (left) was one of five delegates from the agency and here she recounts her highlights from the festival.

When my boss asked me if I wanted to spend three days down in Margaret River, I was already yelling “ROAD TRIP” before he finished his pitch about the Emergence Creative Festival.

So with no real expectation I travelled down south through farms and karri forest to my favourite holiday spot. I eased into the first day (meaning I was a bit late) with the guy who rebranded Feral Brewery under the idea of “being in the middle is a bad place to stand out.” Which set the tone for the rest of the festival. Don’t go head-on. Be unexpected, be useful and be brave. A bit like setting a creative festival in Margaret River. Instantly you’re relaxed and open to new experiences instead of being distracted and guarded in a busy city.

On day two, Carolyn Millar reminded us that there is no line between the real world and digital life, which is both a good and bad thing. Our world is changing, people are changing and what is socially acceptable is changing. And while it’s an exciting time to be entering this industry there was a strong reminder to set your own boundaries and reconnect with real people every once and awhile. That’s why they picked a region with patchy phone coverage! Without the office bothering me I actually had to be brave and talk to the speakers, connect with other creatives and meet complete strangers. Smart bastards.

So, already feeling like the speakers knew their stuff and the festival had been organised by an evil genius, I met our dinner hosts. Fervor is a brother and sister team who harvest sustainable food from nature, serving guests in outdoors pop up restaurants. They are passionate, expert in their craft, unconventional, emerging and creative. They served us food I’d never eaten before or even thought to try. I left the stunning beach setting full of delicious food and wondering how the hell did they manage to inspire me at dinnertime too?

Even though the third day saw me wake up a little fuzzy around the edges I was keen to see what Emergence had planned. It turns out they’d saved the best for last with Christiaan Van Vuuren and Eric Phu. One talking about creative bravery the other about user centered marketing. They’re quite similar topics. How? Instead of fighting hundreds of similar, more established products for supermarket space Kit Kat explored how to make their product useful to people in Japan. They converted a chocolate into a good luck wish to send to friends and family whilst securing unique shelf space in post offices. All because they were brave.

Now that I’m back at work, people are asking me whether I thought it was worth going. I do. Emergence isn’t like any other creative festival. And it doesn’t want to be. It plays to its strengths of a beautiful location, delicious food, and bringing together chilled out like-minded people. But don’t just take my word for it. Be brave and go.