Check out the complete Schedule and Bios of all the great sessions speakers at Sched.com [Link 🔗]

We Came Back Live!

ALOHA!

Because of the date change we lost three weeks of preparation time, so we found ourselves programming, promoting and executing the festival's logistics simultaneously, instead of in three orderly phases. As a result, we lost some programming, our social media campaign was not what we wanted it to be. Nevertheless, our Event Coordinator, the redoubtable Amy Hammmond (who has been with us since 2008) skilfully navigated the rules and regs of our new venue, the campus of UH Manoa, and by all accounts the festival was a success!

Mahalo to UH Facilities staff and the student-led Campus center for threading many needles on our behalf!

The resistance of attendees to the changed venue we anticipated never materialized, and many attendees told me that they actually preferred the new venue. I missed the visual impact of a half-dozen big tents for the speaking events, but the Authors and panelists said they much preferred being indoors with AC and no ambient sound from the stages.

Our greatest challenge was the complete absence of Advertiser coverage. Before Covid HBMF might get as many as 5 features. This year, none. You would think a festival of this scale, with 140 varied events, would merit some notice. All there was were three 6-inch ads we inserted at the last moment--all we could afford, as many of our basic costs have jumped significantly.

This lack of coverage is not exclusive to HBMF. The Advertiser has abandoned arts coverage totally. So if you aren't on an elist, it's almost impossible to know what's going on in this city's arts and culture scene.

To remedy this, we've initiated a campaign for a dedicated, proactive and curated arts and culture website for Honolulu.

Watch this space!