The SEAS Festival Finale at the Embassy Theater was a fitting end to another poorly organised Skegness event. I arrived at the Embassy with my young son, we were welcomed into the theater by The Jolly Fisherman to what I was assured was a family night of musical entertainment. Here’s the information Skegness residents/visitors and […]
Continue Reading Skegness SEAS Festival Finale Event Complaint to East Lindsey District Council
Dear Mrs Law,
On reflection, the performance should have been programmed later in the evening.
Thank you for raising your concerns and those of your family and we take on board what has been said.
The programme for the evening did contain a warning that some of the performances may not be suitable for young people but with hind sight we should have changed the running order.
All art is subjective and draws upon different emotions and views. Whilst the piece in question wasn’t to everyone’s taste, it was enjoyed by others.
I hope that overall the SEAS festival is remembered for bringing something unique and different to local people and at the same time for generating extensive media coverage on a regional and national level for our coast.
King regards,
Semantha Neal
Business Manager (Health, Arts and Events)
East Lindsey District Council
That is no answer. It is an insult to the author of the message.
You have simply fobbed her off with a bog standard response.
All my wife wanted was a sincere apology and you can’t even organise that correctly.
I’m glad you agree it was a mistake to have adult content at such an early stage of the SEAS Festival finale.
Where was this warning you refer to?
It was not in any of the SEAS literature we had access to.
The staff at the Skegness Tourist Information Center were specifically asked by my wife if it was suitable for children and they thought it was and gave my wife two tickets.
The two members of Embassy Theater staff my wife spoke to (one of which has an important role within the theater: management level) was unaware of the program of events at 7:15 pm to 7:30 pm on the night of the SEAS Festival finale.
Chris Torch the artistic director – Intercult and SEAS International didn’t know the planned program for the SEAS Finale (see his response below).
So please point me to the warning you refer to as a defence against subjecting my and many other peoples children to adult content at 7:00 pm to 7:30 pm at night at a family event?
David
Dear Mrs Law and other enraged Skegness friends:
I agree with a great deal that you write in your comment.
It is essential – as artistic director and responsible for SEAS as an international platform – to make it clear that the program of the Finale was not a SEAS programmed event. We trusted to our local hosts and their judgements. The choice made to present that sketch at the beginning of the program was unfortunate.
I was personally there when the first sketch welcomed the public. I was embarrassed and relieved when it was finished.
It was not in the taste and care that SEAS and my institution Intercult represent. Adult-oriented performances were presented during SEAS Skegness; they were clearly marked and took place at appropriate times and places. The Finale did not meet that standard.
It would be a great pity if all the wonderful encounters that took place between SEAS artists, citizens of Lincolnshire and visitors from afar were undercut by this unfortunate incident. Thousands of people in Skegness and Mablethorpe had great and surprising experiences. It was well managed by the local hosts and the foreign artists enjoyed their audiences and their stay in Lincolnshire immensely.
I deeply apologize for any insult you and your son experienced. I can assure you that it was a single exception throughout 12 days of public art, performance and voices from other Europe.
I hope that Skegness and East Lindsey will continue to show foresight and courage in inviting guest artists to their home, even at the risk of mistakes. It is through these attempts that limits are tested and values are defined.
I can’t help mentioning that I met personally rude behaviour in public places in Skegness during my stay, related to other types of entertainment available in your town and surely an unpleasant feature in any resort area. I chose to keep my sights set on the overwhelming majority of people who showed curiosity and joy at SEAS events.
kind regards
Chris Torch
artistic director – Intercult and SEAS International
Hi Chris
Thank you so very much for your apology and I know Intercult had nothing to do with the performers selected at the SEAS grand finale. I wish East Lindsey District Council had as much compassion as you, their comment about my complaint hurt immensely and your kind words have helped ease a very uncomfortable situation.
I don’t like to complain officially, but I couldn’t remain silent, I had no choice after such a shocking experience. My son and I had been looking forward to the closing entertainment, overall we had a good 9 days of events in our town and was looking forward to the grand finale, we were so upset at the SEAS Festival ended this way for us.
I fear sloppy mistakes like the ones made by our council could jeopardise tourism to Skegness, I thought it was wonderful that the SEAS Festival catered for both young and old, with events for adults as well as children, but the two should never occupy the same space early in the evening at the same event.
I hope the mistake at the SEAS grand finale is something you can forgive the council for and it didn’t upset you too much, as I’m sure it was a worry at the beginning of the finale that the show wasn’t going to be so grand! I understand it was a good night after the first two acts, so I’m happy that your evening wasn’t completely ruined.
I am so sorry that some people where rude to you during your time in Skegness. That is the reason Skegness needs cultural events and festivals so we can attract a higher class of visitor and the SEAS Festival is one way to do this. It also tells the world about our little forgotten seaside town, Skegness needs diversity.
I hope you left Skegness with more happy memories of the people you met than the ignorance of some living in and visiting our community. Remember that in amongst the din of rude people there are those like our family who are open minded to new experiences, who like to see and do different and interesting things and although we might not fully understand art to a high level we do appreciate it.
We enjoyed a lot of the art that was on offer and I hope that if you organise another international festival that you consider Skegness again as a host to your future events.
Thank you Chris for bringing the SEAS to Skegness and for your kind apology.
Marie Law
I was having a productive discussion at visitskegness.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2176&start=15 regarding the SEAS Festival, but my posts have been cut out of that appropriate thread by the Administrator and moved to a soap box forum where it is less likely to be read by those searching for information about the SEAS Festival!
So I’ve transferred my posts here where they will be easily found in Google etc…
David
Hi,
First post here.
That might be because the first acts on stage were adult acts, do you really think families living in and visiting Skegness want to hear people swearing and talking about sexual themes while touching themselves at 7:00 to 7:30pm in the evening?
My wife and youngest son had tickets for 7:30 (they got the times wrong), arrived at around 7:15 and left in disgust by 7:30pm.
I’m sure many other families with young children expecting a musical treat left also. My wife saw others leaving as well.
My wife has compiled a complaint to ELDC which will be mailed later this week.
Those early performers completely ruined the night for my wife and youngest son, the organises should be ashamed.
The SEAS Festival Skegness was poorly organised, you could not obtain decent information about any of the events or exhibits through the week, very, very disappointed and we think festivals ARE the way to go with Skegness.
The best part of the festival we saw was the Graffiti Classics at St Mathews church, Daily Dose and The Baggdadies were also enjoyable.
David
Hi and thanks for the welcomes,
Not providing useful information about an event is poor organisation, a lot of the information supplied was artistic blurb or just didn’t exist.
Here’s an example.
Suitcase: from the literature it was not clear where the event started, it did not say the Hildred Shopping Center for example and would proceed to the entrance of Flirts. The literature mentioned Tower Gardens, so it’s not unreasonable to believe it was going through the park. When we gave up waiting on the park for the show to pass by and asked the staff in the tourist information office where it was, I was told to stand on the park steps to wait for it to pass. Had we waited there it would have never passed by since it ended at Flirts. We completely missed it because of poor information/organisation.
It’s inexcusable to host an event and not tell people who want to see it where it starts and ends!
If you can show me an official source that listed the Suitcase performance starting at the Hildred Shopping Center I’d love to see it? It must be dated prior to the show start, not after.
All our information came from the official literature supplied both on and offline and from the tourist information office staff. We should have been able to plan our time from those sources alone, but couldn’t. Even doing extensive research online didn’t help and my job is as a search engine optimisation consultant and before that I studied genetics with an aim to following a career in scientific research, so I know how to do research online.
We like the Embassy theater and have no issues with the tourist information office, (the staff are friendly and try to help) but unfortunately their understanding of what was going on during the SEAS Festival was severely lacking (we blame the organises for this). In our experience the only source of information they had to refer to was the publicly available literature and it was wholly inadequate for leading people through the SEAS Festival.
That’s poor organisation/information and detracts from what the festival was about, despite the poor organisation we tried to be fair with our reviews (not all written yet).
http://www.skegness-attractions.co.uk/skegness-seas-festival.html
http://www.skegness-attractions.co.uk/graffiti-classics-musical-show-review.html
As miles_07 said the finale problem was easily solved by having the adult entertainment at the end of the night, whilst giving families a chance to leave before the profanity started!
Once you are in the situation of seeing two adult acts early in the evening you can’t just sit there with young children hoping there won’t be more offensive material, it ruined the night for my wife and youngest son. If I had been there I’d have very loudly stopped the performance asked what the hell was going on with having adult themes with children in the audience, I can not understand why no one stopped the performances!
Result was my wife and son missed what sounded like a good show, they would have really enjoyed it. I couldn’t go because my back was hurting too much (had an op on my back earlier this year).
One of our sons used to be in the Skegness Silver Band, when they performed in Skegness, as a family we’d try to watch them. I feel sorry for the parents who had little choice but to stay and watch the early adult performances because their children were due on stage later in the evening, it’s not like they had the option my wife had to leave!
Looks like a ELDC councilor has read the online version of the complaint, so much for an apology, that was a callous and uncaring response!
Also does anyone know anything about:
“The programme for the evening did contain a warning that some of the performances may not be suitable for young people but with hind sight we should have changed the running order.”
Where was the warning???
David
Skegggy47 my second post wasn’t aimed directly at you, if anything it was mostly in response to Irishblue who disagreed with how well/poorly organised the festival was. I was giving an example of how the information/organisation was lacking.
As it happens the only reason we now know the Suitcase performance started in the shopping center is because you posted photos of it in this thread (unfortunately I read it too late, after the Saturday event). If it wasn’t for your post we’d still not know where it started! As my wife has been writing the reviews I’ve been reading your reviews in this thread as well: I wasn’t able to go to most of the events (my back couldn’t handle it), but still very interested, maybe the next festival I’ll be able to participate more.
My wife and I want more festivals in Skegness, more culture, but that doesn’t mean we can’t constructively criticize the organisation of past events, how are organises/councilors to learn what went wrong if no one stands up and tells them?
In your first review of the Finale you glossed** over the adult performances as “After a shaky start by a couple of short warm up acts”, when what you just said “Its unfortunate that some silly deluded student had to decide that what she called art didnt matter if others found it offencive and I include myself in that bracket.” is far more constructive to the organises, they can learn from past mistakes.
** I understand why you did this, you didn’t want to go too negative and risk loosing future events like this to Skegness. As it happens my wife HATES writing negative reviews, she’s been working on a Butlins review for over a year (worst time she ever had at an attraction) and can’t bare to finish it because she got nothing positive from a day at Butlins!
If ELDC are so fickle to use a complaint like this as a reason not to host similar events, they are using it as an excuse and not a valid reason not to try harder next time and should be voted out next election! The online response we got from Semantha Neal (Business Manager (Health, Arts and Events) East Lindsey District Council) is disturbing to say the least. I know politicians are renowned for refusing to apologise, but this clearly warrants an apology.
Chris Torch artistic director – Intercult and SEAS International has commented on the complaint, now that’s a proper apology, (thank you Chris) my wife plans to respond later.
BTW you’d have probably seen my wife and son at the Baghdaddies performance, they were the ones that got up and danced, they had a good time :)
David
Hi David
Yes I do recall seeing your wife and son at St Mathews Church for the Baghdaddies performance, they were seated in the pew just in front of me to my left.
I am truly sorry that they had to miss what turned out to be a very good musical evenning because of in-appropiate acts that kicked off the evenning. I wish I knew who was responsible for bringing in the act in question, I don’t think it was anyone from the Seas people and I was very glad that you recieved an appoligy from Chis Torch who I had met during the festival and was very impressed by is open manner and dedication to the Seas project.
The only one of the Skegness organisers that I know is John Bycroft whom I spoke to after the performance and he most definately knew nothing of who had invited this act to open and I can confirm that she was not one of the Seas artists. My guess is it was someone from the students organisation that was responsible for booking the musical acts but i must stress I have no connection to any of the organising bodies, Its clear to me that someone from the organisers should have checked and and cleared any act before they were allowed to take the stage, clearly this was not done.
It is a shame that one small aspect of the festival should over clowd what was for many a chance to see some very entertaining performances from many places around Europe.
Regarding the Suitcases Street theatre act. The programme did state that the Procession was from Lumley Road to The Tower Gardens and there was officials posted at the start of the show near Kirks Butchers. I asked one of the voluntary helpers in the Embassy to locate where the procession would start and found it with no problem.
The Waiting Performance near the Pier on Friday Saturday and Sunday Nights attracted big numbers. The Sorrelle Opera was very popular and the Local wednesday night Playgowers evenning had something for everyone. So yes there were problems with the publicity and yes there were mistakes made but at least a start has been made and hopefully more locals will get involved in the organisation of future events and ensure that lessons learnt will be put right next time
hi, I did the boxheads on the beach with sealass. I thought it was very interesting, and gave me alsorts of memories,and feelings. I also ,and my husband did labels with her. my label was “silver lining” my photo was of my cat eric, who happens to be a girl, (thats another story) she is very much my silver lining. my husbands label was “i want to take this home”. his photo is of our shadows on the skeggy beach at unset. we love skeggy. you can see some of the labels by putting sealass on google and going to her page. we saw some other art work while we were there . the photo’s in the theatre were very good.
Letter of complaint regarding the SEAS Festival Finale Written Response from East Lindsey District Council.
Dear Mrs Law,
Letter of complaint regarding the SEAS Festival Finale (03.10.03)
Thank you for your letter which arrived in my office today, 11 November 2009. I am truly sorry that the content of the two short performances which began the Finale event in the embassy Theatre caused you and your family such dismay at the outset of what then proceeded to be a delightful five hours of music, dance and film.
East Lindsey District Council programmed the Finale in collaboration with colleagues from the Arts Council East Midlands Region as well as the international SEAS project. The Finale was seen as an opportunity for Arts Council England to showcase work by regional artists alongside and in response to the international programme, and we therefore ‘made space’ for a series of small acts by Nottingham-based organisation, which had been described to my staff in a manner which suggested they would be fun and ‘harmless’.
The fact that the first piece, ‘Melinda Deathgoth – Depressed American Teenager’ contained swearing (we were not given similar information about the second performance) was only brought to our attention the evening before the event, and so we ensured that a warning to this effect was included in the printed programme circulated on the day of the Finale. Had we been able to preview the performance, and had we been made aware of it’s content, we would have reprogrammed the event, as I would agree that this was absolutely not the way to begin the evening.
Unfortunately we can only deal with this problem in hindsight. Please be assured that we had internal discussions about this immediately after the festival and published a response to your web-based comments on 5th October 2009. In addition we issued an apology through the press, which was printed in the East Coast Target on 7th October 2009.
The SEAS Festival, which incorporated 130 events over 10 days has achieved positive national, regional and local publicity and raised the profile for the arts in East Lindsey and Lincolnshire as a whole. Quite apart from dismay for the way in which our failing in this matter has created a negative experience for the whole SEAS festival for some people, we are frustrated that our hard work in liaising in detail at an international level over the past 2 years to create this festival has been let down by two 15 minute performances on the last day of the event.
I can only ask that you forgive this mistake and accept that we will be learning an important lesson from it.
Yours sincerely,
Semantha Neal
Business Manager (Health, Arts & Events)