ANYBODY can hold an event. Pump it with enough publicity and you’ll get the party goers. Pump it with enough entertainment and you’ll make the party goers happy.

It takes an extraordinary concept and a faithfulness to authenticity, however, to keep holding an annual cultural event that both music-lovers and revellers have come to anticipate year after year and then, somehow, go above and beyond their expectations without compromising the integrity of the event that has cultural preservation foremost in mind.

Since its inception in 1997, the success of the Rainforest World Music Festival in promoting indigenous music, and Sarawak as a cultural destination, is creditted to the combined efforts of the architects of the Festival — Randy Raine-Reusch, Robert Basiuk, Edgar Ong, Edric Ong, Datin Chong and Heidi Munan … as well as its engineer, the Sarawak Tourism Board.

Ten years down the road, the award-winning festival has grown into a Sarawak success story, putting the state on the map alongside the likes of other highly regarded cultural events like the World Music and Dance (Womad) with far-reaching impacts that have prompted Unesco to request for a paper from STB on how the RWMF has become a prime example of sustainable cultural tourism and conservation. The paper entitled Safeguarding Intangible Heritage and Sustainable Tourism was presented at the recent Unesco-EIIHCP Regional Meeting in Hue, Vietnam.

As with any milestone, the next question is always where do we go from here? And the answer is always “bigger” but how?

It’s been a year since the Borneo Post asked Gracie Geikie, CEO of Sarawak Tourism Board, how the STB was going to celebrate the Rainforest World Music Festival’s 10th anniversary in the face of a possible competitor for the crown of cultural events along with the sudden depletion of room availability in the festival’s hub — the Sarawak Cultural Village.

But into its 11th year, the RWMF has not just grown bigger but also diversified. thesundaypost asks Geikie about the two new fringe events to be held alongside the RWMF — the Rainforest World Craft Bazaar (July 9 to 15) and the Folk Art Forum (10 to 13 July) — at the Sarawak Cultural Village.

Q: When did STB start planning for these two fringe events?

A: We (STB) started brainstorming last year — in May or June — during the RWMF’s 10th anniversary. Now that we’re celebrating our 10th festival, what are our projections for the next 10 years? It has to be something related to the RWMF — so we came up with the idea of holding fringe events highlighting the other aspects of culture besides music — art and handicraft. We couldn’t do it by ourselves, so we roped in the experts of this field and called Heidi Munan. For a first-time event, the interest from the delegates is really good.

We hope to make these fringe events a part of the RWMF experience. A lot of the festival goers have been regulars; many have been coming consistently over the last five years, and some even from the beginning! So we want to bring the festival to a higher level, give them something visual as well as music to enjoy during the RWMF.

Q: What’s the difference between the Rainforest World Craft Bazaar and the Folk Arts Forum?

A: For the Rainforest World Craft Bazaar, we have a lot of interesting exhibitors from the world over —Denmark to Indonesia, Kyrgyztan to Korea. There will be over 50 exhibitors stationed at the Sarawak Cultural Village before and during the RWMF so that festival goers can float from station to station while enjoying the music.

While the Rainforest World Craft Bazaar focuses on traditional handicraft worldwide, the Folk Arts Forum is about the visual arts — depictions of people in their cultural settings. It’s targetted at art enthusiasts and art students, and will be a great cultural arts exchange at a nominal fee of RM100 for a four-day workshop. It will follow with an art exhibition.

We are roping in other agencies or the private sector, Galleria for instance, to organise this Forum. I think it will be fantastic exposure for our own registered delegates to participate in a platform for artistic exchange. It will be an enriching experience … they can network with other artisans.

Q: Which artists will be the highlights of the Folk Art Forum?

A: Tan Wei Kheng, known for his fine-detailed artwork, will be conducting the workshop. We will also have artists Sylvester Jussem (Kuching), Marvin Chew (Singapore), Surya Darma (Indonesia) and our Irish expat sculptor Daf to give talks.

Moreover, there will be caricaturists at the Folk Art Forum. One is called Don … but his name is actually Ishak, a Malaysian caricaturist I met in Berlin. During that meeting, I said “do my face” and while he was sketching I asked him to join our Folk Art Forum. At first he was reluctant: “No I’ll be elsewhere, I don’t know.”

But I went back the next day and he said “I just drew your caricature, why are you still here?” I then left him my card with a request that he reconsider. He called me the next day … and finally agreed.

As an artist, he will also present another interesting angle. While still a young art student, he never really shone and was ‘different’ but still got to become an artist in his own right. So it will be interesting for art students to understand art as an expression of form, providing them the incentive to get out of a fixed, academic format. He will be here with his two students to draw caricatures as well for visitors to the Rainforest World Music Festival. Don has travelled the world, giving talks and doing caricatures for famous people and celebrities.

Q: Last year, there were talks of the Sarawak Cultural Village being too small a venue for the RWMF. Now with two extra fringe events, is this still the case?

A: Well, it’s all about being creative. In the future, we hope to bring the festival out of the festival — I don’t mean literally splitting the two but spreading out the fringe events to other venues in and around Kuching with the help of our state government.

There is the Amphitheatre or the Reservoir Park to consider. When you spread out the events, you also increase the crowd, so we won’t have bottlenecks of people at the Sarawak Cultural Village. By spreading out the dates of the events and the venues as well, we will have a wider range of tourists coming to visit. Some may come early for the World Craft Bazaar, and some may stay longer for the Folk Art Forum.

Q: How will the fuel price hike affect the festival?

A: The effects will not be felt so much by the tourists who have already booked their tickets to come over. We are not feeling the effects yet but eventually, we will have to look for a compromise. We don’t want the ticket pricing to be dependent on inflation or fuel price hikes. In planning for next year, we will have to negotiate with our musicians and exhibitors on offsetting the price of our tickets. There are lots of things to consider. For the musicians genuinely depending on their music as a livelihood, their work at the festival will be an income for 10 days. For musical artists nearby, they will start calculating the costs. Many of the musicians are also taking leave off their regular day jobs. So we have to think about that too.

Q: Besides the fuel price increase, are there any other issues that concern the STB this year?

A: The problem for us this year is the lack of accommodation. The thing that concerns me also is that some hotels are doubling their charges. People fly in here specifically for the festival and, as such, only spend their sleeping time at the hotel and the rest of the day and evening at the Village — yet some hotels are charging RM600 and more per night. We have to look at it from the perspective of nurturing this event and not killing it by increasing costs. While I totally agree that a festival ‘surcharge’ should be imposed, it should not be double and more otherwise festival goers will be discouraged from coming.

On a brighter note, it’s good that more hotel rooms are opening next year otherwise the crowds will be bottlenecked around the Sarawak Cultural Village area.

Q: What other projections has STB lined up for RWMF in the next 10 years?

A: What we’ve also done in preparation for 2009, more so 2010, is secure Sarawak and Kuching a placing in the nationwide and international series of conventions and events to boost tourism in Malaysia, and the RWMF will be a part of the bidding process.

Q: How does it feel for the Board to be recognised as a case study for cultural conservation by Unesco?

A: It’s a great honour to be recognised by Unesco for producing an event that benefits the community! At the end of the day, this festival is all about how the community has benefitted from it.