March 2026 - All staff - PAC Australia

Great read

by Katherine Connor

There seems to be a huge movement at the moment of people moving to consulting in a framework that's super accessible for independent. Love this from Cat Dibley - a few insights in there that are also relevant for people applying for APAX! https://www.catdibley.com/tips/what-assessors-actually-look-for-in-an-arts-… Katherine Connor (she/her) Executive Director | PAC Australia | +61 (0) 419 428 412 | paca.org.au<http://www.paca.org.au/> [cid:image001.gif@01DCB645.4101FC00]<https://apax.org.au/> [A red circle with a white letter f in it Description automatically generated]<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> [signature_2482306534] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/performing-arts-connections-australia> [signature_1587814422] <https://apaca.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=17268242394b2278ede3a3716&id…> [signature_883882369] <https://paca.org.au/members/login.php> [signature_249193979] <https://paca.org.au/resources/touringcharter/> I acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, on whose land I live and work, and pay respects to their Elders past and present. If this email arrives in your inbox out of hours, I don't expect you to read, action or reply to it outside of your working hours.

March 17, 2026

Audiences - a national convening

by Katherine Connor

Hi team, Further to my references in the teams meeting earlier this week about the audience project Amy Maiden and I have been developing, I’m happy to confirm that Creative Australia has agreed to fund it! Off the back of the work we did with Amy with her keynote and workshop at APAX, originally the project was designed as an Audience Summit (an evolution and more urgent conversation than the previous CA Marketing Summits) – as Amy and I interrogated the problem more deeply, we came to a place where a “whole of sector” gathering to discuss the problem of audiences wasn’t going to move us meaningfully forward, so instead have landed on a series of roundtables to be delivered to bring together strategically-minded thinkers to develop a plan for what WILL move us meaningfully forward. (us = sector, government, audiences, etc) Much of this is based on the need to re-centre audiences – or as Amy puts it “audience-centric thinking”. I’m providing some background detail below for everyone’s information. At this stage, I don’t expect there to be a draw on the team’s time in the planning of this – outside of some comms and a few forms! – but I wanted to let you all know what’s happening. We are still a couple of weeks away from announcing this work to the membership and broader sector, so please keep on a close hold for now. There’s no obligation to read the below in full or digest this information; I’m sharing for anyone who is interested in this other work PAC is doing. Audiences are likely to be a key part of our next Strategic Plan and I will be referencing a lot of this work in the upcoming “advocacy roadshow” trip to start shifting the focus equally towards “demand” as much as it currently focusses on “supply” in the eyes of government/funders. Look forward to sharing updates with the team as they come in. If you have capacity and would like to be more deeply involved in this work, let me know. Thanks Katherine Background and context Australia’s arts and culture sector is experiencing a period of significant transition. Audience behaviours have shifted rapidly, participation levels are under pressure across many artforms, and the skills required to build and sustain audiences have changed materially. At the same time, the sector is facing a quiet but growing workforce challenge. Marketing and audience development talent is leaving the industry, capability gaps are widening, and many organisations are struggling to respond to change with limited resources, fragmented data, and inconsistent support structures. Despite widespread recognition that audiences are central to sustainability, growth, and relevance, the sector lacks a shared understanding of: * What is actually driving audience disengagement * Where the greatest structural and capability challenges sit * What forms of intervention would genuinely help at both strategic and operational levels. Before investing in new programs, frameworks, or national initiatives, there is a need for the sector to pause and collectively interrogate the problem. Purpose of convening This initiative proposes a deliberate national convening of arts and culture leaders to have an honest, informed conversation about audiences. The purpose is not to prescribe solutions, but to: * Create a shared diagnosis of the current audience challenge * Surface lived experience from across the sector * Test assumptions about what support, investment, or structural change would be most valuable * Build alignment and momentum for whatever comes next The outcomes of the convening will be shaped by the conversation itself. Why now Audience decline, and workforce attrition are structural challenges, not temporary disruptions. Without a shared understanding of the problem, the sector risks continuing to invest in fragmented, well-intentioned activity that does not deliver impact. This convening represents a considered first step: to listen, to align, and to determine what will genuinely support a sustainable, audience-centred future for Australian arts and culture. What this convening is (and is not) This is not a conference, training program, or policy announcement. * There are no pre-determined outcomes * There is no assumption of sector consensus * There is no commitment to a specific post-event initiative. Instead, this is a facilitated, conversation designed to support depth, candour, and practical insight. It recognises that the most effective next steps cannot be designed in isolation, but must emerge from collective understanding and sector buy-in. Possible next steps Any outcomes or follow-on activity will be determined by the participants. Depending on what emerges, next steps could include: * Ongoing mechanisms for sector connection and knowledge-sharing * New approaches to professional development or capability building * Shared research, tools, or infrastructure * A longer-term pathway toward national alignment on audience strategy These possibilities are indicative only and not commitments. However, it is an intention that the key insights would be shared with industry. Key themes The convening will span both strategic leadership perspectives, and operational realities. Topics would be built around 5 strategic pillars: 1. The Evolving Audience Landscape How are long‑term shifts in public expectations, cultural participation and community identity creating new challenges and misalignments for artistic, organisational and audience planning? 2. Sector Capacity and System Barriers What structural constraints (financial, workforce, governance, technological) limit organisations’ ability to respond to changing audience behaviours, and where is adaptation most urgently needed? How could economies of scale and/or sector collaboration support this? 3. Redefining Audience Development for the Next Decade How should the sector collectively reimagine “audience development” to encompass relevance, inclusion, participation, digital engagement and long‑term value creation? 4. Workforce Sustainability and Capability Gaps What is driving the loss of marketing and audience professionals, and what capabilities and conditions are required to sustain and grow a skilled workforce? 5. National Levers, Shared Learning and Strategic Coordination What interventions (national strategy, shared infrastructure, capability building, research and cross‑sector learning) would make the greatest impact, and how should they be structured? Format Phase 1: Roundtables 4 x day long, roundtable conversations - - a cohort will be invited from across the sector, with an emphasis on diversity of role, scale, geography, and artform. Participant numbers will be intentionally limited to approximately 15 per session support productive conversation. Notes from these sessions will be kept, distilled into key insights and opportunities and used to inform the following sessions. After all roundtables, a phase 1 report will be tabled with key stake holders, the key insights of which will be stress tested in phase 2. Phase 2: Cross-Cohort Synthesis (Online – approx. 2 hours) * A facilitated digital session bringing all cohorts together to: * Share key insights from each room * Identify alignment and friction points * Agree on 3–5 sector-wide priorities * Determine next steps or action pathways A full report and recommendations will then be shared with participants and stakeholders. Identifying the cohorts A select group of participants will be approached directly, while the remaining cohort will be confirmed through an open Expressions of Interest process. Applicants will be asked to supply information in that process: * About you: Your role, organisation, and how your work intersects with audience strategy or organisational planning. * Top strategic challenges: The three most significant barriers to growing, diversifying or sustaining audiences. * High‑impact opportunities: The three most valuable opportunities, innovations or system‑level shifts that could strengthen audience development. * Your contribution: The expertise, perspective or experience you would bring to the convening. * Your motivation: Why you want to participate and what outcomes would be most valuable for your organisation. Participants will be highly curated and EOIs will be reviewed by PAC, Amy Maiden and two representatives from Creative Australia. END Katherine Connor (she/her) Executive Director | PAC Australia | +61 (0) 419 428 412 | paca.org.au<http://www.paca.org.au/> [cid:image001.gif@01DCB2F6.EA89F180]<https://apax.org.au/> [A red circle with a white letter f in it Description automatically generated]<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> [signature_2482306534] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/performing-arts-connections-australia> [signature_1587814422] <https://apaca.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=17268242394b2278ede3a3716&id…> [signature_883882369] <https://paca.org.au/members/login.php> [signature_249193979] <https://paca.org.au/resources/touringcharter/> I acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, on whose land I live and work, and pay respects to their Elders past and present. If this email arrives in your inbox out of hours, I don’t expect you to read, action or reply to it outside of your working hours.

March 13, 2026

Re: Today's fave article

by Lynda de Koning

LOVE THIS. Also love Emil Kang's latest piece on how we measure our activity and impact in the sector, the need to be justifying what we do and how none of it supports true impact and growth: Measuring What Matters<https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=7098044&post_id=190717154…> Part 2 of 2: On measurement in the arts Emil J Kang<https://substack.com/@emilkang> Mar 12 READ IN APP<https://open.substack.com/pub/emilkang/p/measuring-what-matters?utm_source=…> Part 1 of this series prompted some useful pushback on LinkedIn, especially around terminology. Fair enough. The language of measurement in the arts is notoriously unstable. What one person calls an outcome, another calls an output, a goal, or an indicator. But that confusion only reinforces the larger problem. We have built an entire measurement infrastructure on terms the field itself does not use consistently. Strategic plans organize around metrics. Evaluation frameworks track one version of “outcomes” against another. The actual purpose of the organization sits in the mission statement, mostly undisturbed. Which leads to the question this essay tries to answer: if the measuring is pointed at the wrong things, what should we be paying attention to? The Reprise is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Upgrade to paid<https://substack.com/redirect/2/eyJlIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9lbWlsa2FuZy5zdWJzdGFjay5…> We need to look at other things and look at them differently. Getting there takes more honesty than the current system asks for, which is part of why the current system stays in place. Tracking what’s countable is straightforward. Understanding how the work changed people requires judgment, time, context, and a willingness to sit with ambiguity. The field has mostly chosen the version that fits in a spreadsheet. The cost of the current approach is visible to anyone willing to look. I’ve sat across from hundreds of arts leaders who know their work is changing lives and can’t prove it in the language their funders or boards often require. They know the teenager who discovered something essential in a dance workshop. They know the neighborhood that started talking to itself differently after a theater performance. They know these things the way a teacher knows which students learned something: in their bones, from watching it happen. And then they go home and try to fit all of that into a logic model. Part 1 described the structural distortion. Here’s what it feels like on the ground. Programming gets designed to generate good data. Artists develop a low-grade chronic anxiety about relevance, measuring their worth through frameworks that were never built to assess artistic merit. Whole institutional cultures form around defensive justification. Ask people in the sector privately and most of them wouldn’t disagree with any of this. Start with intentions We’ve gotten the sequence backwards. We measure outcomes and hope they reveal intentions, when we should be starting from the other end entirely. During my years in philanthropy, I pushed every prospective grantee to get specific about what they intended. I wasn’t interested in boilerplate about “community impact” or “artistic excellence.” I wanted to know what they were trying to do and why it mattered in their particular context. The process was often uncomfortable. It forced organizations to confront gaps between their stated missions and their actual priorities, sometimes for the first time. Consider what this approach replaces. The standard model asks: what impact did you have? The question sounds reasonable until you realize what it actually demands. It asks organizations to prove causation in a domain where causation is almost never provable. Did your after-school program reduce dropout rates, or did six other things happening simultaneously in that neighborhood contribute? Impact measurement asks artists and cultural organizations to make scientific claims without scientific controls. And when the claims inevitably fall short, the conclusion isn’t that the framework is flawed. The conclusion is that the work didn’t perform. Measuring intention asks something more useful. Intentions describe the real work. Outcomes are what may follow if that work is being done well. Did the organization know what it was trying to do? Were those goals appropriate to context and capacity? Did they emerge from genuine engagement with the community being served, or were they manufactured to satisfy a grant application? That’s where evaluation earns its legitimacy. Take a contemporary theater company led for decades by its founder. It may describe its future in terms of outcomes: a new artistic director, a refreshed board, new donors. But the real intention may be to steward a graceful founder transition without losing artistic identity, organizational stability, or the trust built over years. And once you name that intention honestly, you start learning things that outcome metrics would never surface. You discover that the founder holds every major donor relationship personally. That nobody on staff has been empowered to make programming decisions. That the board has deferred to one person for so long it’s lost the muscle for independent governance. Those are the things that determine whether a transition succeeds or destroys an organization, and none of them show up in a strategic plan organized around fundraising targets and audience growth. The difference between vague and specific was stark. One orchestra came in talking about “audience engagement” and “community relevance.” When I pressed, what they wanted was to build a pipeline between their youth education program and the local public school system, so kids in under-resourced neighborhoods had sustained exposure to orchestral music over multiple years. The explicit goal was creating the next generation of ticket-buyers, yes, but also the next generation of school board members and city council members who understood why the arts mattered. That’s a specific intention. It leads to programming decisions, partnership choices, and evaluation criteria that “audience engagement” never could. One performing arts center I worked with was in a neighborhood where the demographics had shifted dramatically over fifteen years. The people walking past the building every day didn’t recognize anything inside it as theirs. In their proposal, the company described this as wanting to “serve diverse communities.” That language obscured the real intention, which was far more radical: to become a place where the Somali and Latino families now living in that neighborhood could see their own stories performed by artists from their own communities, in their own languages, and feel ownership of the institution. That’s a fundamentally different project than “diversity.” It implies a different season and different hiring. The board would need to change. So would every measure of success. A dance company said they were focused on “artistic innovation.” What they really wanted was to commission three choreographers working at the intersection of West African movement traditions and contemporary technique, and to document the creative process so that the resulting vocabulary could be taught and transmitted. They were trying to build something that would outlast the performances themselves. When we named that, the evaluation practically wrote itself: did the vocabulary get created, documented, and picked up by other practitioners? You would never arrive at that question from “artistic innovation.” What I found, across hundreds of these conversations, was consistent enough to be worth stating plainly. Organizations that could articulate clear, contextually grounded intentions produced more meaningful work. Every time. Clarity of intention turned out to be a better predictor of quality than budget size or institutional prestige. It wasn’t even close. What this comes down to, I think, is respecting something the field knows but rarely says out loud: different artistic practices serve different functions. No universal metric is going to honor that. The attempt to build one is part of what broke the system in the first place. Process and ecosystem Naming intention is necessary but it isn’t sufficient. Once intentions are clear, the question shifts to process. How did the work get made? Did the project engage meaningfully with the community it claimed to serve, or did it consult and then proceed as planned? Whether something actually developed during the making matters. So does whether the relationships that formed outlasted the project itself. A residency program that builds deep relationships between artists and a neighborhood may produce unimpressive attendance numbers. It may also create the conditions for sustained cultural engagement that extends years beyond any measurement window. The attendance figure captures none of that. I funded a program like this in the rural South. The artist was embedded in a small town for eighteen months, working with local storytellers and high school students to create a performance piece drawn from the town’s history. By the numbers, the project was modest: a few hundred people saw the final performance. But two of the students went on to study theater. The storytellers kept meeting on their own after the residency ended. The school incorporated oral history into its curriculum. None of that was in the grant report, because none of it happened within the reporting window. At a systemic level, the questions get bigger. Cultural change is diffuse and compounds over time. Trying to isolate the contribution of one intervention is like asking which raindrop filled the reservoir. If individual attribution is impossible, we should be tracking the health of the whole system instead. That means paying attention to whether local artists can stay in their communities and advance their practice. It means looking at whether arts organizations are building real partnerships with schools, health systems, social services. We should be asking whether experimental work is getting supported, or whether only the programming that guarantees safe numbers survives. And we should be honest about whether barriers to participation are coming down or just getting acknowledged in annual reports. We can still count things that tell meaningful stories. Track who returns, who brings others, who takes on leadership roles. Pay attention to behavioral change: do participants seek out other cultural experiences afterward? And follow trajectory indicators over longer time horizons. How do people describe an experience a decade later? Those numbers don’t fit neatly into a logic model, but they tell you something real. And we have to make space for what can’t be counted at all. The child who sees a dance performance and becomes a movement therapist fifteen years later. The woman who joins a community choir after her husband’s death and rebuilds a social life around it. The college student who volunteers at a literary festival and changes her major. These transformations happen in the space between experience and its eventual expression. They unfold across years, through encounters no survey will capture. I don’t have a tidy solution for this. The honest answer is that some of the most important things the arts do will never be measurable. Any assessment framework that can’t make peace with that is lying to itself. Learning as the point The goal should be learning. What’s working, what isn’t, why. But in practice, the field has built an evaluation infrastructure almost entirely oriented toward justification. The reports we generate are designed to prove that money was well spent. They’re written for funders. They document activity, and almost never insight. Because the underlying purpose is defensive, the people writing them are defensive too. Nobody puts their failures in an annual report. Nobody writes a grant narrative that says: we tried something ambitious and it didn’t work, and here’s what we learned that will make the next attempt better. That’s the culture we’ve built. It is the opposite of learning. The infrastructure I described in Part 1 reinforces it at every turn. The whole apparatus of outcome-setting, outcome-tracking, outcome-reporting creates a closed loop. Organizations learn to perform for the evaluation. The performance becomes the point. Opting out feels like professional suicide, so the cycle continues. Real learning requires honesty about what didn’t work, and that only happens when people feel safe enough to be candid. Funders have to be willing to hear that their money supported a productive failure. Organizations have to treat evaluation as something they do for themselves, to get better, not as a performance for an external audience. I saw this clearly as a funder. The organizations that learned the fastest were the ones that asked hard questions of their own work, adjusted mid-course when the answers were uncomfortable, and brought their communities into the assessment process as partners. The ones that struggled were often producing beautiful reports full of impressive numbers that told me very little about whether anyone’s life had actually changed. The shift is easy to describe and hard to execute. Funders have to stop demanding proof of impact and start asking what people learned. Organizations have to let go of the performance of certainty and make room for genuine curiosity instead. The more useful question about any piece of artistic work isn’t just “did it succeed?” It’s also “what did it teach us?” That reorientation changes what gets funded and how organizations relate to their own programming. It also changes something harder to name: the emotional climate of the work. I’ve seen what happens in organizations where people feel permission to be curious instead of defensive. The conversations get better. So does the art. You can feel it. Getting it right Somewhere right now, an artistic director is standing in the back of a half-empty house watching an extraordinary performance that can still look like a failure in the report she files. She knows what happened in that room tonight. She could tell you what the intention was, how the process unfolded, what the artists and the audience found together. She has all the evidence that matters. Tomorrow, she’ll write it up as 279 tickets sold. Lynda de Koning (she/her) General Manager | PAC Australia | +61 (0) 438 860 020 | paca.org.au<https://paca.org.au/> Peramangk / South Australia GMT +9.5 [Image]<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> [Image] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/performing-arts-connections-australia/?ori…> [Image] <https://www.instagram.com/pacaustralia/> [Image] <https://paca.org.au/resources/touringcharter/> [Image] <https://paca.org.au/membership/join-pac-australia/> [Image] <https://paca.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=17268242394b2278ede3a3716&id=…> ________________________________ From: Katherine Connor via All staff - PAC Australia <allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au> Sent: Friday, 13 March 2026 11:02 To: allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au <allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au> Subject: [PAC Team] Today's fave article Loved this: https://www.americantheatre.org/2026/03/09/operationalizing-the-art-of-care… Katherine Connor (she/her) Executive Director | PAC Australia | +61 (0) 419 428 412 | paca.org.au<http://www.paca.org.au/> [cid:image001.gif@01DCB1F9.9BDCBCA0]<https://apax.org.au/> [A red circle with a white letter f in it Description automatically generated]<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> [signature_2482306534] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/performing-arts-connections-australia> [signature_1587814422] <https://apaca.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=17268242394b2278ede3a3716&id…> [signature_883882369] <https://paca.org.au/members/login.php> [signature_249193979] <https://paca.org.au/resources/touringcharter/> I acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, on whose land I live and work, and pay respects to their Elders past and present. If this email arrives in your inbox out of hours, I don’t expect you to read, action or reply to it outside of your working hours.

March 13, 2026

Today's fave article

by Katherine Connor

Loved this: https://www.americantheatre.org/2026/03/09/operationalizing-the-art-of-care… Katherine Connor (she/her) Executive Director | PAC Australia | +61 (0) 419 428 412 | paca.org.au<http://www.paca.org.au/> [cid:image001.gif@01DCB1F9.9BDCBCA0]<https://apax.org.au/> [A red circle with a white letter f in it Description automatically generated]<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> [signature_2482306534] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/performing-arts-connections-australia> [signature_1587814422] <https://apaca.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=17268242394b2278ede3a3716&id…> [signature_883882369] <https://paca.org.au/members/login.php> [signature_249193979] <https://paca.org.au/resources/touringcharter/> I acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, on whose land I live and work, and pay respects to their Elders past and present. If this email arrives in your inbox out of hours, I don't expect you to read, action or reply to it outside of your working hours.

March 13, 2026

Re: New Privacy Policy

by Rosie Dwyer

Thanks Claire Just confirming that I have checked all application forms (open and soon to be open) and the link already in there leads to the new page. Rosie Dwyer (She/Her) Manager, Industry Development and Training | PAC Australia | paca.org.au<http://www.paca.org.au/> Naarm/Melbourne, GMT +10 If this email arrives in your inbox out of hours, I don’t expect you to read, action or reply to it outside of your working hours. [Image]<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> [Image] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/performing-arts-connections-australia/?ori…> [Image] <https://www.instagram.com/pacaustralia/> [Image] <https://paca.org.au/resources/touringcharter/> [Image] <https://paca.org.au/membership/join-pac-australia/> [Image] <https://paca.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=17268242394b2278ede3a3716&id=…> From: Claire Holland via All staff - PAC Australia <allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au> Sent: Wednesday, 11 March 2026 6:02 PM To: Katherine Connor <katherine(a)paca.org.au>; allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au Subject: [PAC Team] Re: New Privacy Policy Hi All This update has been made to the website and the link is here for you to use! https://paca.org.au/privacy-statement/ Thanks, Claire Holland (she/her) Marketing and Communications Lead | PAC Australia | (08) 9221 8992 | paca.org.au<https://paca.org.au/> Meanjin / Brisbane GMT+10. [signature_3247970813] [signature_2596255319] [signature_743487358] [signature_1400526906] [signature_777252773] <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> From: Katherine Connor via All staff - PAC Australia <allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au> Date: Wednesday, 11 March 2026 at 2:21 pm To: allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au <allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au> Subject: [PAC Team] New Privacy Policy<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> Hi all,<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> As discussed in the Team Meeting, attached is the approved new Privacy Policy. Also saved in Core-Policies and Procedures (can’t link using the allstaff@ask email address!) <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> @Claire Holland can you please update the Privacy Policy page on the PAC Australia website with this new content and supply the link to everyone when done, so wherever updates are necessary the team can simply use that link for other purposes e.g. linking in application forms, etc. <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> We discussed ensuring the following are updated:<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> * Forms<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> * Links in Mailchimp footers<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> * Websites/various<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> * Registration platform/s<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> Anywhere else people are aware this will need to be updated/included?<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> Thanks everyone,<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> Katherine <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> Katherine Connor<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> (she/her)<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> Executive Director | PAC Australia | +61 (0) 419 428 412 | paca.org.au<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> [A red circle with a white letter f in it Description automatically generated] [signature_2482306534] [signature_1587814422] [signature_883882369] [signature_249193979] <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> I acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, on whose land I live and work, and pay respects to their Elders past and present.<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> If this email arrives in your inbox out of hours, I don’t expect you to read, action or reply to it outside of your working hours. <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> <https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia>

March 13, 2026

APAX Team Meeting

by Samantha Hortin

Hey team, APAX team meeting minutes here: [https://res.public.onecdn.static.microsoft/assets/fluentui-resources/1.1.0/app-min/assets/item-types/24/docx.png]APAX Meeting Minutes – 12 March 2026.docx<https://apacaperth.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/APAX/IQDaK_RCjUjzSqfZAvffXWWEAfP_8m…> Kind regards, Samantha Hortin (she/her) Administration Coordinator | PAC Australia | (08) 9221 8992 | paca.org.au<https://paca.org.au/> Boorloo / Perth GMT+8 [cid:7157133d-556c-4399-b362-7ffef1e9d6b3] I gratefully acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, on whose lands I live and work, and pay my respects to Elders past and present. If this email arrives in your inbox out of hours, I don’t expect you to read, action or reply to it outside of your working hours.

March 12, 2026

FW: New Email Signature

by Claire Holland

Hi All Just a reminder to please update your email signature<https://apacaperth.sharepoint.com/:i:/s/PACAustraliaCore/IQAsqov0GVHzQ43rQe…> and to also take note that this is a gif not a static image so you can’t copy and paste from my signature you will need to go in and update. I am relinking the instructions here again<https://apacaperth.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/PACAustraliaCore/IQAMcA3tzDK9RYTO0P…>! I am also attaching a screen recording. Please let me know if you need assistance updating your email signature! Apologies if you have received this multiple times I can’t tell if my email is going through! Thanks, Claire Holland (she/her) Marketing and Communications Lead | PAC Australia | (08) 9221 8992 | paca.org.au<https://paca.org.au/> Meanjin / Brisbane GMT+10 [signature_581730861]<http://paca.org.au/> I gratefully acknowledge the Jagera and Turrbal people, on whose lands I live and work, and pay my respects to Elders past and present. If this email arrives in your inbox out of hours, I don’t expect you to read, action or reply to it outside of your working hours. From: Claire Holland <claire(a)paca.org.au> Date: Thursday, 5 March 2026 at 1:22 pm To: Lynda de Koning via All staff - PAC Australia <allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au> Subject: New Email Signature Hi All Please find attached and linked here<https://apacaperth.sharepoint.com/:i:/s/PACAustraliaCore/IQAsqov0GVHzQ43rQe…> new email signature post APAM. The image should be hyperlinked to: https://apax.org.au/ If everyone could please update as soon as is possible that would be greatly appreciated. Please find mine below as an example – please note that formatting wise it should be around the same width as the end of the PAC Australia phone number and no longer/larger. I am relinking email signature guidelines here<https://apacaperth.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/PACAustraliaCore/IQAMcA3tzDK9RYTO0P…>. Thanks, Claire Holland (she/her) Marketing and Communications Lead | PAC Australia | (08) 9221 8992 | paca.org.au<https://paca.org.au/> Meanjin / Brisbane GMT+10 [cid:image001.gif@01DCACA2.B5FBF4E0]<https://apax.org.au/> I gratefully acknowledge the Jagera and Turrbal people, on whose lands I live and work, and pay my respects to Elders past and present. If this email arrives in your inbox out of hours, I don’t expect you to read, action or reply to it outside of your working hours.

March 12, 2026

Timothee Chalamet - value and perception of Ballet and Opera

by Katherine Connor

Hi guys, For anyone following along with the Timothee Chalamet story about Opera and Ballet, two really good reads in the attached. Conscious that the SMH article is behind a paywall - if you don't have an Age, Brisbane Times, or SMH subscription you'll only be able to read it if you haven't already used your free articles for the week, so have cheekily copied the text below. Timothée Chalamet says nobody cares about opera. Opera Australia would like to thank him [Alex Budd] Alex Budd<https://www.smh.com.au/by/alex-budd-p538ln>Opera Australia CEO I'd like to thank Timothée Chalamet. It's the least I can do. In a recent interview, the Oscar nominee suggested that opera and ballet are art forms people are trying to "keep alive even though nobody cares about them any more<https://www.msn.com/en-au/music/news/opera-and-ballet-worlds-clap-back-at-t…>". It was quite the achievement. In a single sentence, he managed to do what our marketing team spends weeks trying to achieve: getting the world talking about opera. Opera, after all, has been pronounced dead so often it should qualify for frequent-flyer points to the underworld. And yet the corpse keeps selling tickets. Across Europe alone, more than 13 million people attend opera each year, filling tens of thousands of performances. Opera Australia has more than a million tickets on sale this year - with many performances already sold out. A curious way for society to show a complete lack of care for an art form. The deeper misunderstanding, though, is not about numbers. It is about relevance. Opera survives because it tells uncomfortable truths about human behaviour, and often the parts we would rather not talk about. Take the works in our current season at Sydney Opera House. Madama Butterfly tells the story of a 15-year-old girl, underage by any modern standard, drawn into an arranged marriage before being exploited and abandoned by a visiting naval officer. Hansel and Gretel is essentially a warning to children about the predatory nature of strangers offering sweets. Turandot is a brutal study of power, trauma and the dangerous mechanics of desire. Eugene Onegin explores male pride so fragile it leads to a pointless duel and needless death. If these plots dropped on Netflix tomorrow, they would be praised as fearless explorations of exploitation, youth suicide, violence, ego and the wreckage human beings leave in each other's lives. Later this year, with our friends at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre - another organisation that appears to care about opera - we premiere George Palmer and Leah Purcell's The Drover's Wife<https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/opera-australia/2026-season/drovers-wife>, a major operatic adaptation of Purcell's extraordinary retelling of Henry Lawson's story. It is bold First Nations storytelling confronting colonial violence, survival and the Australian frontier with the heightened emotion only opera can deliver. Hardly the work of an art form clinging nervously to the past. This week Opera Australia announced the appointment of Amy Lane as director of opera, part of a new generation of creative leaders shaping where the art form goes next. Artists like Lane are redefining how opera looks, whom it speaks to and how boldly it engages with the world around it. With leaders like her stepping forward, the future of opera should impress not only Chalamet, but quite possibly his children and grandchildren. Which brings me to the more interesting part of this conversation. Chalamet is just 30 years old and recently declared he would not want to work in opera. That's perfectly understandable. Operatic performance requires years of specialist training, extraordinary musicianship and a level of discipline that makes many creative pursuits look like a casual hobby. But we are not suggesting he should sing. We are inviting him to attend. At 30, he qualifies for Opera Australia's under-35s program, a small conspiracy (or special access) designed to introduce the next generation to opera. His generation. The one increasingly filling our theatres, often arriving curious and leaving converted. So, to say thank you to Mr Chalamet, when he next finds himself in Australia, there is a standing invitation for him and a mate to join us at the Sydney Opera House, that rather famous little building on the harbour he may have seen in photographs. Come sit in a theatre full of strangers while a story about love, pride, power and regret unfolds on stage with an orchestra beneath it. He suggested nobody cares about opera. We suspect he might be surprised. That is, of course, if there are any tickets left.

March 12, 2026

Re: Immigration lawyer contact?

by Katherine Connor

Thank you - really up to them if they feel the need to spend the dough! Not looking to add additional load to any of the team, or insert ourselves into it, was just curious if we knew anyone. Thanks all! Kath Katherine Connor | Executive Director | PAC Australia | +61 (0) 419 428 412 | paca.org.au<http://www.paca.org.au/> From: Louise Coles <Louise(a)paca.org.au> Sent: Wednesday, 11 March 2026 11:05 AM To: Katherine Connor <katherine(a)paca.org.au>; allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au Subject: RE: Immigration lawyer contact? Wouldn't spend loads of money on immi lawyers to begin with. Depends how far they have got with intel?? If PAC wanted to help, we/I could go through our IECN advisory people; they should be able to shed some light. Would have to come from us/APAM type request and a phone call to them would be the best way. Louise Coles (she/her) International Engagement APAM part-time| apam.org.au<https://apam.org.au/> | PAC Australia | +61 (0) 434 047 277 | paca.org.au<https://paca.org.au/> [cid:image001.png@01DCB176.303C55B0]<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> [cid:image002.png@01DCB176.303C55B0] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/performing-arts-connections-australia/?ori…> [cid:image003.png@01DCB176.303C55B0] <https://www.instagram.com/pacaustralia/> [cid:image004.png@01DCB176.303C55B0] <https://paca.org.au/resources/touringcharter/> [cid:image005.png@01DCB176.303C55B0]<https://paca.org.au/membership/join-pac-australia/>[cid:image006.png@01DCB176.303C55B0]<https://paca.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=17268242394b2278ede3a3716&id=…> I acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, on whose land I live and work, and pay respects to their Elders past and present. From: Katherine Connor via All staff - PAC Australia <allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au> Sent: Wednesday, 11 March 2026 11:00 AM To: allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au Subject: [PAC Team] FW: Immigration lawyer contact? Random q from Circa below - anyone have any leads? Katherine Connor | Executive Director | PAC Australia | +61 (0) 419 428 412 | paca.org.au<http://www.paca.org.au/> From: Danielle Kellie <dan(a)circa.org.au<mailto:dan@circa.org.au>> Sent: Tuesday, 10 March 2026 2:33 PM To: Katherine Connor <katherine(a)paca.org.au<mailto:katherine@paca.org.au>> Cc: Elanor Nunn <elanor(a)circa.org.au<mailto:elanor@circa.org.au>> Subject: Immigration lawyer contact? Hello! Quick question - Do you know of any immigration lawyers who have experience with getting longer working visas/residency for circus trainers rather than performers? My colleague Elanor is having lots of fun trying to find information. Thanks, Dan Danielle Kellie (she/her) Circa Executive Producer / Chief Operating Officer Circus that moves the world. Quality. Audacity. Humanity. e dan(a)circa.org.au<mailto:dan@circa.org.au> w circa.org.au<http://www.circa.org.au/> m +61 417 713 942<tel:+61417713942> Meanjin/Brisbane: GMT + 10 Circa is based in Meanjin (Brisbane) on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people. We respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the many lands on which we create and perform. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.

March 11, 2026

Re: New Privacy Policy

by Lynda de Koning

Additional locations: * Membership: * Discussion list welcome email / comms (Nate) * New member comms (Lynda) Cheers, L Lynda de Koning (she/her) General Manager | PAC Australia | +61 (0) 438 860 020 | paca.org.au<https://paca.org.au/> Peramangk / South Australia GMT +9.5 [Image]<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> [Image] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/performing-arts-connections-australia/?ori…> [Image] <https://www.instagram.com/pacaustralia/> [Image] <https://paca.org.au/resources/touringcharter/> [Image] <https://paca.org.au/membership/join-pac-australia/> [Image] <https://paca.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=17268242394b2278ede3a3716&id=…> ________________________________ From: Claire Holland via All staff - PAC Australia <allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au> Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2026 17:32 To: Katherine Connor <katherine(a)paca.org.au>; allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au <allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au> Subject: [PAC Team] Re: New Privacy Policy Hi All This update has been made to the website and the link is here for you to use! https://paca.org.au/privacy-statement/ Thanks, Claire Holland (she/her) Marketing and Communications Lead | PAC Australia | (08) 9221 8992 | paca.org.au<https://paca.org.au/> Meanjin / Brisbane GMT+10. [signature_1174343629]<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> [signature_3247970813] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/performing-arts-connections-australia/?ori…> [signature_2596255319] <https://www.instagram.com/pacaustralia/> [signature_743487358] <https://paca.org.au/resources/touringcharter/> [signature_1400526906] <https://paca.org.au/membership/join-pac-australia/> [signature_777252773] <https://paca.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=17268242394b2278ede3a3716&id=…> From: Katherine Connor via All staff - PAC Australia <allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au> Date: Wednesday, 11 March 2026 at 2:21 pm To: allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au <allstaff(a)ask.paca.org.au> Subject: [PAC Team] New Privacy Policy Hi all, As discussed in the Team Meeting, attached is the approved new Privacy Policy. Also saved in Core-Policies and Procedures (can’t link using the allstaff@ask email address!) @Claire Holland<mailto:claire@paca.org.au> can you please update the Privacy Policy page on the PAC Australia website with this new content and supply the link to everyone when done, so wherever updates are necessary the team can simply use that link for other purposes e.g. linking in application forms, etc. We discussed ensuring the following are updated: * Forms * Links in Mailchimp footers * Websites/various * Registration platform/s Anywhere else people are aware this will need to be updated/included? Thanks everyone, Katherine Katherine Connor (she/her) Executive Director | PAC Australia | +61 (0) 419 428 412 | paca.org.au<http://www.paca.org.au/> [A red circle with a white letter f in it Description automatically generated]<https://www.facebook.com/pacaustralia> [signature_2482306534] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/performing-arts-connections-australia> [signature_1587814422] <https://apaca.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=17268242394b2278ede3a3716&id…> [signature_883882369] <https://paca.org.au/members/login.php> [signature_249193979] <https://paca.org.au/resources/touringcharter/> I acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, on whose land I live and work, and pay respects to their Elders past and present. If this email arrives in your inbox out of hours, I don’t expect you to read, action or reply to it outside of your working hours.

March 11, 2026