Tamworth Country Music Festival Stakeholders

According to Carroll (2009), stakeholders are any individual or a group who are associated with an organization and has mutual influences. He also claims that the stakeholders can influence or be influenced by any actions, decisions, policies, and goals of the organization. Clarkson (1995) defines primary stakeholders as a group or an individual who has high level of independencies and play a essential role in the survival of the organization whereas secondary stakeholders also have interactivity with the organization; however, they are not participated in transactions and without them, the organization still can survive. From this classification, we can easily identify a range of different stakeholders as primary or secondary in terms of their

engagement in Tamworth Country Music Festival. They are described as below.

First of all, Tamworth Country Music Festival has a wide range of primary stakeholders who contribute in the success of the festival.

They are Radio 2TM, BAL marketing, Tamworth City Council, Artists and the Australia Music Industry, Telstra Country Wide brand, Toyota, and “fans”. There is no doubt that 2TM played an important role in the management of the festival, as they are the one who conceived the idea and staged the very first Australian Country Music Awards in 1973. Besides, BAL marketing also has a role in operating the event, and creating and running the promotional activities related to the festival, with 2TM. The effective of marketing strategy, operating promotion as well as the efforts of Radio 2TM and BAL marketing were element in the success of the Tamworth Country Music Festival. Both 2TM and BAL marketing could be considered as key primary stockholders.

Although the involvement of the Tamworth City Council was just an unofficial coordination, but they are still considered as primary stakeholders because they became more engaged with the festival since it grew. The city council checked all its festival activities with 2TM and BAL Marketing as a central reference point. Moreover, the council retains a public relations firm to stop national publicity from operating a media centre during the festival in Tamworth with a December launch in

Sydney.

It is really difficult to refuse the primary stakeholder role of Artists and the Australian Music Industry, because without their contribution the Tamworth Country Music Festival would not have existed today. They are the main artists who perform in the festival since Tamworth festival was an event for Australian country music and oversea artists were discourage from performing, and they play a vital role in the success of the festival, besides marketing and promotional activities.

In addition, 2TM was not able to undertake the entire organization and promotion of the festival without support by numerous major national sponsors.

Telstra Country Wide brand and Toyota also considered as primary stakeholders since its contribution to the festival. Telstra has been the major corporate and naming rights sponsor of the Tamworth Country Music Festival since 2003, and Toyota also has strong links with the festival through the Toyota Star Maker.

The last primary stakeholder in this case is “fans”, or crowds, because of they are the people willing to pay for the tickets and contribute directly revenue to the festival. Moreover, almost all the marketing strategy and promotional activities run by 2TM and BAL marketing were targeted to country music fans, which means their participation is important to the success of the Tamworth Country Music

Festival.

The secondary stakeholders in the Tamworth Country Music Festival include local companies and organizations, registered clubs and hotels, outside entrepreneurs, media such as Prime Television, Country Music Association of Australia (CMAA) and Seven Network; this is because they voluntarily coordinated their activities unofficially to the festival. For instance, the sideshow operators voluntarily stayed out of the city for a number of years to ensure the country music component had to be well done established. In terms of registered clubs and hotels, they provides accommodation for the “fans” who need to rest and refill energy for the next day of the festival. Furthermore, Prime Television, the CMAA as well as the Seven Network helped on broadcasting the awards nationwide that means they involved in marketing the festival and spread it out all over Australia. Although their involvements were indirect and unofficial, they still contributed to the success of the festival; however, as the definition, they are considered as secondary stakeholders since the festival could be operated well without them.