April In Adelaide

April is shaping as another good month for high profile events in South Australia, following on from the hugely successful March calendar.

April’s exciting events kicked off last weekend with the spectacle and excitement of the International Rugby Sevens at Adelaide Oval. Held over two days, the Adelaide International Rugby Sevens involved 16 international teams competing for points that go towards the HSBC Sevens World Series.

The event was just the first in a packed month of world class events encompassing sport, culture, fine food and wine.

The new South Australian Aquatic Centre at Marion will host its first official event this month – the 2011 Australian Age Championships. More than 1300 swimmers between the ages of 12 to 18 are expected to take part in the championships, to be held from 18 to 23 April.

Regional South Australia is also hosting a strong events line-up this month. The Bundaleer Festival, held from 8 to 10 April in the beautiful Bundaleer Forest near Jamestown, will feature renowned Australian artists including tenor David Hobson, treasured jazz musician James Morrison and highly acclaimed soprano Silvie Paladino.

Other regional events in April include the Tastes of the Outback festival in the Flinders Ranges and Outback from 1-10 April and the Oakbank Racing Carnival in the Adelaide Hills on 23 and 25 April.

To finish the month in style, the Barossa Vintage Festival, celebrating the wine, food and culture of the Barossa, will take place from 23 April to 1 May. For more information, go to www.events.southaustralia.com

APRIL’S MAJOR EVENTS

Tastes of the Outback

1-10 April, Flinders Ranges, Outback

Showcasing the best of the outback with a diverse program of concerts, gourmet food events and activities including kayaking and opal mining.

Bundaleer Festival

8-10 April, Jamestown

An autumn weekend of nationally acclaimed artists and fringe performers, presented in the natural beauty of the Bundaleer Forest.

Swimming – 2011 National Age Championships

18-23 April, Adelaide

Australia’s up and coming swimming stars will compete in a six-day program at the newly built state-of-the-art aquatic centre at Marion.

Oakbank Easter Racing Carnival

23 and 25 April, Adelaide Hills

Located in the picturesque town of Oakbank, this is a festival for all ages.

Barossa Vintage Festival

23 April-1 May, Barossa

Celebrating the best of the Barossa, with heritage events, food and wine, auctions, town days, parades, markets, awards and the Festival Ball.

In Review: OUTBACK Magazine Website

~ Yesterday’s In Review: OUTBACK Magazine entry examined the April/May 2009 issue of OUTBACK, the glossy bi-monthly magazine of the R.M. Williams Publishing company. Today, I thought I’d take a look at the magazine’s website.

The OUTBACK magazine website is well laid out and functional, making it very easy to find your way around the site. Pages load quickly, and most information can be accessed in a few mouse clicks.

Regrettably, that’s about as good as it gets.

There is a great Story archive in 27 searchable categories starting with Adventure and finishing with Utes. However, only the opening paragraphs of each feature article are included on the site. If you want to read the full article you must subscribe to the magazine or purchase the back issue containing the full article you are interested in.

The Shop Online section lets you order a subscription to the magazine: 1 Year (6 issues) $49.00*, or 2 Years (12 issues) $90.00*. (international prices are also listed on the site). You can purchase a small range of merchandise, or order back issues of OUTBACK from this section of the site as well.

Under the Events tab you will find a calendar of events for every Australian state and territory. Or maybe I should say, you won’t find such a listing, because sadly, this feature of the site is not being maintained to its full potential, and is all but useless.

Today, when I checked each of the links to see what events were taking place across the country, only New South Wales (with two events), and Tasmania (one event) were listed. Apparently nothing else of note was happening across the whole of Australia. On the other hand, looking at the April/May 2009 issue of OUTBACK shows 27 events across the country in its Watch Out For… section. Clearly, someone is not doing their job properly.

I think it’s fair to say the site is there solely to promote and help sell the magazine. In and of itself, this is not a bad thing, but in this day and (internet) age, when your website is competing with literally thousands of other online travel related magazines and portals, you have to work a whole lot harder to give visitors a reason to come back. Or do you? I’m thinking out loud, now, you understand.

Maybe it is enough to attract potential subscribers to the physical magazine, and be happy with that – as long as they actually subscribe. After all, if the purpose of the site is to promote the magazine, then it is probably doing a reasonable job. Although, clearly there are areas that need to be addressed, such as the underwhelming Events section, and it wouldn’t hurt to republish selected articles in full – even if they are twelve months old – but beyond that, who knows?

Personally, I believe the best advertising and promotion for the magazine – is the magazine itself. As my review yesterday indicated, it is well written, informative, and worth reading for the insight one can gain into life in the Australian bush. And you can't ask for more than that.

*Unless otherwise noted, all prices quoted are in Australian dollars.

In Review: OUTBACK Magazine

~ Ok, having tried my hand at a couple of book reviews over the past month or so, I’m now going to turn my attention to magazines. Not just any magazines of course, but to those specifically dealing with travel and tourism; colourful locations and off-road adventures; and luxury vacations and backpacker budgets. And believe me, there are plenty of them.

Take a trip to your local newsagent, and you will find titles like Australian Traveller, Get Lost! Travel Magazine, On The Road, Travel + Leisure, Australian Coast & Country, Australian Caravan+RV, Arrivals + Departures, Vacations and Travel, Caravanning Australia, Postcards Magazine, and Way2go, to name just a small selection.

For this first magazine review I have selected the April/May 2009 edition of OUTBACK magazine.

Yes, yes, I know it’s almost July, but I had intended to review the magazine when I bought it a month or so ago. Unfortunately, I’m only just getting around to doing it. However, for the purposes of this review it doesn’t really matter, since I’m looking at the overall quality of the publication, not the timeliness or otherwise of the contents. So can I get back to my review now? Thank you.

OUTBACK – or should it be R.M. Williams OUTBACK, is a bi-monthly magazine owned by R.M. Williams Publishing. R.M. Williams itself is now owned by the Cowley family. However, before R.M. Williams simply became a privately owned company, the name belonged to a real person, Reginald Murray Williams (for more info see Footnote).

OUTBACK was launched in September 1998 to celebrate the Australian outback. In its relatively short history the magazine has caught the attention of people far and wide, and according to the circulation graph published on the OUTBACK website, was increasing its readership with each passing year (the average readership per issue for Jan-Dec 2006, was 232,000).

It’s not hard to see why. The subjects the magazine likes to showcase are as different as the outback itself: station owners, jackaroos, stockmen, travel and hospitality operators, pilots, doctors, miners, fishermen, in fact, anyone who has a close involvement with the outback.

This glossy, large format publication is printed on high quality paper, and is aimed straight at the coffee table demographic. That is, readers who are seen as “…upmarket and middle market, primarily in the 30-55 age group”; and also according to the website, “…people who identify with R.M. Williams, the man and the products, and what this represents to Australia and Australians.”

Having said that, the magazine is a great read, and as you might expect is filled with wonderful photography, illustrating stories in this issue as diverse as water conservation (Water: A New Reality); station life (Home Where The Heart Is), keeping young people on the land (Positive Future’s), and the new ‘sport’ of geocaching (Hide and Seek), which utilises GPS (Global Positioning Systems) to “track down secret caches stashed around the globe”.

The April/May 2009 edition also included a Boys From the Bush At War photo essay; Flocking North which looked at some of Australia’s rarest and most beautiful birds; and numerous other departments.

Feature articles are well written, and each writer is given plenty of space to explore their chosen topic fully and comprehensively. For example, the main feature in this issue, Water: A New Reality is spread over 12 pages.

There is an extensive Letters section, and readers can also contribute to the monthly Poem page. In addition, readers can submit their own photographs for monthly sections headed, Mailboxes, Dogs, Boots, and Bush Kids. Each image and accompanying story published (200 words or less) is rewarded with a $100 R.M. Williams gift voucher. By the way, the writer of the published poem also receives a similar gift voucher, while the writer of the Letter of The Month wins an Akubra hat. And finally, readers can also send in a bush yarn, funny story or joke to the Laugh Lines page where “The entry that makes us laugh the most wins a Waeco Cool-Ice icebox valued at AU$209.”

At a cover price of AU$8.95 and running to 156 pages, “…OUTBACK represents all that is powerful and positive about the outback - the people, places, events and experiences that are making outback Australia one of the most favoured tourism destinations on earth.”

Footnote: Information supplied courtesy of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Reginald Murray Williams AO, CMG, (May 24, 1908-November 4, 2003) was an Australian bushman and entrepreneur who rose from a swagman, to a millionaire widely known as just 'R.M.' He was born at Belalie North near Jamestown, 200 kilometres north of Adelaide, into a pioneering settler family working and training horses. R.M. had many adventures in Australia's rugged outback as a bushman, and became famous for creating a uniquely Australian style of bush wear recognized world wide. He was married twice, had ten children, and left an enduring contribution to the Australian identity.