Barunga has done it again. Thousands of people came from all over Australia for the Barunga Festival this year, and it was a cracker! Sold out, the festival was held over three days and had awesome Indigenous music, fashion, dancing, entertainment, culture, and football.
“It is a credit to the community of Barunga and to the Bagala Aboriginal Corporation that they rise to the occasion each year and host thousands of people” said Alexa Gutenberger COO at AIG.
The store needed to be ready
AIG manages the store in Barunga on behalf of the Bagala Aboriginal Corporation and we wanted it to be ready for thousands to walk through the door looking for something to eat, or a cold drink to buy.
To prepare we called on volunteers and AIG staff in Darwin to help serve in the shop and cook in the kitchen. We set up marquees for serving hot and cold food and we made sure that everyone who came to the festival knew the shop was open.
“It was chaos but somehow we managed to pull it off” said AIG project officer Fiona Gunn. “For three days the customers were nonstop buying food and drinks which is exactly what we wanted, but it’s easy to underestimate the effort required to pull off something like. We had 45 staff made up of volunteers, AIG staff and store staff and we were putting in some really big hours”.
Local support for our efforts
The Barunga festival is a proud time for the locals who have a chance to show their culture as well as providing a platform to celebrate culture and music from other communities. We had expected that none of the local store staff would be working so they could participate in the festival, but in a show of support for AIG trying to maximise sales, the local staff worked throughout weekend.
“I’d been told there would be no usual staff because everyone was either wanting to enjoy the festival or would be going out bush to avoid COVID. When it came down to it, all the local community staff worked and were great at helping us figure everything out. We couldn’t have done it without them.” said Fiona.
All the hard work was worth it
The shop sales were great, surpassing sales made in 2018 which made store owners Bagala Aboriginal Corporation happy. It was also great to see so many people wanting to support a local Indigenous owned business and all of the money made in the shop over the Barunga festival goes back into the Bagala Aboriginal Corporation.
As the management group, it makes up very happy to be able to facilitate an important revenue boost – despite being totally exhausted!
