Thames Music And Drama

18-20 March 2016 - held in Rotorua 

This was the largest conference on record with 329 attendees, including four from MAD (Ewan Grant-Mackie, Diane Connors, Tina Haakma and Graeme Humphrey).  There were lots of good seminar and discussion groups as usual.  Some key ones were Stage Management, Cost Effective Marketing, Social Media and Health and Safety.  Conference is also an opportunity to experience back stage tours of local theatres, where we note good practices and systems (while trying to control the green eyed moster).  We were pleased to be invited to explore the Civic theatre in the Sir Howard Morrison Conference Centre and Casablanca.  Attendees have returned with a long list of ideas and possibities.  Despite the fact that Ewan is our president (and current minute taker) the committee managed some subterfuge with our nomination of him for the MTNZ Merit awards.  During the presentations on Friday night he suddenly heard his own name.  After a couple of seconds to register (and a quick flick of his head towards the rest of us beaming and say "we got you") he humbly accepted the award.  Ewan has worked so hard for theatre and has kept up a wonderful friendly spirit throughout.  He proudly wore both his Thames MAD Life Member badge and MTNZ Merit Award for the rest of conference.   As Mr Richard O'Brien officially opened the Rotovegas themed conference, it seemed fitting to end Saturday night with dancing and singing "Lets Do The Time Warp Again". Check out the images below for a glimpse of the weekend.