The FNB Whisky Live Festival is coming

The largest and liveliest whisky festival to rock South Africa

Showcasing whiskies from all around the world, the FNB Whisky Live Festival is the largest, whisky and lifestyle event of its kind and attracts more visitors than any other whisky festival globally. Now celebrating its 10^th year, the 2012 FNB Whisky Live Festival has grown from strength to strength reflecting the demand and expansion opportunities for whisky and related luxury products in the South African market.

The FNB Whisky Live Festival makes its way to Durban from 1 to 2 November at the Durban International Convention Center and end in Johannesburg from 7 to 9 November 2012 at the Sandton Convention Center. 

The festival will be open between 18h00 – 22h00 daily.

Since launching in 2002, the FNB Whisky Live Festival has succeeded in breaking away from the conventional exhibition style event to showcase a fresh take on the world of whisky, and in doing so, constantly attracting newcomers to the festival and the whisky category as a whole.

“With the growing interest from females and the 25-35 year old age group, the festival enjoyed a footfall of over 18000 patrons last year.The decision to kick off a month earlier and include Durban in the mix was a natural progression”, says Sian Neubert, co-organiser of the festival.

With regular Whisky Live festivals held in global cities like London, Paris, Tokyo and New York, the FNB Whisky Live Festival in South Africa is regarded as the world’s ultimate place to live, breathe, experience and learn to love whisky.

“The FNB Whisky Live Festival has become an iconic international event on the South African social calendar and as the title sponsor First National Bank is delighted with the growth the event has shown in recent years. Congratulations to the founders of the festival on celebrating its 10^th year.  Your passion and dedication has not gone unnoticed and has been the key to making the FNB Whisky Live Festival the benchmark in international spirit festivals.  Taking the festival to Durban for the first time this year is testament to its popularity and we are sure KwaZulu Natal will also have an opportunity to experience all the wonders Whisky has to offer.   We look forward to creating even more memorable experiences at the 2012 festival,” says Bernice Samuels, FNB Chief Marketing Officer.

The success of the FNB Whisky Live Festival is largely attributed to the experiential edutainment format which ensures that visitors, whether passionate connoisseurs of the elixir that is whisky, a first-time taster, or an every-day enthusiast keen to learn, see, and taste more from life. The FNB Whisky Live Festival has something for everyone. Every glass of dram – new or old – holds some new mystery, some new discovery.

Top stops on this journey of discovery?

1. The Tasting Hall

Travel the whisky trails of the world in our Tasting Hall where over 180 whiskies are available for sampling.  The Tasting Hall is also home to a variety of wonderful first-come, first-serve educational and entertainment zones. 

2. The Whisky Workshops

But why stop there when the journey could lead you into one of our world-renowned whisky workshops, where global master distillers reveal the secrets that go into every drop of every dram? Hosted by whisky experts in private rooms away from the crowd, these one-hour tutorials not only open up a world of discovery, they provide the opportunity to taste unique whiskies generally not available in the Tasting Hall or even in South Africa.

3. The Whisky Lifestyle Lounge & The Connoisseur's Experience

The Whisky Lifestyle Lounge is the perfect place to entertain and network with friends and clients in complete luxury, while tasting unique whiskies not available to the masses.

But if you’re really looking to impress, or just treat yourself – we recommend The Connoisseur’s Experience – The Ultimate Guided Whisky Tour. Arrive in chauffeur-driven luxury; take a personalised guided tour of the festival; marvel at ‘Connoisseurs-only tastings’; and finish with a deluxe dinner in the Whisky Lifestyle Lounge. With only two tours per night and extremely limited numbers, tickets do sell out. Book early. 

Ticket Sales Open: August2012.  

www.whiskylivefestival.co.za

Please follow us on Twitter @WhiskyLiveSA and Facebook.com/FNBWhiskyLiveFestival

The FNB Whisky Live Festival promotes responsible drinking. No persons under the age of 18 years old will be allowed into the Tasting Hall, and designated driver tickets are available. Discounted food vouchers and a bottle of Valpre mineral water are included in the ticket price, and taxis will be on hand to ensure that everyone in your party is able to have a good time.

The FNB Whisky Live Festival 2012

DURBAN

Thursday, 1st November to Friday, 2nd November 2012

Durban International Convention Centre

18h00 – 22h00 Daily

JOHANNESBURG

 Wednesday, 7th November to Friday, 9th November 2012

Sandton Convention Centre

18h00 – 22h00 Daily

(Source - FNB Whisky Live Festival) 

Here comes Mobile Web Africa 28 and 29 Nov Jozi

Yes Folks, MobileWeb in Africa 2012 is arriving soon in Jozi.
Dates:  28 & 29 Nov
Featuring some of the hottest topics in the mobile world.
Fantastic Speakers from all over Africa.
Website:  www.mobilewebafrica.com

Auditions for Buskers VandA Waterfront Cape Town

V&A Waterfront Audition for Buskers.

We will be hosting the busker auditions on Saturday, 20 October from 09h30 at the V&A Lookout venue.
We are looking to source fresh new buskers for the period November 2012 – January 2013. Please could you pass the message on to your networks and data base.

We are looking for various types of entertainers – Dancing, singing, music , magic, kids entertainment, etc.

Please do note, you cannot make use of structures or amplification as the site does not allow for it. Only people over the age of 18 can audition – very important.

Source - Pansa 

Give your audience a serious wedgie by @DouglasKruger

This week professional speaker, author and trainer Douglas Kruger writes for us.

Douglas Kruger

GIVE YOUR AUDIENCE A SERIOUS WEDGIE! 

Douglas Kruger

Scores of corporate presentations today still suffer from the scourge of the dreaded Document-Speak. Document-Speak is a sort of social virus. One person does it in public and the whole company catches it.

Diagnosing Document-Speak:

It happens when an otherwise friendly, warm-blooded human being ceases to sound human and starts sounding like a legal brief. They stand up before an audience and their sentences become longer. They hide behind formality and distance. They go to great pains to appear as emotionally deceased as language can help them to achieve. For a coup de grace, they generally back it all up with a mind-numbing litany of PowerPoint slides. The end result is predictable: mass air-gulping among the audience. When the speaker leaves the room, their points become mist rather than memories.

There is a better way:

Experienced speakers know that public speaking is a thrillingly powerful medium. The human mind sits up and takes notice when another human speaks with passion and conviction. We’re wired that way. But passion and conviction are choices, and their design is largely informed by language.

What sort of language?

Good speakers don’t do Document-Speak. They practice the alternative: High-Impact speak. High-Impact speak is emotive, creative and vivid. It gets you noticed and it keeps your messages front of mind, long after you’ve left.

Looking for a little electricity in your own presentations? Use the following six devices to add sizzle to your sentences:

1. Start by sounding human

When you chat with your friends, would you use a sentence like, “It is has come to my notice, in terms of our internal policies, that wasteful expenditure is causing a detrimental effect upon our bottom-line profits”? Doubtful. A human being would say, “We’re wasting too much and it’s hurting us.”

Remember that you are the thought-leadership in the room. When your audience perceives that you have slipped into ‘formal speech delivery’ mode, they will subconsciously switch off. It’s as if you have given them the cue: ‘Here comes the speechy stuff; you may all go to sleep. I’ll wake you when I’m really communicating again.’ A conversational tone keeps them engaged.

2. Craft interesting titles

Yes, you can deliver an address titled ‘A Critical Look at the History and Production of Fireworks.’ But how much more engaging to have the MC say, ‘Help me to welcome Joe, with his speech titled ‘Bang! – Making the Fire Work!’

One of my keynote speeches is about the topic of personal initiative. I call it ‘The Rules of Hamster Thinking.’ Your title is an opportunity to create interest before you even stand to speak. Take the time to develop a hook.

3. Metaphors help you to sum up complex ideas quickly

Certainly, you can show a busy graph depicting the in’s and out’s of any idea. Or you could simply use a metaphor that captures the essence of the idea, and say, “It’s like…”

On the runaway success television show, Top Gear, British presenter Richard Hammond once described a Porsche’s rear-mounted engine as being, “A bit like building a pyramid with the pointy bit at the bottom.”

Metaphors sum up complex ideas quickly. Most of the detail in corporate presentations is superfluous, because there is a world of difference between mere information and actual message. Information requires graphs. Message can be done with metaphors.

Professional speakers and trained Toastmasters rarely use fussy PowerPoint graphs. They know that having information is only half of a speaker’s job. Communicating that information in impactful and memorable ways is the full obligation.

4. Repeat catch-phrases often and your point will be remembered

Simple. Memorable. Easy to repeat.

Advertisers know the value of a good catch-phrase, and top speakers understand it too. Remember the old war-time phrase ‘Loose lips sink ships’? That’s the kind of easy-to-repeat mnemonic slogan you should develop and use often in your presentations.

5. Alliteration adds impact

In one of my contest speeches, I spoke about the glib nature of self-help quick fixes. I packaged it in the following sentence: “The treadmill of self-improvement churns out Kellogg’s Rice Competitors, Kentucky Fried Performers, Supersized McMen and Women; egos bigger than buildings.” Alliteration adds musicality to your sentences. Its rapid-fire nature also helps you to create the impression of being ‘on a roll’ when you speak, which adds to the perception of passion.

6. Visual devices bring dry information to life

Don’t just give information. Create mental pictures. The human mind becomes more engaged when points are delivered in story form, with character, setting, emotion and the description of action. We do not ‘feel’ a PowerPoint graph the way that we feel a story.

Use language that creates the perception that you are ‘re-living’ the story as you tell it, and you will pin souls to seats and set fire to minds. Best of all, you will be remembered.

The next time you pen a presentation, challenge yourself to raise the bar on your use of language. Remember that Document-Speak kills speeches. High-Impact language gives your script mouth-to-mouth. The human mind sits up and takes notice when a person speaks with passion and conviction. Take the time and trouble to design language that captures the imagination – give them a linguistic wedgie! – and your audiences will thank you for it.

Douglas Kruger is a 5 x winner of the SA Championships for Public Speaking and author of '50 Ways to Become a Better Speaker.' Read about his topics or see him in action at www.douglaskruger.co.za. Connect with him on Linked In or Twitter: @douglaskruger. Email:kruger@compute.co.za 

Opportunities in Theatre, Art, Acting, Writing and More

We have quite a few opportunities here via Pansa

SA Auditions to find the ultimate Whitney Houston impersonator
Showtime Australia is conducting a world-wide search for the ultimate Whitney Houston impersonator for a new tribute show called "The Greatest Love of All". Nationwide auditions will be held in South Africa in October 2012. A singer with a superb voice is being sought to take the coveted lead role as Whitney Houston.

Auditions: 
Durban at the Sibaya Casino, 7 October at 13h00

Each artist interested in auditioning must send a CV, a current headshot and an audio demo to sales@showtime.net.au by no later than 1 October. Artists accepted into the audition will be notified via e-mail with an audition time, will be required to perform a Whitney song and must bring their own backing CD.

Showtime Australia has produced some of the world’s top tribute shows including Queen – It’s a Kinda Magic. The rampant popularity of these concerts is driven by Showtime’s ability to transport audiences to a time and place they once loved. 

CONTEMPORARY SOUTH AFRICAN PLAYS
Closing October 12 | 5pm
Rob Drummer, freelance Director and Producer is visiting South Africa this Spring to work with emerging playwrights across South Africa with a view to discovering bold, contemporary new plays for production in the UK.  Working out of the Market Theatre and Baxter Theatre and spending time in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, Rob is looking for diverse new writing to champion both in South Africa and the UK.
Read full article on the PANSA website, click here

Drama for Life (JHB) Call for 2013 Postgraduate Admissions and Scholarship applications
Drama For Life invite all interested outstanding Performers, Theatre-Makers, Performing Arts Managers, Arts Educators, Community-Based Theatre Practitioners and Drama Facilitators working in Capacity Development, HIV/AIDS, Civic Society, Health Education, Arts Therapies, Universities and Arts & Culture to apply for admissions and become part of Africa’s future generation of artistic leaders through the Drama for Life Postgraduate Programme. Drama for Life has alumni and scholars from fifteen African countries namely, Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe
Full article is on the PANSA website, click here

SPIER ARTS ACADEMY- CALL FOR APPLICATIONS 2013
The Spier Arts Academy offers employment-based training in professional mosaic. Apply now for 2013. 
Based in Cape Town's Innovation district - the Fringe- this three year, full-time apprenticeship focuses on mosaic art and includes tuition in drawing, art history and business skills - enabling apprentices to jumpstart their creative careersand run their own successful enterprises.

For application forms or more information email: info@spierartsacademy.co.za or
Visit - Union House, 25 Commercial Street Cape Town
Call: 021 465 9029


Source - Pansa


Book Launch

There will be a book launch in Durban at Alliance Francaise for 
Le Petit Volume 2 - The second in the volume of short stories from the 
Mondays At St Clements short story competition.  Come and hear
the writer's read their own stories and get your own copy.  

Entrance Free.
Time 6pm
Date 8 October

For table bookings find more details here -  http://www.facebook.com/events/270617279707573/
Visit their Facebook page - Mondays At St Clements

#Auditions for Indian #Actors

Auditions coming up

Looking for an Indian couple aged between 45 & 65. It's for a phone shoot. It will take place in Durban but the production will fly you there. The casting is tomorrow in Blaigowrie. It has to be a proud Mother with a Nerdy Husband. It pays between 4500 & 7000. Shooting between the 18th & 19th of October 2012. Please urgently 
email me photo's  to tumi@djssa.com

Source - DJ's Model Agency 

Auditions tomorrow 

GO BIG Productions TV COMMERCIAL INDIANS NEEDED
CASTING for All kinds of Indian
characters Male, Female, kids from 10

yrs upwards... For a TVC for a cell
phone provider gross pay is over a
R1000 for the day if chosen, there is auditions tomorrow only in Durban
from 10am to 3pm plz email me if
keen... sasha@gobigproductions.net or add me to BBM 27B6D4C1

Source - Go Big Productions