Tourism Matters

Linda Tillman: Why Regional Events Are Struggling (And What Needs to Change)

• Carmen Bold • Episode 14

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Episode Description

In this episode of Tourism Matters, Carmen Bold speaks with Linda Tillman - Managing Director of Tilma Group and co-founder of the Australian Centre for Regional Events - about the realities of building tourism and events capability in regional Australia.

Linda shares how a university assignment on rural tourism resulted in a 20-year career working alongside regional communities, and how she built a business focused on helping destinations grow through tourism and events.

The conversation explores the critical role events play in regional economies, why so many events are under pressure, and the persistent challenges that haven’t changed in decades.

Linda also introduces a bold idea for the future — regional support hubs designed to take pressure off event organisers and allow them to focus on what actually matters: creating great experiences.

What You'll Take Away From This Episode

 • Why events are critical to regional tourism and community development
 • The three core challenges facing regional events: people, money, and compliance
 • How outdated operating models are contributing to burnout and “same-same” events
 • Why volunteering models need to evolve to attract younger people
 • The opportunity to rethink how events are supported through shared services and regional hubs

About Linda

Linda Tillman is the Managing Director of Tilma Group, a consultancy she founded in 2008 to support regional and rural communities through tourism and events.

She has spent nearly 20 years working across Australia on destination development, event strategy, and industry capability building, partnering with government, regional tourism organisations, and local communities.

Linda is also the co-founder of the Australian Centre for Regional Events, which focuses on strengthening the long-term sustainability of events through training, mentoring, and capability development.

Her work sits at both the strategic and grassroots level — helping shape big-picture tourism strategies while working directly with operators and communities on the ground.

Connect with Linda on LinkedIn

Connect with Carmen on LinkedIn

Organisations Referenced

Tilma Group: https://tilmagroup.com.au/

Australian Centre for Regional Events: https://australianregionalevents.com.au/

Episode Chapters

 01:48 Getting to Know Linda
 06:10 Early Career Interests in Tourism
 11:33 Discovering a Passion for Regional Tourism
 15:05 First Role in Local Government
 16:26 Travelling Australia and Career Direction
 19:28 Breaking into the Industry Through Networking
 24:06 Starting Tilma Group
 33:29 The Role of Events in Regional Tourism
 36:39 Launching the Australian Centre for Regional Events
 37:38 Challenges Facing Regional Events
 41:34 Workforce and Volunteering in Regional Communities
 44:11 Skills, Capacity and Capability Gaps
 46:09 Rethinking the Event Model

SPEAKER_01

Welcome friends to the Tourism Matters Podcast, where I, calm and bold, explore the people, careers, and ideas shaping the tourism industry today. And this week I sit down and chat with Linda Tillman. Linda has been the managing director of Tillmer Group since 2008, a consultancy that she established to help regional and rural communities thrive through tourism and events. And because one business isn't enough, in 2019, Linda also co-founded the Australian Centre for Regional Events, which has supported over 200 regional and rural communities to harness the power of events to transform their destinations. As you'll hear in this podcast, Linda has an understanding of the regional tourism and events landscape like no other. And this conversation could have gone on for so much longer than it did, but I restrained myself. So please listen in, enjoy the conversation, and I'll see you at the end to give my two Bobs and my key takeaways. Welcome, Linda, to the Tourism Matters podcast. Thanks for being here with me on this Friday morning.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks, Carmen. I'm excited. I'm actually a bit curious about this conversation.

SPEAKER_01

That makes two of us. I'm almost curious about every conversation. I never know where it's going to go, never ever. Can you remind me again? Where are you? Toowomba. Yeah, I'm based in Toowoomba, southern Queensland. Oh, good. Okay. So from Perth to Toowomba today. All right. So before I kick things off, I'm going to ask you a couple of little get-to-know you questions so me and my listeners can understand Linda Turman a little bit more. So, question number one. When you're flying and you're selecting your seats, are we aisle seat, middle seat, or window seat?

SPEAKER_02

How funny, because I think about this, you know. Like I think about there's certain people on a plane. I am definitely an aisle seat.

SPEAKER_01

And aisle. Absolutely. Follow-up question then. Have you always been aisle seat? For as long as I've been quite selective in my seating, yes.

SPEAKER_00

Mmm.

SPEAKER_01

I'm seeing a trend. A lot of people are aisle seat, but they're noting that they were once window seat but now have changed to aisle seat. And I myself fall in that category. Once I just wanted to look out the window, but now I need to be able to get up and go around, move around.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Once upon a time, I don't think I cared too much. I didn't think about it. I would just sit anywhere, but definitely now. I'm one of those ones that will go in and change my seat. And if there's no aisle seats, I'm utterly disappointed.

SPEAKER_01

Changing my flights. That's I can't, that flight's not available. All right. And my second question is when you're on holiday or away and you're at your hotel, buffet, breakfast, what's going on your plate or in your bowl? Where are we headed? I feel like, hang on, I'm gonna have a little prediction here. I feel like, not knowing you, it's gonna be a healthy choice. I just have a feeling. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I am a bit of a health freak. Yes. You've picked me. So I do care about what I eat. Um, and usually mornings, you know, first thing that came to my head is I wouldn't go to a buffet breakfast. Oh. I'd go out and find a really good coffee because I'm not an early morning breakfast person. I love to exercise early in the morning, have a coffee, and then it's kind of, you know, not necessarily mid-morning, but a little bit later that I get hungry. So I'm always looking for eggs, avocado, salmon, peanut butter would be on the side. Like I'm addicted to peanut butter. So if there was peanut butter there, even if I'm having savory, it there'd be a bit of peanut butter dropped on the side. Yep.

SPEAKER_01

Just on your egg or? No, just on the side, so I can have it at the end as my little dessert. See, this sounds like my sort of normal regular day-to-day. I don't really eat until lunchtime. But if I'm on holiday and I'm at a hotel, you can't keep me away from the from a hotel breakfast. I just need to poke around and see what's there and try something local or definitely.

SPEAKER_02

Like if it's it depends on the type of buffet. Like we could talk about this for hours. Yeah, we could. You know, but yeah, as long if it's good food and I'm always after local food. Local food, nice healthy food, nothing too kind of heavy, because I love to be active and work hard during the day.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Well, I feel like I do know you a little bit better after those questions. Often those questions yield some very bizarre results, and I feel like I don't know my guests any better. So I feel like yours is I feel like I know you better now, Linda. Yeah, I'm one of those.

SPEAKER_02

Someone said that to me the other day, actually. I ha I went for um a a skin check, actually, and the yeah, the doctor said, You're a runner. One of those. That's what she said. One of those. And I was like, yeah, I guess so.

SPEAKER_01

Hang on. It I'm sorry, I can't I'm gonna have to double-click on this. Did you did you tell her you were a runner? And I did, yeah. Somehow she picked you were a runner from your skin.

SPEAKER_03

She picked it, because I'm obviously exposed to the sun a bit.

SPEAKER_02

Um, and but it was her comment. Oh, you're one of those. One of those. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

She's clearly not a runner. No, she's not. Well, yes, you're one of those. You are one of those, Linda. All right, now that now that we've identified you're one of those, let's go back, please, to young Linda. Where were you brought up? Where were you? Where are you from?

SPEAKER_03

I'm from Dubbo, New South Wales.

SPEAKER_02

I was born born in Dubbo, spent my first 12 years in Dubow, um, and then moved to northern New South Wales to a small town called Olstendville. Um, and that's where I did my high school university in Lismore.

SPEAKER_01

Ah, all right. So when you finished high school, did you know what you wanted to do with your life? Kind of.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, all right. What did you want to do? Yeah, what was your vision?

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, this is a fun story. Okay, good. I wanted to be the CEO of the Marriott Resort in Port Douglas. Very specific, right? Yeah, that's what I wanted to do. I have no idea why. I think because maybe uh just the the beauty of it, the appeal of this beautiful kind of you know, tropical town hotel management. At that time, I did a little bit of tourism and travel in year 11 and 12, so I kind of got a little bit of a taste of it, and I was like, Yeah, I think I could do that. That'd be really cool.

SPEAKER_01

And as far as I'm aware, this has not been a part of your career journey? Not at all.

SPEAKER_02

Have not done any hotel work.

SPEAKER_01

No, me neither. And so is it still on your list of with still still aspiration? No.

SPEAKER_02

No, but funny, I've been up there a few times for both work and um pleasure. So I make sure I swing by and just kind of, you know, think about it. No, I'm happy with my choices.

SPEAKER_03

See if there's any job open.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, so you did you studied tourism in year 11 and 12?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I did a TAFE component with you know, I don't know if it was year 11. It might have just been year 12, but definitely in those senior years, I did TAFE. So we would go out of school, I think it was only like half a day, one day a week. We would go to the TAFE College in Lismore. So my high school was in Austinville, we'd go to TAFE in Lismore uh one afternoon a week, and we would do um travel and tourism. And it was very travel focused, so real kind of that travel agent focused content. So when I think back to it, it didn't really teach me much about what I do now, but it certainly sparked an interest for me in that whole world of you know travel and tourism and destinations.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Why do you think you picked that as a subject to do in year 12? Wow, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_02

Why think it maybe it was just sounded fun, you know, holidays, people traveling. Um, and I think as a kid growing up, we apart from kind of the family holidays, you know, intrastate visiting grandparents and you know, the odd kind of interstate holiday. As a kid, I didn't have the luxury of, you know, lots of overseas travel, certainly not big kind of, you know, luxurious family holidays. And I think there was some kind of appeal there, kind of or curiosity around that that made me go, hmm, you know, this is interesting. People travel around the world. And I was like, I'd like to be part of that.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, yeah. I asked that question because as I um you know speak to more uh people in the industry, I think the message that's coming through is that a lot of those year and 12, 11 and 12 students these days are doing tourism for a variety of reasons, but oftentimes it is just a general interest in traveling, um, or it fits the schedule that they want for that, or that it's an easy, they perceive it to be an easy option. And not, unfortunately, I'm not hearing anyway, students are choosing it because they think, hey, this is a career that I might actually want to do or be involved in, or that I can see myself, you know, having a rewarding and a viable career in the tourism or hospitality or events industries.

SPEAKER_02

I would absolutely support that. And as a mother of a daughter that graduated from U-12 last year, it's something that I was talking to the schools about a lot. My daughter and her cohort of friends would ask me questions all the time about what I do, and they've never ever heard of careers like tourism, destination development, nothing. It's yeah, big gap. They're big opportunity for us.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, I mean, that's why the podcast exists, is to shine a light on, you know, tourism as more than being a travel agent or a flight attendant or uh, I don't know what else, a barista. You know, there's there's a breadth and depth of skills and roles and personality types required in the industry. And it can be um and is for many people a long and rewarding career, myself included. So thank you for that extra little bit of insight. So you finish high school and then you go on to further studies straight away. Excuse me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I went straight into so that that little taste of uh tourism and travel at TAFE um sparked something in me. So and I didn't I didn't really know what I wanted to do. You know, there were kind of those little dreams and you know things, but I I wasn't one of those that was like, I'm gonna be a doctor or I'm gonna be this, or I didn't really know, but um I had that interest in the tourism and the travel. And and thankfully at Southern Cross University in Lismore, they offered a fantastic um business in tourism degree. And so I decided to follow that path. So I went straight into university. And the reason I liked that is because I wasn't, I didn't have my heart set on tourism. I was interested in it, but at least this degree actually also offered a lot of business topics or um so I was able to get those fundamentals around, you know, business and marketing and finance, etc., before we then went and uh specialized in tourism and service-based industries.

SPEAKER_01

Right. I think that that that bachelor of business model, is that what it was? Bachelor of Business, but then majoring in, yeah. Um I think that's a really good model for a higher education if you know, if if you want to do the full three years, because all those fundamentals of marketing and finance and accounting and even HR, you know, that yeah, that's all valuable throughout anyone's career in tourism. So um, yeah. All right, so you finish your degree and then what happens?

SPEAKER_02

Well, it was actually during my degree that I found my passion. And it was one of my lecturers, Rosa Derrett, and she's still based in Lismore, and I've catch up with her every now and then. She was teaching a topic that um I decided to specialise in, which was rural tourism. And I did a major assignment, and that assignment was on the power of tourism to revitalize rural communities. Wow. And I did it on Nundal, which is a little town near Tamworth in New South Wales, and way back then, because we're talking years ago, it was a time where Nundal was really struggling through drought, economic decline, they were losing a lot of residents. And the community actually got together and started to do a lot of fabulous work around, you know, reigniting their main streets and a lot of their buildings, and they started to explore tourism and they looked at the opportunities it could bring, and it totally transformed that rural community. So I did a major project, and that was my case study. Um, and that was it. I was like, I will that's what I want to do. I love regional and rural communities, and I want to support them by being able to grow and develop tourism and visitation so that they can benefit socially and economically. That's what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. I think we can say you're successfully doing that now, Linda.

SPEAKER_02

I've 20 years. I've been doing it for nearly 20 years, and I only said to somebody the other day, I love what I do. I wake up every day, despite sometimes being a little overloaded. Um, I still get up with energy and enthusiasm to jump into whatever it is that I'm working on. And I think it's because I have the pleasure of working with so many different amazing communities across regional and rural Australia. So it never feels the same. Um and I feel like I'm having an impact.

SPEAKER_01

Wow, that's so rewarding when you have that feeling. Yeah. All right, well, we'll come we will come back around to what you're currently doing. So studies finish, yeah, and then what happens?

SPEAKER_03

I so I went, I did an internship.

SPEAKER_02

The beauty of that uh university degree was I did uh the final six months is an internship. I did that um with Lismore City Council doing a destination marketing role. And that was excellent uh and loved that job. I still remember my director at that time, Lisa, she was so inspiring. Uh, and after that, they offered me a position with council working in tourism. Um, and I guess that was a real turning point for me because I was like, I went straight from school to uni.

SPEAKER_03

I was like, I don't want to be an adult. I wasn't ready to be an adult. I'm not ready. I'm not ready either. I'm still not ready.

SPEAKER_02

So um I didn't know what to do at that time. I was like, well, what do I do then? So I I ended up declining the offer and I worked with them in a casual capacity for a little while. And funnily enough, I was working out of the office in the visitor information center, and I would constantly hear these travelers coming in, and you know, the volunteers on the front desk were talking to them and about they're traveling around Australia and they're doing all this stuff, and I've been hearing this all the time. So I just one day, I feel like this is my life, just sporadic decisions. One day I just went, that's what I'm gonna do. So within about two weeks, I bought a caravan, full wheel drive, and I went and traveled around Australia for two years. Wow. Two years? Yeah. Wow, by yourself? No, I had a partner who is now my husband, and we traveled for two years and we just did seasonal work, you know, down in the snow, went up into the middle, spent a lot of time in Darwin and the Northern Territory and fell in love with the place. I probably could have just stayed there. Um spent a lot of time. We didn't go to WA. Two years and we didn't go to WA because it was like, we'll go over to WA and spend a year over there. But by that time, I was done with living in a caravan. Yeah. And I was ready to kind of feel grounded again.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So we were like, okay, let's not do WA. And as soon as we're in a position to, we'll visit WA and and spend some time over there. And we certainly have done that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. Wow, that's uh two years, that's a good relationship, Tester. It was. It was. Yeah. I was wondering if we would get to a point where there was some sort of gap. I think. Yeah. I'll have to have a look back at all my conversations, but I think almost a hundred percent of people I've spoken to have had some type of gap year or gap of some length and early on between school and study or study and career or something. And then yeah, that's just either ignited a love for travel and tourism or like um solidified the love that they they think, you know, it's just grown the passion for it, which sounds like probably is your scenario.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely solidified for me because I had the opportunity to travel through all of these amazing parts of the country. And it's funny because now I've work in a lot of those places or I have worked in a lot of those places and have been able to support them through what I do. So yeah, it was an amazing time.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. I know that's been yeah, that is on definitely on my list. We'll start with WA. Um, there's plenty of ground to cover. Absolutely. All right, so we get back from a couple of years on the road. Is that back to Liz More?

SPEAKER_02

No, and we know we actually ended up in Wagga Wagga in New South Wales. So on that two-year journey, my husband was also exploring his career. He's had worked on farms and everything, his um younger years, and was trying to find his way. And and he found that as well when we were traveling, because we just randomly met a master farrier in a pub in Ginderbine and got talking to him over a beer. And that turned into he was from young near Wagga. My husband ended up doing his Farrier apprenticeship with him. So we moved to Wagga, and I thought, Wagga, hmm, what am I going to do in tourism in Wagga? So I went to the council. First thing I did, went to the council and I met with the tourism manager and the events manager at council and just introduced myself and talked about what I had been doing, what I'm interested in. Um, and then I started some casual work with council, and that kind of snowballed to where I am now.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. Now I would like to just point out here to listeners, especially young listeners, that this is another example of a job landed because Lynn, well, because a guest has put themselves out there and started a conversation and not waited to find something on a job board, but actively made themselves known in the local tourism community. And Linda, this is something that I harp on about in just about every episode because just about everybody has a story of a time they got a job just because they went and spoke to somebody or reached out to somebody. So thank you for carrying on the trend.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And as we know, like the tourism industry is all about networks. And I'm sure other industries are probably similar to that, but I absolutely know that the tourism industry is built on networks. And what I found in my entire career from that first meeting I had with council was that it's all about putting yourself out there and building those connections and creating those relationships. And then it just kind of folds on or rolls on from there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. What was the job that you were doing for them at that time, Linda?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I ended up doing a role. They just created a role for me. I think because I was so um, I guess, you know, confident to go in there and put myself outside of my comfort zone.

SPEAKER_01

Again, this is not the first time we I've heard this story. Wow. Please, yes. Like, oh no, we don't, we'll just make something up because we like you and we want we want you as part of the team. So sorry, carry on, but I just can't can't say it loud enough how important networking is. Yeah. All right, sorry, carry on. So had to get that in.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. Yeah, so I just I ended up doing some project support. So I was work supporting the tourism team on some projects and also at that time council was in the event delivery space. So I also helped with some festival and event development and delivery. And that certainly sparked my because I didn't really have an events interest, if I'm honest, but that really was. Probably the catalyst for me in terms of my definitely my interest in the power of events to drive regional tourism. So yeah, I did the few little projects with council, and then I was actually seconded by the university to go and um look after their community development department and the events that they were running at the university. So I did an events role for a number of years in Wagga. And then I had my beautiful baby girl. And then the next chapter began.

SPEAKER_01

All right, let's talk about the next chapter. So hang on, can we just put a little timestamp on this? What what sort of year are we talking here?

SPEAKER_03

Oh two, what was Jess was born to 2008. Okay. Yeah. So what's that?

SPEAKER_01

17 ish years ago. All right. So motherhood approaches.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. And that was, you know, for someone like me, I don't like to sit still for long. Okay. I thought, oh, you know what? I'm just gonna be a mum. And I'm gonna enjoy it and I'm gonna just take it easy. And that lasted about three months. That was why I I need something to stimulate my brain. Right. And I was and this is where connections come in, right? So what I had done at WOGA had connected me with so many people within the tourism industry across the entire region that I was just fortunate to be approached by the regional tourism organization asking me just to do a little PR contract for them. It was like one day a week that I was doing it. Um, and I loved it. And that, you know what that did, I built more contacts, and then people started just contacting me and saying, Will you do this little project? Will you do this? Um, and so I was doing just little projects, and then from there I was like, there's something in this, and I want to do this more. Uh, and that's when um Tilma Group was born.

SPEAKER_03

Wow. All right, so talk to me about Tilma Group. So, oh my god, I don't know where to start with that.

SPEAKER_02

It's been it's been an evolution, and I guess the thing that has remained true, Tilma Group was born out of my desire to support regional and rural communities to be vibrant and resilient through having a really strong tourism and events industry. If we refer to it today, a visitor economy. So that's what I wanted to do. I was like, I want to support these amazing people in regional communities to develop, grow, elevate, you know, the um tourism industry. So they gain the benefit from that. So that was kind of the foundation of it. Uh and we did a lot of, it probably started more agency style work. You know, we were in more of that event delivery, marketing campaigns, you know, doing a lot of the doing and had a very big team. So over the time, we I, you know, every organization has kind of these evolutions, and uh we have gone from Wogga to now being into Woomba. You know what's really funny about it? I don't know if other people experienced this, but it's interesting that wherever I'm based, so when I was in Wogga with Tilma Group, we did very little work in that local area. All of my work was outside of that area. Now I'm into Woomba. All of my work is everywhere else, which is so interesting. We I always do little pockets of work locally, but yeah, I've basically been just delivering amazing projects around destination development, event development, and event strategy, and also capability building, where we have the pleasure of working at that grassroots level to support industry, non-for-profits, communities right across regional and rural Australia.

SPEAKER_01

And so when you say supporting, like delivering training and mentorship, and is that is that what that looks like?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I guess there's the way I often describe it is we have the real pleasure of working at both ends of the spectrum. So we do more, I guess, significant strategy work at a higher level with government, whether that be with state tourism organizations, regional tourism organizations, or local government. So we do a lot of destination development and strategy work. And then we also, so that's kind of looking at the big picture, how do we, you know, achieve goals, sustainability, et cetera, within different destinations. So setting kind of that roadmap and the strategy for them to achieve what it is that they want to achieve from tourism. But we also do the real kind of foundation or no foundation kind of dumbs it down a little bit. It's it's it's the fundamental, you know, work in our industry, which is supporting operators. Yeah. So we do a lot of work, whether sometimes it could be funded by government where they will get us to design and deliver capability building programs or training skill development programs for our operators. And we will um work with operators one-on-one. We do workshops with operators. It's just that that is the real kind of fill your cup stuff, you know. Like I love strategy, I have a real strategic brain. But, you know, even yesterday I was on uh a mentoring session with a farmer in the Somerset region just near Brisbane. Um, and we've been doing some mentoring with some of their farmers around agritourism. It's just so rewarding to support those that are prepared to invest in our industry and to be able to just support them on that journey is extremely rewarding. So, yeah, I get to work at both ends of the spectrum.

SPEAKER_01

We are so lucky. Yeah, that is really lucky and quite unique, I think. And you know, at the end of the day, the strategy there is no strategy if there's no product or no operators. Absolutely. Yeah. So that is very unique that you get to work at both ends. And um it really makes that makes sense if you think about it. If you have your head wrapped around what the strategic thinking is from a local, regional or state or even nationwide level. And then can uh filter that information, relevant information through to operators. That makes seems to make perfect sense. Yeah. Seems like a good brand.

SPEAKER_02

Definitely. And I think that's where we can offer the value at both ends, because also when we're doing strategy, it's excellent for us to know what's happening on the ground. You know, we have boots on the ground in regions. So because sometimes strategy can get caught up in big picture. Sometimes we can try to be too big and bold, but sometimes it's really that, you know, the the foundations of what's required on the ground, particularly in regions where it's more about our people than anything else, and we need to support them to make sure that our industry really thrives.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my god, we could talk about this forever, Linda. Before we continue, I just wanted to ask before I forget, would you did you have a d desire to like be an entrepreneur and have your own business? Or did you just see the gap and decide that it you were the one that needed to fill it?

SPEAKER_02

Definitely no desire. It was not anything I thought I would do actually. Uh it it just fell into my lap, I guess. Um and I've always been one to just take opportunities that come up. Right. So yeah, it was an opportunity that I jumped on.

SPEAKER_01

And did you how did you find that, I guess, learning curve from being an employee? Or I guess you had, you know, a period of time, you know, consulting or doing project work. So I guess that sort of diptoe into the world of business. But was that a learning curve for you, having your own employees and you know having to sell and find? Yep.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, it was.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I think the hardest part in business is people management for me. You know, it's and it's always been this tension for me because I also love to be the doer. And I've got a couple of business coaches and I've had a few across um the years, but they're always like, Linda, you're doing too much. Linda, you're doing too much. And that's a real struggle for me because I guess I it wasn't that I set the business up to give myself a job. I set the business up because it enabled me to do what I love to do. You know, I couldn't do what I do in a structured role. I would be kind of more like if I was in local government, I have a very prescriptive role in that particular area. And I wanted to touch on, you know, all parts of Australia. I was a bit greedy, I guess. So it was like I had to create it to do what I really wanted to do. And so now, and the entire time I've had Tilma Group, that's been the tension for me is managing kind of the business side from a time perspective, the business side with the client side, because I love the client side. So it it didn't come natural to me, but I had amazing people around me. And I think that's the other thing is I've always been open to collaborate, you know, take on board, help where I need to. Um, and have always, you know, had business coaches and people along the way that can really support me.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, coaches and mentors are exceptional in those in the early days, aren't they? Well, at all in all days, actually. But even now. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess, you know, businesses are just c constantly evolving. So there's always, you know, a new set of things that you don't know how to do or don't know, you know, how to make the right decision on. So yeah, you're exactly right. But I also just wanted to just quickly say that that's no mean feat to have had such a successful business for so long. So congratulations to you on that. It's no fly by nighter. Is that the saying? Fly by night or fly by day, fly by night.

SPEAKER_03

I'm going with that. Fly by night. Whatever that even means. In an in an aisle seat. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01

All right. So at some point in there, uh a new business is born, yes? I was waiting for it.

SPEAKER_03

Because one one's not enough. Yeah, crazy. See, I'm one of those. Yeah, I hear you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I it was inter it's been an interesting journey, and it's funny how you become known for something. And I think with tourism in regional communities, events play such a critical role. And I'm talking, you know, particularly in rural areas, not kind of our boundaries of our country, which have, you know, amazing coastlines, but as soon as you start to move inwards, we're actually quite dependent on festivals and events to drive visitation, brand, reputation, etc. So I quickly realized that events are really critical to what I do at Tilma Group, and not necessarily in the event delivery space, but how do we strategically use events to support destination development and drive visitation into regional communities? Yeah, events became a real key part of Tilma Group and what we were doing. And it got to a point where it started to take over. Right. Um, and that was never the intention, but I noticed that there was a real need for this. There was a real need to support events in regional communities. We were doing lots of work in terms of supporting events in setting up structures. We were doing their strategies, we were doing, and it was like the same thing with every event. It was like every event was struggling with the same things. And I'm like, okay, this is there's something in this. We need to build capability. They can't keep paying for someone to do it. I need to be able to build their capability to do these things so that it's more affordable for them and it actually is more sustainable for the event and supports succession planning. So when did this start? I can't even remember. But it's been that's another journey. I started playing with it. I started playing with this idea of regional event capability building. And I was like, I can build a program that could then be scaled for events across regional communities. But it was just a little side hustle. Like I was just kind of playing around with it for a couple of years. And it was only two years ago, I'll say two years ago. I'm not really good with numbers, but two years ago, uh, I was approached by Kathy Treasure from Parks in New South Wales. And I'd known Kath for some years and the fabulous work that she was doing with the Parks Elvis Festival as festival director. So I'd often called on her as a case study because everybody would say to me, We want to be like Parks Elvis Festival. We want a festival like Parks. We want to be like Parks. So I would often call on Kath and we'd talk about, you know, opportunities and best practice. And and yeah, two years ago, she rang me out of the blue and just said, Look, I'm ready for my next chapter in my career, and I really love what you're doing in regional events, and wanted to, and she wanted to have a chat about how we could work together. And now we have Australian Centre for Regional Events.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. So the two of you together?

SPEAKER_02

Two of us together, and and it she's amazing. Like um it's it's fabulous because I have, I guess, you've just heard my story. So my background is very much tourism, the kind of strategic component, how events drive visitations, support regional communities. So I come from that perspective. Kath comes from the very much the event operations delivery on the ground. She's worked on events all over the world, massive big events down to small regional events. So our skill sets are so complementary, and now we're just having so much fun working across regional Australia, delivering training and mentoring, and just trying to, we're really trying to build the capability of events in regional and rural communities. It's it's not easy. Um, there's some serious challenges with events in regional communities, and we could talk about that for hours. But we're trying to do our bit. We're trying to really just support the succession planning and the long-term viability of events in regional communities, and not all of them, but certainly those that um keen to elevate, grow, and continue to drive that um tourism success.

SPEAKER_01

So, do you want to give me maybe the top couple of issues that you're seeing for events?

SPEAKER_02

Well, there's actually really three. And you could three things, and we did a survey last year of um a heap of events across regional Australia, and this is I think the problem uh I see is the two top challenges have not changed in 20 years.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02

And that is money and people. Yeah. It is still the events are resource intensive, but it is so hard to deliver events in regional communities when you are constrained by money and your human capacity. So they're the two biggest ones. And what we're now seeing is that is being overlaid with growing compliance um and risk and insurance challenges. Okay. And you combine those three things, they're big things, right? Um, they're they're really hard to solve just through some training. So it's how do we have conversations, you know, at a higher level to look at the model. It's like the model is is needing some system change, you know, it's they're big things. And I'm keen to try to solve it, but I won't be doing it on my own. Yeah. Um, and I can't do it on my own. No. But I think we've got some, yeah. I I I think the future looks exciting for events in regional communities if we're prepared to be bold enough to change the model behind how we fund events, how we support events, and also, you know, the funding allocation around mega events versus our homegrown regional events.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and just I guess from a tourism, you know, perspective on that, domestic and international tourists are increasingly looking to get out of the cities and out into the regions and get the real taste of what real Australia is like looks like, or real into any country's name is like. And events and festivals are just like another layer on top of why you would already want to go um to a particular region. Yeah, so it's it it hits well, I know from my experience in Tasmania that it certainly helps with that regional dispersal piece when there is some type of festival or event taking place in the regions to to draw visitors there and to, you know, get them out of the big cities. Yeah. Big cities.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, spot on. I think, yeah, events, they're powerful. They're powerful economically, but they're even more powerful socially, you know, particularly those type of place-based homegrown events that give people an opportunity not just to be entertained, but actually to immerse themselves in a place. And that's what visitors are looking for, you know, they're looking for those opportunities to feel that sense of place and to feel connected and to get out of the hustle and bustle. And and I think those regional events that we can offer across all of Australia or all the world present that opportunity for our visitors to feel a bit like a local. 100%.

SPEAKER_03

What they offer. I think it's yeah, exciting. There's just some they're tough.

SPEAKER_01

That's all I can say is they're tough. Yeah, yeah. No, it is, it is tough. Yeah. And then I mean, then you can even get to, you know, the real logistical issues of things like weather and climate change. Accommodation in the local area where the event is and all of that sort of logistical issue as well. Yeah. Without getting too into the nuts and bolts. Yeah. Can I double-click just quickly then on the capability part of that, given the focus of this particular podcast? So what do you see? Um, I guess, are particular issues like in the regions for workforce, I guess, and and careers and capability. What are you seeing out there for I in either, you know, the in either of your businesses and either scope?

SPEAKER_02

That is such a big one. I think I I won't go into this in detail because it's a big topic, but certainly the volunteering piece from an events perspective, it's just completely changed and we have to think different about it. Um, and I think there's so many exciting opportunities for young ones to volunteer in events, but we have to be open to operating differently to allow them to come in and do that. So I think there's yeah, so many exciting opportunities around volunteering at events in regional communities, if we're prepared to do things different.

SPEAKER_01

Is it a massive tangent? Sorry, if I then say what is what do you mean when you say if we're prepared to do things different, what is standing? Because I certainly did plenty of events volunteering when I was going through my advanced diploma in tourism and event management back in 2000. I was volunteering at any event I could.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I think yeah, what I see is that in some regional communities you've got very traditional ways of operating. Um, and sometimes that isn't a flexible operating model that enables creative, fresh, and new thinking to come in. So when you have younger people come in, they come with new energy, right? And ideas. And sometimes traditional ways of operating don't welcome that. And it can create some tension in regional communities. So what we often see is young ones say, I really well, the the existing committees or teams will say, nobody will volunteer. You know, the young ones don't volunteer. I hear that everywhere I go. But if you have conversations with the younger people in the community, their response to that is, I do want to volunteer, but I don't want to go and sit at meetings every month. And I I can't commit to XYZ, but I'm happy to stay up at night and help you with some funding applications or do this. So we have to evolve that model around volunteering so that it enables. Enables that flexibility for how we live our lives these days, you know? Okay to bring that volunteering um opportunity in. Right. Thank you. We also don't have enough people in regions. And I Calf and I talk about this a lot. Like we often go, why is it so hard? Why are regional events so hard? Regional events are hard because it's often one person or a small team that are playing every single role. They are the marketing manager, the operations manager, the finance manager, the risk manager, the logistics coordinator. There's many more than that. But you know what I mean. They're wearing, it's like they're juggling all those plates in the air, trying to be everything. Whereas if you go to a major event and work on a major event in the city, often you've just got one role. You know, you might be looking after media or you're doing sponsorship. Um, but in a region, we're expected to do all of that. And that creates some challenges. We don't have the skills in regions to sometimes take on some of those roles. And so we don't have the capability there to do it. And sometimes we just don't have the people there to do it. So we have to try to juggle all of those things ourselves. And we don't have the money. Yeah. In a lot of cases, in our regional events, to be able to, I mean, have the luxury to pay a team to come in and help.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Okay. Thank you for delving into that a little deeper. It's um, I don't know, just feels so fundamental to try and find some solutions to those sort of three key areas that you've just identified. Because yeah, it just will just really help drive that regional dispersal that I know all the STOs are um, you know, trying to achieve. Yeah, but I think, like you said, it's going to take a combined effort on many levels.

SPEAKER_03

Do you want to hear my idea? Go.

SPEAKER_02

So, what I said to you, those three fundamental challenges: people, money, and compliance or risk, that is consistent across every region that we go into in Australia. They are the three biggest challenges. I believe that it's those three things that are burning out our event teams. Stress about money, not having enough volunteers or the right model of volunteers, or even just a team, um, and the growing risk and compliance is adding so much pressure on event teams that they actually don't have time and energy to invest into the fun stuff, which is the creative design of your event, which is the delivery of your event. It's the reason many of us do events, right? So we're getting bogged down in this stuff, and we don't have the energy, time to put into this. So the result is we end up with a series of events across regional communities that are same-same. And that's purely because there's no time and energy to think about, you know, creative reinvention or design around the events. So, what I want to see are regional hubs. I want to see regional hubs, because if you my my vision is we take away that issue of, you know, compliance, admin, all the stuff that's burning them out, and we build these kind of regional hubs because all events are struggling with the same thing, yet there's experts out there that can do these things for events. Right. You know, specialists that could do it. And if you had a team of specialists that are working for 20 or 30 or 100 events, you know, they're just doing their traffic management, they're helping them with sponsorship proposals, they're doing their event permits, their all of that stuff that really drags them down, take that out of the equation and let our amazing people in regions do the good stuff and deliver exceptional event experiences. Wow. That's what I'd love to see. Start that collaboration, resource sharing. We need to work smarter. That's a very exciting proposal.

SPEAKER_03

So for anyone out there that wants to pilot this, I would love to talk to them. I'm on a mission.

SPEAKER_01

I will certainly have your LinkedIn details in the show notes so people can get in contact with you.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

All right. Well, have you got anything else that you'd like to add? Did you want to get up on your soapbox about anything before we wrap things up? Or any words of wisdom, advice for young people or career changers that are looking to make a move into tourism, hospitality, events industries, or you know, living or working in regional Australia that, yeah, that was a broad question, but any parting words, I guess?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, thank you. Look, there's so many things I would love to say, but just to I guess keep it simple and and I have these conversations a bit with, you know, different organizations and even with my, you know, teenage kids and their friends is the tourism and events industry is not just a short-term career opportunity or a gap filler. The tourism and events industry can offer so many amazing career opportunities at all levels. So don't, I guess, discount that and think, oh, that I'll go and work in hospitality, you know, in my gap year, for example. There are so many exciting opportunities at all of those levels to be working in the tourism industry. And the same with events. Like it's it's such a sexy industry and it's fun to be on the ground in the event delivery, but there's so many other opportunities to work in events at even a higher level. So I would just encourage people. I know there's not a lot of opportunities through school pathways at the moment, but I would just strongly encourage people to look at what opportunities exist within the tourism industry because I know for me personally it's been just so rewarding. And I can't wait for another 20 years, you know, working in regional tourism. It's it's just such a great rewarding industry. And we're and we have fun because we're all about you know making sure people have great experiences in our country. So it's the best job ever.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I agree. And uh yeah, your passion uh and dedication definitely comes through hard and fast, Linda. So yeah, thank you for everything you do. Um thank you. All right. Well, thank you for being here with me today. I will, as I said, have your LinkedIn profile in the show notes so people can get in touch with you if they like. And um I hope you enjoy the rest of your Friday. Thanks, Carmen. All right, thank you. See you later. Thank you, thank you, Linda Tillman, for sitting with me this week. That was such an interesting conversation. There is nothing that that woman doesn't know about regional codes, but it's very exciting. I love her idea of regional clubs. I love efficiency and resource sharing. So this idea of you know helping alleviate the burden of compliance and administration of organizers in the regions and then leaving the locals to focus on you know creating and delivering exceptional event experiences. This is a good idea. So I love Linda. And uh as you said, if there's anyone out there that's uh interested to talk us through there, um please get in touch with her. So thank you all for listening again this week, and thank you again to Linda. Um if you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to share it with colleagues or friends. Um as I always say, the tourism industry deserves to be seen as a reputable and viable career choice. And my aim is to use the podcast to help the tourism industry be seen. Feel free to message me if you think you would be a great guest on the podcast or if you know somebody that would, I'd love to hear from you. And of course, please make sure you hit one of those buttons, subscribe, the share, the download, the follow, any or all of the above. That's very helpful. So until next time, just remember that tourism matters. I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening.