Caxton crisis – no seminar this year
Campaign Brief hears from sources close to the Caxton committee that there will be no Caxton weekend seminar this year – only the awards, which CB understands will simply be announced online.
The Caxton weekend has been a popular get-together of the Australian creative community for almost 40 years, since it was started by Bryce Courtenay and others back in 1974.
The blow to the Caxtons comes just over two months after Mark Hollands (pictured) took over the CEO gig of The Newspaper Works from Tony Hale and a day after CB revealed that The Hallway’s Simon Lee had been named the new Caxton chairman.
More on this as details come to hand.
17 Comments
surprise surprise…..just kill it for Gods Sake
Another bloody relic from a bygone era. Kill it please! Funny how a digital creative director is now the head of a newspaper award scheme. Put a nail on it guys.
You’re all in denial. Countless Australian awards have died. More recently MADC and now Caxtons………….whether you want to accept it or not. All of them will eventually die including AWARD. Survival of the fittest and none of them are fit enough to exist.
Fake launch campaign for the cfe?
One show matters…and it’s not One Show.
It’s all about them Lions.
D&AD too maybe but only for the purists.
But that’s always had its quirks and was quite a shit show this year.
Save your money for Cannes. Even your clients want Lions.
They’re just like the New York Frstivals only sunnier.
@recently converted,
sorry to burst your bubble but if you think cannes truly counts for anything, you need to wake up.
@David couldn’t agree more. Nowadays if isn’t a Grand Prix no one really cares. And even then, I’d say it’s a stretch to say anyone cares other than your Mum & Dad. Actually I take that back, they don’t care either.
The sad thing is no junket in a nice resort somewhere in Australia this year. No excuse to leave the agency on a Wednesday afternoon and return the following Tuesday after drinking your body weight in free piss. There has been hundreds of interesting speakers and a chance to catch up with some old chums every year.
Had many lovely weekends at the agency and newspaper industries expense and now they are gone. This is a crisis.
All you guys willing this to die should wake up. This was the poor mans Cannes. A chance to get some of us that would never get a guernsey to Cannes to get a freebie trip out of the agency. You digital dudes like jerking off in front of your computers and have trouble talking to real people but some of us enjoyed having a beer or ten with real people and a nice weekend away. There is even the odd chance of scoring a root.
The Caxton weekend has had some great speakers over the years and deserves to be preserved. It’s also a great profile builder for newspapers and I’m surprised the newspaper industry is not backing it again.
Just Accept it is correct in one aspect – AWARD is in danger. Australian creatives who grew up with AWARD need to support it now more than ever. Save the money you enter on Spikes in Singapore and invest it in AWARD. Spikes has done nothing for our industry. AWARD has done plenty.
So far only one comment in support of Caxton.
Sure, newspapers are finding life tough so I guess there’s a bit of that here in the decision.
Just look at what the industry will be losing; promoting great copywriting, art direction, photography and typography – hey remember typography? Web designers please take note. There is another world out there beyond digital.
I know, you can’t eat heritage but the industry is losing something very valuable.
Spot on Ray. Digital is the fun sponge for our industry. There are still people reading newspapers. I saw one yesterday. The Caxtons is more about education than anything else. Support the Caxtons man.
Dear Ray,
You don’t know me for a bar of soap but I know you and please let me say that I love you and all you’ve done for our industry, specially AWARD School, of which I am a graduate.
But the Caxtons, Newspaper advertising (as we know it) and all of that jazz is kaput. Dead. It’s been dead for a long while, but everybody is refusing to accept it. It’s been stinking in nauseating decay for years but no one acknowledged the stench. It’s not us advertising people that killed it, it’s the world, mate.
Do you think that Fairfax enjoys he fact they had to sack half of their editorial and plant staff, close that glorious state of the art print centre (million dollar sculpture included) and completely revamp their offering to digital centric content?
There are people still reading newspapers. Usually at Cafes. Only because there’s no wi-fi for their tablets. More often than not older than 60 year old (like my parents), who also have a tablet and mostly on the weekends (old habits die hard).
Advertising is not an industry that can be too closely attached to nostalgia. If it was, we will still be doing live endorsements on variety shows and live radio.
Let’s all move on, shall we?
Still love you Ray. You are a hell of a great man and even a better copywriter than most.
Caxton is dead. Long live what comes next.
You are an idiot. For a start it sounds like you have been in our industry until morning tea and you treating Ray like that is a disgrace.
What Ray has to say is valuable. You obviously have not been to a Caxton weekend.
Ray, I hope you kerned that comment and adjusted your leading by half a bees dick before posting.
With all respect for everything you’ve done for Caxtons, AWARD, Copy school etc, I think Australian award shows in general are missing a trick – ADC, D&aD, Cannes, NYF, One Show, CLIO, even London Internationals – what’s the one thing they have in common?
They’ve opened their borders, let the boats in and made it an international competition, while adding new categories.
The argument that print is dead is a moot point. Newspapers are slimmer than Tony Abbots personality, and while it’s sad, it’s painfully obvious. Caxtons should be embracing not only digital but also PR, magazines etc. And it has done nothing to raise its profile as the worlds best award to win for print / print craft, purely because it’s a local competition. Leurzers holds more weight. Unfortunately.
If AWARD is to survive, it needs to open out to the rest of the world. Caxtons… I really hope this post about no event this year is a joke. Sadly, I think it isn’t.
For an industry that prides itself on ‘firsts’, our local award shows have become even more stubborn than the traditional movie studio / record label business model, and I’d hate to see local shows go under because the awards become meaningless compared to international competitions. It’s a sad day when Spikes and Adfest carry more gravitas than AWARD.
On the upside, if we can turn our local shows into the best shows to win in the world, everyone that has won an award locally in the past would seriously benefit. Even for that ad typeset in Futura Bold Condensed talking about a dead dog and where’s my award.
Previous chairs have had a string of awards to their names, however new Chairman is the least awarded in Caxton history.
The demise of the Caxtons is sad. So too is the demise of newspapers. It is good news for those who can’t read though, and even better news for those who can’t write, many of whom have posted here.