For two weeks every other year, Lindsey Schofield becomes one of the most high-profile members of the Wanaka community. She’s in the Wanaka App, on the radio and all over social media. Then she disappears - but not because she’s stopped working. That goes on year round.

Lindsey is the general manager of the Festival of Colour, Wanaka’s own biennial celebration of the arts, and of the annual Aspiring Conversations festival of ideas. She has held the position since 2007, when she took over ahead of the third Festival of Colour, which took place in 2009; 2017 was her fifth. "It will be 10 years in September,” she told the Wanaka App.

Originally from Leeds, Lindsey studied Media Studies at Trent Polytechnic (now Nottingham Trent University) with plans to be a journalist - she went to polytechnic instead of university because the course she wanted to do was not available through university, a decision she said was a little controversial with friends from her high-achieving private girls’ school, and family. "It’s the only rebellious thing I’ve ever done,” she laughed.

After poly, she decided journalism wasn’t for her, so fell into work that, indirectly, led Lindsey to where she is today: working at a call centre in Leeds. "The guy in the corner had a sign on his desk that said ‘marketing manager’, and I thought that’s cool, I could do that,” she said. She got a job as a marketing assistant for the Leeds Permanent Building Society, where she worked for a couple of years before heading to London, where she started working for a marketing agency.

A job with KLP Media Ltd, a world-wide media conglomerate, followed, with Lindsey working her way up from a position as a "measly” account manager to be on the board - as part of the job she spent a year in Brazil, setting up an office for the agency in Rio and running Coca Cola Brazil’s promotions for the 1998 Football World Cup.

The story of how Lindsey ended up in Wanaka is a familiar one, similar to that of many a foreigner who has ended up permanently in this beautiful corner of the world. "I came with my first husband on our honeymoon in 2001 - we were stopped in our tracks and, like everyone does, we decided we wanted to live here.”

After moving to Wanaka, Lindsey saw the Festival of Colour job advertised, and decided it was for her. "It ticked all the boxes for me, I’ve always loved the arts,” she said. (She’s particularly into music, and is currently taking bass lessons, part of expressing her "inner rock chick”.)

In the time Lindsey has been involved, the festival has gone from success to success, developing a national, and international, reputation as one of the best little festivals around, something she attributes in part to the fact that it is a truly local endeavour. "It’s got a core local community that really want it and really support it. It came out of Wanaka, driven by a group who could see a need for it. There are so many people here who are interested in the arts who previously had to travel for culture.”

She explained the festival works hard to make sure the community is involved, with locals able to take part in many facets of the event, including as audience members, patrons, volunteers and performers.

She also pointed to the sense of pride Wanaka has about the Festival of Colour, especially around the high calibre of performers who take part. "Time and time again, we get comments along the lines of ‘I can’t believe this happened in our town’,” she said. "Festival directors from other festivals always remark on how everybody just loves it.”

As for what she does for the 102 weeks between festivals, "I have lots of meetings,” she said. "Actually, one of the things I love about the job is the variety. No two days are the same.” Her off-season tasks include completing funding applications, contacting sponsors, database management, marketing, updating the website, social media and doing all the accounts.

She says one of the highlights for her during the time she’s been involved with the Festival of Colour has been seeing local performers, such as the local students in Sing It To My Face, the members of The Blue Moments Project, and Liz Breslin, who spoke at the ‘True Stories Told Live’ session in 2015, on stage: "You feel pride when you see local people you didn’t know could do that kind of thing.”

The next Aspiring Conversations is scheduled for April 6-8, 2018, with the Festival of Colour set to return April 2-7, 2019.

PHOTO: Supplied