THERE was quite a rush last night trying to get into the Childers Group’s inaugural forum at The Street Theatre.

With well over 100 acceptances, there were a lot walk-ups for this long-awaited revival of a tradition established many years ago by former arts ministers Gary Humphries and Bill Wood, in which practitioners, commentators, consumers, and anyone, even politicians, were encouraged to have their say about the arts in Canberra.

The group was assisted in this by The Street Theatre, BMA Magazine and New Best Friend.

The Childers Group should probably have anticipated the crush and abandoned the “conservation pit” format they had chosen in favour of something more conventional.

As it was, while most of us were sitting up on the main stage of The Street, a goodly number were stranded down in the auditorium trying to catch a word or two of what was going on. But with no microphones and many backs turned to the audience, some people left quite early.

The Childers Group should rethink this format, which also involved the artificial concept of having only those seated at a central table allowed to engage in discussion, although facilitator Genevieve Jacobs orchestrated a regular changing of the guards.

So, to the “burning issues” and “radical ideas” that the group had seized upon as its themes.

You can fairly say that most of the ideas weren’t all that radical, but for each individual invited speaker, the issues were burning.

Creative director of the Canberra Centenary, Robyn Archer, continued her recent push for Canberrans to expose and claim their arts.

Liberal spokesperson on the arts, Vicki Dunne, all too predictably attempted to raise the question of how the old Fitters’ Workshop in Kingston will be used – whether by Megalo Print, the music community or everybody.

This and Dunne’s second “Elephant in the Room”, expenditure on public art, were quickly sidelined by Jacobs, and while public art was referred to once or twice, it was never satisfactorily thrashed out. This is obviously a subject for a separate forum.

It wasn’t at all clear what Greens spokesperson Caroline Le Couteur had to contribute to a discussion on the arts at all, though she seemed to think they were a good idea.

The question of planning arose when “you are here” festival co director Yolande Norris presented her paper, drawing parallels between the cultural precinct planning in Newcastle and in Canberra, where Norris plainly thought something more organic was desirable. This was questioned from around the table, especially with regard to the Acton precinct.

Finally, poet and rapper Omar Musa looked at one simple idea, the possibility of an ACT wide youth poetry slam.

Though the evening began in a focused way, by the end, Jacobs was finding it hard to keep those around the table on track, perhaps a result of the over generalised theme.

What did emerge from comments by MusicACT president Gil Miller and the CEO of Ausdance  ACT, Neil Roach, was that each art form was struggling mightily to keep its head above water and gain proper recognition from Australian Capital Tourism  in an environment where only the national institutions were given pride of place.

This often meant that the struggles of other art forms were of little or no concern.

Both the artform chauvinism and the arts sectors’ poor relation to tourism need to be investigated in future forums.

The evening ended on a bittersweet note, with teacher-critic Alanna Maclean and school chaplain-poet Will Small proclaiming the centrality of education and youth in the world of the arts.

After all, arts are what we do and it’s high time we talked about that again.

The manager of “BMA Magazine”, Allan Sko, proposes publishing a full account of the proceedings  and further information can be obtained from www.childersgroup.com.au