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Kia ora I'm Gareth. Kia ora I'm Roger. And together we're Roger and Gareth or Walk Tours nz and welcome along to this very special podcast series Out on the Streets, pride and Place. This is a four-part series exploring how we went about creating Rainbow Walk tours from dreaming and planning to walking and reflecting. So, so who are we, Roger? Who are we Walk Tours nz. Well, we are two people who are passionate about [00:00:30] Rainbow History, particularly in Wellington and walking. So we've combined the two and formed Walk Tours NZ, which are Rainbow Walk tours around Wellington, which we've been doing for. About eight years now, uh, and probably about a hundred free community walk tours focusing on local taka tapu rainbow histories. So we started in 2017 and um, it's been going great guns ever since. We, we do a tour pretty much once a [00:01:00] month at the start of every month on a Saturday or a Sunday. So, uh, we've built up a, a huge amount of experience, uh, met some really fantastic people and hopefully we'll be able to share some of that. With you over this series. Today we'll be focusing on, um, why walk tours are so fulfilling. Uh, we'll step through the history and begin to start the process of creating a new tour. Then, uh, in the next episode, we'll take a deep dive into the planning, the researching, and the writing [00:01:30] of the tour. Then we'll look at the promotion, managing registrations and enhancing the tour. Things like visual flip books and audio clips. And then in our final episode we'll look at, uh, what happens actually on the day of the walk tour, how to manage participants, and then reflect on some of the really exciting things that have come up for us in the last seven or eight years. But first. Roger, like why Walk Tours? Why walk tours? Well, we have been on lots of walk tours [00:02:00] over many years and have always enjoyed doing them. One of the neat things that we picked up about it is that they're great for community building and particularly for connecting with people. If you are in a new place, it's a great way to meet some new, new people. It's a great way to. Discover new places within a, a city or a town. It's also a great way to have a look at the town that you might know, but through a slightly different lens. It's also that kind of, um, living history, so you can read about places, but to be actually in the, uh, the, the location that a [00:02:30] particular thing happened and to be sharing that is so, uh, so rewarding. I think for me, one of the, the, the, the huge things I take away from walk tours is the overall experience as a memory. Um, I. Often I find that, I don't necessarily remember all the facts and figures that have been talked about, but just the overall feeling of being with the group, being out in, in public, being, um, out there in the elements, um, is so exciting. So that's the why really. [00:03:00] How about the background into how we started doing these tours? Well, I think it was 2017. Uh, there was the Pride Festival happening in Wellington, and we really loved doing walk tours. We, we've done walk tours overseas, uh, both in uh, Europe and also in the us. And there were local walk tours here in Wellington, done by Dr. Allison, Laurie and Hugh Young in the 1990s and two thousands, uh, which were incredibly inspirational. And so we thought, oh, wouldn't it be amazing [00:03:30] to, to have a walk tour as part of pride? But at that, at that time, nobody was doing them. So we thought, well, actually, why don't we just do it? We, you know, we, we, we, we may not be experts in the particular area. We may not have done public speaking, but I think sometimes you just need to. Just start it. Just do it yourself. So in Pride 2017, we did one walk tour and that was so successful. It just, it gave us the best feeling and we thought, [00:04:00] why can't we have this feeling every. Day or every month as part of a, a pride thing throughout the year. And that's kind of where it started. So from Pride 2017, which was March, 2017, we made a commitment to do at least one tour per month. Um, and here we are eight years later, and so what is that developed into? Now we've got six or seven. Maybe even eight, uh, individual tours, [00:04:30] mainly around central Wellington. Uh, different aspects of it. Looking at different people, different places, uh, and I guess different experiences too. So there's quite a, a, a, a range of walk tours that we offer now within the sort of rainbow community history space. I think one of the, the, the big things to begin with is, is kind of. Like, where do you start? I mean, um, I, I think over the eight years we've built up, [00:05:00] um, knowledge about how you start things. But actually initially it was like, like where do you start? And I think one of the key things to begin with is to visualize the experience you are trying to create. Um, and the first part of that is thinking about, uh, the kind of group size that you are wanting. Is it. Gonna be a large group, a smallish group. Both of those have different complexities. For instance, a large group, it's, it's about managing all those participants and we're [00:05:30] talking about large groups of say, you know, 30, 40 people. Yeah. On the other extreme, you've got a group of one and, and how, how, how, how does that impact the walk in terms of if you have two hosts talking, uh, kind of at someone for an hour? That can be quite daunting. I can put a lot of pressure on that one. Walker having two hosts talking at them for an hour and a half. Uh, but then on the other hand too, if there are. Uh, 30 or 40 people, you've gotta [00:06:00] have a way of presenting the information that is engaging for a lot of people and keeping them focused on you. So yeah, a couple of things to think about at the very beginning is really what is it that you are pitching and can you scale it to the size of the group that you might have turn up. And, and one of the other, uh, key points is to think about how long is the tour. Uh, we've certainly been on tours overseas that were, you know, two, three hours. And by the time at the end, [00:06:30] you, you, you do, you do feel that you've got your money's worth. Two or three hours of walking and talking is quite a long time. We've actually found that around 90 minutes of, of touring. Is, is completely, completely adequate. Um, so that basically means around about 40 minutes of walking and about 40 minutes of content delivered by the hosts. So that's around about five minutes at each stop. And uh, that works out to about eight stops a tour. [00:07:00] So, um, for us it's worked out to eight stops a tour. Stopping for five minutes of content and then some walking and all up. It takes about an hour and a half. And by the end of it, I think people have, um, have, have. Pretty much got what they need to get out of, out of the tour. And just remembering things too, like the more people that you have on the tour, the longer it's actually gonna take everyone to get from point A to point B. So that can add some minutes onto your tour too, depending on how many people there are [00:07:30] there. But other things to think about too are uh, where you are going within your walk tour, where you're gonna be stopping to talk. Is there space to have 20 or 30 people clustered around you? Or do you need to move to a space where they can comfortably be and still have foot traffic? Another thing to keep in mind, uh, is that. For some people it can be quite challenging being part of a rainbow activity in [00:08:00] public. And so I guess you just need to be thoughtful about how you are presenting your material, how welcoming you are to people that are on the walk tour. Um. And also be open to why people may be there. Um, they may be there to be allies or just interested, uh, in the topics in general. They may not necessarily be a part of the community, so you just need to keep all these things in mind when you are creating your walk [00:08:30] tour. I think a key element as well is, is this going to be a free activity or is, uh, are you expecting some kind of payment now? We have gone down the completely free line because actually there is so much, um, wonderful energy you get from actually just doing something for free, for doing something for the community. But you could also use us as a possibility of fundraising for a local charity or. You could actually make it a commercial [00:09:00] venture and, and accept payment. We would say that if you are looking at accepting payments, there's a whole other, um, area that you need to consider. And this is things like you, you may need to get a license from the council to operate a commercial touring business. Uh, you may need general liability insurance. Uh, things like how do you accept payment, how do you refund payment if a, if a tour is canceled or postponed? Do you accept cash? So there are, there's, there's a whole lot of other [00:09:30] stuff. As soon as you put it into the kind of commercial realm or you're dealing with some kind of cash or payment, um, or even koha, then uh, you are looking at a whole other, uh, kettle of fish that actually we haven't done. Um, I think we have really wanted to keep it a, a voluntary thing, uh, because for us it's more about. The experience and just the satisfaction of, of sharing with other people. Yeah. Just be aware that there are implications if you, [00:10:00] uh, wish to accept payment for a walk tour. Another thing to, just to think about, and we'll talk about this more in an upcoming episode, is, um, are you going to have people just turn up or is it gonna be via registration? Uh, and there are implications, um, either way for. Those alternatives. Another thing to think about is, um, health and safety measures. Uh, what do you have in place? What do you need? Things to keep in in mind when you're developing your tour and also being adaptable in [00:10:30] terms of. People with prams or accessibility issues, mobility issues, vision, hearing impairments, how how you work with those within the walk tour are important to think about too. And a lot of the, these things can be managed, uh. Pre the actual day of the walk tour because it, it's so very much about how you advertise and promote the event in terms of the language you're using and the, uh, places that you are [00:11:00] promoting. Um, and so actually having, um, a bit of a health and safety guide in terms of. The, the, the, the kind of pavements you're walking on, whether you've got inclines on the path, uh, that kind of stuff, uh, forewarning people so they are aware, um, of, of where you are walking and the type of walk it is. And that kind of comes to, uh, looking at the, the type of audience that you are wanting to attract. So for instance, um. For us, I mean, we are very much, uh, focused [00:11:30] on, uh, rainbow history and so kind of looking, uh, at an audience of rainbow community members and allies as well. But depending on, uh, the, uh, where, uh. Uh, the tour is being advertised. Uh, you might get a very general audience, so that really does affect how you write your scripts as well. We found that taking a tour to a larger festival, so for instance, uh, and not necessarily a rainbow specific festival, is really good about [00:12:00] attracting, uh, a mainstream audience. So things like, uh, the Heritage Festival. Festival architecture. Uh, these are things that happen annually in Wellington, uh, which are incredibly good, um, but do change, uh, the potential delivery of content and the content that you cover. What we've really wanted to do is create a safe and inclusive event for everyone attending, and that, um, means that. You know, we aim for a [00:12:30] safe and welcoming and accessible experience for people who wanna be inclusive. And so some things to think about, um, is considering the emotional impact of participating in a rainbow event in public. And for some people it may be the first time that they've actually been able to be. Publicly at a, in a, in a gay event or a rainbow event. Um, which, which is really special for, for us and for [00:13:00] putting on, putting on the walk tour. Um, but you need to create a safe space for them so that everyone is safe. And we, we, we, we should also say we never. We, and we, we, we never have, we never will. Um, you, you know, uh, query the group in terms of why people are there or you know, what sexuality or what kind of identity they have. That's not the point. We, we get people from all walks of life. Um, and it's just wonderful to share.[00:13:30] Uh, the experience with people. Um, so we are certainly not, um, saying that everyone on the tour is, is kind of coming out or rainbow, uh, because we have a whole range of people. Um, and, and, and that's the wonderful thing, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's not compulsory. Um, but that does lead to. Uh, a really important point that we wanna stress is promoting respectful storytelling because you don't know who's in the audience, and in fact, it's not a business to know who's in the audience, uh, and, [00:14:00] uh, where they are in their life's journey. Uh, we just want to present a really interesting and hopefully worthwhile, um, experience for them. And so, yeah, there's some things that you can do that can really. Ease that journey. Uh, and one of those things is signposting content, particularly sensitive or challenging material. And from time to time, you know, I, I think just because of the kinds of walk tools that we do, some of the material that we cover can be quite sensitive and challenging. So we need to be [00:14:30] sensitive and. How we, um, present that and signposting and flagging things in advance, uh, is a really good way of doing that. And it also gives you a sense, too, depend on how people respond to that flagging, uh. You know, with a, we might just pass on that particular story or, or what have you. I think also something to keep in mind, and this is something we, we haven't actually had to do very often. In fact, I can probably counter on one hand the amount of times [00:15:00] that we've actually had to handle a disagreement either between ourselves and participants or within participants between each other. Or difficult moments where, where people may not necessarily agree, but it's actually having in the back of your head a strategy for how you actually. Respectfully acknowledge that, but then move on. Because actually, um, the, the main point is to get the, the, uh, the walk tour continuing for everyone to have, um, hopefully a nice respectful time. Um, [00:15:30] but it, it's so important to have in the back of your head, um, how you, how you will handle disagreements. As I say, it's only happened once or twice in all the time that we've been doing walk tours, but actually. If you don't have it in the back of your head, um, when it does happen, uh, it can be quite, uh, quite off-putting. So first steps, deciding. On a topic. This is such a huge area that we're actually going to use this as [00:16:00] a bit of a tease for the next episode. So all we're gonna say here are the kind of range of walk tours that we've done. And then the next episode, next time you listen, uh, will be really deep diving into these, these. Different types of topics. So Raj, what, what kind of topics have we done? Well, for example, we've looked at anniversaries. We did one marking the introduction of homosexual law reform. Um, another good one is geographic locations [00:16:30] because a lot of our walk tour center around Central Wellington and a lot of rainbow history happened there. We can go to where it happened, like, um, the Cuba Street precinct, uh, individuals like Carmen Rupe and Georgina Bayer. Um. It's great to be able to talk about really, um, inspiring individuals from our history, uh, and, and really give them the focus and attention they deserve themes. Um, we've done a not so straight artists walk tour where we've looked at artists and artistic [00:17:00] I. Work from within the community. Um, and then there's more general kind of rainbow tours like, um, the resonance one we do, which is an introduction to rainbow history, both locally and nationally. So there's a whole range of ways to actually theme and, and, and structure, uh, your walk tours and that, that's just a few of the ideas. Uh, we will, um, deep dive into those in our next episode and, um, really hope that you, uh, come back for the second one. Maybe third one, maybe fourth one. [00:17:30] Please feel free to get in touch with us as well. We are more than happy to answer questions and um, receive feedback. So really hope you've enjoyed this first episode. Roger, thank you so much. Thank you, Gareth, and we'll see you next time.
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