The Holiday and Travel Magazine: Pip Miller Highlights Cairns Festival 2012

Saturday 11 August 2012

Pip Miller Highlights Cairns Festival 2012

Today I feature another person involved with the Cairns Festival 2012. Pip Miller is the public relations and sponsorship manager of the festival.

Pip was born in Sydney, grew up on a farm in north west NSW and went to boarding school in Armidale. After leaving school she hit the big smoke of Sydney to study journalism as a cadet with ACP publishing. She cut her teeth working on Mode, Belle and Gourmet magazines and then segued into PR with a Sydney based consultancy specialising in fashion, health, beauty and special events. After a couple of years Pip travelled to the UK and found her feet working with a London based public relations company that specialised in tourism. One of her clients was the Northern Territory Tourist Commission. “It was a great time of my life,” Pip adds. After returning to Australia she ended up following my partner to Cairns where he had landed a job managing an inbound tour company. Pip worked for a year or so with a local media communications agency and in 1994 launched her own business.

In her spare time when not working flat out on Festival tasks Pip loves spending time with her family and expressing her passion for fashion as a stylist for The Cairns Post.

Pip likes living in the Tropical North of Australia and says “It is the climate – it is the laid back attitude and the creativity that abounds.”

She likes taking people visiting her to see The Esplanade in Cairns. Pip adds “I also love the Botanic Gardens and the beaches are pretty nice too in winter. The drive between Cairns and Port is a stunner.” Tourist spots that Pip rates highly include trips to the Great Barrier Reef and rainforest as well as Skyrail Rainforest Cableway, Kuranda Scenic Railway and the Hartley’s Creek Crocodile Farm. “Fitzroy and Green Islands are fairly special too,” says Pip.

Pip says that people should consider Cairns for a holiday destination if they haven’t been there because the climate is generally amazing and conducive to a relaxing, outdoorsy type holiday, great shopping and restaurants and a multitude of things to do. The accommodation options are world class and you can almost always get a good deal”. Pip rates highly Rusty’s Markets and the cafe society of Grafton Street.

Pip is the public relations and sponsorship manager of Cairns Festival 2012, and she has been working on the festival since March. This is her 10^th festival she has worked with, however she worked in its preincarnation, Reef Festival for three years. She likes “the excitement, the anticipation and the creativity of the team that surrounds you. The media are very receptive which makes my job a pleasure..”

In her opinion the stand-out event of this year’s festival is “The Village on Esplanade - is a new event and is destined to be a cracker.” Pip highlights the family friendly activities of the Cairns Festival as being The Overflow FNQ Grand Parade and fireworks, the Village on Esplanade children’s village, CIAF and the Carnival on Collins. Her piece of advice she offers to people so that they will get the most enjoyment from the Cairns Festival 2012 is to “grab a program or jump on the website and do your research – make your notes and then come along and enjoy.”