Glenorchy City Council launches Beyond the Curtain campaign to find municipality’s modern identity

The boundary between Hobart and Glenorchy is best known by locals as the ‘flannelette curtain’ and now a new campaign is looking to go beyond the cliche. HAVE YOUR SAY >>

Glenorchy Mayor Kristie Johnston and managing director of local marketing agency The20, Matt Fishburn as they launch the Beyond the Curtain campaign. Picture: ZAK SIMMONDS

• Special feature: Pushing back the flannelette curtain
• Glenorchy City Council GM Tony McMullen reappointed
• Activity City online local business directory launced

A NEW council-led project aims to peel back the flannelette layers and delve deeper into the people and places which make up Hobart’s northern suburbs.

Over the next six weeks, the Glenorchy City Council is collaborating with local advertising agency The20 to create a master story for the municipality through its Beyond The Curtain campaign.

The somewhat derogatory term for those living north of Creek Rd, the mythical “flannelette curtain” is a well entrenched term that some residents have embraced.

They used to talk about “the Flannelette Curtain”. They said that north of Creek Road was full of bogans. We never...

Posted by Beyond The Curtain on Sunday, 16 August 2020

Mayor Kristie Johnston said the aspirational project aimed to establish the area’s identity and provide detailed, specific insights into the Moonah, Claremont and Glenorchy precincts.

“In Glenorchy, we have a strength, we have something unique and we have a source of pride,” she said.

“Our problem is we’ve never truly articulated what it is – we’ve never told others and we’ve never told ourselves.”

At least 100 interviews with the people of Glenorchy will be done to find out what residents young and old think and feel about life beyond the flannelette curtain as the area increasingly gentrifies.

The20 managing director Matt Fishburn said the firm wanted to hear “the good, the bad and the ugly.”

Beyond the Curtain is stage one of the council’s $350,000 greater Glenorchy plan, which is being funded under the $5 million COVID economic recovery package.

If you want to get involved, head to the campaign Facebook page.