Midland Megaplex Mega Weekend

If you are looking for something to do this weekend, you are invited to visit Lester Group’s latest acquisition.  Midland Megaplex is a large format retail property acquired in April 2020.  Its 13 tenants include Spotlight, Anaconda, Spudshed and Fantastic Furniture.  The property is located at at 7 Clayton Road Midland Western Australia.

This weekend (August 29 & 30),  all the tenants in the Megaplex are celebrating post-COVID, new tenant: Chemist Warehouse, their new landlord, and any other excuse they can come up with. This is a family fun weekend designed to build shopper recognition, engagement and following by incorporating deals and discounts from every tenant, free games, giveaways, advice and events.
 
You can find out more from the Midland Megaplex’s new Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/999022183851722/?event_time_id=999022190518388&active_tab=about.
 
Whether you have invested in Lester Midland Megaplex or not, why not come and see a great asset whilst keeping the family entertained in the process!
In most cases, negotiations quickly turned to the fact that rent relief beyond payment deferral was not required to maintain a fair and equitable relationship. Our tenants recognise that their landlord is a commercial business just like they are, and that we have financial commitments to maintain. If they were to push back unreasonably, they may be doing themselves a disservice by triggering unintended consequences.
 
The outcome has been that all but two tenants who requested relief (only 40% of all our tenants) have agreed that all deferred rent will paid within this financial year. One tenant is yet to show they are eligible for relief under the Code and we remain patient and willing to accept legitimate proof of their eligibility, but we expect the outcome will be that they will pay the deferred amounts over the course of the next nine months. Only one tenant in our portfolio has received a rent waiver and this has added up to $9,000. They are now up-to-date on all other amounts.
 
We have been pleasantly relieved with the outcome for all, particularly our investors.

Finalists Announced for WA's Richest Portrait Prize
 

Forty Main Awards Finalists have now been chosen for WA’s premier portrait prize – The Lester Prize. Formally  known as the Black Swan Prize for Portraiture, this award is now in its fourteenth year. It was renamed in 2019 in honour of the award’s leading patron Richard Lester AM.
 
The forty finalists’ works will be on public display at Art Gallery WA (AGWA) in the historic Centenary Galleries from 31 October – 29 November 2020 with the winners announced on 30 October 2020.
 
The Lester Prize is one of the nation’s most recognised and prestigious fine art prizes, renowned for putting artists and community front-and-centre. Due to prize partnerships with the Lester Group, Tony Fini Foundation, Minderoo Foundation, and the Baldock Family, the prize pool available to professional, emerging and young artists is now worth almost $85,000, including the main prize of $50,000.
 
The finalists were chosen from a record-breaking 750 entries received from artists across Australia, nearly double the entry numbers of previous years (34% of entries came from WA, 24% from NSW, 23% from VIC and the remaining 19% from QLD, SA, ACT, TAS and the NT).
 
“This large number of entries is very satisfying and demonstrates The Lester Prize’s strong standing amongst artists across the country. We are very pleased to be able to provide artists this opportunity to create and express themselves through The Lester Prize at a time where these opportunities have been very limited.
 
We now look forward to celebrating their work as we prepare for the award ceremonies and our month of exhibitions and community engagement advancing arts and culture across the State”, said John Langoulant, The Lester Inc Board Chair.
 
All states and territories throughout Australia are represented this year with twelve finalists from WA, eight from NSW, seven from VIC, five from SA, three each from QLD and TAS, and one each from the ACT and NT. Sixteen of the finalists have been named as finalists in previous years of the competition.
 
Our Pre-Selection Panel members for both the Adult and Youth Awards change every year. They are a group of independent experts in their respective fields with no commercial association with The Lester Prize. During the Pre-Selection process, the panel is never provided the name or location of the artist (just the artwork image, title, dimensions and medium on screen).
 
This year’s Main Awards Panel comprising Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Rachel Ciesla, Alan R Dodge AM, Gemma Weston and Laetitia Wilson said: “we were impressed with the standard of works this year. Artists were keen to explore the intricate and multi-layered connections between home, identity and everyday life in the contemporary world. Life stories and solitude provided a particularly rich source of inspiration, and it was interesting to see how COVID-19 has put a new twist on autobiographical narratives and the sharing of many deeply personal memories and everyday experiences.”
 
The Panel was pleased to see a wide variety of forms of portraiture submitted and a selection of domestically-scaled works (rather than just large-scaled expressions). Media such as oil, acrylic, watercolour, charcoal, ink, mixed media and embroidery will feature in this year’s collection.
 
Also announced today were the thirty Youth Award finalists selected from High School across the country. The Semi-Finalists’ Salon (an exhibition of over 45 artworks not selected for the Main Awards Exhibition) will allow the public to experience the full variety of works submitted. These will be presented digitally as part of The Lester Prize’s ‘On The Big Screen’ program and on 2.4m high outdoor exhibition boxes at Brookfield Place and other locations around the Perth CBD during November.
 
The Prize has had nearly 6,000 artwork entries submitted and showcased more than 1,500 finalists from across Australia since its inception. Over the last 14 years, more than 3.2 million visitors have attended its exhibition season events and activities.
 
This year, The Lester Prize allowed artists to submit an unlimited number of portraits (instead of a maximum of two) and, due to physical distancing restrictions, works could be created from a photograph instead of from “life” - as long as the photograph had been approved by the subject.
 
Artists from across Australia were invited to submit portraits of an Australian, or Australians, that they respect or admire, or a self-portrait.
 

Key Dates

 
For more information, visit: www.lesterprize.com