The Festival Academy, in collaboration with the European Festival Association (EFA), just launched the 3rd call of its newest initiative: placements opportunities in emerging or established festivals and organisations worldwide. Offering instructive, enlightening and rewarding experiences to Alumni of the Festival Academy, the call is open until 29 February 2024.

REQUIREMENTS

• Hosting festivals and organisations are ideally expected to cover accommodation, local transport, food and insurance for the selected participants of in-person placements.
• Applicants must be Alumni of The Festival Academy, review and select three preferred placements from the Booklet, complete the application form with a CV and covering letter and, if selected, be able to cover the costs of international travel to the placements.

The placement must last at least a week and can take place online, in-person or in a hybrid format.

Find more about the structure, requirements and timeline on TFA’s website.
Apply here as a host or here as a participant.

ABOUT THE PLACEMENTS
Festivals and organisations from all over the world are invited to host young festival managers and production officers that have participated in a training programme of The Festival Academy, and are therefore part of its Alumni Network - uniting more than 1000 participants from 100+ countries - by offering them placements or traineeships within their teams.

The placements initiative aims at facilitating and expanding co-operation, networking and career opportunities as Alumni who apply for placements have the opportunity to enrich their skills through hands-on experience and gain fresh insights on their working area (artistic or production teams), while host cultural organisations welcome dynamic and passionate professionals assisting with ongoing projects.

“The placement opportunities would also bolster the networks of both festivals and promote diversity and new ideas from ‘fresh blood’ to flow through the two associations.”  –  Thobile Maphanga (Alumni Montréal 2022), Assistant Curator and JOMBA! Project Manager

TESTIMONIES AND OUTCOMES
The first two calls delivered great results. Amongst the placements that happened in 2023, festivals from 8 different countries hosted 12 festivals makers from all around the world.

“This first collaboration for the placement of The Festival Academy's Alumni was a complete success because, for me, this stay was more than a simple sharing of event production; it was above all an experience on a human scale.”  –  Ndèye Mané Toure (Alumni Montréal 2022), placement experience at Festival Paysages 2023.

According to testimonies, this experience inscribed itself perfectly as a continuation and direct application of the theory first tackled during The Festival Academy’s workshops.
“Everything we had discussed I saw first hand, and Module 1 was a perfect introduction and prepared me very well, I feel.”

Not only does it help young festival makers to grow professionally by identifying their strengths and capacities to be re-inforced, gather experience by being truly involved in the teams, and find inspiration by exchanging with artists and production managers, but it also helps them to broaden their understanding of the logistics of creating, managing, and executing a festival, as well as learning new management practices and artistic mediums.

"I had the possibility to talk to a lot of artists, that was truly interesting and inspiring."

"This was the first time that I worked within a festival of such grand scale and it made me understand the importance of a good working system, communication, and leadership. It also made me realise my weaknesses and motivated me to improve in my future work."

This insightful placement enables festival makers to gain knowledge, which they can then use to introduce improvements in their own festivals, while retaining valuable connections for future collaborations.

“Comparing a 1-year-old festival to a 37-year-old festival was not the point. The point was to avoid 37 years of mistakes by learning from the people that have seen and corrected all the mistakes that one can make when staging a festival in site. I am now able to make corrections which will save my festival and give us a fighting chance of survival in these harsh economic times and socio-economic conditions”  –  Cebile Dube (Alumni Nicosia 2022), placement at Grad Theatre City Budva 2023.

“Furthermore, the peek at another culture’s creative development and cultural policy practices should fundamentally be given to every festival manager as a right within its first years of career development – there is no such thing that could empower you or boost your experience such as being present at a festival or any other professional medium somewhere other than your usual surroundings.”  –  Milena Janković (Alumni Elefsina-Beirut 2021), placement at the Festival Pianistico Internazionale Bartolomeo Cristofori 2021.