Festival's News

01 April 2008 - The Arts Festivals' Declaration on Intercultural Dialogue signed in Oslo
01 April 2008 - The Arts Festivals' Declaration on Intercultural Dialogue signed in Oslo

Contact info

Address

c/o Lillehammer Kommune
Serviceboks
2626 Lillehammer
Norway
http://www.norwayfestivals.com/

Info

Tel: +47 95056378
norfest@online.no
http://www.norwayfestivals.com/
c/o Lillehammer Kommune, Serviceboks
NO-2626 Lillehammer

Administration

Tel: +4795 05 63 78
norfest@online.no
http://www.norwayfestivals.com

Norway Festivals

The organisation Norway Festivals was founded in 1997 as a network to promote festivals in Norway and to provide service and coordination to the 30 festival committees supporting its creation. Last years brochure was the first visible result of this cooperation. Since then, seven new festivals have joined and Norway Festivals now represents 37 festivals. This vast range of festivals provides exciting artistic opportunities for a growing audience in Norway and from abroad. In 1999 Norway Festivals registered more than 2000 events that were staged by its membership festivals, reaching an audience over 500 000 visitors.

This festival has been an EFA member since 1998.

Festival Programme

Each EFA member manages its own Calendar. In case there is no programme availabable for this year, please visit the festival's own website.

programme 2007

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History

The organisation Norway Festivals was set up in November 1997. Thirty festivals took part in the first year and Norway Festivals now represents 39 of the country’s leading festivals. Norway Festivals’ aim is to be a body for the cooperation and development of Norwegian art festivals featuring dance, film, theatre, art, literature, and/or music. The cooperative society aims to spread awareness of members’ festivals, raise the festivals’ national and international profile and act as a cultural policy platform for members.

The festivals offer a vast range of artistic expression for both a wide audience and niche interest areas. The festivals take place across Norway and throughout the year. Most are summer festivals, but Norway Festivals can also boast five winter festivals and several of these base their artistic programme on winter. In order to ensure the quality of member festivals, criteria have been drawn up for which festivals can take part as priority is given to artistic merit and continuity. Last year, visitors to Norway Festivals member festivals totalled more than 600,000.

Norway Festivals is an exciting new investment in Norwegian culture. The organisation has been set up at a time when the market is increasingly hungry for the arts and cultural events. Festivals are a tradition for most Norwegian towns and villages. The driving force is the many thousands of voluntary and small but efficient festival organisations with limited resources. During the set-up phase, Norway Festivals received financial support from the Norwegian Industrial and Regional Development Fund, which helped the organisation get up and running.

Norway Festivals publishes an annual festival brochure in Norwegian and English containing pictures and articles about members. Members are also profiled on Norway Festivals’ website with links to members’ homepages and other national festival organisations.

Norway Festivals is involved in improving skills and organises conferences on topical themes for festival organisers. Norway Festivals also wishes to improve the general framework conditions of festivals. Part of this work will involve obtaining documentation to highlight the importance of festivals in society through putting the arts and culture on the agenda, as well as looking at the importance of festivals in terms of financial knock-on effects.

Norway Festivals has rapidly become an information centre for festivals throughout Norway. It is clear that there is great demand for the services provided by the organisation and, in the future, we would like to be able to provide even more comprehensive information about festivals in Norway and their significance, development and trends.

As well as being a member of the European Festivals Association, Norway Festivals participates in the Nordisk Idé Forum (Nordic Ideas Forum), which since 1997 has formed a framework for an informal Nordic network consisting of festival organisations, public institutions and private cultural and communication companies in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. The organisation focuses on the future in the Nordic region and new links between the business community and artists, between the arts and the market and between the public and private sectors. Activities include reports, conferences and projects in the fields of regional development and skills development. Norway Festivals also works on a more formal basis with Swedish Music Festivals and Finland Festivals to develop Nordic cooperation between festival organisations.