What we do

Throughout the year EFA offers many activities for the benefit of its members:

Networking & Inspiration

  • Arts Festivals Summit: the Arts Festivals Summit is the annual Get-Together of festival makers and the surrounding stakeholders of festivals.
  • EFA General Assembly: the annual formal moment of EFA members for all legal elements of the Association and to agree on its future. 
  • EFA Council: the leadership in EFA’s work and discussions on the Association’s perspective.
  • EFA Collective and Affiliate Members and EFFE Hubs Meeting for EFA’s regional/national festival associations and EFFE HUBS.
  • FestivalLab or Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan Group for programmers and curators dealing with the new positioning of festivals post-corona 
  • EFA Meets its Regions “Hands on”: meetings of delegations of EFA in the frame of our members’ festivals focusing on the relation of issues at the local level in the global context.
  • Festival Cities Alliance meetings: in the believe that festival and cities share a great number of joint challenges, mayors and festival makers engage in a common agenda and action programme.
  • EFA members in various international networking delegations: Classical:NextChina Shanghai International Arts Festival / Forums and Performing Arts FairSaint Petersburg International Cultural ForumInternational Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) Conference in New York, NordicBaltic Festival PlatformREMA - European Early Music Network Summits.
  • Klassikal: Klassikal is a common digital space to foster collaboration between professionals in classical music. This website will allow you to find and share interesting artists, innovative projects, call for projects. EFA is one of the first ambassadors of this tool.  
  • The Festival Academy's Alumni Network: the Alumni network of The Festival Academy is the platform that aims to facilitate extended cooperation, networking and career opportunities. 
  • EFFE – Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe: the community of arts festivals in 45 countries on FestivalFinder.eu
  • Take 5: a 24-hour personalised format of filmed encounters between 5 selected festival leaders and various personalities in politics, the economy, philosophy and other areas. 
Fergus Linehan, Director Edinburgh International Festival, presenting the festival in Brussels

Information and Communication

  • EFA website: informs audiences across Europe and beyond about EFA’s members and activities.
  • FestivalFinder.eu is an online search tool for audiences to discover all arts festivals, from music to theatre, streets arts to dance, literature, etc. in 45 countries in Europe near and far.
  • Festival in Focus allows a closer look at individual member festivals and their place in the arts and the world.
  • The Chamber of Reflection is a place to share deeper thoughts on the position of festivals and their place in society.
  • Sofie and Carlo is a series of short stories about two interns working for a renowned festival somewhere in Europe.
  • Social media: extended reach of the festival community online via Facebook (EFA, EFFE and The Festival Academy), Twitter (EFA and EFFE), LinkedIn and Youtube.
  • EFACTS: newsletters to EFA members and the entire community in and around to provide information updates on anything related to festivals and culture.
  • E-magazine: more info coming soon.

Training and life-long learning

  • The Festival Academy: the Atelier for Young Festival Managers, Festival Readings, Training for Young Production Managers and the Atelier on the evolution of digital tools for communication and creation are exclusive, international, intergenerational training formats to promote young talents and offer suitable life-long learning opportunities in festival running for managers from all over the world. 
  • EFA-Pearle* workshops: provide knowledge of legislation and on how to deal more efficiently with taxation in cross-border mobility and co-productions.
  • EFA connects with universities and shares its knowledge with students when proposed.
Atelier Edinburgh 2014 (photo by Clark James)

Knowledge sharing

  • EFA/Pearle* Cookbooks for Cultural Managers.
  • EFA BOOKS: a books series highlighting current issues in the festival business. 
  • EFA Knowledge Center: first-hand access to newly released studies, presentations, articles and databases on the ins and outs of festivals.
  • Contacts: an exclusive database includes contacts to the cultural press and media, cultural networks, cultural ministries, EU institutions and others.

Policy Development

2014 EFA Round Table with Commissioner Navracsics (c) European Union 2014
We cater to the needs you can’t quench on your own.