Festival life is under continual construction: guided by the artists, informed by the context of its time, steered by the leaders making choices, festivals in history to play an important role in our society today.

What are the pertinent issues festival makers put forward in festival life today and tomorrow’s? What are some of the most challenging items that festivals are dealing with? How can we together propose the power of festivals to partners around us to show a great interest and necessity to connect to us as partners, eye-to-eye?

This 90-minute session will launch the EFFE Seal for Festival Cities and Regions, and together with cities, embrace the 70 Years-On Agenda drafted by festivals (Read the 15 action points of the 70 Years-On Agenda and see who are the members of the 70 Years-On Thinking group), and propose an attention to join forces under the call: International Festivals Declare Emergency.

Yes, we thought about us, and invite you and more to develop our proposals continuously further, apply it in your contexts, propose it to your partners.

On 13 September in the morning, we come together. To grasp our chances and some of our responsibilities.
Your hosts Tom Creed and Kathrin Deventer invite:

• Davinia Galea, Jovanka Visekruna Jankovic, Peter Florence, Tamar Brüggemann, and Emily Ansenk of the 70 Years-On Thinking Group will introduce the 70 Years-On Agenda proposed to the Summit
• Inge Ceustermans and Shahidul Alam will launch the International Festivals Declare Emergency campaign, an initiative of The Festival Academy
• 7 cities including Belgrade, Bergen, Edinburgh, Ghent, Krakow, Leeuwarden and Ljubljana to sign the EFFE Seal for Festival Cities and Regions, followed by a group of cities to join the founding Charter
  

We want together to mark the moment of EFA’s anniversary and set the agenda for work processes to follow and for you to engage with, starting with the 70 Years-On Conversations (from 11.30 to 16.30).