New Europe, New Horizons - What next for Festivals? Results of the break-out groups Following the inspiring presentations from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Jude Kelly about the impact of festivals on community development and the responsibilities festivals have in terms of stimulation of artistic expression, several break-out groups discussed the following topics: 1. Festivals and the European Union: Should festivals also be considered as educational projects? The interaction between the European Union’s cultural and educational programmes (Culture 2000 – Tempus). 2. Festivals represented in associations and cultural networks: What are the benefits of collaboration? Why is there a need for a separate network for festivals? 3. Festivals beyond the EFA’s traditional mission: cinema, audiovisual media, literature, visual arts, European Capital of Culture. Should EFA enhance collaboration and even think about membership in more cultural fields? 4. Festivals beyond the EFA’s and the European Union’s border: - Do borders create difficulties in terms of collaboration between festivals within the European Union on the one hand and with festivals located in non-European Union countries on the other? - Should EFA enhance collaboration with festivals and associations on other continents (e.g. Africa, Asia)? - Does EFA have any responsibility in sustaining underdeveloped countries? 5. EFA Festival Management Workshop 2005: How to instruct young festival managers running a festival? Please find hereafter the findings of the closing reports of the various discussion groups: Break out group 1: European funding – the relation between festivals and EU funding Chair of group A: Kathryn McDowell, City of London Festival, BAFA Festivals have an important role to play in education through the arts to promote understanding and peace. This can be achieved through a creative approach of which we have a lot of examples also on a European level (initiatives such as the European Youth Orchestra). There is without any doubt funding to be had on a European level: It involves festivals working together, countries working together. The areas of need which came out of the discussion are the following: o The need of a more widely sharing of what festivals actually do. How can we share that information more in detail in order to build up collaborations (via websites, via EFA) o The need of individual festivals to know what the policy changes are in Europe as regards funding opportunities? Is EFA directly in touch with the European Union’s policy makers? Does EFA have an influence in how the policy and funding projects are shaped? How can EFA communicate this to the membership across Europe? Chair of group B: Massimo Mercelli, Emilia Romagna Festival, EFA EFA represents more than 100 festivals but there are only very few projects presented to the European Union by these festivals. Therefore EFA should monitor the official calls published by the European Commission and give advise to the members. There should be installed some space on the private website to present and discuss possible cooperation projects. Break out group 2: Cultural networks and collaboration Chair of the group: Nick Wells, Bury St. Edmunds Festival, BAFA Associations, cultural networks and collaboration create opportunities to share problems and ideas. EFA and BAFA are vehicles to disseminate ideas, to import other ideas without being afraid of losing the own identity: every location of a festival, especially when talking about community projects, is so divers and has its own dynamic. BAFA and EFA should enhance brokering between different festivals, within countries, across countries and across continents as well as well as enhance the sharing of targets. Its role is also linked to the need of advocacy and opportunities for persuading politicians of the importance of festivals to show how much money is brought into communities by festivals. This work has been done by BAFA and is updated every year. Break out group 3: EFA beyond its traditional mission? Chair of the group: Kevin Rainey, BAFA Festivals can include all art forms or can concentrate on one art discipline as long as there is the commitment to engaging the audience and the festivals are performed with strong ideas, principals and convictions. Whether different art form festivals should move forward within the EFA is linked to the question if there would be enough shared interest and ambition from other art form festivals to become members of the EFA, would we learn from them and would they learn from us? In particular issues of audiences, ways of working, staffing, different ways of funding would be interested to share. EFA has a tremendous opportunity to be very diverse as among the EFA members there are a lot of national associations including a lot of different festival approaches: literature based festival, visual arts festivals, film festivals etc and represent therefore a big variety. The challenge for the future of the EFA should be to encourage national associations to be more involved in EFA. Break out group 4: Festivals beyond the European Union’s border Chair of the group: Henk Heuvelmans, ECPNM, EFA As festivals are very flexible structures (they can offer what the audience wants) and Europe is still big enough to be discover we, the festivals, should present ourselves to Europe and to the rest of the world. Therefore EFA should grow in size and artistic depth, including all the arts: there is no film without music e.g. A bigger variety should lead to strength and visibility. Educational projects should be included as criteria in the application form of EFA, also to let politicians know that we are reaching out to new audiences through educational projects, we will be more visible to European politicians (to get funding) but also to other parts of the world. Break out group 5: Young managers workshop Chair of group B: Angela Tzifa, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, EFA It is one of the most important things to have education for young members of the EFA and especially to young festival managers. New festivals should have the possibility to be supported and educated. Long-term education projects, as we saw in the past, are too expensive. Therefore EFA should support short term training workshops. EFA should also set up a data base on the private EFA website with a list of candidates to participate in a sort of “festival exchange”. Each festival can choose young managers for an exchange for a period of 1 to 2 months. The host festival pays the cost for the exchange. Chair of group B: Nick Dodds, Brighton Festival & Dome EFA has an important role to play to networking of young managers (maybe not to educate young managers which should be done on a national level and not on a pan-European level): Networking opportunities should be a priority to facilitate meetings of young festival managers with the participation of inspirational groups of people (other festival managers, professional managers). - The training must be facilitated by professional trainers, not by existing people within EFA - There should be better criteria for choosing participants (young / older trainees) - The workshops should be planned with the involvement of participants of earlier workshops (e.g. Toby Smith)