The Atelier for Young Festival Manager’s is a 7-day training programme run by The Festival Academy and initiated by the European Festivals Association. Targeting young festival managers from all around the world, it aims, amongst others, to introduce its participants to a new culture, and make them discover the local conditions of festivals and cultural institutions. Lebanon, which hosted the Atelier BEIRUT 2015, was a peculiar country in this context as its festivals always have to cope with the country’s instability.

Nayla de Freige, President of the Baalbeck Festival, for example explained us how this huge festival had to be relocated in 2013 only a few days before it was supposed to open because Baalbeck, located in the North of Lebanon and close to the Syrian border, was about to be bombed. We were introduced to the never-ending ability of the Lebanese to adapt their festivals to the current political and social situation. We had the opportunity to meet several cultural organisations, such as Zoukak Theatre Company, which illustrated the contrast between renowned and important festivals and more independent, socially engaged, cultural bodies. Read the full blog by Ysaline Lannoy on Festival Bytes.