Kathrin Deventer, EFA’s Secretary General is participating in a debate about the Festivals of the Future on May 30th. This event is organized in the framework of the Bergen International Festival in Norway.

Festival Director Anders Beyer has invited leaders of well-known festivals and representatives of the festivals world to discuss the future of festivals, how to make them evolve and how to keep their identity. The debate will be moderated by Kasper Holten, artistic advisor for Bergen International Festival.

Festivals have reached a very high point of popularity in the past decade. A study by Harris Poll and Eventbrite highlights the extent to which generation Y values experience and access over ownership: 78% would rather pay for an experience than material goods, compared with 59% of boomers (born 1946-1964). Along with popularity festivals need to evolve, and the challenges are numerous: from audience saturation to sponsorship race.

Among the topics discussed in Bergen will be the increasing role of connectivity and globalization, the different opportunities of international collaboration but also the challenges festivals have to address such as hard competition for funding and branding.

This session will be livestreamed on Bergen International Festival’s youtube channel. Follow the discussion on May 30th (4pm-5pm).

Kathrin Deventer will also be giving interviews on May 30th :

-        - at 12:30pm for StudentRadioen I Bergen,

-       -  around 5pm for Deutschlandfunk Kultur Berlin.