“The true role of a festival is to help artists to dare, to engage in new projects” - This striking sentence borrowed from Mr. Bernard Faivre d’Arcier, former director of the Festival d’Avignon, sums up perfectly the spirit of the Atelier also for its first edition in Asia. One of the core missions of the European Festivals Association is to allow knowledge to be transferred from one generation of festival makers to another. This is why the Atelier is an extremely important initiative of EFA. It is one of the few programmes that create these kinds of opportunities, to allow the next generation of festival makers and programmers to network and take on as much experience as possible from an amazing group of experienced festival directors. The mentors and renowned festival managers are looking forward to intense exchanges with the next generation of artistic festival leaders around concepts of ‘internationalisation’, artistic creation, working with the artist, innovating and renewing! The choice of speakers – all artistic festival leaders – proves this main idea. Festivals are growing everywhere, and often, side-effects such as cultural tourism, economic impact, social cohesion, motivate their set up – all valuable outputs, but only possible and driven when the main concern is on the artistic project. The four high-level mentors developed the intense working schedule with the contribution of eight renowned festival managers from all over the world. Next to a high-level reflection in working groups and lectures, interactive exchanges and insightful face-to-face talks about case studies make the Atelier a unique format. Have a look at the full schedule! More information can be found at the SINGAPORE 2011 website. For impressions from the Atelier in Singapore have a look at the dedicated photo gallery.