The Atelier for Young Festival Managers has just taken place for the 2nd time, this year in the city of Varna, Bulgaria. Kathrin Deventer, secretary general of the European Festivals Association (EFA), network responsible for this initiative, shares with us her vision on nowadays dilemmas and requirements of festivals´ management.
In face of the festival boom of the last decade and the consequent emergence of a new professional category - the festival director-, EFA has realised the lack of adapted training opportunities, especially on the programming aspect: “There is a need for specific competences to reply to the most important mission of festivals, that we still believe is the artistic one”.
The Atelier intends to provide a stimulating environment, in which skills related to programming are developed: creativity, multi-tasking ability, improvisation, leadership, capacity to work in a broad international environment, risk and decision taking, among many others.
Yet the focus is on programming: How to work with young artists? How to combine a well-known artist with a lesser-known one? Why setting up a festival in a certain location? How to look for new works? How to support artists to engage in experimental projects?
K. Deventer recognises that these basic questionings are not new. What have changed nowadays are the increased expectations and side agendas that festival managers have got to deal with: to be efficient in fundraising; to enhance tourism; to create jobs; to contribute to urban regeneration; and so on. Every city seems to need a festival in search for a competitive image: “A festival is not an exceptional moment anymore, but it has turned into a rule”.
The European Festival Research Project (EFRP), a research consortium supported also by EFA, among other organisations, has been questioning and studying this proliferation phenomenon. Dragan Klaic, the chair of EFRP, names it the "festivalisation of daily life".
The Atelier allows managers to step down from the speed of work they face today and immerse in one intensive week of discussions on the artistic concept of festivals.
All of the tasks and worries of a festival manager are debated in-depth by sharing experiences with fellow colleagues and by dialoguing with experienced festival directors that deliver their knowledge on how to run a festival to the young generation. The Atelier is also the right place to share and test new ideas and projects among peers as well as to network and make fruitful contacts.
The next Atelier will happen in 2011 in Autumn when most summer festivals are over and managers may take a new breath. The location is still under discussion, but it will certainly follow the tradition of past editions and take place on a confluence of borders but also identities. The first Atelier was in Görlitz by the nowadays extinct German-Polish frontier and this 2nd edition occurred in Varna, by the Black Sea, facing some of the EU eastern neighbours. As the Atelier is also a great moment to experience Europe’s cultural diversity and to reflect on its boundaries.
Tagged as:
arts management, atelier for young festival managers, EFA, festivals, festivals research, innovation, programming, training
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