Audiences are for life, not just for festival time
My plea to festival organisers
Welcome to the tenth edition of my newsletter, all about arts festivals. A very warm hello to my new subscribers and to all my existing subscribers.
I spend a lot of time on festival websites, not just doing meticulous research for this newsletter, but also as a marketing and communications professional who works on and with festivals. This editorial is not meant as a criticism of anyone working on festivals, it’s just based on my observations. This plea is meant as a gentle reminder to festival organisers to think about your audiences throughout the year, not just at festival time.
In trawling festival websites and associated social media accounts, it never ceases to amaze me how hard it can be to find out basic information about a festival, even when and where it’s taking place. This is especially true for biennials and triennials but also for many annual festivals that don’t have the name of their place in their title. Plus, the marketing channels of so many festivals effectively just lie dormant in between festivals.
Now I know what it’s like to work on a festival, as I’ve said before, it’s all consuming in the build up to and during the event. It’s exhausting, you’re running purely on adrenaline by the final few days and ‘paid or not’, a festival team at its best comes together to get across the line. When it’s over, the team radically reduces in size as temporary staff, freelancers and volunteers leave. Of course, many festivals don’t have permanent marketing and communications staff, and volunteer-led festivals have no ‘staff’ at all; but come on, there’s really no excuse to leave a website and social media accounts silent for months on end.
When I was researching my highlights for 2025 edition, it was difficult to know if some of the festivals, particularly biennials, would be taking place this year because there was no information available on any of their official channels. I understand that many festivals are project funded and are therefore waiting for funding decisions. However, too many festival websites and social media accounts are stuck in time on the day the last festival ended. I can’t be the only person wanting to know if and when the next festival will happen - what about people thinking of planning a visit based around attending your festival, or a local business planning their own events calendar to maximise footfall, or a tourism agency looking to promote upcoming events, or a journalist writing a feature on annual highlights? I could go on; you get the gist.
There are relatively few festivals worldwide that have the kind of international brand awareness to sell out all available tickets on announcing their programme (think Glastonbury) or know they have guaranteed audiences if it’s a free event (e.g. city centre event with existing footfall). So, why would some festivals make it more difficult to keep and maintain their relationships with audiences when they only communicate with them in the immediate build up to and during the festival period? It’s like starting from scratch every festival and it also doesn’t say much for the relationship the event wants with its audiences.
If you can, tell your audiences the dates of your next festival as early as possible, preferably at the end of the current festival, so that audiences can mark it in their calendars. Festival audiences are some of the most loyal audiences in the arts sector. Regular festival goers all have their favourites, whether attending in their home town and/or by undertaking an annual pilgrimage elsewhere.
Obviously, audience engagement will drop in between festivals, but don’t assume that audiences are only interested in what you’re doing at festival time. We’re lucky in the arts sector, we have lots of fascinating stories to tell and audiences are interested in finding out what happens behind the scenes. Even if you’re taking a well-earned break and going quiet to recalibrate, let your audiences know and tell them when you’ll be back, don’t just send them to Coventry (for international readers, it’s a British idiom meaning to deliberately ignore someone). Festivals can exist online beyond communications creating online programming that can be available year-round. At the very least, you can always share what else is happening in your area by being a helpful neighbour to your local partners too. It’s all part of building brand loyalty, making your audiences feel closer to your offer and therefore, more likely to return for the next festival.
Many artists (in the broadest sense of the word) cut their professional teeth on festivals in the early stages of their careers. Whereas for some established artists, being able to perform or stage work in international festivals demonstrates a major career milestone. Those artists are some of the best ambassadors and advocates for festivals that have in some way shaped their career. Phoebe Waller-Bridge fundraised with Kickstarter to take her one-woman show, Fleabag to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013. The show went on to win awards and caught the attention of TV commissioners, and the rest as they say, is history. She is now the Honorary President of the Fringe Society and ten years after she took her show to the Fringe, she donated £50,000 through Fleabag for Charity to the Keep it Fringe fund to support artists bringing work to the Fringe, and the fund is still running today (see UK News below).
Sharing details about the impact your festival has delivered for artists, staff and volunteers is powerful storytelling for your audiences; it’s also useful advocacy and case-making for your funders and partners too.
So, please resist the urge to switch off (or let lapse) communications with your audiences after your festival ends and only crank it back up a month or two before the festival returns. How would you like it if your friend just stopping talking to you for months and only got back in touch when they wanted something from you?
UK News
Graeae Theatre Company launches their New Writing Festival celebrating the work of Deaf, Disabled and neurodivergent playwrights.
Lumiere, Durham’s biennial light festival has just announced this year’s dates for November. There’s another new light festival kicking off next month - Lincoln Lights.
Over 40 festivals worldwide achieved A Greener Future certification in 2024 including Green Gathering near Chepstow - who were also crowned the UK’s greenest festival last year at the UK Festival Awards.
Almost inevitably, we start the year with more cancellations. Severn Arts announce that Light Night Worcester will not go ahead this year as they have been unable to raise the significant funds required to deliver the event. Vintage by the Sea festival in Morecambe will not take place this year due to funding challenges and continued rising costs. I hope to see them both back next year.
Another month, another Edinburgh festivals crisis story. At the start of the year Edinburgh International Festival’s Artistic Director Nicola Benedetti shared concerns about the festival’s worldwide status due to a funding shortfall. However, the festival has just been awarded a three-year grant from Creative Scotland averaging £3.92m annually, the first uplift in their public funding since 2008. More good news, the festival’s Chief Executive Francesca Hegyi has been invited as the only festival representative to join the first UK Soft Power Council. And the festival is recruiting for a Campaigns Assistant and a Publications Coordinator.
Another long-running Edinburgh story is the Summerhall venue which will now continue as an EdFringe venue despite being sold to a property developer. However, Paines Plough has decided not to take its pop-up venue to Summerhall this year due to ‘circumstances over the past few months’. In more positive news, the Keep it Fringe fund has now opened for the third year running offering 180 bursaries of £2,500 to artists performing at the festival.
The British Council is offering Festival Travel Grants to mainland China. Deadline is 16 February 2025.
Belfast International Arts Festival is on the lookout for a General Manager. You’ll have to be quick though as the deadline is today.
Hay Festival is looking for a Sponsorship and Fundraising Assistant, Site Crew, Garden Crew and a Finance Officer. And applications are now open for young people aged 18-25 to apply to join the Hay Festival Academy offering invaluable skills development and practical experience.
Belfast’s Beat Carnival is on the look-out for an Artistic Director-Chief Executive.
Liverpool Biennial is also hiring. Opportunities include Festival Guides, Project Coordinator and mid-career Curators from Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia. I’ve worked on the festival twice so I can recommend it.
A new UK Festivals Data Map commissioned by the Association of Festival Organisers in partnership with Events Industry Forum and LIVE is now available online, featuring more than 850 festivals.
International News
Tragic news from India where the country is currently celebrating its biggest Hindu festival – Kumbh Mela – as a crowd crush on the bathing day has resulted in many fatalities and injuries. Approximately 400 million pilgrims are expected to attend the 45-day event, of which 100 million were expected to attend the bathing day.
New York’s Under the Radar festival has received a one million dollar grant from the Mellon Foundation.
Istanbul Biennial will take place over three phases between 2025-2027.
The inaugural Copenhagen Architecture Biennale launching in September has unveiled its first curatorial theme: ‘Slow Down’.
Another inaugural biennial launching in September is the Bukhara Biennial in the ancient city of Bukhara in Uzbekistan. The festival will explore the healing power of art and culture through communal participation.
Hammer Museum’s upcoming Made in L.A. Biennial announces the 27 artists who will be participating in the event which opens in October.
More biennial news as Hungary’s OFF-Biennale in Budapest opening in May announces its team of ten curators working under the theme of ‘security’.
FrielDays: A Homecoming is a new five-year festival kicking off in August celebrating the playwright, Brian Friel. Events will be happening in cross-border locations in the north-west of Ireland.
UK upcoming highlights
The light festival season continues with Illuminate in Oldham (where the second day takes place at the Northern Roots Urban Farm and Eco Park), Bristol Light Festival, and the inaugural Birmingham Light Festival.
Festivals for children over the February half-term holidays include the new SUPER DUPER Family Festival with six play zones across Manchester city centre, Spark Festival in Leicester, and Luton’s Febfest produced by my former client, Full House.
Plenty of film festivals to choose from including: Glasgow Film Festival; the 20th edition of Bristol’s Slapstick Festival of silent film and visual comedy; the largest festival for emerging filmmakers, BFI Future Film Festival; the UK’s biggest rural film festival, Borderlines Film Festival; Indie-Lincs championing low and micro budget feature length and short films in Lincoln; and definitely not one for me, the Romford Horror International Film Festival.
Busy month for festivals in Belfast including the NI Science Festival with over 250 events across more than 90 venues, and the 4 Corners Festival inspiring people across the city to transform it for the peace and wellbeing of all.
Swindon’s Festival of Tomorrow explores the wonder of science, innovation and the arts sharing new discoveries and technologies to help shape a better future.
Not just a celebration of Wakefield’s most famous vegetable (I’ve checked, it technically is a vegetable, not a fruit!), the Rhubarb Festival also includes live music and street entertainment as well as plenty of opportunities to taste rhubarb in savoury and sweet concoctions.
Derbyshire hosts the UK Ghost Story Festival at Derby’s Museum of Making and online, and the Dark Peak Photo Festival in Glossop on the edge of the Peak District.
Taking place over six months with online and in-person events across the North West of England is MACFEST, the Muslim Arts and Culture International Festival and this year sees the launch of the MACFEST Muslim Arts Awards.
Edinburgh’s Manipulate Festival celebrates animated film, puppetry and visual theatre.
And for some light relief, there’s Leicester Comedy Festival with over 720 events across 80 venues including the UK Kids’ Comedy Festival.
International upcoming highlights
It’s summer in Australia and that means some big hitters including its longest running arts festival, Perth Festival with 116 events across all artforms; its biggest arts festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival bringing 8,000+ artists to the city; and Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, appropriately launching on Valentine’s Day.
Film festivals include the Berlin International Film Festival, DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival, Dance on Camera Festival in New York, Victoria Film Festival in Canada, Dublin International Film Festival and the brilliantly named True/False Film Fest in Columbia, USA celebrating the best of international non-fiction.
More light festivals including Bright Brussels and in Taiwan, there’s the Fo Guang Shan New Year Festival of Light and Peace and Taiwan Lantern Festival.
In the United Arab Emirates, there’s the Sharjah Biennial 16 and the Abu Dhabi Festival, with the theme: ‘A World of Harmony’.
The Hawai’i Triennial takes place across O’ahu, Maui and Hawai’i Island celebrating the theme of Aloha nō – a call to know Hawai’i as a place of rebirth, resilience and resistance, and as a place that embraces humanity in all of its complexities.
The Karachi Literature Festival returns for its sixteenth edition in Pakistan.
Ljubljana in Slovenia celebrates the season with the Winter Festival of classical music. Another classical music festival next month is the Giaconti Scelsi Festival in Basel, Switzerland.
You can explore your creative side at the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts at DisneyWorld Florida running till late February.
The 53rd Hong Kong Arts Festival opens with a busy programme of opera, dance, theatre and music.
And finally, don’t forget February means Chinese New Year so look out for street festivals and parades in your area.
P.S. If you liked this post, please click on the heart at the bottom or top of this post. It helps others to discover PalmerSquared on Festivals and I’ll be very thankful.
See you next month for more festival news, stories, and insights.
This happened to me recently, its not just the arts a big annual conference and I couldnt find the date for 25 on their website. I had to email and ask!!
Brilliant stuff 👏