The Festival Academy

The Festival Academy is a global capacity-building infrastructure strengthening cultural leaders who operate festivals as spaces for civic engagement, dialogue, and societal transformation. With a community of over 1,700 informed, skilled and networked festival leaders across 140+ countries, The Festival Academy supports a distributed global ecosystem of cultural changemakers with global perspectives, collectively reaching more than 40 million audience members.

Vision:

We envision a world where future generations can peacefully coexist based on knowledge, respect and tolerance of different value and belief systems. We advocate the profound cultural and societal significance of arts and culture festivals in the world. Our goal is to bring about a shift in mindset among society and public authorities, creating positive change through the power of creativity. We empower festival managers through the access to international connection, knowledge, and inclusive conversation. We focus on supporting emerging art festival leaders and underprivileged cultural practitioners from conflict regions with the aim to generate awareness and make the creative sector more equal and united. We aim to develop and sustain a community of festival leaders of the future who act in solidarity and impact the main challenges of our times.

Mission:

We provide space and time for diverse groups of minds, including artists, cultural managers, and cross-sector stakeholders, to come together, connect, and think collectively. We facilitate a global, inclusive conversation on the role of festivals in today's world. We empower festival leaders to consider themselves as change-makers. We explore ways to foster fair collaborations, navigate the challenges and opportunities of the digital revolution, and mitigate climate change within the fields of action of arts festivals. We offer training formats for emerging festival managers that serve as catalysts for creating connections between local and international professionals, nurturing the development of both new and long-term collaborations, and promoting the exchange of expertise and knowledge, thus building a continuously growing global network of the arts based on solidarity. We focus on strengthening our global alumni community, facilitating networking, knowledge sharing and exchange, and offering online resources.

Why festivals?

We believe festivals are bridging platforms and meeting places with a direct link between people, civil society structures and public authorities. They represent communities, different values, and belief systems. They have the power to transform communities - they can foster community cohesion, strengthening community resilience and encouraging tolerance of diversity. They reinforce social links, forge new solidarities, and strengthen our ability to better face current and future challenges. They furthermore can bring positive economic impact, secure jobs and growth, and catalyse infrastructure development. Festivals are multipliers because of their wide audience reach - The Festival Academy has reached over 40 million people through attending festivals and their audiences.