The Festivalisation of Culture

By Nick Dodds 

Chairman of the British Arts Festivals Association and

Managing Director of Festivals and Events International

                                      

In the next 15 minutes I want to tell you about some changes and trends in the UK and European Festival scene.

First I think we need a definition in a world that has adopted the word festival to such an extent as it is perhaps no longer clear that we are talking about the same thing when we discuss festivals.

Festivals – the FEI definition:
“A time limited, concentrated celebration of cultural activity rooted in a particular location”

I think we could have a whole conference just discussing that statement but ….today please accept my definition.     

I want to start with a question that I think should be concerning us all.

Both the audiences in this slide are sharing a Festival experience.  Will the one in Denmark be attending the one in Austria in 30 years time?

There has been an explosion of festivals and events in the UK and Europe in the last few years.  As a style of presenting culture, Festivals have become increasingly popular, to the extent that our colleagues are talking about the Festivalisation of Culture in the UK.

In BAFA’s recent survey of arts festivals in the UK in 2007 we identified over 500 events that could be classified as arts festivals.  This in a tiny country compared to the one we are in.  And this summer nearly 450 rock and pop festivals have tickets on sale in the UK.

Most of you will know about and some of you will have been to the famous traditional arts festivals in Europe, presenting music, theatre and dance.

Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, with its multi arts International Festival, where I was administrative director for 10 years, and its overwhelming Festival Fringe.

Salzburg, in affluent Austria, with its long history as an opera and music festival now expanded to take in other artforms.

Avignon, in the south of France, a theatre festival in a beautiful medieval city, with a strong dance programme, and extraordinary outdoor theatres built for the festival.

But how many of you will know the pop festivals are children are going to?

Glastonbury, in England, with its extraordinary attendance of 175,000 people over three days.

Roskilde, in Denmark, Europe’s second biggest after Glastonbury, now in its 38^th year, where it is estimated that 50% of the audience come from outside of the country.

Benicassim on Spain’s South Coast, a magnet for the 18-30 age group, looking to combine a beach holiday with a cultural experience.

Now you may think that pop festivals have nothing to do with us in AAPAF or BAFA or EFA, but I suggest you would be wrong.  The lines between arts festivals and pop festivals are blurring.   Take two examples from the UK, two new Festivals started in 2007, Manchester International Festival and Latitude Festival in rural Suffolk.

Firstly the Latitude Festival, just completed its second edition two weeks ago, on the face of it a typical pop festival;

·        Commercially run

·        Three days over a weekend

·        Outdoor event in rural location

·        Multiple pop music stages

·        Audience camping

But the festival designed to include

·        A Literature tent including Hanif Kureshi, A.L.Kennedy and Irvine Walsh

·        A theatre tent featuring some well known British companies like RSC,Royal Court

·        Dance performances organised by London’s Sadler’s Wells

·        Poetry, Film and Children’s programmes

Secondly the Manchester International Festival, a bi-annual event started in July 2007 with its second edition in 2009, on the face of it a typical arts festival;

·        Not for profit and subsidised

·        16 days long over three weekends

·        City based event using theatres and concert halls

·        Strong thematic approach – Festival of entirely commissions and new work

·        Audience of locals and visitors totalling 200,000

But the festival included

·        Monkey, an opera written by a pop guru, Damon Albarn of the band Blur

·        Concerts by aging US rocker Lou Reed, Kanye West and the Fall

·        A giant clubbing event dedicated to electronic dance music

So my first trend for you is that the lines are blurring between types of festival – maybe that’s a bad thing maybe that’s a good thing, but it’s happening.

So what of the future for festivals?  For the Festivals themselves I think we will see both further Specialisation and increased Diversity.

Specialisation – festivals are narrowing down their focus into particular genres; dance, electronic music, street arts, photography and book festivals.   Tarrega in Spain arguably the best street art festival in the world sees tens of thousands of audience members and professionals travel to this small town in rural Catalonia to catch the latest street artists.

Book Festivals are thriving in the UK and elsewhere.   Hay Festival in the small market town in the Welsh borders probably has the highest profile of them all with the L. A. Times sending a travel journalist to find it and her describing it as ‘curious and compelling’ whilst  Bill Clinton called it the “Woodstock of the Mind”. 

Diversity – arts festivals are coming under increasing pressure to diversify, particularly if they are publicly funded, with authorities demanding accessible ‘something for everyone’ programmes.   The development of outdoor events and street arts are a response to this, but putting considerable strain both on Mission and Budgets.

Festivals as Tourist Destination – I think we will see growth in this area both for the more traditional festivals attracting a broadly older audience to city based festivals where the tourism infrastructure is well established.  For the younger market travel to festivals will become as much as part of the summer as going on a Club 18-30 holiday, and festivals will develop in areas where the young already like to congregate.

Flights to European pop festivals from the UK are growing so rapidly this summer with the Marketing Director of low cost airline Jet2.com describing them as an important new market for the company in his view  “European festivals offer not only top acts, but warm weather, and the chance of an extended break in a European destination”

Looking to America, the Chicago Tribune recently cited the growth in destination festivals designed for high- end visitors incorporating local culture with mainstream stars, hotel packages and VIP areas.  It cites both major and mid-sized cities are competing for music tourists to feed local economies in the way that they used to for Convention delegates. 

Festivals as drivers for economic impact – Clydesdale a Scottish Bank, recently calculated the average direct spend on attending a typical weekend UK pop festival as £402 in UK and £380 in Europe.   This impact is modest compared with their parents who might attend the Brighton Festival and whose average daily spend is £245 per day for a visitor to the city including tickets, travel, accommodation and food. Particularly valuable to Edinburgh where the average attendance for visitors to the Edinburgh International Festival is 9 days.

Edinburgh is of course still way ahead of the competition with its 12 festivals attracting 2.6m attendances in 2005 which included trips by 126,000 overseas visitors.  That year it generated £184m for the Scottish Economy and sustained 3,500 jobs.  In profile terms its summer festivals lead by the International Festival and the Festival Fringe generated £12m of national press coverage alone.

Not wishing to be outdone by the City of Birmingham have commissioned my company FEI to advise them on a festival strategy that proposes a significant investment in a new arts festival in 2011with the declared intention of raising profile, attracting visitors and generating economic benefit.

Newcastle has invested £57m over 8 years into the Culture 10 programme in an attempt to position itself as a major region for festivals and events.  It’s now taking its instrumental view of festivals a step further by developing a Housing Expo in 2011 with a significant cultural festival in the middle of it and again FEI are delighted to be advising them on.

Working Together

So how can festival and event producers work with tourism agencies and operators?  They are not always easy partners.

Producers don’t often see tourist visitors as their prime market, finding it easier and cheaper to market to local or at best national audiences. 

Timescales are often very different – whilst Producers will know the dates of their festival a long time in advance they often can’t confirm the performers or go on sale until quite close the event.  The travel trade on the other hand want long lead times to sell packages to their clients.  The way through this has to be to sell the ‘concept’ of attending a particular festival rather than seeing a particular artist. 

Ticket sales – many festival sell out so providing an allocation to agents to package with accommodation is not always a priority.  However increasingly festivals are able to consider this and Edinburgh International Festival have a dedicated member of staff to deal with the travel trade, can hold allocations for a reasonable period and offer discounts.   However ticket discounts aren’t really the way forward when it’s possible to charge a premium for access to scare tickets.

Packaging – there are an increasing number of specialist travel agents offering festival packages to European arts festivals.   These combine tickets, travel, accommodation and often accompanied tours to particular festivals like Prague, Salzburg, Verona etc.   

Specially created festivals - Some operators are even creating their own festivals to satisfy their requirements for early confirmation of performer, access to tickets, suitable venues etc.  UK company Martin Randall Travel has created the Danube Music Festival which now has 700 clients travelling on a boat down the Danube river and stopping off at private locations for concerts.   Some might question the authenticity of some of the events created, and the experience the customer might get, but it is certainly growing in popularity.

It’s all part of this broader drive towards the Festivalisation of culture…like it or hate it it’s the way we are going, and one thing is clear to me...good or bad… festival style of presentation is way of the future.

Thank You

Nick Dodds