A Summary Of Conversation: Festivals, Cultural Entrepreneurship, and Sustainability Values.

Festivals, Cultural Entrepreneurship, and Sustainability Values: A summary of conversation between Antonio Narciso, Emma Jayne Park, Madinatu Bello, Sami Blomberg, Shelly Wang and Thais Gárciga Escalante. Participants gathered as part of COSM2*.
- April 2023

Notes posted 18th April 2023.
- Still to be formatted, proofread and audio recorded.

As a diverse group - culturally, geographically and in terms of festivals experience - it felt crucial to try to stage a dynamic conversation that celebrated the complexity of the theme: recognising that all festivals existing in very specific contexts, as opposed to focussing on a single element of the discourse in a reductive theoretical approach which cannot then be applied in practice.

As such, we framed our conversation through the proposition of three questions:

- What festival activity is already happening that creates a positive impact relative to sustainability and equality as a route sustainability – for example does gender balanced programmes at music festivals create shift? 

- How do we deepen conversations about festivals as zones of both inclusion and exclusion, with reference to representation and who is permitted to consume the work of the festival. Are festivals established for a broad public, or do they carry underlying values of elitism and opaque social codes which act as a barrier to participation? This could include themes ranging from the exclusion created by boasting a European perspective as a measure of quality, or the exclusion created by ticket prices.

- Why is the festivals sector still having large scale festivals as the climate crisis and the rise of fascism reach a critical point? Why is the sector still perpetuating the idea that these large scale festivals are the measure of success? What is the point of these mass gatherings, and can we articulate this beyond vague notions of communality and the benefit of gathering? 

This was also steered by an initial shared humor around recent revelations that Billy McFarland, founder of the renowned festival disaster Fyre Festival (an accepted disaster case study in terms of economics, sustainability, safety and fun!), has announced the launch of Fyre Festival II.

Infrastructure, Knowledge and Application
We can all laugh at such a suggestion, and perhaps we should all laugh. The negligence and outcomes of a situation like Fyre Festival make a mockery of the hard work and values presumed to underpin the cultural festival circuit by the self-assumed progressive thinkers who engage in this kind of dialogue and study –sustainability, access and good art!

However, if we focus more closely on the errors made in developing Fyre Festival and less on the scoffable narcissism that led to these errors there are perhaps lessons that can be taken.

Howlin’ Fling Festival, based on the remote Isle of Eigg in Scotland, is both a fascinating and excellent example of a festival that provides an amazing experience, stays true to its values, and sustains a community. However, organiser Johnny Lynch is relatively open about infrastructural issues ‘from booze shortages to broken legs’, and fans of the event are also unjaded as they remember queuing for food which was being gently rationed to ensure there was enough to last the weekend.

Similarly in Finland,Frostbite Metalfest is known for being initiated with good intentions - creating space for metalheads - but struggled to meet the basic requirements needed for a stable infrastructure. The organiser was an 18-year old man, who arranged his first event at Lahti Exhibition Centre. Communication was lacking in terms of audience as well as the performers. Audience didn’t have access to the schedule which also changed a lot during the festival. Big names canceled their performances for various reasons (advances not being paid, flight issues) The organiser had a KG company which means that he was personally liable for 200.000€. Bands did not have accommodation, backstage facilities or food as agreed beforehand. Questionably, the organiser also made a press statement claiming that you don’t need any education for organising an event, yet he also stayed nameless in the media.

Is there a question to be asked about age here, or simply a question about experience? If you don’t fully invest in understanding the complex venn diagram of what makes a festival ecosystem work, how can you mitigate challenges? How do you know what you don’t know? And, when things are left unconsidered – who picks up the slack?

The series of simultaneous August festivals in Edinburgh perhaps pose this question most effectively, as the city’s infrastructure is squeezed – who gives and what gives? In 2022, residents and visitors had a small (smelly) taste of what happens when the infrastructure ceases to function as refuse collectors chose the month to go on strike. The experience was much reported and brought the scale of the festivals – particularly Edinburgh Festival Fringe – into question.

Ambition and Scale

However, prior to analysing if a festival is sustainable, and even if it serves the infrastructure it leans on it is critical to establish who is defining the parameters of sustainability.

In terms of Edinburgh Festival Fringe, from the perspective of short term let landlords the festival is sustainable if people continue to visit the city during the month willing to pay exorbitant rates for accommodation. They don’t require the material quality or the experience of the festival to be maintained, as long as the media around it encourages people to return.

Whereby, in terms of residents of Edinburgh – what does a sustainable festival look like? How do you democratically gather data around who is impacted by a festival?

Is exponential growth really a viable aim without this data? In the case of Edinburgh Festival Fringe there is much debate ongoing around this. In the case of Howlin’ Fling this is simply not possible because the Isle of Eigg cannot hold more than 300 people.

In terms of ambition, festivals such as Naamat – started by friends – scaling up is seen as a direct conflict to the founding values of the festival, which intentionally does not ever want to grow larger. The thing that makes it sustainable, in terms of the human cost of facilitating it as well as sustaining the energy it intended to create, is detaching the idea that scale and ambition are in direct relationship.

Exclusion and Inclusion
This does, however, breed questions of how the community around such an event is maintained.

Aside from potential pre-sale tickets for known community members, tickets are sold on the open market. Whilst on a surface level this may seem fair, it also prioritises those with the time to wait around on release dates, those with a disposable income that can be managed around time and several other factors which could be argued to create a disparity in access to tickets. As the popularity of such deliberately intimate events increase, does this mean eager influencers and trend followers may be more likely to access the event than the communities initially built around their slow growth? What impact does this have on sustaining the energy of the festival?

Traditional and faith based festivals may be an interesting case study in understanding how values can be passed on from generation to generation, maintaining the essence of a festival even if the context shifts with time.  

Is the purpose of a faith based/ traditional festival different from those which were created from some form of entrepreneurial spirit or as simple celebrants of artistic form? 

As an interesting case study, in Ghana each year every ethnic group has its own traditional festival (over 52 groups). These festivals both push to protect tradition and grow social inclusion. They are broadly not for sale (although some entrepreneurs do exploit them for financial purposes) but instead welcome anyone interested to celebrate each culture. By making space for everyone to proudly share their culture, social cohesion can grow because people feel seen and see that their culture is valued. Guests are welcome and invited to enter the secular spaces of these events, however, to be involved in more sacred or detailed rituals they would have to engage in a process of committed understanding through having certain rights performed and engaging with the culture in more depth.

Although this situation is not wholly inclusive - inequalities inherited through historical societal structures are still often present, dictating who can participate in certain rights and rituals based on characteristics such as gender – it does breed the question of what can be learned by Western cultures where festival admittance is largely viewed through the transaction of ticket sales. How would the energy behind, and sustainability of festivals shift if there was a social contract of education around the spaces tickets holders or guests to the founding community take up? Would Edinburgh Festival Fringe, for example, have more clearly held on to its initial core values of inclusivity, experimentation and imagination for all, had those with more social/ financial capital undergone significant training before being allowed to dominate and claim the space as their own?

What tensions surface when we try to deconstruct the power structures that dictate how festivals can exist within their own broader cultural and societal context.

With Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the notion of being ‘an open access festival that accommodates anyone with a desire to perform and a venue willing to host them’ made sense when there were fewer people with a desire to perform and when there was less profit to be made from hosting spaces. However, if it does not embrace the changing context of its location, now dominated by market forces and explicit profiteering, the same approach to being open access is redundant. In fact, in reality it has become extremely exclusionary (in terms of perpetuating the voice of dominant cultures – white, wealthy, formally educated etc) as a result of its hands off approach to programming, contracting and the development of working structures. 

In Ghana, a similar issue was faced with the National Festival for Arts and Culture, whereby – due to being located in one region, those from elsewhere could only attend if they secured significant sponsorship to cover the financial cost of attendance. The festival therefore decided it would be more inclusive to rotate between the sixteen regions of the country. This means that many will still not be able to travel annually, but hopefully that more people will be able to participate fully with less frequency. 

The response has been mixed. Publicly funded cultural institutions represent those who are most likely to partake – because they have the financial support to do so. Whereas grassroots groups, who don’t have access to consistent or significant funding, still do not have the money to attend annually. The compromise of aspiring to ensure a lot of groups can sustainably participate in one or two festivals over time, at least offers a vision of who the festival is for: everyone – but not yet everyone all of the time.

The Definition of Festival

If the audience and participant community are shifting regularly, there is a question of what sustains the ethos and spirit of a festival.

In Venezuela, one group member offered that there are no music festivals at all – just concerts. If these concerts happen in close succession over a fixed period of time, are they then a festival? Or, is a festival more than that? How are the spaces between events curated and held? How is a ‘vibe’ shaped, and could this help to define who the festival is really for? Why does it feel important to create a vibe – or not?

Arguably, different genres of festivals have different social codes, so to some there may feel as if there is no vibe and others may appreciate the pace, rhythm and social code. What tools for analysis are required to move cultural operators beyond personal taste, and into a more critical form of thinking as a means of ensuring festivals can be sustainable – in terms of ensuring people keep turning up to feel the impact of the event?

What is the point of it all?
How is the impact of a festival both defined and measured? By whom, and how?

Woodstock is an interesting reference - as although the music was a focus and there are many reports that betray the image we are about to perpetuate - the lasting myth of the festival is the effect of creating community, culture and cohesion. 

If myths and stories are how the world has been shaped since time immemorial, are Festivals just the modern way of creating the myths we need to shape the world? Gathering spaces that offer small utopias so people can embody the change they want to see in the world? Or, are they simply the opposite - places to escape to without any lasting impact, just respite?

In terms of the large scale festival, what does it offer to people that they cannot give themselves or create through smaller forms of gathering. For the entrepreneur who solely seeks financial profit, these small gatherings are a threat. For the attendee looking for meaning, it could be argued that valueless, consumerist festival propositions are no longer stimulating enough.

With that, different conditions may be required by festival initiators looking to found new events and those looking to continue existing festivals if the idea of sustainable festival is to become a reality. This could mean current festivals transitioning to more sustainable models of working or doubling down on what they have always done – leaving it to the free market to decide if their proposition is strong enough to continue.

Overall, it feels oversimplified to state that financial sustainability is the priority of the ideology of ‘festival’ as a principle – it might be possible to balance the books, but if there is no ‘vibe’ the festival is dead anyway. 

What feels pressing is to highlight that the idea of a sustainable festival is only achievable if organisers can attract the appropriate audience to attend – in this context meant as the audience for whom the values, energy and activity have been designed. This space can, of course, be open to all but without some level of specificity the festival will have lost its core identity, rendering it a series of events that simply happen because they always have or because someone decided they should. A festival of nostalgia/ status as opposed to a festival happening in real time.

And with that, organisers taking responsibility for understanding the broader context of each festival – from locational infrastructure to climate crisis mitigations to workers rights – feel crucial in consolidating any festival's identity and sustainability. 

 *COSM2: COSM 2 “Cultural Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Management” is a 5 ECTS MA level course that provides an international and cross-disciplinary perspective on sustainability values and practical dimensions of cultural managers’ work. There are three central domains of cultural producers’ activities discussed in the course: festivals, local communities-oriented productions and other independent entrepreneurial initiatives in rural and urban environments.