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Focus Groups
II: RADICAL REIMAGINATION OF FESTIVALS: REDEFINING RELATIONSHIPS WITH COMMUNITIES AND STAKEHOLDERS KEY TOPICS • How do we define a festival’s community? • How are stakeholders changing? Are there new stakeholders? • How do we consider or redefine success for a festival moving forward? • What should stay the same? What is the core of a festival?
The understandings of “community” pose many open questions. In particular the problem of how to attend to different communities, how to prioritize different communities and how to position the festival with respect to shifting communities. Festivals are part of society and, as society shifts, the position and role of a festival shifts too. Taking into consideration the perspective of the funders (as community members or otherwise), a few key points are: • • • •
The future is not just in our hands, there are many factors and agencies, and adaptability is key. Decision-making has to be shared, even if that is difficult. For structural reasons, it can be difficult for public funders to innovate. Trust collective emotional intelligence and share ownership.
Sharing ownership must go hand in hand with taking responsibility, i.e., sharing accountability. It is important to promote flat hierarchies in the managing of festivals, but also stress the ultimate responsibility rests with festival leadership. Artistic directors can and must use their skills to create narratives with their communities and stakeholders, and to build and maintain important relationships. Questions about the truths we want to uphold and the narratives we want to challenge are vital to reimagining festivals: • •
How do you curate content and create new systems to address misrepresentation, underrepresentation and colonization? Always ask the question of why and who are we doing this for?
