European Festival Summit
YOUROPE e.V.
The European Festival Association Auguststr. 18 53229 Bonn office@yourope.org www.yourope.org
The European Festival Summit is part of YOUROPE's EU co-funded project "3F - Future-Fit Festivals". In cooperation with KME Karlsruhe Marketing und Event GmbH.
Introduction: What’s in this Report?
In November 2024, the German city of Karlsruhe became the temporary center of the European festival scene. YOUROPE and Karlsruhe Marketing und Event GmbH (KME) had invited all those interested to the first European Festival Summit. The approximately 200 delegates came not only from the festival industry, but also from fields that work together with festivals, such as ticket providers, AI, the construction industry, cultural research, cultural promotion, the police, cybersecurity, Generation Z marketing and futurology. The participants came from more than 20 countries, including the USA and South Africa; the youngest participant was 22 years old, the oldest 79.
At Tollhaus, a former industrial building turned cultural hub, they discussed how they can make festivals fit for the future. The EFS also served as the final event for YOUROPE’s three-year “Future-Fit Festivals” (3F) project, which is co-funded by the EU and ends in December 2024. The KME is 3F’s project lead
The Summit’s program consisted of a wide range of topics and formats. To get an impression, please refer to the table of contents of this report. The report is divided into focus topics and summarizes the key takeaways from each session. Even if you could not participate in the EFS, this is your chance to learn what the expert speakers there have taught the audience. Feel free to use the table of contents to navigate directly to the topics you are most interested in.
As Linnéa Svensson said in the closing round of the EFS: “We need to stand together and support each other to create the change that we need to see.”
Festivals in Focus
60 Wild Minutes with a Futurologist
As a futurologist, rather than just predicting the future, Max Thinius examines how the people of today can shape the future of the world they live in.
In his opening talk “60 wild minutes on the future,” he explained that live events have the power to play an important role in making the future of our cities and societies much brighter.
According to him, we are moving away from the industrial age. From 2028 onwards, we will have implemented more
The calm before the storm at Tollhaus.
Photo by Josef Furis
Futurologist Max Thinius. Photo by Stephan Faber
digital structures than industrial structures in Europe. We are moving into the age of digitalization, or more precisely, the age of Digitality – when digital becomes part of reality. It’s not just technology that’s changing, or festivals. “Everything is changing.” Digitality gives people more chances to do what they want how they want. If we try to adhere to industrialization standards, we won’t get the potential out of new structures, the futurologist said.
Good news for festivals: Thinius showed some designs of recently created cities, and they all have in common large, central spaces for events. “People come together to change, so without events, we won’t do change,” he said. People want to get together to dance and talk about new possibilities. Developers know that events are key.
“The future doesn’t just happen, we shape it,” he stressed. His recommendation to festival makers: “Don’t think in ‘festival industry’, but ‘festival digitality.’ Don’t think: ‘how can I make my festival future-proof?’, but ‘how can I positively shape the future of others with my festival?’” Put your values first – how do you want to have an impact? And then think about which technology you want to apply to that.
Later, Thinius was joined by Christof Huber (OpenAir St.Gallen & YOUROPE chairman) and Marta Pallarès (Head of Press, Primavera Sound). Pallarès said something that resonated with her in Thinius’ talk was that as festivals, we focus too much on the major issues such as ‘we can’t afford big headliners’ but forget about the audience. “Festivals are magic events that make you forget your problems for three days,” she said. But if all festivals look the same, no one stands out anymore. You must focus on what makes your festival different to stay relevant. A recent business trip to Thailand and the Philippines has made her realize: “The more you try to find diversity, the more you will find the energy to escape the bubble that sometimes sucks the energy out of you.”
Huber criticized that we talk too much about saving the industry rather than shaping it. Instead of enviously looking at the big bills of major festivals, we should focus on our own strengths. “Individual festival creativity, that’s what it needs. Too many people are running in the same direction. Copycat is one of the biggest mistakes of our industry for me.” Our festivals are more than an entertainment area; they’re about bringing generations together and serving as a playground for new solutions
Thinius closed with some motivational numbers: A study that he and his colleagues had conducted predicted that by 2028, festivals will have more influence on our social life than churches because people increasingly realize that they have a community at festivals. And: “People are three to four times more likely to invest in a region if it has good local events.”
Where do We Go from here? The Future of the Festival Sector
Currently it feels like the festival sector has never faced as many existence-threatening challenges before. In the panel, “Quo Vadis, Festivals?” James Drury (IQ Magazine) interviewed leading festival makers from Europe and the USA to figure out how festivals can come out on top.
While all speakers agreed that it was a successful year for their festivals, they all faced similar challenges. Christof Huber (OpenAir St.Gallen, Gadget Entertainment Group & YOUROPE chairman) mentioned huge production costs, resulting in a not so great margin despite a sold-out festival. Booking has become challenging – many bands are taking a break or have reduced tours during this and next summer. Many UK and US artists have also become too expensive or are otherwise unavailable. OpenAir St.Gallen used to book the likes of Depeche Mode and Muse, but “I think these times are over for us,” Huber said. Plus, the weather is becoming more difficult to deal with
Eugenie “EJ” Encalarde (New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, USA) agreed that “artist prices and production costs are still a challenge,” as well as “the logistics of producing a festival.” Her team has been nicknamed “the need mores” because they constantly need more to deliver the same experience, although the acreage hasn’t changed. Artists bring in more production, trucks, buses, and forklifts. On a plus side, they have more sponsors, which is great, but “with more sponsors there is more things that they need back of house.” It’s hard to synchronize everyone on site.
Communication is another challenge. “You really have to be able to communicate across departments,” Encalarde said. In their second year of cashless payment, this hadn’t been as much of a challenge anymore, but it was still a lot of work, making sure the Wi-Fi was working etc.
Cindy Castillo (Mad Cool Festival, ES) added that not only production costs are rising but also marketing costs. “We had to invest double the money to sell the same number of tickets this year,” she said. They also moved to another venue last year, which caused high construction costs this year, too.
A panel so good, you have to record it. Photo by Josef Furis
EJ Encalarde. Photo by Josef Furis
According to Mikolaj Ziółkowski (Open’er Festival & Alter Art, PL), the biggest challenge is the competition from stadium shows. Artists are earning vast sums by playing stadium shows, and people are willing to pay astronomical prices for a ticket. “And Gen Z likes stadiums, more than festivals. They like the comfort and services that come with these shows,” he said. Another factor is that artists’ productions are becoming bigger and bigger. If a festival can’t accommodate huge shows, artists will prefer to put on a solo show, where they control the production, the audiences and the ticket price. “The challenge is the mentality of the artists who want to own their show,” Ziółkowski said. As a festival, you either have to find a way to accommodate their productions or you have to concentrate on smaller acts.
On the opposite site of the spectrum, Arnaud Meersseman (AEG presents France) found that sometimes artists have become famous so fast that you as a promoter must build their production from scratch. “We find that a lot of new artists have trouble putting their shows together.” He also noticed some unusual audience behavior, e.g., people waiting for the headliner in front of the stage the entire day but not actually watching other artists’ shows. Audiences are becoming more and more niche, but we are still trying to speak to everyone. “Our multistage, multigenre model is in trouble,” he concluded.
A quick survey of the panel audience showed that small and mediumsized festivals experience the booking problem, too – and that it applies even to smaller acts. A topic that could fill its own panel, Castillo agreed. She urged festivals to create an emotional connection between their event and the audience, so they want to come, no matter who is on the bill.
So, are there any solutions on the horizon? OpenAir St.Gallen’s Huber reported that they have invested in the venue and the experience, taking Lowlands as an inspiration. “At Lowlands, it’s an experience to enter the festival, and you go out blown away.” A good point, AEG’S Meersseman said, but without headliners he can’t sell 38,000 tickets, no matter how good the experience is.
Mad Cool’s Castillo recommended to also focus on making your company
more efficient, but it’s important not just to chase trends. “We have the responsibility to educate. And I think at Mad Cool it has worked,” she said referring to getting more women as headliners.
Open’er’s Ziółkowski urged: “We have to deliver proper shows production wise until the last minute.” When headliners want to cut their sets short or play shorter sets in the first place, festivals must insist they don’t. At Mad Cool, a headliner set has a minimum length of two hours, Castillo said, agreeing.
Jazzfest’s Encalarde added: “We are at a paradigm shift in terms of festival economics, the type of workers we have and the people who
Mikolaj Ziółkowski. Photo by Josef Furis
Arnaud Meersseman.
Photo by Josef Furis
Christof Huber.
Photo by Josef Furis
come. We have to be the disruptors, to find a way to strip down the model we had for many years and go back to the meaning of why we’re producing the festivals, because we all just said in different ways that it’s not working anymore.”
She sees the benefits in employing a multi-generational staff. At Jazzfest, the staff are between 20 and 80 years old. “It’s a lot of give and take, but the goal is for everyone to have a voice – the TikTok expert, the college student, the niche knowledge person – because then we are able to manage change more effectively.”
Regarding weird audience behavior, Drury quoted one of his own experiences from this year: a girl sitting in front of the stage watching Netflix while waiting for her favorite band. Meersseman quoted premiumization as a change in audience behavior he witnessed. France is still catching up on VIP packages, but he is sure there is a demand for services that bring more comfort. They also tried to “Insta-ize” the site of Rock en Seine, making it more attractive to a young audience. Another trend they see is young visitors drinking much less than older generations.
“You can guide how your audience behaves,” Huber said. For instance, at OASG they had released a rookie guide after the pandemic, explaining festivals to the young people that had missed out on three years of festivals. Today, they have 60% female audience despite it being a camping festival. They have a safer space and an awareness concept. They take an hour’s break between acts on the main stage, so people have time to enjoy the rest of the festival. As a consequence, food and beverage sales have only been going up, according to Huber.
At Mad Cool, they have been doing “social listening” on the internet to find out what their audience needs, Castillo reported. There was a lot of talk about people having no one to accompany them to a festival, so Mad Cool created the Telegram channel “Lonely Mads Club” to connect people. 2000 ticket sales came from this channel, Castillo said.
Cindy Castillo. Photo by Josef Furis
Host James Drury. Photo by Josef Furis
The Charme and Challenges of Independent Festivals
In a panel about the independent sector, IQ Magazine’s James Drury discussed the benefits and unique challenges facing this lively part of the industry with Achim Ostertag of Summer Breeze Open Air (DE), Marie Sabot of We Love Green (FR), Mikko Niemelä of Ruisrock (FI), Pavla Slivova of Colours of Ostrava (CZ) and Martin Wacker of Karlsruhe Marketing & Event (KME) and Das Fest (DE) They covered issues such as why the festival organizers enjoy being independent, the different models of being independent, and the future of indies.
Host Drury asked the panelists what it meant to them “to be independent.” All had differing answers, and there were various business models represented; e.g., Colours of Ostrava has an investor, while DAS FEST is supported by the City of Karlsruhe. Many panelists agreed that they enjoyed the freedom of being able to make their own choices, and to have creative control. Ostertag said he liked the fact that if he wanted to spend €1 million on a T-Rex sculpture, he could.
A common complaint from the indie sector is that artists often get ‘snapped up’ by big multinational companies with deeper pockets after they’ve been developed by independent promoters. While some on the panel shared this frustration, there was agreement that having a good relationship with agents could mean that acts actively chose to go with events outside the corporate sector. Sabot said Charlie XCX chose to go with We Love Green because of its strong reputation.
The panel agreed that they shared the same challenges that all festivals were facing, no matter who owned them. And while they reported that it could be difficult to compete with corporate events financially when bidding for acts, they all felt their audiences respected their independence and that this gave them an edge.
The panel was asked if they would ever contemplate selling their festivals. Sabot said that she would be open to offers, as the festival is in a very strong position. Niemelä said, while he would “never say never”, it was certainly not something he wanted nor was planning to do. He also said many staff liked the fact the festival was independent and would be upset if it was sold. Ostertag said he would never sell; that the audience and team were fiercely proud of the festival’s independence.
Running independent festivals: Mikko Niemelä and Achim Ostertag.
Photo by Stephan Faber
➔ Mikko Niemelä is the CEO and co-owner of the small company running Ruisrock (FI), the second-oldest festival in Europe after Pinkpop. They welcome 35,000 visitors on each of their three festival days. Ruisrock presents all kinds of music and hosted the likes of Nirvana, U2, and The Clash. While there is a campsite, Ruisrock is not a typical camping festival.
➔ Back in the 90s, Achim Ostertag and his band were looking for a festival to play at – but much to their grief no one wanted to book them. When he went to Wacken, he thought “this is the way a festival should be,” and decided to found his own festival in 1997. Today, Summer Breeze (DE) has a daily capacity of 50,000 and remains 100% independent. The festival is home to all genres of metal and rock. According to Ostertag, behind the scenes everything runs better than ever, the staff has grown, and the financial result is good. “We’re at a point where everything works perfectly. It was the best festival ever this year.”
➔ We Love Green (FR) started in Paris 15 years ago, although Marie Sabot and her partner have owned the event company running the event for more than 20 years. Today, it has a daily capacity of 40,000. The festival is extremely sustainable in every aspect and puts a strong focus on good storytelling and activism. They fight for independent festivals every, although “now the fight for independent festivals is a bit complicated of course,” Sabot said.
➔ Colours of Ostrava (CZ) is one of the four biggest festivals in Czech Republic, with international artists, camping and 40,000 visitors each day. Slivova, a booker, has worked for the festival for 15 years. Ostrava is a very industrial city and so is the current festival site. The festival changed locations a few times but grew very organically. “We’re tirelessly working on trying to be different with a very brave dramaturgy,” Slivova said. They also run their own conference, featuring over 200 speakers each year.
➔ Karlsuhe-based Das Fest (DE) will turn 40 in 2025. It’s the biggest of the around 20 events that KME organizes in the city, according to CEO Martin Wacker. It features Pop, Rock – and Classic on Sunday morning The festival charges only a small admission for the main stage, which has a 40,000 capacity. 70% of the area has no admission, including five free stages, welcoming over 250,000 people in total.
Lowlands, Legend, Legacy: Interview with Eric van Eerdenburg
Claire O'Neill interviewing Eric van Eerdenburg. Photo by Josef Furis
After 25 years with Lowlands Festival, festival director Eric van Eerdenburg will hand over the reins after the 2025 edition of the famous Dutch festival. During this time, he has become somewhat of a living legend, which was, among other things, recognized by giving him the Award for Excellence & Passion at the European Festival Awards 2023. At the EFS, he looked back at his career in an interview with Claire O’Neill of A Greener Future. Here's an abbreviated summary
How did you get into festivals?
Eric van Eerdenburg: I was in bands, was tour manager, agent, at a record company, promoting shows for a brands company. I got into a fight with my boss and called Mojo Concerts and asked if they had a job. He called on Friday night and said: “You’re going to be my assistant. You’ll run Lowlands while I do other stuff. We will have a call every week, and I’ll tell you what to do.” He called me for three weeks, then never called me again. I’m not planning my handover like that – someone is now shadowing me.
How was the situation when you started out at Lowlands?
EvE: I started in 2000, so it’s going to be 25 years and 23 editions of the festival. When I started, Lowlands was in its 8th year, had 65,000 people and was at the same weekend as Leeds/ Reading. We started to struggle to get headliners because of that. People were complaining about bad food, too many visitors, headliners who weren’t good enough – and I decided to change it. We moved a week earlier to avoid clashing with Reading; I reduced capacity by 10,000 to 55,000 and that’s how it is still today.
I have made some crazy decisions, but Leon Ramakers and John Mulder, who hired me, have been very supportive. I’m grateful for that and it proved to be a good strategy because we sell out in 15 minutes. The best marketing is your last edition.
You said you wanted to hand the festival over to the next generation – what’s that about?
EvE: I turned 63 and I think directors in this field of festivals hang on too long and they lose touch. I think it’s important to hand the festival over to the next generation; people who live the lifestyle and know what’s happening with acts. I wanted to go before anyone told me to go. The festival needs to stay innovative, and that’s part of its success. A festival is about youth and young people and pop culture. It’s about a certain lifestyle.
What’s your stance on politics as a festival?
EvE: When it comes to politics, as a festival we don’t “have an opinion.” We invite people from all sides of the political spectrum. We radiate a view – we have 90,000 solar panels over the parking area; and you can have delicious vegan food.
How have you seen the industry change over the years?
EvE: The way the music industry is organized is an agent tries to get the most money for their act and I’m trying to keep ticket prices as low as possible, so it’s always a fight. I think it’s gotten worse – a popular artist is a monopoly and can choose where to play, and agents mainly choose the most money.
How did Lowlands end up with 90,000 on-site solar panels?
EvE: We wanted to have a permanent structure with solar panels on the roof. But I couldn’t build a permanent structure, and we had to buy a lot of the land around the site because it was under threat from people who wanted to develop it. Then a guy from a solar company asked us if they could build a solar panel park there. We couldn’t agree, so years went by. They came back with a shitty offer but then they agreed to build the carport park.
We own land, they own the panels. They have the electricity deal but together we are one, and we are now one of the biggest green electricity installations in Holland. It’s an innovative system but it's making money, too. 50% of our energy comes from our solar park. It produces 100 times more than we need but we need to get the infrastructure in, to bring everything on that grid.
What’s next for you?
EvE: I told my bosses: “I found someone to take over from me and it’ll take no more than 2 editions –what do you want to do with me?” They said they wanted me to stay, and we have some ideas of what I’ll do. Mojo is a big company running 3000 club shows and five festivals and helping program 15-20 festivals. There’s a lot to do. I’m looking at things like: in Holland there’s a withdrawal of public broadcasters from festivals. In 2026 they won’t have the money to come to festivals anymore, so I’m going to explore that and see how to help them continue.
[Question from the audience:] Does the festival have mental health protection for crew and staff?
EvE: Yes, it’s been written down now for the last five years. I think it’s good that something changed because everyone works their asses off and worked too many hours. Now people compensate their extra hours after the festival by taking September off. You keep track of how many hours you work and get them in lieu when it’s quieter. In the music business, you have to work when the work is there. We keep strict admin on how many hours people are working. It’s gotten much better in recent years.
[Question from the audience:] Some festivals are struggling; others are thriving: what trends do you see?
EvE: I think we will see the end of the McDonaldization of festivals. Festivals like Primavera Sound and Lollapalooza have touring festivals and they lose their individual character. There is “another Lowlands,” called Down the Rabbit Hole, but it’s very different and has a completely different feel. The big US festivals all have the same vibe. I think that’s a weakness. People travel to festivals because they like that particular festival. The festival has to have a character to maintain its character. We are here to entertain people, not make it as financially efficient as possible. There has to be good financial management. But a lot of stupidity too.
Looking at the festival industry as it is now, would you start a new festival?
EvE: Yes. I think in the future, there is space for a low-price festival with unknown bands and a lot of stupidity.
The Role of Culture, Music and Live events
Festivals as Cultural Heritage
Can festivals be cultural heritage? This is what Prof Dr Paula Guerra and her team investigated in their research. The short answer: yes!
Guerra is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Porto and Researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the same University. To test her hypothesis, she used the Portuguese Paredes de Coura Festival as a starting point. With the help of the 30,000-capacity event she proved that heritage can also be a festival, and that festivals are important forms of social and cultural participation –historically, and still today.
The festival has taken place uninterrupted (expect for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic) since 1993 in Paredes de Coura and has really put the village on the European map, according to Prof Guerra. The village is located in the Minho region in the interior of Portugal, in the very north-west. The region
Professor Paula Guerra has been researching the Paredes de Coura Festival in Portugal. Photo by Josef Furis
is defined by an ageing population and strong emigration processes. It’s a rural area with no significant economic dynamics.
The festival was started with a budget of just €400 by a group of young locals who were studying in bigger cities and loved Indie Rock. Since the fourth edition, the promotion company Ritmos has taken over the production.
Minho is a land of religious pilgrimage. In their research, Prof Guerra found out that the festival is a form of contemporary pilgrimage, equivalent to traditional pilgrimages. “We can see the Paredes de Coura Festival as a space for acquiring and articulating identities, since it is associated with a process of (re)constituting lifestyles,” the professor explained. The festival has only a very limited timeframe, but an intense program. It has an impact on an internal level (on the event itself) and on a local level (on the city and region). The impact lasts longer than the duration of the event itself.
Camping is possible during the festival, on private land, and thanks to the good relationship between the festival and the local population, it’s free. Many come for the space, rather than the line-up.
Paredes de Coura is also promoted as the Vila do Rock, the City of Rock. With support of the Escola do Rock (School of Rock), they have established an educational center around Rock music all year round.
Tourism is an important economic branch in Portugal. To reduce the negative impacts of tourism, the country follows an approach of preservation. Lately, there has been a cultural shift in local development and community planning, encouraging a greater emphasis on the role of culture in the construction of rural identities and futures. At the same time, this is a way to preserve and showcase local heritage.
The local economy couldn’t survive without the festival anymore, Guerra said. The economic return led people to embrace the festival with even greater fervor; they see the festival as a creative industry that generates returns, money, tourism, self-esteem, affection, a sense of community and roots. “The festival has become part of their nature,” Guerra said. “Festivals can act as catalysts to power the transformation of an area.”
To increase the acceptance and identification of the festival among the local population, it has helped to give out free tickets to the residents and to organize free events in the village before the festival.
Today, the festival is the event that contributes the most to the reputation of the municipality and region, which has become a tourist destination throughout the whole year. It helps that the municipality has a strong commitment to the festival, because being independent is hard work, according to Prof Guerra.
The Emotional Power of Live Music
Professor Sascha Frühholz explaining that some cultures consider music to be a gift of the gods. Photo by Stephan Faber
Have you ever wondered what is going on in your brain when you’re listening to music? Neuroscientist Prof Dr Sascha Frühholz from the University of Zurich (CH) delivered some interesting answers in his keynote on “The emotional power of live music.”
In his research, the professor records people’s brain activity as they listen to music. “When they listen to music, there are multiple parts of the brain that are activated. The amygdala lights up and also the pleasure center – the ventral striatum,” Prof Frühholz said. We can see people feel extreme enjoyment when they listen to music. A study showed there are 13 different types of emotion that are prompted by music, from positive to negative feelings. The study showed the responses are the same in the western world and in Asia, so it’s a universal experience.
Humans and music go way back: archaeological evidence shows the oldest instrument – called the Neanderthal flute and found in Slovenia – dates back 60,000 years. It’s made from animal bones.
So, it’s been around for a long time, but why did humans continue to make music? It’s probably the emotions it provokes, the professor hypothesized. Many early cultures believed music was ‘godly’ –that it was made by gods and given to humans.
People like music because it evokes strong emotions, and they say that live music evokes the strongest emotions. A survey asked people why they like live music and people said: because they feel connected to the musicians; they feel a sense of social connection with the audience, and they like the location and space.
There are good reasons to listen to live music: according to one study, live music significantly reduces stress hormones. Another study shows that during live music, people’s heart rates synchronize.
And have you ever wondered why people headbang? It turns out, live music makes your head move – the more your head moves, the more you’re enjoying it! A study showed that when listening to live music, people’s heads move much more than when listening to a record.
Live music connects musicians with audiences. “We did a study that featured a live piano player who was performing for someone in an MR machine”, Prof Frühholz told the audience. “When I published my study, I got a lot of emails from musicians. One from a famous pianist who told me when musicians perform live, they feel the connection with the audience, and they feel the live music has more of an effect on them and the audience than any other situation.” So, it seems live music is beneficial for musicians as well!
Huge Shows, Major Impacts, Modest Budgets
It’s a bit ironic: judging by the huge cultural impact live events have, you would think they have equally huge budgets to create this effect with. But the reality looks quite different, with music festivals’ budget becoming ever tighter. To understand how festivals can capture and sell the cultural and symbolic value of their events has become essential to their long-term survival. This is where the research of Dr Beatriz Garcia, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool, comes in, which she presented in her talk “Huge Shows, Major Impacts, Modest Budgets.”
Garcia specializes in one-off events such as the Olympics, World Expo and European
Beatriz Garcia researches huge one-off and recurring events.
Photo by Stephan Faber
Capitals of Culture, as well as recurring place-based festivals. She researches what impact these events have on societal change and on culture. Major events are “an opportunity for leisure, social or cultural experience outside the normal range of choices or beyond everyday experience,” she explained.
Festivals have multiple impacts, from economic and physical, to social and cultural impacts. But unfortunately, one element of large festivals is, if they get bigger, they can start to become a burden on the local area, which can provoke anti-festival sentiment.
To understand a festival’s impact, it’s thus important to gather the right data. It’s not just about convincing other people but showing your own team the point of what you’re doing. You must ask the right questions; first, consider what you want to find out Consider how you ask a question and how you might understand the responses. Evaluating your results and collection process helps you to understand if you have achieved what you set out to do.
One example from her research she quoted was the cultural Olympiad, “the cultural activities around the Olympics. In London, in 2012, we found that the budget was £126.6 million over four years. The aim was to make everyone feel included from across the UK.” The result: 5000 press clips in the UK, with 91% being positive or neutral; 204 million broadcast and online views and hits in the UK; 126,000 foreign visitors and 1.6 million national visitors; and 45,000 volunteers.
Another example: as the European Capital of Culture the city of Liverpool had a budget of £130 million. It created £794 million direct spending in the region; attracted 2.6 million foreign tourists, 9.7 million additional tourists, 1000 volunteers; and 60% of residents were involved.
Comparing this with music festivals, Primavera Sound 2024 had a €38 million budget; while Glastonbury 2023 had a £68 million budget, according to Garcia. Primavera saw 130,000 attendees, and a €150 million economic impact on Barcelona, while Glastonbury achieved £168 million economic impact nationally and saw 140,000 visitors.
When it comes to cultural events and festivals, what counts as “huge”? Iconic ceremonies and spectacles count, but there are more meaningful stories to be told that can be difficult to explain.
European City of Culture budgets are around €60 million, Garcia said, while the Olympics have $10 billion. It shows how much of a difference there is between those events. What festivals can learn from this is: whatever budget you’re operating with, the end result can often be similar to the bigger events, and it’s up to you to explain and communicate that. So: what kind of “huge” do you want to be?
But Garcia warned delegates to be careful what they wish for. Promoting yourself as a mega event is a mixed blessing, as it brings huge pressure on teams.
Her recommendation: Tell your story! Play with the data and share it!
Safety & Technology
The Pros and Cons of Artificial Intelligence
In a staged but very entertaining debate, Daniel Vollmer (AppSphere) and Prof Dr York Sure-Vetter (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) took a detailed look at the advantages and disadvantages of artificial intelligence (AI). Prof Sure-Vetter has worked with AI for 25 years, and Vollmer’s company is focused on guiding organizations through digital transformation.
Vollmer opened the talk with some numbers on AI: the German industry association Bitkom found in a study that only 3% of German companies use generative AI, and only 6% planned to do so in 2024. “This is a very small number that has a digital, artificial partner at their side”, Vollmer said. On the other hand, 85% of companies view AI as a chance for their organization. Compared to the USA, only 1/8 of the money is invested into AI in Europe. Interestingly, 78% of managers surveyed said they want more regulations for AI
“To understand things sometimes it’s good to know a little about their history,” Prof Sure-Vetter said. The first computers in 1957 filled up an entire room and still had less processing power than a cell phone has today. AI was basically founded in a summer vacation workshop by some professors and students, among them Herbert Simon, who predicted that computers would beat humans in chess in ten years. It took a bit longer, 40 years in total, but in 1997 IBM Deep Blue became world chess champion. In 2011, IBM Watson became Jeopardy Champion; five years later Google’s DeepMind Alpha Go became Go champion. This was possible because the programs repeated mankind’s history in a much shorter time by playing against themselves, the professor explained. In 2018, the number of papers published on machine learning became exponential – coinciding with the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. For the first time, AI was released to the public and people started using it.
Weirdly enough, there is still no conclusive definition of what “generative AI” means, Vollmer added. The consensus is that AI imitates human thought processes, it learns from data and improves its own performance, and it is adaptable within defined frameworks. Generative AI is used to create content like music and images; unlike discriminative AI, which is trained to recognize differences between data sets (e.g. spam filters). There is a difference between “AI technology” and “AI systems”: an AI system is a user-friendly frame for people to use AI technology.
There are multiple ways in which AI can support organizations, e.g., ChatGPT & Co can help employees perform daily tasks (workplace AI), more advanced AI systems like Microsoft Azure AI Studio can help with data analysis to gain business insights or optimize processes (business AI), and products containing AI like assisted driving systems can be developed and sold (industrial AI).
Professor York Sure-Vetter has 25 years of experience with articial intelligence. Photo by Josef Furis
Vollmer and York presented two concrete examples using AI: a customer service situation in which a chatbot failed to understand the customer’s request, leading to an unwanted outcome, and a brainstorming session with a chatbot on creating a line-up for a rock festival, which turned out more promising results.
Beware Hallucinations and Bias
However, there is one big risk when using chatbots: hallucinations. “If you are engaging with a chatbot, sometimes it comes up with things. I quote some colleagues here: ‘ChatGPT isn’t hallucinating, it’s bullshitting.’ And I think they are right. It doesn’t care whether it’s wrong or right, and this is the problem with this technology,” Prof Sure-Vetter said. Vollmer added: “It’s important that we as humans fact check what the AI comes up with. We are responsible for that.”
Hallucinations happen because AI programs predict which word is likely to appear next based on vast databases of texts. Often, the texts were collected from everywhere and without considering copyright. From this, the AI creates a neural network that is good at predicting words, but it can’t fact check. The AI has no context for what it is talking about, and it doesn’t know why it does what it does, it’s just acting on probability. If AI programs are supposed to fact check, they need additional software that costs money, so not all companies are keen to do it.
One advantage of generative AI is how easy it makes creating pictures for almost anyone. You can edit photos without having editing skills. Generative AI can also be exploited to frame topics much more negatively of positively than they are, as shown with the different examples of generated images on nuclear power. “The tool delivers what you ask it to do. It’s a tool – it’s not intelligent by itself. How we interact with it determines the outcome,” Prof Sure-Vetter said.
This led to the next topic, namely bias. Biases are unconscious attitudes that people have that influence how we make decisions. For example, selection bias: depending on which audience you ask, you get different outcomes, so you shouldn’t generalize from small samples to the majority. “The good thing is: if we know bias, we can do something about it. If we ignore it, society can come up with strange behaviors,” the professor said.
AI tends to replicate common biases, or stereotypes. For example, an image search for ‘nurse’ used to turn up mostly pictures of white women, while a search for ‘doctor’ would turn up mostly pictures of white men. Luckily, most search engines have improved thanks to research on bias. Biases can also be based on skin-color, e.g., non-black hosts are able to charge approximately 12% more money on Airbnb for comparable apartments. Unfortunately, bias in online pricing has now become a feature: with the help of dynamic pricing platforms can charge arbitrary prices, e.g., for hotel rooms.
Daniel Vollmer's company helps organizations through the digital transformation process. Photo by Josef Furis
An Epic Battle of Proponent and Critic
With these things in mind, the speakers emerged into a staged battle on the pros and cons of AI, with Vollmer in a white hoodie representing the optimistic and Sure-Vetter in a black hoodie the pessimistic side:
+ Jump starter: AI enables us to quickly learn about any topic, even as a beginner
- but AI might start to struggle with logic if you try to dive deeper
+ Co-creating content is easy with AI
- but AI can’t do abstract thinking
+ AI enables us to learn by coaching/mentoring
- but it won’t have any original / brand-new ideas
+ AI will accelerate processes, e.g., save time on tasks like customer service
- but it doesn’t handle numbers well
+ AI can be a communication partner if we need to discuss big ideas or tricky situations, e.g. the infinity of the universe
- but it might be too difficult to integrate this into business processes
+ AI helps us brainstorm to get new ideas quickly
- but results might include hallucinations
+ AI can help you understand trends and make decisions based on them
- but it has bias, producing unfair results
+ AI makes your work easier by creating quick meeting minutes etc.
- but this works only with simple stuff, it doesn’t work in complex scenarios
“If you want to use AI, you have to think about these issues. There are some things that will not change,” Prof Sure-Vetter said.
The strategic advantages of AI according to Vollmer: AI promotes a company’s ability to foster innovation, it creates a culture attracting young talent, it optimizes work process and productivity because employees can concentrate on valuecreating tasks, it helps you to quickly familiarize yourself with a topic, it can create an improved customer experience, and you make your business future-proof by adapting to AI.
Looking at possible challenges, according to Sure-Vetter, you will have costs for
technical equipment ranging from smartphones to entire computing systems, you need to think about which data you need and how to collect it before sorting it with AI, you need employees who are skilled in AI, you need to ensure data protection and ethics, you need to consider legal issues, it needs to be secure and reliable, and you need to be aware of the risks.
Looking at the Future
In the end, both took off their hoodies and came together for a mutual conclusion. “You can use AI in many different settings. It’s not black, it’s not white – it’s a tool to use. And hopefully it’s a tool that can make festivals much nicer,” Prof SureVetter said. Vollmer: “AI will not go away, sorry about that. If you won’t use it, others will.”
For their presentation, the duo had created an AI program. Its task was to sort suggestions on how AI technology can support festivals made by the delegates during the session, including suggestions for suitable AI services to realize the ideas. Find the results here.
Safety Exercise: Handling Virus Outbreak, Thunderstorm & Knife attack
In this discussion-based tabletop exercise, delegates had the chance to get active themselves. They took over the roles and responsibilities of festival to discuss how to handle an emergency situation in a fictional setting. The exercise was led by Andreas Mestka (OpenAir St.Gallen & YES Group management), who has years of experience as Health & Safety Manager for festivals, football matches and other cultural and sporting events.
The scenario participants had to face was this: they are part of the team that organizes the fictious Lakeside Festival. A fifth of the festival’s staff is unavailable, the temperatures during the set-up had risen to 40°C, the weather forecast predicts heavy thunderstorms for the last night, and because of a lethal knife attack at another festival, people are worried about copycats. On top of that, the mayor of a neighboring small town has put pressure on the festival, urging it to become a success, because the region had been hit by severe floods the year before. “This is a realistic scenario,” Mestka said. The participants split into groups, and each group had to identify a head of security, a promoter representative and a communication representative.
Vollmer and Sure-Vetter taking off their pro/con AI hoodies to come to a mutual conclusion. Photo by Josef Furis
Session host and event safety expert, Andreas Mestka. Photo by Josef Furis
A
discussing what
Then things get into motion in the fictional setting: on late Saturday evening, the aforementioned sick festival goer enters the site and shortly afterwards collapses. The medical personnel on site send the patient to the hospital because of suspected viral haemorrhagic fever (VHF). Unfortunately, VHF can be transmitted person to person. The authorities have been notified of the situation.
Now, Mestka asked the delegates to come up with a plan on how they would handle the situation. There is disagreement on which threat is the most pressing one. After a while, Mestka interrupts and recommends: sort the threats according to what the festival staff can influence, then prioritize. “Forget about the guy with the knife.” According to him, the potential attacker is an external factor that doesn’t matter at this moment.
Much more pressing: the virus and the weather alert. The Center of Disease Control and Prevention requests that no one can leave the site without leaving their personal information, so all egress is now fully controlled. They also ask the festival to find out who was in touch with the sick person.
Then Mestka developed the fictious situation further: the weather alert becomes more concrete, and rumors about a virus at the festival site spread online. Participants once more get together in groups to discuss the best way to handle the threats.
Finally, the test results come in and confirm that it’s in fact VHF. Half of the visitors have already left the site, many of them unchecked because the festival staff refused to work at the control stations. Then the meteorologist recommends evacuating the site because of the approaching thunderstorm. If that wasn’t bad enough, a gust of wind damages one of the main egresses, making it impassable. Once again, participants were asked to discuss the best way of going forward.
In the end, Mestka revealed that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for cases like this because every festival is unique in its set-up and security threats have to be handled on a case-to-case basis. However, it definitely helps to have thought about potential threats and possible solutions before the situations arise in reality.
central part of the exercise is
to do next with your fellow participants. Photo by Josef Furis
Cybersecurity: Too Important to be Underestimated
Cybersecurity is still an underrated topic in the festival sector. However, what can happen if you ignore the topic became blatantly obvious in the presentations of several experts on the topic from the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and the Cantonal Police Zurich. Ransomware attacks, computer viruses, technical failures – anything is possible.
Why You should Care about your Festival’s Cybersecurity
Maike Vossen from the BSI’s Federal Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-Bund) reported that it’s not unusual to underestimate the importance of cybersecurity. “When we show up, most of the time the reactions are: ‘who are you? And what do you want?’” she said. Most companies have an IT department, so they don’t understand why they should concern themselves with a cyber department.
The reason is simple: to protect your “zeros and ones,” i.e. all data that is stored digitally on a computer. Our data is supposed to be safe, available (when I need my data, I must be able to access it), confidential (only I can have access to my data, no one else), and integer (the data must be correct and not tempered with by outsiders).
The kinds of data that are stored in zeros and ones go far beyond emails and passwords. “Everything that can be controlled by computers is somehow data that has to be protected,” Vossen underlined. Digital data includes:
• Administration: payment system, contracts, HR data
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi, internet access, TV and radio signal
• Advertisement: screens, audio system
• Ticketing and accreditation
Maike Vossen is a cybersecurity expert at the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).
Photo by Stephan Faber
• Lighting
• Power grid
• Environment: fire prevention and alarm, cooling and heating systems
• Physical security: turnstiles at entrances, doors, intrusion alarm, CCTV
• Communication: social media presence, website
“Everything that relies on IT can be attacked, ” Vossen warned the audience. The threats are as diverse as the data to protect:
• Technical failure, as for example with the recent error in an update of the popular antivirus software Crowdstrike. “You should always update your security software,” according to Vossen, so that’s what everyone did, but as a result, over eight million windows computers blue screened. The software was used in airports, McDonald’s restaurants, banks and hospitals all over the world
• Technical sabotage, e.g. blockers to block your Wi-Fi
• Social engineering, e.g. spam emails (phishing): someone is pretending to be a customer or business partner, asking you to sign an attached document, which in fact is a virus. It can also be someone pretending to be you, sending emails to your visitors, phishing for info. E.g. asking them to log in on a fake site with their Facebook account to steal their login details. Also possible on WhatsApp, in text message etc.
• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS): when too many people access a website all at once, this can overburden the servers, causing the site to shut down. This can be caused intentionally by sending many access requests at the same time.
• Defacements: someone uses your social media page or website to, e.g., post propaganda
• Doxing: publishing your private address on other websites and asking people to attack you
• Malware, ransomware: programs that are supposed to hurt your system in some way, e.g. by encrypting your data, and the only way to decrypt them is paying the attackers
Who might attack a festival?
• “Script kiddies”: users who do it for the LOLZ (just for the fun of causing damage), people who like to troll, who are bored
• Criminal groups: they might not target festivals per se but anyone who appears vulnerable and attack them for financial gain. “They are highly organized like a business, have customer service. They will offer you the best support you can get to get them paid,” Vossen said.
• Hacktivists: for political or social reasons, e.g., there is a risk of Russians attacking tournaments with Ukraine teams; loose political groups that are against your agenda and attack you to make a statement
• State actors: for foreign national interests
And how can you protect your event? There is nothing specific for events yet, because the topic is still new in this sector, but there is some general advice available. Vossen recommended checking the website of your country’s equivalent of the BSI.
• Integrate cybersecurity into your business continuity management, i.e. you must do a business impact analysis. Find out who is involved in your event, which IT processes are involved and who is responsible for them – is it your own IT department or contractors? Identify their restrictions. Do you have fall back processes and back-ups? Or does the contractor have some? Does the ticket provider have your ticket info, do they have a backup, is it disconnected from the online backup? How is everything connected? Does a hacking of
your ticket provider affect your other IT? “That’s quite a lot to do, please don’t underestimate it,” Vossen said.
• Implement prevention measures: multifactor authentication, network segmentation, VPN, firewalls, backups – first identify, then implement!
Even if you do your best, according to Vossen, unfortunately there is no total security. So, what can you do if something happens?
• First of all: “Keep calm but take it seriously,” Vossen said. Falling into “headless chicken mode” does not help you.
• Cybersecurity must be part of your crisis management. You need to figure out how to detect and report attacks and to whom, have emergency contacts ready (e.g., police), have an IT emergency provider available, have insurance. And: know how to communicate with your audience in case something happens
How to Deal with False Emergency Calls and Bomb Threats
Laura Lombriser from the Cantonal Police Zurich leads a team of 13 people. Their job: dealing with swatting. Swatting is when someone makes a false emergency call to the authorities with the intent of sending them to another person’s address. This can be a bomb threat, a hostage situation, suicide, homicide etc. Swatting can become a problem for festivals and in one case in Switzerland already has (more below).
The procedure is almost always the same, Lombriser reported. A perpetrator calls a police unit and states the threat, using a false number (“spoofing”), which makes it difficult to trace the perpetrator. Sometimes they write emails or use contact forms. A lot of bomb threats in Switzerland come via mail and forms, Lombriser knew, mostly done via VPN or in the Darknet, so they cannot be traced. Phone calls are mostly made with a technical voice (AI), or young adults are speaking. The goal is to provoke the sending out of armed tactical police units.
The perpetrators delight in spreading chaos and want to see what happens. They like committing a public offense and enjoy the media reporting. Their motive is to cause harm to the affected party or whole events.
The low attendance of the session indicates that the topic of cybersecurity hasn't sunken in with festival organizers yet. Photo by Stephan Faber
Some concrete examples that Lombriser presented:
• A bomb threat at a Balkan festival in Zurich led to it shutting down and the evacuation of 2000 visitors. The threat came shortly before the main act’s performance, and the police couldn’t investigate in time, so the promoter had to cancel his appearance. The police located the perpetrator afterwards, and it turned out it was a fake threat. The perpetrator was a rival of the main act who couldn’t attend the festival and thus sabotaged the performance. Apparently to his gain: the case was reported on in the media and the rival got free PR
• Lombriser played the audience an audio recording of a bomb threat on a plane from Zurich to Los Angeles. The AI voice speaks for seven minutes. The first clue that it’s fake, according to Lombriser: it’s an AI voice of bad quality. The respondent didn’t get a chance to speak; the message just kept on going. Further, the message was in High German, not Swiss German, which is normally spoken in Switzerland. The plane was already going and fortunately nothing happened, but if the threat had come earlier, the police might have evacuated
• A couple of years ago, the Düsseldorf Christmas market was shut down because of a fake bomb threat
• Fake bomb threats to election halls in different US states caused their closing down. Nobody was hurt but people were prevented from voting in these states.
If you receive a bomb threat, immediately contact the police – don’t ignore the threat. It’s vital to cooperate with the police, give them all information and background info like rivalries between acts and festivals. “Our intention is to work together with you. We don’t want to shut down any festivals, but sometimes we have to do it for the security of the people.”
What is Ransomware and how can It Impact your Festival?
Christopher Germann is an expert on ransomware attacks working for the Cantonal Police Zurich. He explained in detail what a ransomware attack is and what you can do if you become victim of such an attack.
Ransomware is a type of malware that is developed and used to commit crimes and has no legitimate purpose. “Malware has only one purpose: to do something malicious and commit crimes,” Germann said. In a ransomware attack, your data gets encrypted using symmetric encryption or a combination of symmetric and asymmetric encryption. The data can be decrypted, so the damage is reversible, but you will have to pay the attackers for the decryption key. The key is unique, meaning your data can only be decrypted again with the key that was used to encrypt it.
Usually, the victims receive a ransom note that is stored on all affected systems, so it shows up when someone logs in. The goal of a ransomware attack is to extort money, usually cryptocurrency.
A ransomware attack happens like this:
• Initial access: the hackers gain access to your network, e.g., in a sophisticated way by contacting an initial access broker on the darknet, or simpler by phishing mails or exploits. For example, because you didn’t update your system and someone exploited a security gap “Please patch and update all your systems frequently,” Germann advised. Sometimes it’s as simple as you leaving your laptop logged in and someone takes advantage.
• Privilege escalation: maybe the hackers got HR credentials, but they need more rights to become the domain admin. This can also be done by exploits. The hackers need to hide
because proper security systems should detect them. “If you have proper cybersecurity, you should be able to fend them off in the first two stages,” Germann said.
• Lateral movement: the hackers have access to and are in control of the entire system. They try to infect more and more systems until they are the king of the domain
• Encryption: the hackers figure out which are the important systems the company can’t work without and encrypt them.
• Interaction: a ransom note with contact information is put onto your system. Now the hackers wait until they get paid
• Clean up: the hackers destroy any traces that might lead back to them and enjoy their success.
From the perspective of the company, it looks more like this:
• Incident: a note pops up, saying your data is encrypted
• Emergency protocol: If this happens, what are my emergency protocols? Who do I have to involve? Who is in my IT department, who can help me out? Do I have insurance I have to contact? Legal department? Incident response team? The difference between the incident response team and the police: if your house is on fire, you call the fire brigade to put out the fire first; the police is the next step to support you.
• Recovery: you need a system analysis to find the malware and remove it, otherwise your system gets infected again and again. If you have backups, you can install them.
• Police: involve law enforcement to investigate the attack.
• Investigation: ransomware attacks are high-tech crimes which target people all around the world. The attackers might have left a fingerprint like the same bitcoin address in all attacks. Law enforcement is able to conduct covert operations and can further analyze the attacked systems.
Germann’s advice to festivals: “Human error is one of the biggest errors you can think of,” so take care of your passwords and logins, have some backups, do updates and patches on time, and have a good IT provider.
The Joys of Outdoors: Extreme Weather
You don’t have to search long to discover European festivals that have been severely impacted by extreme weather these past years. Finding ways to mitigate the effects of thunderstorms, heavy rain and heat waves has become vital to the long-term survival of outdoor events. To get a better understanding of what’s to come regarding climate change, the EFS assembled a panel of experts on weather and its impacts.
Barbora Bodnárová from Pohoda Festival (SK) shared the experience of her festival this year, which suffered a huge weather incident:
“We started on Thursday and had a great line-up for 2024 including Peggy Gou, Skepta and James Blake. But the weather forecast said storms were expected on Friday, which we were prepared for. Our strength at Pohoda is we have a meteorological service right onsite. When dark clouds started to gather, we were told by the meteorological staff that the storm would arrive at 8 p m. So we had to stop the show at 8 p m.
“Stage managers told all in the audience to seek shelter. We expected a lot of rain and winds, but when it arrived, it turned out to be two storms that joined together right over the site. At 8.20 p.m., the wind was 95 kilometers per hour and two centimeters of rain fell in ten minutes. It was very high intensity, with a lot of lightning strikes. The site went totally black, and the wind blew from all around. After the event, we were told we experienced a microburst – cold wind from high up fell down onto the whole airport site.
“The storm was over in 20 minutes and after that we needed to work out what to do next and see what had happened to the site. Many structures had collapsed, everything was soaked, and one of the largest tents had collapsed during the storm, with hundreds of people under it. Fortunately, no one died but there were 30 minor injuries. We realized the storm had gone and the forecast was good for Saturday, but we couldn’t imagine how we could go on with such damage. We couldn’t assess the state of the structures to see if they were safe for people, so we decided to cancel the festival.
“We didn’t ask people to leave immediately. We gave people time to leave, as we had to get 35,000 people offsite. It was our experienced staff and good weather team that helped us deal with this. We also had a good collaboration with the local authorities and supportive visitors. People behaved very well during and after the storm. We had so much support from people – they bought tickets to next year’s event straight after this event.
“But we didn’t have inclement weather insurance, so we had to pay a lot of money including band fees and infrastructure. We had liability insurance in place so we could cover some of the damages through that.
Barbora Bodnárová talking about the weather incident at Pohoda Festival 2024.
Photo by Josef Furis
“We learned that bad weather is here, and we can’t manage it. What’s key is as organizers: we need to be aware and share the message. Everyone needs to know bad weather can happen and keep it in mind and be prepared.”
Prof Dr Michael Kunz (meteorologist at KIT – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, DE) talked about severe connective storms, focusing on hail – his expert topic. He showed some example hailstones of huge size. Convective storms, made up of cells, create a rotation effect and are the strongest type of storm. They tend to happen during European summers. These storms are local-scale events and rarely feature large hail. Severe convective storms tend to be small in size – just 178 km². Even the most severe are only 1,400 km².
Unfortunately, weather forecasts still can’t predict the weather well in small areas. “There are inherent variables in weather forecast that mean it can be hard to predict down to the 1 kilomter level,” Prof Kunz explained. He said climate trends show increasing frequency of hailstorms in southern Europe, and a decrease in northern Europe. Besides hailstorms, we should expect more and more severe thunderstorms in Europe.
Dr Ulrich Blahak of the German Meteorological Service’s data department shared how difficult it is to create super accurate forecasts. Precise forecasts of severe thunderstorms can only be made at short notice. But it’s possible to share the probability of them happening and the associated uncertainty. He demonstrated nowcasting vs. numerical weather prediction. “Even with the best available forecast technologies, there is uncertainty!” he said. Depending on the individual cost-loss-ratio you might take action based on low probability in order to avoid serious consequences.
Tobias Grimm, head of climate advisory at Munich Reinsurance (DE), discussed the insurance aspects of severe weather events. The company is one of the largest reinsurers. “We are here for peak risks,” Grimm underlined.
“We employ many colleagues who model natural catastrophe risks worldwide so we can put a cost on that. We saw there were climate changes 50 years ago and have been preparing ever since. We offer solutions for clients to understand different climate scenarios. Are we facing a new normal of natural catastrophe losses?” Grimm said.
He showed a bar chart showing losses over a year due to natural impacts from 1980 till today. We just exceeded the $100 billion losses mark. Losses have been steadily increasing in the last 40 years – even adjusted for inflation. 2023 was the hottest year on record, and the last ten years were the hottest decade on record. What does it mean that the world is clearly getting hotter? It means change of
Professor Michael Kunz.
Photo by Josef Furis
Ulrich Blahak. Photo by Josef Furis
Tobias Grimm. Photo by Josef Furis
probability of significant weather events. We are facing more heat periods, more drought periods. Weather patterns are shifting.
“We did a climate risk preparedness study among thousands of corporate and government representatives. What it showed was there’s a high concern among people about this, but just 60% of companies and 11% of homeowners are taking significant prevention steps,” Grimm said. The reason for this is an optimism bias, which means if you’ve been affected by a natural disaster, you’re much more likely to take action to prevent it from happening again. But if you haven’t, you’re much less likely to do so. People always think catastrophes will only affect others. “We need to be less complacent. Be well prepared for your individual risk,” Grimm recommended.
VR Simulation of Zone Ex: Excursion to PTV
Developing software solutions which empower mobility for a cleaner, smarter and safer future is the focus of Karlsruhe-based PTV (Planung, Transport, Verkehr –‘Planning, Transport, Traffic’). As the company had recently started experimenting with the new Apple Vision Pro to evaluate new ways of planning traffic around events, the company invited the delegates to their headquarters to experience the VR-simulation first-hand. The technology demo modelled a central intersection with various trafficstreams, including pedestrians, cars and trains in Zone Ex (the area immediately surrounding a festival).
After a warm welcome from PTV Chief Technology Officer Mogens Abel-Bache, Dr Tobias Kretz took over. The product manager for PTV Viswalk introduced the participants to the simulation and explained how to use a VR-Device.
Although the desk in the virtual traffic control room was connected to a visualization of problems in a bigger city, all testers could directly see – with “heads” on – the potential for a planned Zone Ex, making accessibility of a festival site easier, no matter whether you arrive or leave on foot, by bike, public transport or car.
As there was only one VRdevice available, the rest of the excursion participants had the possibility to discuss with a team of PTV product managers the benefits of the system for their own specific needs.
Coincidentally, PTV’s office is located opposite the Hoeffner brewery, where the delegates would come together for the EFS’s dinner event later that day.
Steel in the Dark: Excursion to Megaforce
Megaforce is one of Europe’s leading stage builders, with its headquarters near Karlsruhe. So, it seemed like a good idea to visit the company on the eve of the Summit. After a 30-minute drive from the EFS’ location, Tollhaus, the wild bunch of the excursion arrived at the site in Weingarten, a small village northeast of Karlsruhe.
In the beginning, Michael Möller, Jan Weiß and Doreen Müller of Megaforce shortly introduced some key facts of the products and services of Megaforce. The company rents out about 20 stages that are on tour during the whole festival summer in Europe, from Nova Rock to Taubertal, from Glücksgefühle to Rock for People.
After a round of Q & A, Möller led the excursion through the production site. Unfortunately, outside, besides that it was raining, all the big piles of steel, scaffolding and other weather-proof stage elements lay in the dark. Inside the warehouse, the participants could explore parts of the inhouse facilities that allow the company to create stage systems tailored to specific clients’ needs.
Tobias Kretz from PTV demonstrating how to use the VR headset.
Photo by Stephan Faber
Inside the halls of Megaforce. Photo by Stephan Faber
Ecological Sustainability
Digital Circular Construction: Building with Natural Materials
What do festivals and the construction sector have in common? According to Prof Moritz Dörstelmann (KIT – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), it’s their linear way of functioning. “Both festivals and the construction sector need to come to a circular mode of working,” he said, opening his presentation on digital circular construction.
Prof Dörstelmann wears two hats: everything he researches at KIT, he can directly implement in the construction company he runs. The focus is always on sustainable construction. Wood is the main resource most people associated with this, but often, unsustainably cut wood is imported into the EU, so his team aims for a more diverse look at materials
Among these materials are rapidly-growing willow and flax. Of course, reusing wood is also a method of circular construction. All of this is not new, the professor said. What’s new is they are trying to digitally reinterpret historical construction methods in hybrid structures with the help of computer calculations. “The problem is the complexity of these structures” and that they don’t comply with building codes (yet).
For instance, willow reinforced with earth could replace steel beams, also in horizontally-spanning structures. The team uses digital tools to calculate where they need to place the willow in the earth, so that they use the least material but still come up with sturdy constructions.
Prof Dörstelmann and his students showcased some of their designs at Das Fest. While the constructions presented there didn’t fulfil any architectural function yet, they proved that the design works and can be produced.
One of the methods they use to achieve larger constructions is 3D printing. A 3D printer can, for instance, process 1.70-meter-long willow branches into ceiling components. The advantage: the components are completely recyclable. In the research project Willow Weave, Prof Dörstelmann and his team try to find out how these constructions can be improved to replace ceilings in regular buildings in the long run.
The goal of the project ReSidence, is to find out how willow-earth and flax fibers can be brought together synergistically with digital construction planning to produce larger, multistory buildings that can be constructed completely waste free.
Professor Moritz Dörstelmann showing a construct made of willow.
Photo by Stephan Faber
Furthermore, 3D printing has the potential to provide extremely lightweight structures by using digital design tools to individualize elements. Prof Dörstelmann’s team is responsible for coding the robot which constructs the elements and for the construction itself. The idea is to spin fiber elements around a steel frame, creating “extremely material-efficient structures. The fibrous repertoire that we see in nature is here replicated in technical materials.” The steel is removed at the end of the process, resulting in a six-meter-long column weighing only 50 kilograms. It has been tested to bear high loads, according to the professor. The material is not yet naturally growing but there is potential to apply the method to naturally-growing materials, too.
Using digital planning enables the researchers to expand old construction methods. You couldn’t, e.g., draw 1000 willow lines by hand, but using computer programs can help them calculate this digitally, Prof Dörstelmann explained. This also enables extremely material-efficient constructions.
Some of the professor’s older projects also have the potential to be used at festivals as temporary lightweight festival constructions. For example, a modular roof structure covering a stage that was showcased in a London museum, but “unfortunately was never built ”
Constructions on fiber basis can also be adapted regarding the amount of sunlight they let through (the more fibers, the more shade), or regarding how wind-proof they need to be.
Using computer programs also has the potential to reuse residual wood efficiently. In the project Digital Upcycling: Wood, Prof Dörstelmann’s students scanned leftover pieces of wood and streamlined them into a design process that calculated how to combine them into larger elements. The result was showcased at Das Fest. Potentially, this could be used to create stage decorations or similar at festivals. “There is a lot of potential in here, design wise and in saving resources,” the professor said.
When using natural fibers, some things still need to be optimized, for example how to reduce flammability and how to increase longevity in outdoor settings. But Prof Dörstelmann is optimistic that digital circular construction is slowly getting to a point where it can be applied on a larger scale. His company has been operating in the market for seven years now. What works quite well already are the ceiling elements, according to the professor.
At the end of his talk, Prof Dörstelmann invited festivals that are interested in getting involved in digital circular construction to get in touch with him. He would welcome a challenge at KIT to see how they can support circularity at festivals.
Radical Love & Green Impact: Boom Festival Case Study
Host Claire O’Neill (CEO, A Greener Future) called Portugal’s Boom Festival “an incredible transformative space.” Why she thinks that became obvious in Mariana Macedo’s presentation. Macedo is the co-director of Good Mood, the promoter of Boom Festival.
Boom is a very international festival with visitors from 169 countries, Macedo told the audience. To preserve their beautiful surroundings, the festival has created a sustainability paradigm. They consider festivals to be a tool for human transformation and land regeneration, as microcosms of cities and thus good testing grounds for new solutions.
Boom’s approach is based on permaculture, i.e. preserving, regenerating and extending all permanent landscapes, conserving and increasing water sources, working with nature, preserving and enhancing biodiversity, and designing the event based on the patterns that the land generates. This includes the three concepts of People Care, Earth Care, and Fair share.
20 people work on the grounds throughout the year; five even live there. During Boom, the festival has about 2000 workers and volunteers. More people from abroad have moved to the region and Macedo likes to believe that this is also due to Boom, although she knows that it might be due to land in Portugal being cheap as well
Macedo showed several videos about Boom’s many sustainability measures. Among them are:
• Two on-site water treatment plants: Since draughts are common in Portugal and water is scarce, Boom recycles its used water. E.g., water from showers is cleaned and used to irrigate their orchard.
• 100% compost toilets and turning human waste into fertilizer: 16 employees visit every septic tank every four hours and add a layer of mulch, which slowly turns the feces into fertilizer. The only problem is waste like period products being left behind. The fertilizer’s quality is tested and confirmed by a scientific institute.
• The compost toilets save massive amounts of water. Boom visitors only use 17 liters per person per day, when the average in Portugal is 190 liters. Making the toilets was a big investment, but the outcome is much more sustainable, Macedo said.
• No plastic bottles, only reusable aluminum bottles.
• Will have 100% reusable cups in the next edition.
• All food vendors use 100% biodegradable tableware, made, e.g., from corn starch.
• Using leftover food and tableware to enrich the soil.
• The climate impact of food items is labeled on the menus.
• 1% of their earnings is donated to charities.
• Materials coming in and out of the festival are analyzed in a material flow analysis.
• Recycling thanks to 500 recycling bins throughout the site. Waste is sorted and placed in appropriate containers, also during preproduction. The waste is then collected by a company and reused.
• Reusing materials: most of the materials used in Boom come from previous editions. “Upcycling is part of Boomland’s routine,” Macedo explained. They try to make the most of what they have and minimize the use of new materials. “We have to adapt to nature, not the other way around.”
• Planting: Boomland used to be barren, so the festival planted more than 1000 trees and various shrubs to enhance the ecosystem. Now it is home to many different animal species that are analyzed each year. The trees also give natural shade for festival goers – necessary, considering that the temperatures during the festival regularly reach 40°C. “All we did was look after the most important element for the planet: trees.”
• The reforestation also helps lower the net carbon footprint of Boom. After years of testing, the festival has found a way to measure the visitors’ travel impact, production impact, artist impact, and transport impact emissions of all festival suppliers. The biggest share is the visitor impact.
• 89% of Boom’s suppliers are from Portugal; 18% are from the region.
• Gender balance on the program: 58% men, 42% women, 0.3% non-binary.
• 137 Boomers registered for their accessibility program. They get a free ticket for their assistant, a camping area that is closer to the festival area, and a shuttle for families
• A part of the ticket price goes directly into sustainability measures.
• They have a “friendly ticket price” for people from developing countries. Every edition invites 500 residents of a chosen country to come for free.
• Partners collect some of the left-behind tents and rent them out at other festivals.
Build your own Festival Utopia: Creative 3D Mapping Group Workshop
Sometimes it’s hard to imagine something new when you’re stuck in your ways. To help the delegates imagine their perfect festival utopias, Jacob Bilabel (Green Culture Anlaufstelle & GO Group, DE) invited them to a 3D mapping workshop. In groups, the participants could build their own festival sites out of many different objects like modeling clay, boxes, wooden figurines, dice, Lego pieces, pens, string and more. The 3D mapping and process is based on Theory U by Otto Scharmer and Peter Senge (MIT) as well as Symbols Process (Ashland Institute).
Mariana Macedo.
Photo by Stephan Faber
At first, the participants were asked to produce a model that represents the current state of festivals. Each member could place one item or more on the table, while explaining to the team what the item represents.
In the next part, the participants were asked to reflect on their result from four different angles. These came with different questions each:
• Feeling & relationship: What do you love in this picture? What about it ignites your best energies? What other emotions arise? If this emotion could talk, what would it say? What are the essential relationships, connections or separations between the parts and what feelings do these generate?
• Truth & action: What are the key conflicts and hard truths that you have to face in order to move forward? Where do the different sources of power lie in this system?
• Perspective: What are the most important barriers or bottlenecks that if removed could help the current system to evolve?
• Purpose: What is ending in this situation [wanting to die], and what is seeking to emerge [wanting to be born]? What do you feel is the highest future potential that is being called for in this situation?
In part three, participants were asked to adapt their models to map their preferred vision of the future of festivals. This could mean moving, removing or adding objects or giving them new meaning.
The last part asked them to reflect on the differences between their models:
• Result: What are the most important structural differences between model 1 and 2?
• Process: What were the most important changes that transformed model 1 into model 2? What key intervention shifted the old structure model 1 into the new model 2? What did you do first? What was the first significant change that you undertook as a team?
• Leverage Points: What in your view might be the most important leverage points that if you were to focus on them as a team could help you to move the old model system to the new?
Participants could build their festival models out of all sorts of elements.
Photo by Stephan Faber
In the end, each group presented their models and thought processes to the others. One of the sentiments that came from people outside the world of festivals was: “Infield sucks!” So, in their model, they removed the separation between the infield and campsite. At first, two tables competed against each other for better ideas, but then realized it makes more sense to cooperate with each other. “It sounds bit like a calendar motto, but it worked,” Bilabel said. Others realized only much later that they completely forgot about sponsors and money in their models – “and I loved that!”
Communication, Marketing & Finances
Fan Survey: What our Visitors Want
In 2024, YOUROPE and its associated member Höme got together to launch the first pan-European festival fan survey. Höme co-director Isabel Roudsarabi shared the results of the survey that collected the answers of more than 7,000 festival fans from 46 countries.
Most respondents were younger, aged 18 to 29. 61% identify as female, 37% as male and 2% as non-binary. 33% came from Germany, 12% from Finland; 10% from Switzerland.
43% said they visit festivals abroad, which presents an interesting opportunity for cross-border events.
The top genres were Rock (51%); Electronic (51%); Pop (48%) and Hip Hop (34%).
Fans favor bigger festivals of over 50,000 capacity (52%), and multi-day festivals are preferred (905) over one-day events. Roudsarabi noted that this could be due to larger festivals sharing the survey and attracting a larger proportion of respondents.
Höme co-director Isabel Roudsarabi helped conduct the fan survey. Photo by Josef Furis
People prefer atmosphere over headliners, with 85% choosing this as their reason to attend, while 54% selected headliners. 84% of people found new favorite artists at festivals. They also quoted meeting new people (70%) as one of the reasons to visit festivals.
Respondents tended to go to more than one festival per year.
What would people spend extra money on? 55% said they appreciate on-site supermarkets, and 54% want warm showers, while just 18% choose VIP exclusive views. Yet, 17% wanted VIP treatment, which shows potential for high margin offers.
When it comes to sustainability and social responsibility, how much do visitors care? It turns out, they aren’t too interested in this. The survey results showed fans want greener festivals but resist personal change. For 23% of respondents, the statement “At festivals, I don’t want to worry about sustainability” resonated. Another 29% disagree, at least to some extent, while over half remain fairly neutral on the subject. 45% see sustainability as a shared responsibility of all those involved in a festival (organizers, audience, artists etc.), yet 43% still go to festivals by car. 63% would use greener transport options, e.g., if there were better and cheaper connections available.
Fans generally support free water stations (87%) and 63% are in favor of banning single-use plastic. 79% support paying an extra fee so festivals can implement sustainable measures – at an average of €1-10.
When it comes to diversity, 83% feel that everyone should feel welcome at festivals, with only 6% feeling rather insecure on site, averaging a 4.7 on a 0-6 scale. Safety measures such as awareness teams and lighting contribute to feeling safe.
920 participants identified as having a disability or being neurodivergent, and their answers showed that accessibility still faces serious issues: only between 5 and 16% of the respondents are satisfied with available services for disabled and neurodivergent people. And only 6% of festivals offer free companion tickets for disabled attendees. There is also a severe lack of quiet zones at festivals, according to respondents.
Exploring how people spend at festivals revealed that 24% spend €200-299 on tickets, while 47% find prices too high. The other half thinks prices are adequate for the program that is offered, while virtually no one thinks prices are too low. Onsite spending averages around €80-100.
Even though some festivals have started offering solidarity tickets to keep their events accessible for people with low incomes, only 15% of the respondents are willing to finance them – even though 42% think festivals should offer them.
Most people (84%) get their tickets directly from the festival website; just 3% use secondary sites.
➔ For a more detailed report of the results, please refer to the article on the fan survey in the European Festival Report 2024 (pp. 44-48).
How Festivals can Survive in the Era of Gen Z and TikTok
As festival promoters age, it gets harder to keep in touch with young festival audiences and produce events that are relevant in their eyes. Luckily, there are agencies like Promoplug that are specialized in connecting the young Gen Z with the older millennial, Gen X and Boomer generations. Promoplug is made up of Gen Zers and works with many major German artists like Ski Aggu and Herbert Grönemeyer to build fan communities, as CEO and founder Julius Lutz explained.
According to him, almost everyone in Gen Z is a creator. Before TikTok, 90% of social media users were consumers; 9% interacted with online content and only 1% created content themselves. Now 60% of users post once a week, so they are creators.
He also warned against generalizing Gen Z. There is no one “target group ” Instead, Gen Z is based on many different ‘content bubbles.’ It’s about finding people’s content bubbles rather than demographics/likes.
While Gen Z live both online and offline, people tend to get excited about offline events ONLY if they’ve seen it hyped online first. A German rapper promoted the burger brand Food Brother online, and so lots of Gen Zers went to buy burgers there, even though there was no concert. Similarly, it feels like the music industry has arrived at a point where bands don’t get a record deal if they don’t have TikTok hype. People blowing up on TikTok get signed by big labels, Lutz noted.
So, how can you compete in this fast-moving landscape? The answer is simple: endless output. With 60% of users putting out content, you have to be putting out a lot of content to compete for eyeballs.
German Hip Hop festival Splash does a good job of this – there are differing levels of interaction and views, but it doesn’t matter. When the ticket sale launches, they have regular content already going out all the time. Don’t focus on ticket or announcement cycle, post all year round, Lutz recommended.
What content works? Today’s society wants ‘bold and real’. It’s not meant to be commercial; it should be authentic instead. Consider doing a secret hunt – UK fashion brands have been doing this to great effect. They do hunts when their new shirt drops and people will document their search online, which gives you more visibility. This could be done with tickets instead of shirts, for example.
Another example of how content can create momentum for your event: a woman sprayed a car with ‘cheater,’ and afterwards everyone started seeing it around the town and shared it. What can festivals do locally to encourage people to spot something in the street and share it? #getyourphoneout
Promoplug founder Julius Lutz knows it's all about content, content, content! Photo by Josef Furis
Lutz also noted that huge influencers aren’t necessarily better to work with because they have more followers. Smaller creators with 5000 to 10,000 followers provide better value because you can work with many of them for the price of one influencer with millions of followers. Can you bring creators together with artists? Creators will make content for free, which gives visibility to festivals. You could, e.g., offer a one-hour content slot with artists and creators.
A great way to be authentic is giving people an insight into your business by getting the team to create content using their own personal accounts. For example, your bookers could make videos regularly.
What could be a creative way to announce your line-up? Try ‘10 main acts revealed by 10 influencers over 3 days,’ Lutz suggested. This creates engagement across different content bubbles. Or do line-up reaction streams – allowing streamers to share their reactions.
For some time, social media platforms have been rewarding users that engage a lot with specific sites with fan badges for these sites. You can use these superfans as multipliers, because they create content that influences people. It comes directly from the heart rather than being an influencer, which can be seen as less authentic
Before the festival days, you can consider doing giveaways through creators – it means they will come as well as their audience. TikTok is good for this as all interaction boosts views.
After the festival, you can post highlight clips, relatable content like POV (point-of-view) videos, throwbacks etc. Artist rankings also drive interaction – but this should be done by creators rather than the festival itself.
“Go with Gen Z or go home,” was Lutz’ conclusion. If you want your festival to stay relevant, you have to engage with them.
EU Funding Opportunities for Festivals: Creative Europe Program
It is possible for festivals to receive funding from the European Union in different programs, but the application process can be hard to navigate for non-experts. To help festivals navigate the bureaucratic jungle, Lea Stöver (Head of Creative Europe Desk Culture, Germany) gave a presentation on the EU funding program Creative Europe.
Creative Europe is the only EU funding program specifically for the cultural and creative sectors. Other programs like Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe might be interesting for the CCI as well, but they focus on topics like education.
Between 2021 and 2027, Creative Europe has a budget of €2.44 billion. The majority goes to media projects, i.e. film (58%), culture gets 33%, and 9% are for cross-sectorial projects connecting media and culture. Culture includes everything from architecture to circuses.
The central topics of Creative Europe are supporting cultural and artistic creation; promoting European content; strengthening innovation and mobility (European cooperation and networking); fostering inclusion, gender equality, diversity and greening measures; and developing competitiveness (making European content and artists visible beyond European borders)
The EU Commission is responsible for the program, determines its strategy, fights for the funding, and evaluates the program. They work hand in hand with the Executive Agency EACEA, which takes care of the operational implementation, e.g. financing and contracting. Then there are 40 Creative Europe Desks, one in every involved country “Our job is to communicate about what they decided in Brussels. We hope to make the life of the funding recipients easier,” Stöver said. If you have an idea for a project, it’s a good idea to get in touch with the Creative Europe Desk of your country.
There are different funding schemes within Creative Europe, but Stöver said that European cooperation projects and Culture Moves Europe are the two most approachable projects for funding beginners.
➔ European cooperation projects: “There are four key aspects that must be at the center of your project idea,” Stöver explained. First, you need a common idea or challenge you want to tackle. Then, you need to produce, create, innovate, experiment and/or learn together with your project partners, because a cooperation project has “the idea of European cooperation at its heart ” Next, “it’s all about finding European answers.” Lastly, the ultimate goal should be to make a change for the European creative sector or your specific sector, something that improves what we are doing. “Think a bit bigger. That’s what the EU wants.” What’s more: “The program doesn’t force you to think in your festival bubble. You can work with people from everywhere ”
Of course, there are some formal requirements that depend on whether you apply for a small, middle or big scale project. The difference is the number of partners you need and the amount of funding you get “It’s always easier to manage three organizations than ten,” Stöver said from experience, but what’s best for you really depends on what you want to achieve and what your capacities are. All projects run for a maximum of four years but can be shorter. The shortest project Stöver saw lasted ten months. Below this, the project might not be worth doing.
In cooperation projects, you always have to fund between 20% and 40% of the total costs yourself. How? “That’s your problem,” Stöver said, laughing. The one thing you cannot do is apply for other EU funding – anything else the EU doesn’t care about. You can use your own resources, you can come into the project with costs already covered, e.g. salaries for employees. Other national or international
Lea Stöver is an expert on the Creative Europe program.
Photo by Stephan Faber
funding is fine as well. You can use the revenue you raised as a festival. “Every project has another strategy ” The good thing: you don’t have to prove that you have sufficient funds
Many countries in Europe are eligible to apply (expect UK, Switzerland, Moldavia and Belarus), including Ukraine, Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein, and even Tunisia as a neighbor of the EU.
Another formal, but important criterium: “partners” are defined as organizations as legal persons, i.e. single artists are not eligible. A grey zone: sole proprietors, i.e. people working for themselves – this needs to be discussed individually with the desks.
Regarding the timeline for the next application phase, a call for applications will be published in December 2024. The deadline will be approximately in mid-May; the results will come circa six months after submission; and the project starts about 9-12 months after submission. If you apply, don’t start too early, because you might not be selected. For bigscale projects, there is a call every two years, for mid-sized and small projects each year
Every cooperation project has to serve one of these objectives: 1) strengthening the transnational creation and circulation of European works and artists, or 2) enhancing the capacity of European cultural and creative sectors to nurture talents, to innovate, to prosper and to generate jobs and growth. Next, you need to determine a key aspect out of these: audience development, social inclusion, greening, digitization, international dimension, or Ukraine
Furthermore, each project needs to contribute to all of these four overarching priorities: digital transition, greening, inclusion and gender equality, and international relations. Greening means everything related to ecological sustainability (e.g. waste management, CO2 reduction). You cannot write an application without these aspects because they will be evaluated.
A great example for a successful and renowned project funded by Creative Europe is Keychange Meanwhile, they are in their third round of funding. Due to Brexit, it is now lead by RBX GmbH, the company behind Reeperbahn Festival (RBF).
The EU funding doesn’t support RBF in its core activities, but it lets them add new activities to their normal program. “This is how you should think about a cooperation project: it will most likely not fund what you already do, but something which you want to develop on top. If you’re struggling with funding your normal activities, then this program might not be for you,” Stöver explained.
➔ Culture Moves Europe: Before closing, Stöver briefly mentioned the second program she had introduced earlier, Culture Moves Europe. Its goal is to promote the mobility of artists, cultural
professionals and cultural organizations. It can finance individual mobility as well as residency funding.
Individuals can receive funding for journeys that are between seven and 60 days long; groups of up to five people can receive money for journeys that last between one and three weeks. The requirement is that there is an international partner that serves as a host. Travel is possible to all 40 Creative Europe countries.
Successful applicants receive a per diem and a travel allowance. People with disabilities can get up to twice the regular amount. Visa costs, costs for family members or sustainable traveling can also be funded on top. Applications can be submitted almost every month of the year in a “rolling call.”
Questions from the audience
➔ “How do I find partners? Do I need to do that myself?” Stöver: There is not a set procedure to find partners. You can fill in a partner form at the Creative Europe Desks. The desks can help by reaching out to other desks, asking for potential partners, but can’t promise to find someone. It’s always a good idea to go to conferences like the EFS because it allows you to meet people interested in European cooperation.
➔ “Is there a chance for commercial pop festivals to get funding? It feels like they look down on us.” Stöver: “The EU doesn’t make a difference between organizations that earn money with culture and those who don’t. Don’t worry about that.” Also: “The host organization for the desk is never involved in the selection process,” granting that all applicants will be treated fairly.
➔ “What if you already get funding but it’s not enough?” Stöver: Don’t sell it to the EU like that because they cannot get involved in an already existing project. Instead, applicants can say in their application that they want to expand an existing project with new European partners – Creative Europe always wants a new project, but it’s a plus to have experience.
➔ “Is it more likely to get funding for artist cooperations or for implementing standards for software? Is there a difference?” Stöver: No, but your idea must be convincing. Show that there is a need – present a problem that you want to solve and the solution you have. “An application is always a narrative.”
➔ “Are Creative Europe Desks in touch with regional projects?” Stöver: Not really. They usually know about them but the projects are not part of their work.
➔ “Can you start working on your project before your application is approved and get the costs covered retroactively?” Stöver: “It’s possible but I don’t recommend counting on that. It’s an individual decision by the Executive Agency.” This bears the risk of not getting selected, so if you do it, have money from somewhere else ready.
➔ “If you get funding, how is it paid out?” Stöver: In small and mid-sized projects you get 80% of the EU funding at the beginning after the contract has been signed. This means up to €800,000 will be paid to the lead partner. “There is always a lead partner who is in charge of the management of the project,” doing the contractual and administrative work, Stöver explained. “They also have to make sure you are successful.” After you have delivered your final, and if it is approved, you will receive the final 20%. So, you must prefinance a certain amount of money, but you don’t have to prove how you spent the money, just that you delivered the promised results.
➔ “Does the project need to be successful?” Stöver: That depends on how you define success. E.g., for the EFS, you’d have to hand in participants lists, photos, maybe videos to prove that it took place – but the EU doesn’t care about how good it was. “The definition of success: you fulfil the activities that you promised.” You can also report if you found that something didn’t work, e.g., if a software didn’t turn out as planned and still needs improving.
➔ “Is it possible to make amendments to change money to another work package?” Stöver: If something changes, you can approach the EU and tell them; then you work out together how to adapt the project.
Social Sustainability
Roundtable: Can Music Save Ukraine?
As Ukraine faces a third year of war, European festivals continue to support those in need with a partnership between YOUROPE and Music Saves Ukraine (MSU), the humanitarian initiative of the Ukrainian Association of Music Events. The initiative saw the MSU team visit festivals across Europe this summer to tell their stories, whilst European festival representatives visited Ukraine to see firsthand the realities of a country at war in the Music Ambassadors Tour. The MSU team also provided resources to interested festivals, empowering them to raise awareness and funds.
At the EFS, representatives of Music Saves Ukraine and European festivals got together at a roundtable to discuss the future of their cooperations. Vlad Yaremchuk, head programmer at Atlas Festival in Kyiv and partnership manager at MSU, joined remotely via video call, but had to leave after 40 minutes because of air raid alarms going off in his hometown Kyiv. He was joined by Christof Huber (OpenAir St.Gallen & YOUROPE chairman), Ville Koivisto (Provinssi Festival), Markus Wiersch (Das Fest & KME), Paula Poštolková (Pohoda Festival), Holger Jan Schmidt (YOUROPE General Secretary & Das Fest), who have actively supported Ukraine since the beginning of the war, and a handful of other interested delegates.
Yaremchuk reported that MSU has continued its mission to use the power of music to make a difference. With the war showing no signs of abating, their work remains essential. Thanks to support from the European music and festival industries, the initiative had raised more than €630,000 in total, with all funds going to humanitarian aid and the rebuilding of cultural infrastructure in Ukraine.
The festivals present at the roundtable stated that, despite the many shared and individual challenges their events face, they want to continue supporting MSU, both with activities and funds. However, the biggest challenge that MSU and the festivals must solve is that after two years of war, it is getting
Vlad Yaremchuk from Atlas Festival and Music Saves Ukraine joining the roundtable from Kyiv. Photo by Stephan Faber
harder and harder to capture the audience’s attention. Visitors have gotten used to the topic, so that their support is not as strong as it used to be.
It seems that just putting up an info tent won’t cut it anymore, the festivals agreed, discussing which methods could be more effective. The festivals talked about supplying tools and infrastructure that are more disruptive and that can go on tour. The goal is to ‘abduct’ the visitors for a moment from the festival setting to confront them with the reality of what is happening in Ukraine. This could, e.g., be achieved with a traveling container that is equipped with some kind of multimedia element.
In the end, the present festivals agreed to develop a design concept together with their Ukrainian partners in early 2025, being aware that it might need to be revisited, depending on how the war will develop. There was no doubt among the participants that Ukraine will continue to require humanitarian aid, evacuations and support of displaced Ukrainians. At the same time, Ukrainians are already rebuilding cultural institutions that were targeted by Russia to enable cultural participation and education for the Ukrainian population, particularly for young Ukrainians. This is something that the festivals equally want to support with collected donations in the future.
of Music Saves Ukraine’s 2024 activities
Music Ambassadors Tour
In March, the team organized the second Music Ambassadors Tour – a project in which some of the biggest names from the international music industry, including festival organizers, promoters, artists, journalists, and cultural figures, visit Ukraine to witness the conditions there first-hand. This year’s participants included Huber, Wiersch, Koivisto, Michal Kaščak (Pohoda Festival), Jozsef Kardos (Sziget Festival), and Girts Majors (Positivus Festival).
During a five-day stay, the ambassadors visited Kyiv to see how the city’s residents have adapted to the realities of wartime. They also visited other towns in the region in which the destruction was visible; heard personal stories from those who survived the occupation; visited the House of Culture
Highlights
in Borodyanka, home to a music school that was completely wiped out during the occupation; visited the Kyiv Rehabilitation Institute, which is engaged in the rehabilitation of Ukrainians affected by the war; and saw how MSU was able to help with necessary equipment, thanks to the efforts of YOUROPE’s Festivals for Ukraine fundraising campaign and the Pohoda Loves Ukraine event.
Summer Festival Tour
This summer, MSU hit the road again to participate in some of Europe’s biggest festivals, to spread the message about the current situation in Ukraine and raise funds for humanitarian aid. The team established a dedicated Music Saves Ukraine zone at various festivals, including Provinssi (FI), Open'er (PL), Pohoda (SK), and at three sold-out shows by German band Die Ärzte in Berlin.
Additionally, the team helped festivals book Ukrainian artists, organized and took part in panels dedicated to Ukraine, screened the Music Ambassadors Tour documentary, and initiated other fundraising activities.
MSU worked with 15 festivals in ten countries, bringing nine Ukrainian artists to festival stages and raising more than €78,000, which will be spent on humanitarian aid and rebuilding Ukrainian cultural infrastructure.
Festivals for Ukraine Toolkit
In July, MSU, in collaboration with YOUROPE, released the Festivals for Ukraine Toolkit, developed as part of YOUROPE’s three-year Future-Fit Festivals (3F) project. The toolkit comprises various measures and activities that festival organizers can undertake to use their events as a platform for raising funds and awareness. It contains step-by-step guides, case studies from some of Europe’s biggest festivals, and advice on how to implement schemes and activities during events and festivals. The toolkit has been tested and continually improved upon since the invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.
The toolkit can also be used to support any social cause that an event wishes to advocate for. It’s YOUROPE and MSU’s hope that it will enable the music event industry to realize the immense potential it has to make the world a better place for all.
Creating a Glimpse of Utopia: Roskilde Festival Case Study
Roskilde Festival (RF) is a great example of what happens when you dedicate your entire organization and event to your values. They use their event to help their participants imagine a better future. Originally, they had chosen “Utopia” as a theme for three years, guiding the entire design, programming and implementation of the festival, but have decided to keep it indefinitely, until society has actually managed to achieve a better future. In their presentation, Kara Djurhuus (head of philanthropy) and Mika Christoffersen (head of DEI & behavior) talked about the many measures that RF uses to help their visitors gain a positive outlook on the future.
Kara Djurhuus is Roskilde Festival's head of philanthropy.
Photo by Stephan Faber
RF is the largest youth cultural platform in Denmark, with 100,000 participants each year and 30,000 volunteers. It’s a non-profit organization, so “each year we donate our profits in full,” Djurhuus stated, to projects supporting young people, emerging artists and activists.
Most people have difficulties imagining the world radically different, because we have an imagination crisis, Djurhuus said. We either add a little more of what we like or remove something we don’t like, but that’s usually it. This imagination crisis is also visible in arts and culture. Since the 1960s, there has been a steady decline in utopian arts and an increase in dystopian. “It’s easier for us to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism,” Djurhuus said.
Utopia was chosen as a theme in the same year the IPCC report came out, which emphasized that climate change is real, and we need to act fast to counter it. “It’s a very historic time that we live in. The consequences of the decision we make at this particular moment in time will last for decades on this planet.” Djurhuus believes that festivals have the power to speak to people through arts and culture because they have a very strong link to their community. It’s exactly this transformative potential that RF wants to activate: create utopian glimpses of what the future could look like to accelerate collective agency for change.
RF offers an entire stage to activism, called Flokkr, partnering with a range of NGOs. But they are aware that strongly value-based communication only reaches 20% of the people – the ones already sharing the values. So, at Flokkr lab, the festival tries to broaden the activists’ skills with different approaches from arts and culture. “The more tools in the toolbox, the more people we can reach,” Djurhuus said.
At Flokkr, for example, visitors were asked Sunday morning to go on a meditation journey and imagine the future. Their ideas were visualized by artists Baum & Leahy. Interesting: no one imagined the future without it being green and nature having a prominent place.
RF also pays attention to creating diversity on the (main) stage, in the arts program and in the activism program. 2023 for instance, Burna Boy headlined, and you could see that diversity went up in the audience as well. “It was a much more mixed crowd. It really made a difference that we had a Nigerian headliner,” Djurhuus said.
“Just being at Roskilde is actually utopian for many of our participants,” she continued. There is a spirit of trust and support, there is always someone you can talk to. “That to young people today is utopian.”
But it’s also the smaller things, like the biodegradable glitter on their cheeks.
As head of diversity, equity, inclusion & behavior, Christoffersen is involved in many of the concrete measures on the ground. Every year, the team plans the fourth largest city in Denmark and builds it from scratch. In the early years, RF had a fence in front of the stage, separating the artist from the audience. “What does that say about the expected behavior? Are we protecting the artists or the participants? And from what? There is lots of implied behavior here,” Christoffersen said.
Mika Christoffersen manages RF's many Utopia projects. Photo by Josef Furis
Today, there is no more fence at the stage because, if you design the festival expecting that everyone will be a bad egg, then people will rise to the occasion. “At Roskilde, we believe in people. And I know it sounds very corny. We have to hold ourselves to this standard that people will want these things, this utopia,” Christoffersen said. There are also no more fences around the infield before the start of the program in the infield, just barrier tape and festival staff communicating: we aren’t ready yet, please don’t come in. And the result: nobody rebelled because there was nothing to rebel against. “People respect this.” The few people who wandered in were kindly asked to leave and did so.
“All our communication is action driven. We always communicate what we want people to do, not what we don’t want them to do,” Christoffersen further explained. They want people to be activists and do something positive.
RF offers free period products and squat urinals for more gender equality.
Rest is prioritized because you can’t experience the festival fully when you don’t take care of yourself. They recognize seven types of rest, e.g. physical, mental, and creative, and encourage different kinds of breaks, e.g., from alcohol and from partying.
Furthermore, RF offers so-called Soft Spots. “They are not a safer space, but a place where you can go and be soft or a soft place to land,” Christoffersen explained. It’s an attempt to reach the other 80% and the young men who don’t see how they can engage in sensitive conversations. “We want everyone to be a part of the Utopia.” Most often, it’s young men who cross other’s boundaries, but they also cross their own boundaries most often – they can’t talk about consent, they can’t say no to their friends, Christoffersen continued. That’s why Soft Spots offer flirting workshops on how to flirt without crossing boundaries and nail painting sessions with young guys talking about their feelings. In the beginning, the spots had a roughly 50/50 gender-split, now 2/3 of the visitors are men.
Another guiding principle at Roskilde is accessibility / access intimacy. It’s the feeling that you get when you look at something and see if you’re welcome or not. “Who wants to participate in a party where no one invited you?” Christoffersen asked rhetorically. RF considers four types of accessibility:
physical, psychological (access intimacy), organizational (can I volunteer, get a job, be a part of the system?) and social (do people want to hang out with me or will I be a bother?).
They have podiums in front of the stages that are the same height as the people standing around it, so people on and off the podium can talk to each other. There is space for people in wheelchairs and benches, so there is no reward of getting on there if you don’t need to because you have to sit down.
Dream City, a part of the campsite, is completely participant-built and driven. They have three months to build it and often end up building things like a functioning post office, a zoo, a fire station; there is a pride parade and an accessibility parade – and you can participate in a naked race.
Christoffersen summarized RF’s approach with a quote by author Toni Morrison: “Freedom is choosing your responsibility; it’s not having no responsibilities. It’s choosing the ones you want.”
Networking, Fun Stuff, and a Quick Reality Check
On Monday evening, all delegates were invited to a casual get together at Alte Hackerei, a former butcher’s canteen turned bar and a true rock’n’roll jewel in southwest Germany. Over tasty treats from the grill from the inhouse food truck, delegates got to know each other and laid the foundation for two extraordinary days. Where riffs usually fly around and people go for a nice crowd surf, their stories and expectations were the focus of the night. The organizers kept it personal and informal at the venue, which opened exclusively for the delegates.
Thanks to the EFS’ partners Hoepfner, Megaforce, and Crystal Sound, YOUROPE and KME were able to host a dinner on Tuesday night, followed by the “Lazy Lounging with Legends” reception. For the event, Hoepfner brewery had turned one of their bottling halls into an atmospheric event area. A great opportunity to make new unexpected friends, finish a thought from a discussion panel or enjoy chatting with some old buddies. Participants also had the chance to take a closer look at the brewery and the beer creation process.
A surprise during the dinner event brought tears to the eyes of some delegates. Rüdiger Linhof, better known as the bassist of Sportfreunde Stiller, had prepared a performance by Ukrainian musician Maksym Chmyr. Chmyr is a pianist, singer-songwriter and founder of the pop band The Castle
Closed shop! | Outdoor area at Alte Hackerei. Photos by Stephan Faber
Dinner at Hoepfner brewery. Photo by Josef Furis
from Lviv. The musician streamed two songs live from his Ukrainian hometown, including Lean on Me by Bill Withers.
YOUROPE's General Secretary Holger Jan Schmidt used the EFS several times to draw attention to the war in Ukraine. He said that YOUROPE will continue its support together with the aid organization Music Saves Ukraine for as long as necessary. He called on those present not to forget Ukraine and also to consider how they can support the country with their events.
Top left: Rüdiger Linhof (l.) and Holger Jan Schmidt, introducing Maksym Chmyr's live performance from Ukraine (top right). Bottom row: Hoepfner turned one of its brewery halls into atmospheric event location. Photos by Josef Furis
The European Festival Summit's short aftermovie can be found here.