Dear Italiafestival, dear Italian Festivals members of EFA,Here I am from Brussels with a pre-Christmas call for action to you. I could not put my enthusiasm in less words…, so here we go:I am writing to you first of all to thank you for your year-long engagement and joint responsibility for EFA and the festivals community. Our permanent voice to bring the arts’ role in today’s world under the attention of policy makers delivers its results:
- 50% increase of budget for the arts in the Creative Europe 2020-2027 is proposed
- Festivals have an earmarked programme with ‘Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe – EFFE’ on a European level
- Our annual round table with EU Commissioner for Culture brings an informed policy debate
- Our contacts and exchanges in Asia and Africa are opening new forms of cooperation
- 560 Alumni today participated in EFA’s training programmes and allowed a global conversation about arts festivals
- The annual Arts Festivals Summit (for its third edition in 2019 in Lisbon) brings 250 festival makers together to meet and exchange
–EFA wants to see its stakeholders ride the waves of innovation – without compromising traditions – so that all EFA members can exert their influence on the international scene.Today, we reach out to your colleagues and your personal network: we are calling, together with our members, to new festivals to join EFA. To influence Europe’s direction, EFA needs a large and impressive fleet.
I hope you can join our efforts, and you can take an hour or so to think who would need to get our invitation. Send us their contacts, or even approach one or two colleagues directly to become a member of EFA.The European Festivals Association (EFA) is our community of arts festival makers. It was founded in 1952 to create bridges and reduce the distance between festivals. Not only 88 members, but also 1129 EFFE Label holders so far as well as 560 Alumni of The Festival Academy’s training programmes are part of the festivals community united in EFA.
EFA is becoming a “We” story, linking people and organisations active in the arts management field. It is a story that is reaching beyond Europe as it strives to consolidate interaction between continents, countries and cultures so that there can be mutual inspiration, influence and confrontation. The content of EFA is changing, developing, evolving constantly to be an organisation of its time. We have created the house and together with the EFA Board, we feel that the structure can be filled with more members, more muscles.
Art is fundamental to our communities. The beauty and meaning, exaltation and opposition that are intrinsic to art make it a potentially healing industry that demands our commitment. EFA guides the discourse on the value of arts festivals. A sector that is so unique and that shares a myriad of concerns on intellectual, artistic, material and organisational level deserves a strong umbrella organisation that supports local initiatives and gives arts festivals a unified voice. If EFA did not exist, it would need to be created.
Find here : Join Us – Our invitation to Festivals with all links and contacts needed for further correspondence.Thank you very much for your contribution – we are here as always with any further guidance and would be happy to hear from you.
With my warmest wishes,
Kathrin DeventerEFA Secretary GeneralEuropean Festivals Association
Square Sainctelette 17 – 1000 Brussels – Belgium
T: +32 2 644 48 00
The activities in the EFA RISE project are implemented with the support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.