Programming arts festivals in Asia and Europe | call for articles

The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), European Festivals Association (EFA) and LASALLE College of the Arts are calling for articles for their upcoming publication about programming arts festivals in Asia and Europe.

The aim of the publication is to pass on insights, case studies, best practices and lessons learnt to the next generation of festival managers. It will consist of a collection of articles by industry professionals and is aimed towards young festival managers, tertiary arts management students and those interested in how festivals work. This publication arose out of the Atelier for Young Festival Managers held in Singapore in May 2011.”

The organisers are looking for articles that present a case study of arts festivals under one of the following topics:

Artistic programming of festivals

This section will focus on the artistic aspects of festival management, including artistic vision, political and social responsibility in relation to the cultural and artistic significance of a festival in a certain region. Does the programming of a festival depend on local audiences, government pressure or should it be mainly curated with the artist in mind.

Finding your audience

This section looks at the different aspects of audience and how audiences effect festival programming. How do arts festivals target their audiences? Do they find a niche market, or do they attract as large audiences as possible? How is audience participation evaluated? Is there a pressure to entice increasingly larger audiences and how is this managed? Who is more important, the artist or the audience?

Capacity Building

Festivals are run by people and the dedication of individuals to the arts. How are arts managers trained to be festival managers? What is important in developing your career as a festival manager? How does a festival develop its volunteer programme? How do networks play a part in festival management?

If you would like to write an article, proposals should be submitted in the form of a short outline of the subject together with a short biography/background note and a sample of similar writing before 31 December 2011. The deadline for submission of articles in full will be 28 February 2012. The final articles should be written in British English, be analytical in style with a length of between 2,000-4,000 words. An honorarium will be awarded for commissioned articles.

Proposal should be sent by email to Claire Wilson: claire.wilson(at)asef.org

ASEF reserves the right not to publish the article in the publication if it deems it unworthy or if the content is not appropriate for the publication.