Circle network

Festival Policies of Public Authorities in Europe

Working within the framework of the European Festival Research Project achievements, which has already analysed the issue of festivals’ sustainability, the Circle/EFRP/Interarts consortium now wants to follow a course of action that will enable an analysis and evaluation of public festival policy based on a thorough Europe-wide comparative research.

The notion of the “festival” would be that of the EFRP - artistically centred, publicly supported and of international orientation. Within that scope we plan to carry out our international research which will aim to create a robust and dependable resource on public authorities' policy on festivals in Europe. In order to achieve this, the research project will comprise of three stages:

· country survey stage,

· preparation of an international comparative report; and

· a round table conference discussion.

We would like you, as one of 20 national correspondents, to provide general information (following the questionnaire) concerning, amongst other factors, the number, size and character of publicly funded festivals (including their legal status) and to present one particular case study.

On the basis of all the correspondents’ contributions an international comparative report will be compiled and elaborated. The report will be based on comparable data and therefore will draw indicative patterns and trends in Europe regarding the festival phenomenon in Europe, all levels of public authorities' attitudes, policy and schemes of activity towards festivals. The report's quality will be assured by carefully chosen authors.

As mentioned earlier the final outcomes of the research project will be presented and discussed during the 20^th CIRCLE Round Table which will be held in Barcelona on October 19^th and 20^th 2007.

We had hoped that the whole project would be supported by the European Commission. However CIRCLE’s application for the call for proposal EACEA n° 06/2006 “Support for bodies active at European level in the field of culture”, along with many others, was not successful this year. Nevertheless, and having lost many months awaiting the EU’s decision, we are determined to proceed. Thanks to the generous spirit and support of Interarts the project has been saved. Now we will have to deal with some limitations which we did not originally expect but in the end we will all meet during the conference in Barcelona.