YOUROPE – The European Festival Association invites all festival organizers, event professionals and other interested stakeholders to participate in the European Festival Summit, Nov 18-20. The event in Karlsruhe, Germany, will explore the future of festivals with the leading European festival creators and brightest minds from sectors like AI, cyber security, and climate research.
YOUROPE, the most important organization representing popular music festivals in Europe, has dedicated an entire conference to making festivals fit for the future. The first European Festival Summit is your opportunity to meet like-minded people from all over Europe in a relaxed atmosphere to find out how to improve the festival sector together.
The brightest minds from the festival industry will share their knowledge, internationally renowned scientists will provide insights into relevant research, and experts from various fields will supply our participants with their specialist expertise. Together with them and you, we want to find out what the resilience, responsibility and relevance of popular music festivals looks like today and tomorrow.
Panels, presentations, interactive sessions, keynote interviews, excursions, networking and leisure time events complement each other to create a valuable program in which everyone should find something interesting.
Session topics include:
- The future of the festival sector
- Festivals and Generation Z
- Festivals’ role in society
- Independent festivals
- Extreme weather at festivals
- Festivals and AI
- Festivals and cyber safety
- The social responsibility of festivals
- The impact of festivals on the climate and vice versa
- European funding for festivals
- The importance of “live”
- and many more
These are the first speakers – more to be announced soon:
- Mika Christoffersen | Roskilde Festival (DK)
- Kara Djurhuus | Roskilde Festival (DK)
- James Drury | IQ Magazine (UK)
- Eugenie “EJ” Encalarde | Festival Productions Inc., New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (US)
- Eric van Eerdenburg | Mojo Concerts / Lowlands Festival (NL)
- Prof. Dr. Sascha Frühholz | Universität Zürich (CH)
- Sabine Funk | IBIT GmbH & YES Group (DE)
- Christof Huber | Gadget abc / YOUROPE (CH)
- Michal Kaščák | Pohoda Festival (SK)
- Mariana Macedo | Boom Festival / Good Mood (PT)
- Arnaud Meerssemann | AEG presents France (FR)
- Claire O’Neill | A Greener Future (UK)
- Achim Ostertag | Summer Breeze Open Air (DE)
- Holger Jan Schmidt | YOUROPE (DE)
- Lea Stöver | Creative Europe Desk, Germany (DE)
- Prof. Dr. York Sure-Vetter | KIT – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (DE)
- Linnéa Svensson | GO Group (NO)
- Max Thinius | Futurneo (DE)
- Daniel Vollmer | AppSphere AG (DE)
- Manfred von Hebel | Jugend für Europa / Erasmus+ (DE)
- Martin Wacker | Karlsruhe Marketing & Event GmbH / DAS FEST (DE)
- Prof. Ian Woodward | SDU – University of South Denmark (DK)
The European Festival Summit will take place in Karlsruhe – in the very heart of Europe. The event will take place in the creative quarter of the city in the southwest of Germany, which offers excellent connections with various means of transport.
Tickets for the European Festival Summit cost €150. YOUROPE members get a discount of €50. YOUROPE is happy to offer a special rate at their partner hotel Achat as well as a discount on train rides within Germany in cooperation with Deutsche Bahn.
The European Festival Summit is organized by YOUROPE in cooperation with Karlsruhe Marketing und Event GmbH (KME) as part of our joint European project “3F – Future-Fit Festivals”.
Program, hotel offer & travel tips: https://europeanfestivalsummit.eu
Registration: https://tickets.hoemepage.com/event/european-festival-summit-0nbq39
Holger Jan Schmidt, YOUROPE’s General Secretary:
“Within our network, we have spent the past three years looking at the resilience, responsibility and relevance of festivals from a variety of perspectives in our project ‘3F Future-Fit-Festivals’. Now is the perfect time to bring the European festival family and experts from the wider sector to the same place to delve deeper into these topics and also to set a path for the future together. We are looking forward to 48 fantastic hours in Karlsruhe with leading professionals from live events, science, and specialized areas. The summit’s program is coming along excellently and will be exceptional and inspiring.”
About YOUROPE
Since 1998, YOUROPE – The European Festival Association has evolved into the most important association for popular music festivals in Europe. As of August 2024, YOUROPE counts 125 festivals and associated organizations from 30 European countries among its members. The overall aim of the association is to strengthen and improve the European festival scene as a whole, and promoting arts and music while connecting different cultures.
In its working groups YOUROPE focuses on different topics at the heart of festivals: sustainability, climate action and environmental protection in the GO Group (Green Operations Europe) and security and crowded spaces management in the YOUROPE Event Safety (YES) Group.
Further, YOUROPE hosts the biannual European Festival Conference (EFC) and organizes the annual European Festival Awards (EFAs).
Contact:
Nikki McNeill | Global Publicity
nikki@globalpublicity.co.uk
Music PR | Event PR | Festival PR