YOUROPE – The European Festival Association has announced more speakers for their 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. The event is open to all festival organizers, event professionals and other interested stakeholders.

YOUROPE, the most important organization representing popular music festivals in Europe, has announced the second wave of speakers for the European Festival Summit. The new names add to the list of experienced festival makers, internationally-renowned scientists and experts from other fields relevant to making festivals future-proof.

Among them are Dr. Beatriz Garcia, whose pioneering work on the cultural impact and legacy of mega-events has informed city strategists around the world, young Generation Z marketers Urs Meier (Garden of Youth) and Lydia Braune (Styleheads), who will talk about the demands and habits of their peers, and leading European festival directors such as Mikolaj Ziółkowski (Open’er, PL), Cindy Castillo (Mad Cool Festival, ES), and Marie Sabot (We Love Green, FR), who will add their expertise to the discussions as well.

The association has dedicated the entire conference to checking how festivals can stay relevant and become resilient, while taking over responsibility in areas like safety, social values, and sustainability. YOUROPE invites like-minded people from all over Europe to this first European Festival Summit to find out how to improve the festival sector together.

The well-rounded panel program is complemented by interactive sessions and networking opportunities. An excursion to a local company specialized on optimizing traffic management at events, PTV Group, will further complement the program. During the visit, participants can learn more about software that will help make traffic at their events smart, clean and safe.

The updated list of speakers (more still to be announced):

Jacob Bilabel | Green Culture Anlaufstelle & GO Group (Green Operations Europe) (DE) – new!
Dr. Ulrich Blahak | DWD – German Weather Service (DE) – new!
Lydia Braune | Styleheads (DE) – new!
Cindy Castillo | Mad Cool Festival (ES) – new!
Mika Christoffersen | Roskilde Festival (DK)
Kara Djurhuus | Roskilde Festival (DK)
James Drury | IQ Magazine (UK)
Eugenie “EJ” Encalarde | New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (US) / Festival Productions Inc.
Eric van Eerdenburg | Lowlands Festival / Mojo Concerts (NL)
Prof. Dr. Sascha Frühholz | Universität Zürich (CH)
Sabine Funk | IBIT GmbH & YOUROPE Event Safety (YES) Group (DE)
Dr. Beatriz Garcia | University of Liverpool (ES) – new!
Tobias Grimm | Munich Re Insurance (DE) – new!
Prof. Paula Guerra | University of Porto (PT) – new!
Manfred von Hebel | Jugend für Europa / Erasmus+ (DE)
Christof Huber | Gadget Entertainment Group & YOUROPE (CH)
Michal Kaščák | Pohoda Festival (SK)
Prof. Dr. Michael Kunz | KIT – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (DE) – new!
Rüdiger Linhof | Sportfreunde Stiller (DE) – new!
Mariana Macedo | Boom Festival / Good Mood (PT)
Arnaud Meersseman | AEG presents France (FR)
Urs Meier | Garden of Youth (DE) – new!
Mariana Mokrynska | Ukrainian Association of Music Events (UAME) & Music Saves Ukraine (UA) – new!
Mikko Niemelä | Ruisrock Festival (FI) – new!
Claire O’Neill | A Greener Future (UK)
Achim Ostertag | Summer Breeze Open Air (DE)
Marta Pallarès | Primavera Sound (ES) – new!
Marie Sabot | We Love Green (FR) – new!
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 | Greener Events Norway & GO Group (NO)
Max Thinius | Futurneo (DE)
Daniel Vollmer | AppSphere AG (DE)
Maike Vossen | BSI – Federal Office for Information Security (DE) – new!
Codruta Vulcu | ARTmania Festival (RO) – new!
Martin Wacker | Karlsruhe Marketing & Event GmbH / DAS FEST (DE)
Markus Wiersch | Karlsruhe Marketing & Event GmbH / DAS FEST (DE) – new!
Vlad Yaremchuk | Atlas Festival (UA) – new!
Mikolaj Ziółkowski | Open’er Festival (PL) – new!

 

The program includes:

60 wild minutes on the future with futurologist Max Thinius
“Quo vadis, festivals?” Major festival executives discuss where we’ll go from here
Festivals and Generation Z – habits, demands, trends
Independent festivals – chances & challenges
The joys of outdoors: Extreme weather
Embracing data: Festivals and AI
Mega events & cities
Festivals and cyber safety
Lowlands, legend, legacy – keynote interview with Eric van Eerdenburg
The social responsibility of festivals
UTOPIA for a better world – the Roskilde Festival case study
The impact of festivals on the climate and vice versa
Radical Love & Green Impact – the Boom Festival case study
European funding opportunities for festivals
The (almost) legendary 3D future mapping workshop – presented by GO Group
Are popular music festivals the new cultural heritage?
Music Ambassadors for Ukraine – documentary screening and Q&A
The importance of “live” – music & emotions
Scenario-based safety exercise – presented by YES Group and more

The European Festival Summit will take place in Karlsruhe – in the very heart of Europe – which makes the journey to the Summit easy. To facilitate sustainable travel, YOUROPE negotiated a special deal with Deutsche Bahn for travels within Germany. Tickets for the European Festival Summit cost €150. For YOUROPE members, the price is reduced to €100.

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”.

Holger Jan Schmidt, YOUROPE’s General Secretary:
“Over the last few days, the final missing puzzle pieces of an exceptionally diverse and extremely relevant summit program have magically fallen into place. It has become a very strong mix of content provided by the leading festival organizers of our time from all parts of Europe and even overseas – as well as input from experts on topics that affect us all, but which we cannot understand without help from outside the festival industry. We are looking forward to two and a half days in which the spotlight will be solely on our popular music festivals. Let’s do this – together!”

Program & travel tips: https://europeanfestivalsummit.eu
Registration: https://tickets.hoemepage.com/event/european-festival-summit-0nbq39

About YOUROPE
Since 1998, YOUROPE – The European Festival Association has evolved into the most important association for popular music festivals in Europe. As of September 2024, YOUROPE counts 128 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