Change Makers Festivals Conference, 2020
Through its role as the agency for leading the development of arts in Ireland the Arts Council provides developmental supports and initiatives specific to festival makers, festival organisations and their stakeholders. The most recent initiatives can
be found below with an archive of information in each of the relevant sections.
Festival Makers Conference 2023
The arts Council in partnership with Drama and Theatre Studies at the University of Galway will present the Festival Makers Conference on Thurday 11th and Friday 12th May 2023 in Galway City; a gathering of festivals makers and festival stakeholders in Ireland to map developments. exchange ideas and share skills in festivals.
Latest updates can be found here
Pathways 2022
Following on from the Pathways webinar series in spring 2021, a follow up Pathways series of webinars will be run in March and April 2022. The aim of these sessions is to provide festival makers with an opportunity to acquire transferable skills from relevant experts from outside the festival sector and to hear from and meet with other members of the festival community.
More information on each session can be found here.
Festival Makers Forum 2021
In order to better understand the challenges currently facing festivals, the Arts Council will host a number of focus group sessions; a forum for festival makers to share their learning in 2021 and to examine how best the viability and sustainability of festival organisations can be supported.
More information on each session can be found here.
Pathways 2021
Following on from the Talking Festival Series 2020, the Arts Council delivered a programme of panel discussions for festival makers, artists making work in a festival context and festival stakeholders to discuss and share learning from 2020 and the forthcoming
challenges presented in 2021.
More information on each session can be found here.
Talking Festivals 2020
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the Arts Council of Ireland held a number of online discussion forums, designed primarily for small to medium scale festivals.
These forums intended to provide an opportunity for festivals makers to share information and discuss the merits, challenges, opportunities and restrictions facing festivals as they plan programmes for reconfigured public spaces and explore online sharing
of the arts.
The forums were hosted in different formats; from small, curated groups to more large scale discussions to an international webinar.
Please find minutes from each of these meetings here.
Change Makers Festivals Conference 2020
On the 14 February, 2020, the Arts Council of Ireland in partnership with the MA Festive Arts (University of Limerick) presented the inaugural Change Makers Conference, a gathering of arts festival stakeholders with the aim of mapping and taking stock of
festival practice in Ireland.
More information and highlights from the conference can be found here.
Clinics
The Festivals team holds regular information clinic sessions in support of the various funding application processes. Information on these clinics can be found here.
Festival and Events Review 2017
In 2017 the Arts Council conducted a review to gain insights and an understanding of the contribution, scale and scope of small festivals in Ireland and their role in the broader festival ecology, with a view to revising funding supports for this
part of the festivals sector; delivering on the objectives of the Arts Council’s strategy Making Great Art Work 2016-2025.
The Festival and Events Review publication can be found here