‘Why is it that we’re happy to sit in a room for 12 hours with some strange installation – which we would only do in a festival? There is something about the context that a festival creates that actually changes our behaviour,’ said Simon Abrahams, Creative Director & CEO of Melbourne Fringe at last month’s Creative State Summit in Melbourne.
Will the crowded arts calendar force some festivals out of the market? How will festivals adapt to the social-media accelerated fracturing of audiences into smaller and small sub-groups, and what impact will the ‘festivalisation’ of arts centres have on the festival landscape?
Georgie Meagher, Director/CEO of Next Wave, said the future of festivals was ‘de-colonial and anti-racist – a future of equality and inclusion, and a future where it’s not old, white, straight men in charge.’
Shaun Hossack, director of the street art festival Wall to Wall, held in the regional centre of Horsham, said the future of festivals was in ‘creating an entirely new audience in a regional area who never even knew that they were interested in art ... That’s the future of what Wall to Wall is – creating audiences and creating art lovers that never even knew they might be into [festival-going],’ he said.
A festival in a smaller town or city has the added benefit of changing the relationship between audience and artist away from the consumer model to one that positively impacts on the community’s lives, Hossack added.
