Festivals in 2030

Abstract

Dutch festivals are currently extremely popular and offer visitors a way to escape the daily routine, and experience new things. This popularity starts to have its drawbacks since the number of complaints increase. As an effect, regulations become stricter and municipalities hand out fewer permits, resulting in last-minute cancellations of festivals. The festival landscape already encounters other extreme risks and some festivals can go bankrupt within one bad edition. Simultaneously, the Netherlands is changing and festivals also have to adapt to future trends. These trends are positioned around one main phenomenon: the purpose economy. Combining these occurrences, the festival landscape has become a much-discussed topic and every year questions pop up with regards to its relevance and effects. It is discussed that citizens and visitors currently have the most impact on the success of a festival. Nevertheless, the impact on their own lives is minimal and short term. An increase in official complaints or disturbed citizens would endanger the festivals’ position. Therefore, festivals will have to become indispensable towards these two stakeholders to create a permanent position. They should do this by creating reciprocity and fulfill the needs of the stakeholders. For citizens, this means that festivals will help tackle societal challenges. For visitors, festivals can help to facilitate a meaningful, out of this world, experience that gives them a sense of purpose. This report presents a proposal on how festivals in 2030 can create a permanent position within this changing environment. In order to do so, festivals will have to change their role to a stakeholder-oriented service and position themselves as a platform where citizens and visitors come together and take the opportunity to fulfill their needs. This results in a shift of focus and festivals can use this position to strengthen its base. In order to fully embrace this new role, festivals will have to create a strong relationship between visitors and citizens. Research shows that co-creation can change the attitudes of people towards a service. A continuous innovation plan is developed where the four pillars of a strong relationship are implemented. These four pillars are ‘Openness’, ‘Trust’, ‘Involvement’, and ‘Commitment’. It is stated that this relationship should be created in the before-, during- and after phase of a festival, finishing each cycle with peak-end, ensuring an overall positive attitude and increasing loyalty towards the festival. Since festivals can have different aims for creating a strong relationship, three scenarios are developed. The first one is a formal relationship where the festival does not merge its identity with the environment. Secondly, a relationship can be created where the festival creates an impact on the environment. Thirdly, the festival can aim for a relationship where they are an equal part of the community. The festival can use the online platform to reach more people and tackle the complexities of the offline platform. Finally, a roadmap is created on how festivals can implement this future vision and create a stakeholder-oriented organization. A plan is developed on how to create awareness among festivals. During the entire project, the organization of Into the Great Wide Open served as a basecamp where insights could be validated.