Festival Congress 2024: first wave of sessions announced

Festival Congress 2024 has announced the first wave of sessions for next year's event.

Produced by the Association of Independent Festivals, the annual congress is the largest gathering of independent festivals in the UK, with over 350 industry delegates expected to attend in 2024.

Festival Congress 2024 will take place at Bristol Beacon on February 1, 2024 and feature an array of workshops, roundtables and 'Lightning Talks'. These sessions will cover a range of topics relevant to independent festival promoters, including marketing, commercial operations, fundraising and revenue generation, along with best practice in equality, diversity, inclusion, climate action, creativity and safer spaces.

PRS for Music is a co-sponsor of next year's event, and the organisation will host a panel explaining how it collects set data from festivals, what makes best practice and how PRS and festivals can continue to work together to improve reporting from festivals.

Lucy Tamboura, Live Music Manager at PRS for Music, said in a statement: ‘We’re delighted to be joining AIF at its Festival Congress in Bristol next year, uniting and empowering independent festivals across the UK. It's important for us at PRS for Music to support licensed festivals as they play an integral part in our performer members’ musical journey, ensuring they are paid fairly for the use of their works when their music is performed live.’

Other sessions announced by Festival Congress 2024 include a TheWRD-organised roundtable exploring the necessary skills those working in higher education and further education require if they are interested in working in the festival industry, and another session titled: Stop Asking Yourself How to Sell More Tickets And Ask These Questions Instead.

The likes of Bethan Riach and Chris Johnson (Vision:2025), Clare Goodchild (We Organise Chaos), Elle McMahon (The Ticket Crowd), Howard Monk (TheWRD), John Rostron (AIF), Judy Bec (Boomtown), Lynne Maltman (Music Support), Matthew Philip (Notting Hill Carnival) and Phil Hayes (Ticketsellers) will attend Festival Congress 2024 in a guest speaker capacity.

AIF CEO John Rostron said: ‘I’m very excited by how Festival Congress is shaping up. We are increasing the emphasis on roundtables between festival operators so they can share and resolve general or particular issues and adding more early morning slots for one-to-one speed networking to help improve the development of connections throughout the day.

‘The take up from festivals and suppliers demonstrates that this event is a vitally important one for independent festivals. It’s a pleasure to pull this together.’

You can find out more about Festival Congress 2024, including how to buy tickets, by heading here.