The Festival Cities and Regions at the heart of EFA

Since 2018, EFA and its festivals community, with the EFA Members at its core, have been organising meetings with cities and regions representatives. These first gatherings have transformed into the Festival Cities Initiative, launched together with A Soul for Europe.

Year after year, different cities and regions have shown their interest in engaging in conversation and collaborating with festivals in their localities. They are also interested in exchanging with their peers to see how cities and regions in other European countries are working closely with their festivals. These interest and discussions resulted in the creation of the EFFE Seal for Festival Cities and Regions, co-initiated by 7 cities: Belgrade, Bergen, Edinburgh, Ghent, Krakow, Leeuwarden and Ljubljana together with EFA, officially launched at the Arts Festivals Summit in Yerevan, Armenia, in September 2022.

The EFFE Seal takes this commitment a step further and is a first result towards supporting local authorities that wish to associate and integrate their image and policies with a strong cultural entity. This affiliation is a testament to the sense of belonging of a group committed to Europe, inclusiveness and accessibility. 29 cities and regions have signed the EFFE seal to date, and more are joining every day.

The Festival Cities and Regions Portrait on FestivalFinder.eu allows festivals and audiences worldwide to discover the municipalities that hold the EFFE Seal so far: Bergen (Norway), Cividale del Friuli (Italy), Edinburgh (UK), Krakow (Poland), and Leeuwarden (Netherlands), and now three new regions: Västra Götaland (Sweden), Olomouc (Czechia), and Gozo (Malta). FestivalFinder.eu is a search engine for arts festivals in Europe and beyond presenting 4000 festivals. The Festival Cities and Regions portrait gives visitors to the website an overview of the municipality itself, but also of the festivals taking place in each locality.

EFA engages with policymakers to advocate for inclusive and supportive policies that enhance the vitality of festivals and integrate cultural considerations into broader policies addressing living conditions. This is achieved for example through the annual Berlin Conference taking place on 7 and 8 November 2024 (programme to be announced soon). By connecting with cities and regions, EFA gains insights into the current state of the arts, emerging opportunities, and pressing needs that are translated then to the European level.