The European Festival Association’s Future-Fit Festivals (3F) project finished after three years. Besides advocating for the popular music festival sector and building capacities, YOUROPE used the EU funding to release useful guides and toolkits. Publications like the European Green Festival Roadmap 2030, the Diversity & Inclusion Toolset, the Festivals for Ukraine Toolkit, and the 3F Safety Report are free to use for everyone. Despite the project finishing, this is not the end for 3F yet.
How can festivals become resilient, responsible, and relevant? This is what YOUROPE – The European Festival Association set out to answer with their project “3F Future-Fit Festival”, co-funded by the EU’s Creative Europe program. YOUROPE delivered publications, training events and other activities to help festival promoters tackle challenges like climate change, attracting new audiences and delivering safe events.
The most important outputs and activities are summarised in the “3F summary publication”. Use it to find a resource that can help make your festival future-proof. The best thing: all publications released under 3F are free. The summary publication was translated into Spanish, French, Chinese and Arabic to make 3F’s learnings accessible to festival promoters even beyond European borders.
Here are some of 3F’s highlights:
3F publications:
- 3F Safety Report, analysing trends in event safety and security between 2022 and 2024
- Festivals for Ukraine Toolkit on raising funds and awareness for social causes
- Diversity & Inclusion Toolset to make festivals more diverse and inclusive
- European Green Festival Roadmap 2030, a guide on sustainable production measures
- European Festival Reports (EFR) 2024, 2023, and 2022 together with IQ Magazine
- The EFRs include the results of the 2024, 2023, and 2022 promoters’ survey (conducted with IQ) and the 2024 Festival Fan Survey (with YOUROPE member Höme)
- 3F Campaign Guide on creating your own communication campaigns
3F international communication campaigns:
- Supported by 150+ festivals and organisations in 30+ European countries with a reach of almost 12 million people and more than 2 million views.
- #WeVoteforEurope – use your right to vote in the European Parliament elections, 2024
- Life is Live – supporting youth mental health and the importance of real experiences, by YOUROPE member EXIT Festival, 2024
- Festivals for Ukraine fundraiser, 2023
- #ImpossibleWithoutYouth – showing appreciation of young festival audiences with the European Festivals Association (EFA), 2022
3F conferences & training:
- 15 events and cooperations reaching far more than 3000 professionals from all over Europe.
- European Festival Summit in Karlsruhe (DE), 2024 (read this report for the results)
- European Festival Conference #5 on Pag Island (HR), 2023
- GO Group workshops in Bratislava (2024) (SK) and Barcelona (2023) (ES), GO Group cooperation with GEI – Green Events & Innovations, London (2022) (UK)
- YES Group seminars at ESNS (NL), 2023 and 2024; YES Group cooperation with IBIT Fachtagung on Event Safety (DE), 2022, 2023 and 2024
- Support of communication sessions at Festival Playground, Butjadingen (DE), 2022, 2023, and 2024
- 1st seminar on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at MaMA in Paris (FR), 2024; workshop on mental health at Future of Festivals in Berlin (DE), 2022
Other 3F activities
- European Festival Awards (EFAs) 2022, 2023 and 2024 with around 120 short-listed festivals and professionals as well as over 300,000 votes cast in 13-16 categories
- YOUROPE hosted and supported around 100 sessions at more than 50 conference stages in over 20 countries during 3F – from Coimbra (PT) to Sofia (BG) and further to Seoul (KR), Bangkok (TH), and Toronto (CA).
- Transatlantic dialogue thanks to a cooperation with FestForums in Santa Barbara, US, and Future of Festivals in Berlin, DE.
- Launch of the YOUROPE Knowledge Hub with resources on event safety, sustainability, DEI, communication and more from within and outside the network. Today it holds more than 200 content items and will be expanded continually.YOUROPE secured funding until the end of 2028
Since there are constantly new challenges on the horizon, making festivals future-proof is an ongoing process. The good news: YOUROPE has managed to secure EU-funding for their follow-up project 3F 2.0 for another four years, starting in January 2025. To keep helping festivals become relevant, responsible, resilient and resistant, YOUROPE will continue its regular activities like the European Festival Conference, workshops and seminars, the European Festival Awards, the promoters’ survey, and the European Festival Report. On top, 3F 2.0 will see some new publications and activities like:
- Extreme Weather Toolbox (2025) to better mitigate the effects of climate change at outdoor events
- Fair Ticketing Guide (2026) together with the Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing (FEAT)
- Green Festival Navigator Tool (2027) to navigate the Green Roadmap’s many measures more easily
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Roadmap (2027) to deliver concrete steps and targets for events to become more diverse and inclusive
- a publication on Crowd Management Competence Levels (2028) in event safety
- a tool to support Ukraine (2028)
- a dedicated exchange for young professionals and an internship program for the network members (both annually)
YOUROPE will continue organising training events to share best practices and knowledge. The next events are the 11th GO Group workshop in Roskilde, Denmark, April 7-8, and the 6th European Festival Conference in Évora, Portugal, Nov 18-21.
Green Operations Europe (GO Group) is YOUROPE’s think tank to inspire people in the music festival and events industry to run their operations greener, smarter and more sustainable. This year’s workshop is organised in cooperation with Roskilde Festival and will have a special focus on social sustainability. It is open to everyone interested. Find more info and a link to the registration here.
The European Festival Conference is fully dedicated to festival topics and organised by YOUROPE every two years in a different location. This year’s destination is the Ecorkhotel in Évora. Compared to other conferences, the EFC is more intimate due to a limit on the number of participants – yet it is open to everyone interested in festivals. It is known for its relaxed atmosphere, intense exchange, and great program both inside and outside the conference room. Find all info and a registration link here.
Holger Jan Schmidt, General Secretary of YOUROPE: “3F marked a turning point for YOUROPE (The European Festival Association). After more than 20 years of existence and groundbreaking achievements, we applied for European funding in the middle of the pandemic for the first time. The Network Support of the Creative Europe Program offered the opportunity to expand on what had been achieved so far, to put it on a more solid foundation and, in addition, to supplement it with new, complementary activities in order to consolidate and strengthen the scope of the association.
YOUROPE has been a partner of the longest-running Creative Europe project of all time – the European Talent Exchange, developing and promoting music and artists across Europe. 3F now gave us the opportunity to concentrate on what it takes to offer them a stage as part of our festivals: future-proof events, with skilled, happy teams and the highest possible standards in all conceivable production areas.
Let’s not kid ourselves: no two festivals are the same, and in many areas, there is no one size fits all solution. We cannot credibly set a standard for future-fitness. What we can do, however, is provide the thousands upon thousands of brave, creative and enthusiastic festival makers with tools and knowledge that will help them to confidently master the process of moving into the future. After three years, I feel that YOUROPE has come closer to this goal. We speak for and especially with festivals of all kinds – from boutique to major – in all of Europe. We help outsiders understand our sometimes crazy industry and we help to ensure that the magical moments that we all love so much can continue to be created!
The confirmation of the EU funding for 3F’s successor project is a significant recognition of the quality and relevance of the achievements made. Therefore, while wrapping up 3F, we have already started 3F 2.0, continuing the great work and developing new tools and guidance on additional focus topics, such as fair ticketing, extreme weather, and resistance to new threats, be they political, economic, or societal.”
