ACT For Global Change Aftermovie

From September 2019 to September 2021, The Festival Academy and partners (2023 ELEVSIS, NEXT Festival, ITI Germany, ICORN, and deSingel), together with their communities, worked on developing and delivering events, conferences, workshops, media content, and networking initiatives within the framework of “Act for Global Change: A Global Conversation from the Arts to the World” (ACT), a project supported by Creative Europe (Cooperation Projects 2019-21).

The following aftermovie highlights the activities and results we have brought forward during the past two years. Given the challenges for international mobility that shaped this period, many activities had to be shifted online and hybrid mode, and, as such, new interactions and spaces for collaboration were made possible. Throughout the training and informing activities, both online and in-person, we expanded our growing global network of more than 1000 festival leaders and cross-sector experts from more than 95 countries across the globe.

The desire to continuously provide these peer-to-peer exchanging spaces have been our driving force and shaped our commitment for further efforts in inclusivity, diversity, and outreach. Within ACT, we engaged 208 emerging festival leaders from 64 countries worldwide to take part in our training programmes, and our communication and audience outreach plan reached more than 500.000 people through combined social media and public relations strategies from The Festival Academy and our partners. Additionally, our informing sessions have engaged more than 590 creative workers and Alumni.

All the wealth of knowledge and experiences that have been shared through the activities envisioned are a key component of our Toolkit Series and Media page. The six toolkits generated aim to provide festival experts and sector practitioners with information and best practices on current trends and inspiring examples from the industry, as well as relevant contextual information on topical specific issues within festival-making.

This has all been possible through the collaboration and work of The Festival Academy, our partner organisations, and all participants and experts alike, as well as the support provided by Creative Europe (EU).  We would like to thank everyone who has been a part of this process for their collaboration and support.

This final video compilation telling the story and results of the ACT project was developed in partnership with Brussels Video Crew, the company in charge of the many livestreams that happened during the project.