Thank you for booking a ticket for the BAFA 2024 Conference for Festivals!
You can use this private web page to access information for delegates, the conference programme and delegate lists. This page also include links to presentations, links and helpful resources, and will shortly include audio recordings of the sessions. We will be circulating paper questionnaires at the end of each day but if you didn’t complete this or have any additional feedback, please complete this short questionnaire.
There are a number of conference attendees and partners who are available for 1:1 discussions as appropriate, so please do get in touch with them to organise times to talk:
Phill Picton, TicketSource (Monday only) [email protected]
Travis Butcher, Graham Sykes Insurance (Monday and Tuesday) [email protected]
Till Siegers, John Good (Monday and Tuesday) [email protected]
Adam Pepper, Artifax (Monday and Tuesday) [email protected]
Fiona Macrae, Opera Anywhere (Monday and Tuesday) [email protected]
In addition, representatives from Arts Council England (Nick Green – Monday only; Jen Cleary and Erica Campayne – Tuesday only) and Arts Council of Wales (Einir Sion and Suzanne Griffiths-Rees, Monday and Tuesday) will be happy to talk to delegates 1:1, and will be sitting on the Tuesday afternoon roundtables Focus on England and Focus on Wales, respectively.
The programme is as follows:
Monday 18 November
10.30am Coffee, registration
11am Welcome – BAFA Co-Chairs Sharon Canavar and Erica Smith, Simon Wales of Bristol Beacon and Fiona Goh, BAFA Director
11.15am Festivals Forward: Rhiannon Davies of BOP Consulting launches the results of the BAFA commissioned research on our sector, providing key data on scope, scale and activities of arts festivals, kickstarting conversations about current challenges, solutions and opportunities; Nick Green of Arts Council England will give an overview of the strategic context for festival development (Chair: Leksi Paterson) Read the report here and see Rhiannon’s slides here and Nick’s slides here
12pm – 12.50pm Festivals Advocacy: Jon Flinn from DHA Communications leads a workshop on using the Festivals Forward report to raise the profile of your festival amongst the media, funders and stakeholders Read Jon’s slides here and download the local press release notes and template here. The national press release is here
12.50pm – 1.45pm Lunch
1.45pm – 2pm Provocation: Jenny Harris, Bradford 2025 Relevance is Everything Watch the Bradford 2025 video here, see Jenny’s slides here and this document outlines the outputs, outcomes and impacts from Bradford 2025’s Story of Change
2pm – 3.15pm Everyone’s welcome – Lucy Kerbel of Tonic uses the results from the Festivals Forward report to lead a workshop on inclusion for festivals See Lucy’s slides here
3.15pm – 4pm Urban sustainability: challenges and solutions for city-based festivals Zoe Curtis, Brighton Festival and Dome, Stefan Edwards, Bristol City Council and James Kitto, Cheltenham Festivals (chair) introduce the USAN sustainability group for festivals, talk about the challenges for city-based festivals and how Bristol City Council manages event sustainability for the 250 events on its land each year See Stefan’s slides here and the USAN slide here
4pm Coffee and reflections
4.10pm or 4.40pm Venue tour
5pm Finish
7pm Dinner at Beirut Mezze
Tuesday 19 November
9am Coffee and registration
9.10am Welcome
9.15am Naomi Taylor Excellence, Access and Attitude through the festival lens: This presentation explores the way attitudes to the arts — and specifically festivals —have changed in the past 70 years or so, from the early days of the Arts Council of Great Britain (ACGB) in the post-war years through the major social changes of the 60s and 70s, via the transferring of ACGB powers to the three independent bodies (ACE, ACW and what is now Creative Scotland) in 1994, to today. Where do festivals stand in all of this? How has the change in funding models, both public and private, had an impact on these organisations which were once revered as catalysts for new music, pockets of extraordinarily high standards of activity, and celebrated for bringing music and arts to vast numbers across the UK? You can see Naomi’s slides here
9.40am – 10.30am Building the future: Danielle Pipe and Tenaya King of Julie’s Bicycle lead a workshop on the response to the Festivals Forward report, and what resourcing and support the sector needs to build more sustainable festivals. See their slides here
10.30am – 11am Provocation: Thangam Debbonaire The Politics of Partnerships
11am – 11.30am Coffee
11.30am – 12.20pm Leading Change – David Brownlee, Data Culture Change; Kate Hall and Kate Abbey, Bath Arts Collective. Leading change can be exciting, exhilarating and truly rewarding. But it can also be exhausting, stressful and lonely, even at the best of times. And now is far from the best of times. Join us for a discussion about the challenges of leading festivals, to hear about the impact of the Leaders for Culture Change programme and to explore what tools Festival leaders need to maximise their effectiveness. (Chair: Erica Smith) You can see David’s slides here and Bath Arts Collective’s slides here
12.20pm – 1.05pm Lunch
1.05pm – 1.15pm Provocation: Sho Shibata, Outdoor Arts Building diverse-led organisations
1.15pm – 1.45pm Fast Forward Chris Johnson of Shambala festival and Vision 2025 will be in conversation with James Kitto of Cheltenham Festivals about the current state of sustainability in the UK events sector, challenges and opportunities, new standards, and what the future could look like.
1.45pm – 2.45pm Roundtables [Leadership; Inclusion; Focus on Wales (see notes here); Focus on England; Environmental Responsibility; Focus on Universities; Navigating Tough Times]
2.45pm Conclusion and closing remarks
3pm Finish
Being a member of BAFA offers access to the UK’s leading arts festivals, and an invaluable opportunity to build a strong network of professional contacts across the breadth of the festivals sector.
Our members range from volunteer-run organisations to large, well-established festivals, and we also have special memberships available for universities and associate members.
BAFA is supported by funding from...
Upper Ground Floor, Overross House, Ross Park, Ross-on-Wye HR9 7US
BAFA is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (1193943)
© BAFA 2026
Website Designed & Built by we are CODA
