The first symposium of the International Festival Research Network was organised by Dr James Nissen (The University of Sheffield) in partnership with Sam Holland (Migration Matters Festival).

The hybrid symposium brought together scholars, artists and event organisers from more than 10 countries to discuss the issues affecting festivals in and across different contexts. Sessions were themed around community and connection, equality and representation, tourism and diplomacy, festival activism, and social and ecological sustainability. 

Presenters reported on participation and belonging at outdoor festivals in Britain, social and aesthetic qualities of musician-curated events in Vienna, feminist festivals as self-defence actions across Europe, tourist performance in country music’s Main Street (Nashville), national representations at Expo 2020 Dubai, negotiations of identity at the Festival of the Sahara in Douz (Tunisia), strategies of festival activism, social action in neoliberal Jordan, migrant festivity in Lisbon’s Brazilian Carnival, music and wine tourism at Encordass Fiddle Fest (San Simón Island), and the mobilisation of festivals to promote social and environmental sustainability.

The presentations stimulated fascinating discussions on topics including the power dynamics of festival curation, sweeping commercialisation under neoliberalism, utopian narratives of festival participation and tensions between different actors in the festival context. Insights were also shared into collaborative and reflexive research methodologies and the challenges of applied research and advocating for social change in the festival industry. 

The symposium brought together people who were, in many respects, working on similar issues across different contexts. Important questions were raised, which felt in need of further investigation and discussion. The International Festival Research Network was thus launched to galvanise this collective research and action - to keep sharing our research, to address emerging issues and trends in this area, and to work transnationally to promote social inclusion within festival settings.

We are very grateful to the British Academy and UK Research and Innovation for supporting the 1st IFRN symposium. This enabled us to make participation in the event free and to provide travel grants for presenters who wanted to share their work in person but did not have access to alternative institutional funding. This ensured that this symposium on social inclusion was itself as socially inclusive as possible, an important step for fostering social change in academic and industry settings.