Vision: Can be defined as the big picture that you see in your mind i.e., the big dream. 

Mission: Can be defined as the reason your organisation exists i.e., the logic. 

Aims: Can be defined as more specific actions that will feed on the overall vision i.e., the actions. 

For in-depth definitions of the above see Atelier Toolkit for Festival Managers on Sustainability.

Festival of Hallows 

Link: https://gatheringfestival.wordpress.com/our-mission-and-vision/ 

• Vision

Residents, businesses and organizations from all backgrounds live, play, work and support each other in an inclusive and vibrant downtown south Vancouver community. 

• Mission

The Festival of Hallows aims to use art, performing arts and special events to leverage public enthusiasm and participation with the goal of building a positive community in Vancouver’s Downtown South. The festival will raise the community profile and foster an environment where residents, businesses, and cultural, social and service groups, from across a diverse range of economic, ethnic and social backgrounds are inspired to create an inclusive, vibrant and prosperous neighbourhood.

Festival International de Louisiane 

Link: https://www.festivalinternational.org/about-festival

• Vision

Festival International de Louisiane is a premiere International music and arts festival known for bringing a variety of unique and emerging performers to Louisiana. The 501 (C) (3) organization is committed to maintaining the festival as non-ticketed and free to the general public. The family-oriented event is held each year in downtown Lafayette, Louisiana. Our loyal audience, comprised of local, national and international patrons, return year after year. 

• Mission

Enrich the community with a celebration of its native cultures through performing arts. 

Educate the public of the historical achievements and artistic expressions of related global cultures while developing an appreciation for the arts. 

Develop culture and tourism, as well as enhance economic development by expanding Louisiana’s reputation as an arts center and a destination for artistic events. 

Some things to consider: 

Your festival needs to have all three statements ready for internal and external stakeholders. Create quick access documents for various audiences e.g., partners, audience, sponsors, suppliers. The more people who buy into the vision the more people will want to make it successful. 

Separate your audience into groups to ensure you are creating the right communication tools for them e.g., general audience, government/NGOs, community members, international and local audience, working class, students, adults, children etc. 

The general public usually needs a summarized version which usually just involves vision and mission statements whilst other stakeholders like government need more of an in-depth definition which includes all three. 

“Stakeholders are individuals/groups/companies/organisations who either care about or have a vested interest in your project. They are the people who are actively involved with the work of the project or have something to either gain or lose as a result of the project” 1. 

For stakeholders such as government, organisations or groups of people their interest and needs can usually be found in their vision and mission statements, mostly available on their website. However, other stakeholders, such as the general audience, their needs and interests are not clearly defined. Some of their needs are easy to assume, such as getting a good value for their money but other needs/interests need to be gathered. This can be done through market research, social media and/or through surveys. 

“Key stakeholders can make or break the success of a project. Even if all the deliverables are met and the objectives are satisfied, if your key stakeholders aren’t happy, nobody’s happy" 2.

1. Adrienne Watt, ‘5. Stakeholder Management’, BCcampus Open Publishing, 14 August 2014, https://opentextbc.ca/projectmanagement/chapter/chapter-5-project-stakeholders-project-management/

2. Adrienne Watt, ‘5. Stakeholder Management’.  

1. Identify your stakeholders 

A task for you and your team, look at the festival and see all those who have a part to play in the festival no matter how small or big. 

2. Create an engagement plan for stakeholders

Template for Engagement Plan: 

Stakeholder names and roles

How important? (Low-Med-High)

Current level of support? (Low-Med-High)

What do you want from stakeholders?

What is important to stakeholders?

How could stakeholders block your efforts?

What is your strategy for enhancing stakeholder support?

3. Share your vision and get to know theirs 

• Ensure your vision corresponds with the one of your stakeholders. If it does not line up, work on finding middle ground for both parties. 

• Find partners that are mutual benefitable; audience members should also feel like they are getting value for money/time. 

• Research your partners before approaching them. 

4. Create a relationship 

•Open the communication channel and engage your stakeholders. Depending on the stakeholder you can have in-person meetings, online meetings, social media engagement or engage via posters/billboards. 

• The relationship for some stakeholders could turn into a partnership. 

5. Define success 

As stated above, the success of the festival is dependent on happiness of the stakeholders, however, success can sometimes be a loose concept. By ensuring you communicate what success looks to you and understanding how your stakeholders view success, you can reach a common place to ensure that the final product is representative of everyone’s needs and interests. 

6.  Always keep your vision visible 

The more stakeholders know what you are trying to achieve the easier the communication strategy. You can develop key messages, which are the major points you want every person to know, understand and remember about your festival. 

7. Always keep an open two-way channel. 

You supply information to your stakeholders and also get information from them. The channel should also be easily accessible for all parties, as much as you can reach them, they should be able to reach you. 

Note: Never stop communicating. updates do not have to be daily or even weekly, but even an update once every quarter of the year helps to keep your festival in the mind of stakeholders. 

Additional Resources: 

• 8 Tips to Effectively Manage Stakeholders by Herman Mehling 

• 10 Key Principles of Stakeholder Engagement 

• Develop communication plans for all the stakeholders you have identified. 

• Communication plans do not have to be complex: you could agree to have weekly, month, quarterly, or what other period works meetings/updates with certain stakeholders. Make sure you provide enough information: do not overwhelm your audience or provide too little. 

Sample Communication Strategy Template 4

(Each festival needs to adjust the template as per their needs) 

Project Scope:

Key Message:

Communication Goals:

Communication Team:

Project Team:

Other stakeholders:

Communication Date I Deliverable I Audience I Message I Action Item or FYE (Info?) I Plans I Status

Some mediums you can use to communicate: 

For smaller group of stakeholders i.e., Government/NGOs/Private companies/Groups of people: 

• In person meetings (with a representative of the organisation/group) 

• Online meetings (with representatives or the entire team) 

For larger groups of people i.e., general public, communities, festival attendees: 

• Emails and newsletters 

• Social media i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn etc 

• Informative Posters/Billboards 

4. Adrienne Watt, ‘5. Stakeholder Management’.  

The In-Out Dance Festival is an international dance meeting in the public space of Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso, which takes place every February since 2014. It started with a weekend of meetings, then it became 3 days and from 3 days it went to a week then two weeks. The festival is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2023. To mark 10 years, in 2023 it will take place the whole month of February as dance month in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso.

"This case study will lead us to explain to share our experiences [as organizers], that is to say how we were able to develop our audience, how we were able to maintain this relationship between the spectator and the artists and also make In-Out Dance Festival, an event from the community. It should also be noted that In-Out Dance Festival brings together , in all 5 cities in western Burkina, more or less 80,000 actors and spectators for 2 weeks each year. The development of audience retention, the relationship with the local population, of the community is set up, is built little by little over several years, it is not done in a single edition. It's a long journey together, it's a partnership. It is the establishment and maintenance of trust between festival organizers, the local community and the artists that is built over several years.

We, the In-Out Dance Festival committee, start more or less a year before the festival. That is to say the pre-festival and we maintain this relationship during the festival and especially after the festival by monitoring and evaluating. By following up, we  prepare for the next festival at the same time, so it's really a job that doesn't stop, it's a continuous job.

The pre-festival

Before the festival we prepare, we organize a series of meetings initially internally by and for the organizing committee to propose and select local sites, common family courtyards, urban spaces, markets and any other venues that will host performances. Then we organize series of meetings with the local population, with the traditional chieftaincy, the traditional notability because it should be noted that always in Burkina Faso, we have a strong attachment to the traditional culture which coexists very very well with the so-called Western or modern culture and for me it is very important to further highlight these traditional values ​​which are us, our identities, our history, our heritage which we must very jealousy safeguard and of course share with the world.

So the meeting with the notability and the meeting with the traditional customary chiefdom allows us to prepare the population little by little and to inform them about what is going to happen, that is to say the festival and its content. These meetings also allow us to know how far we can go, to ask for the agreements, the blessing and above all it is to explain the merits of what we are going to do what is the festival brings in terms of social and economic stability, what does the festival bring in terms of permanent and/or partial job creation, what does the festival bring in terms of social cohesion, etc.

So we ask for the support of the traditional local authorities but also of the national authorities.

The pre-festival is also this series of the three which I mentioned a little earlier with the religious leaders, the family courts and the local community to ask them where there to ask them for their blessing and to explain the festival to them again but above all to present them with apologies, many apologies.

Each time I tell them personally that we are going to make noise, we are going to make a lot of noise, that we are going to make a lot of noise and all this for 2 weeks, that is to say on working days and weekends . once we have the agreement and the blessing of the local population, the heads of the courts, the district chief, the village chief, various heads of structures, regional communal authorities and religious and customary leaders, we can say that we are launching what we call the pre-festival communication campaign through radio and TV ads, social networks and web TV. That's it and all we call in our own jargon information and blessing-taking meetings. All these steps are undertaken at least six months before the start of the festival so that we can find all the answers and all the support and support possible. you have to get there a lot in advance.

And always during the pre-campaign and throughout the festival, personally as the first person in charge of the event, I travel for what we call door to door. It's about going to meet the families individually, taking the time to sit down and share their meal with them. It is a question of inviting oneself into the family, exchanging and explaining again and again the social economic contributions of the festivals the merits of the festival the creation of jobs the things that I mentioned before explaining but take the time to discuss d exchange to understand what we do because it is not obvious that the population understands what we do. The population sees the rather festive side and not necessarily the opportunities. This door-to-door from individual to individual in the neighborhood where the festival village is located is very, very important and I think that's what keeps this good relationship between the festival and the local community, and what makes that ' today in-out Dance festival is no longer the festival of the tamadia company and thought and created by Aguibou Bougobali SANOU, but rather seen as the festival of the community of sector 9 and 10 of Accart-Ville. In-Out has become a festival in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso, a festival in Burkina Faso and even more than that, a world event.

During the festival

In Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso), we say that: “if you see someone say to go back to yesterday's site again, it is certainly because yesterday was very interesting for the person” so through this sentence metaphorically what I mean is that throughout the festival we also try in any case as best as possible to provide content that can interest our audience and while respecting the diversity of our proposals.

It is to bring professional non-standardized content which can also arouse the curiosity of the public and generally the public of the festival is very diversified starting from early childhood to youth, adults and people of the 3rd age.

For example, to have more and more audience, we program local or national artists who will share the stage with international artists. this means that each artist, company or project also brings its audience, its audience who will also discover a new project and little by little curiosity leads this new audience to want to discover more.

Together I would say that during the festival it is the content that will be able to maintain and increase the audience, it is the content that will be able to create the new audience. it is the content starting from the animations to the quality shows, the music concert, the community meal and professional meetings, the sharing of experiences between professionals and amateurs at the dance workshop, sound and light techniques, projection movies. 

During the festival we initiated a program called Demba-Don Dance Exchange, a festival program that brings the show directly into the family, into family courtyards, into bedrooms. The concept of Demba-Don is taken from a traditional concept that we had in Bobo-Dioulasso. It is the dance of rejoicing of the godmother who expresses her joy at seeing her godson go to a home to marry.

So the Demba-Don Dance Exchange is to bring a play to a short version of a play in a family run with a limited number of spectators.

There are no restrictions in the family, we let family activities go on as usual. That is to say that if there is someone who wants to get up, go and have a drink to see if there is someone who wants to go get a plate to eat, but naturally we have noticed that the shows bring families to remain calm, very attentive and follow. that's something that is very interesting and after the performance the artists stay and an exchange between the population between the inhabitants of the court and the artists on the artistic approach, the creative process, on the choice of artists, the course, the theme on the how since when the why and here it is and that also creates an awakening of consciousness and more or less artistic in the different family courtyards in any case that we had to experiment with Exchange dance sticks

For the development and retention of the audience, it should also be noted that we are in the digital age and today it is very important to combine the virtual and the real because the 2 go hand in hand and for that we we also use the channels of social networks to disseminate many press releases on the festival we use these practically social networks (WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram...).

This allows us to increase day by day and year by year

The after festival

The post festival is the period of gratitude this is the period of recognition this is the period during which we still travel to visit traditional religious authorities we travel running visiting the local community in the family courtyards we send letters of thanks we send certificates of participation to some others we show the population how satisfied we were with their participation with respect to their cooperation with their multiple multifaceted support and so we send thank you letters it's meal sharing time it's time for sharing it's time for emotion it's time for recognition and all of this also translated well by physical mails as virtual mails by physical messages in person of current current and that by virtual messages and at the same time that this thank is happening around 'a friendly dish over tea at the same time we introduce the next edition yet.

To conclude, we will say that developing and retaining audiences at festivals is a long-term job, a meticulous job. The audience is built step by step. It is from year to year and with teamwork that we manage to create loyalty and retain this audience it is an inclusive work which must also lead the population to know to realize that the event in question has been thought by an individual, of course, but the fact that it has gone beyond the framework of individuality and becomes at the same time municipal, regional, national or even more international this is just a sharing of experience starting from the international dance meeting festival in the public space in outer dance festival which takes place in Bobo-Dioulasso, the 2nd largest city of Burkina.

it's just a sharing of experience and I hope that it will be useful in any case for one and the other. It can perhaps serve as an example to also build   and maintain a good relationship with the audience for your event."