Festivals and emergency management organizations can share vital information within and across organizations before an event so that all stakeholders can respond and contribute to recovery from potential issues. Regularly exchanging information is crucial for maintaining strong partnerships. Meetings with both formal and informal community leaders and partners can ensure organizations can respond during a disaster. By working together on plans to ensure community recovery and help stabilize the local economy can make the community more resilient.

 A festival focused on resilience ensures they can return to a state of balance after a crisis through resistance and adaptation processes (Mayer & Alegria, 2019). When festivals themselves are resilient they are better able to contribute to the resilience of a community in disaster recovery.  This is a “process linking a set of adaptive capacities to a positive trajectory of functioning and adaptation after a disturbance” (Norris et al., 2008; p. 131). Adaptations can include those that reinforce existing organizational or system stability or those that modify institutions to contribute to resilience through flexibility (Pelling and High, 2005).

Festivals contribute to resilience and community recovery by leveraging their own social capital. At the organizational level, SC typically refers to the norms and networks that facilitate collective action (Windasari, Lin & Chen, 2017). When festivals focus on conscious interaction, community dynamics and offering collective respite, they are better able to contribute to the recovery.

A whole community approach is needed to effectively recover from disaster.  Festivals are uniquely positioned to engage diverse groups within a community because of their networks, made up of reciprocal internal and external relationships that are both formal and informal. Festival organizations act as highly connected hubs bringing diverse groups together. This is a unique role that festivals play in community recovery.