The vision and mission indicate the direction and goals of a festival.  When we go into daily operation, it is easy to get lost in the many issues we deal with in order to produce a festival and, consequently, we tend to lose focus on what our festival is for. As such, mission and vision statements help keep the focus placed on what we have determined matters the most. Drafting a vision and a mission statement can take time, and will be constantly revisited, depending on where our organisation is, which are your objectives as a curator, and the needs of both the artists and your community.

The vision of the festival focuses on what we want to accomplish with the festival and programme. It dictates the overall strategy, what the festival would like to achieve and a vision for the future. The mission of the festival determines how to achieve these goal(s) and the day-to-day operation of how to get there, including the primary goals, strategies and how to achieve them.

In planning it is important to include a timeline, as well as measurable objectives, which can be used to track the progress being made towards achieving the festival’s vision.

It is important as well to list which are the core values of your festival.

Example: Festival Musique du Bout du Monde

• Mission

Musique du Bout du Monde organises events for the community in order to discover and celebrate different cultures through music and other mediums.

• Vision

To create unforgettable experiences and encounters with a unique blend of world cultures set in our magnificent region.

• Values

The values that define The Musique du Bout du Monde have come together and been clarified over the past few years of the organization. They are the key criteria used as a reference to help make good choices for the orientation of the project.

• Goodwill

• Sense of belonging

• Audacity

• Pleasure

• Authenticity

Compiling as much data as we can from our audience can be an invaluable tool for our curatorial and programming efforts. Having a full understanding of who our audience is, where they are coming from, how they commute, their ages and lifestyle, can help us create programmes that connect with their interests. With this information, we can create a stronger bond between them, our festival, and the artistic programmes that go in synchronization with their interests.

Some of the variables to include:

There are different ways to budget for a festival. There are some key components that can be easy to forget while budgeting, for which it is always important to include an amount of contingency. 

Some of the concepts to consider while budgeting:

Artistic Costs

• Artistic Fees

• Management agencies fees

• Royalties / Rights

Production Costs

• Technical and Managerial staff

• Production Managers

• Technical Directors

• Stagehands and labour

• Designers: lighting, sound, video, scenery, costumes

• Sage managers

• Production

• Scenery

• Lighting

• Sound

• Video expenses

• Trucking and freight

• Travel & hospitality

• Hotels

• Flights / Train

• Local Transfers

• Per-diem

• Visa expenses (if needed)

• Front of House expenses

• House managers

• Ushers

• Box office (staff, ticket printing, ticket fees)

Marketing Costs

• Advertising campaigns, including press, radio, social media

• Publicity expenses

• Website and social media

• Contingency: depending on the size and complexity of the programs that will be part of the festival, this amount can be adjusted, but a 10% of the general budget is a safe place to start.

Being mindful of our stakeholders, in terms of donors and partners is very important. In the end, we can subsist partly because of their generosity. Here are some questions to consider:

• Are we taking them into account when programming and curating our festivals?

• Does our mission and vision align with their needs and interests?

Alternatively, depending on the programmes and artists we plan to present, we can look for specific donors, sponsors or partnerships which might be interested in our specific programme. For example, if we are presenting a work from a specific country, we should reach out to the Consulate or Embassy of such country and try to create synergy efforts with them, from resources, in-kind benefits, or marketing efforts.

Understanding the geographic location of our festival can also help us with programming and, simultaneously, become more creative curators.  Several questions to consider are:

• Are there limitations on the types of work we can present because of the specifics of the region where our festival takes place?

• How can we use our location as a curatorial opportunity? 

• What is the landscape and weather like?

• Which is the current situation of freedom of speech/artistic expression and censorship laws? 

• Who owns or occupies the land?

• Are there any risk factors because of our region?

• How do we consider the political and social history of our location while curating?

As festival programmers we should always consider our audience and fully understand the efforts they make to attend our festival, and more precisely, the economic factor. We need to go beyond thinking solely in terms of pricing our events as we need to be mindful of the additional actions they do that showcase their commitment and loyalty to the festival. Some questions to consider:

• Are they traveling from out of town? If so, what is the average spending they make? 

• Can we create parentships with local hotels, restaurants, and local attractions to make it easier for them to attend?

• If they are local audiences, how do they commute to our events and is the commute cost a factor?

With the current climate change and global warming challenges we are facing, we need to be mindful of our programming and be prepared for repercussions that this might have in our events. With climate emergencies such as tropical storms and hurricanes happening more often, we should be prepared and plan accordingly when programming our events. The climate crisis also posits a problem for mobility and touring, as the model of artists traveling across the globe for just one performance or show is becoming increasingly obsolete and unsustainable. This problem can become an opportunity for find partners in close locations who are also programming similar work, allowing the tour to be longer and therefore, allowing the artists’ trip to be more sustainable and productive.

Questions to consider:

• If we are programming an event outdoors, do we have an alternate plan in case it rains? 

• For international artists and the weather affecting international travel more often, do we have contingency in our schedules in case their flight gets delayed or cancelled

• How do we optimize international artists traveling from abroad, so their trip is sustainable and responsible with the environment?

Accessibility should always be in our minds when programming our events. Some questions to consider:

• Are we taking into consideration members of the audience with specific needs and programming performances for them, such as relaxed performances for audiences within the autism spectrum?

• Are we including assistant listening devises, audio described performances?

• How are we promoting diversity with our audience and being inclusive with our programming and outreach?

• In what language(s) is the information being distributed? Are we including minority languages (for example, indigenous languages from the first nations of the location of a specific festival)? Are we offering information in Plain language?

• In case there is an Open Call for presenting work in which is stated that the festival “encourages minorities to apply”, are we just encouraging them to apply, or are we genuinely including them in the program (for example, saving a spot for them to be part)?

• How do we reach audiences who don’t have access?

When programming a festival, we should be mindful and keep our goals realistic with our assets, both in terms of physical facilities and capabilities, and in terms of human resources. Questions to consider:

• Do we have the capabilities to serve properly to a wide audience when programming a popular event? (Enough ticket takers, ushers, restrooms)

• From a technical perspective, is our in-house crew enough to fulfill the needs of the program we are presenting? Do they have the skills to do the job, or do we need to bring a specialist?

• From an economic perspective, are we programming work according to our financial capacities? Are we assuring that our team and invited artists are receiving a fair salary?

• Do we have have a strategy to enhance mental health and well-being within our team, including freelancers, contractors?

Occasionally, programming needs to factor in conflict throughout the multiple stages surrounding festival programming, whether that is before, during it, and afterwards. Environmental factors around travel may impact accessibility factors for audiences and artists. Geographic or socio-political factors may impact artistic expression, which may, in turn, have an impact on sponsors or budget. Negotiating these conflicts can be difficult and it is important to have a strong mission and value statement guide decision making.

Sometimes there can be another kind of conflict of interests, which are internal and related to the curators’ own practice. A typical example is when the curators of the festival are artists and they want to include their own work as part of the program, or when they include their “circle of friends”, which questions the role of a curator and its attributions and their relation to power. Ethical dilemmas are very nuanced, so they depend on the mission and vision of the people involved in curating and making those decisions, and are helped by the presence of advisory boards or curatorial teams.

  Here are some questions to consider:

• What are our core values and mission and are they being compromised by internal or external, creative, or operational choices? 

• What happens if our core values are compromised or undermined? 

• Are all stakeholders (artists, audiences, funders, etc.) in agreement on values or do some have different values? If so, is this difference in values good, bad, or neutral? 

• How do we communicate and negotiate with our stakeholders?

A transitional period can impact festival curation. Festivals, programming models, and curatorial practices are not fixed. Festivals evolve and change, whether in response to environmental crises, global pandemics, or a change in leadership. Some questions to consider are: 

• Are my stakeholders (artists, audience, funders, etc.) transitioning with me? Is my programming leading the way? Running ahead or lagging? 

• What does my festival look like now and how might it be different at the end of this transition? Where do I want to go and how am I going to get there?

• How do we build a collaborative transition between the previous and the new direction?

• How do we conduct a transition that puts the festival identity, mission and vision above personal interest or conflicts?