During this time of unimaginable challenges, as all global industries and communities face a truly unknown and unpredictable future as the result of the COVID-19 virus, and particularly its impact on mass gatherings, the IFEA believes that it is in the best interest of our events, to begin looking forward with a positive reimagining of festivals and other large, public, community events, both short and long-term.
To drive our thoughts and creative processes, we created four initial committees that make up the IFEA COVID-19 Task Force to take us through the recovery and response process. Each are headed by industry leaders addressing the issues of How do we ‘Re-Present our Current Events’ if we are forced to postpone or cancel; ‘What will Re-Opening Look Like’ when that is possible; How can we ‘Re-Imagine What the Future of Events May Look Like’ if the pandemic impact extends for one or more years; and How can we work together with our local stakeholders to ‘Re-Connect Our Communities.” Additionally, crossing all of these areas of thought, we have added a separate committee to explore considerations that may help ensure the ‘Financial Sustainability and Survival’ of our events.
To assist efforts in gathering information for these committees, we are reaching out to the broad global Festivals & Events Industry to share what you have been seeing Festivals & Events doing (your own and others), in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Please share any information that you may have available related to the following questions, no later than Wednesday, September 2nd.
Results and conclusions of the IFEA Task Force Committees will be shared with IFEA Members this fall.
