Festivals - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

for a limited and very often ineffective use of advertising or other forms of paid communication.
Having a festival that lasts a few days or a few weeks is both an opportunity
and a pitfall when managing relationships with the media. The combination of
a significant number of shows in one particular place and one particular period, the
wave of new ideas and the internationalisation that festivals often bring with them,
and the fact that festivals are an opportunity for visibility and renown also for the city
and its surrounding area, are all certainly conditions that can elicit a positive response
from the media and, in some cases, transform the festival into a real media event.
Conversely, the fact that it is an ephemeral event that runs its course in a short period
of time means that the festival’s communication runs the risk of cannibalisation by
exceptional or unforeseeable events (one need only think of those that took place in
the period around 11 September 2001 or 11 March 2004), or by competition from
other festivals that start up in the same period.
Another great dilemma in festival communication concerns the advisability of keeping
the attention of the media and public alive the whole year round, and not just
before the festival actually opens. In this case, if festivals approach the diversification
and wealth of local culture not as a form of unwelcome competition, but as an opportunity
to create economies of scale and communication, networking can also be used
as an instrument to limit the “communications lethargy” into which festivals lapse
during the year. This is precisely what happens with “Piemonte dal Vivo”, a circuit
of 70 festivals in Piedmont (North Italy) in which a process of coordination between
public authorities and festival operators has led to joint communication and promotion
activities (two-monthly newsletters, advance news about festivals that form part
of other initiatives in the region, special events in partnership with a number of festivals)
that make it possible to extend media attention and the interest of the public in a
number of festivals that take place in the area.
A festival, as a condensed event in time and space, offering a very special opportunity,
requires a condensed, impressive and immediate communication to get attention,
attract participation and diffuse the festival knowledge: media are a basic group
of stakeholders, becoming fundamental to inform people, to promote the festival, to
communicate its image, identity and value as well as providing a way to promote.
Traditional and more technologic communication tools are various and their effect is
usually complementary (press, television, radio, flyers, poster, printed media, public
relations, website, internet, mailing list, sms); they can be supported by more creative
and personalized promotional tools, from interviews to performances, from inserts
in unexpected contexts to special promotional events. Relation with media requires
continuity to maintain attention alive and to update information.
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