Festivals as an expression of culture.
Introduction.
At the very last, festivals should be fun. If they're educational, inspirational, good for commerce and the common good but are not fun, sponsors are wasting their sponsorship dollars.
Ideally, a good festival leaves you breathless. It is inspiring enough to make you simultaneously laugh and cry, educational enough to give you insight into yourself and others, and seductive enought to bring you back again to meet, greet and enjoy performances you may only see once a year at one of the best parties in town. At lest and at most, a good festival always shows its audience a really, really good time.
The experts who have written articles for "About Festivals..." truly know a lot about producing festivals. They know how to celebrate, how to bring people together, how to program performances that not only take your breath away but leave you weak in the knees. Some of them are old timers who learned to produce on a wing and prayer in the '70s. Most of them are visionaries who willed their events to happen while a greek chorus of nay sayers chanted "It's impossible!" All of them, then and now, are smart, savvy organisers who understand the relationship of planning and publicity to positive results.