Create a Mission Statement

Is the focus of your festival a specific audience or a specific aspect of storytelling? Consider what first led you to the idea of organizing a festival. What or whose needs or interests were you trying to meet? The answers to these questions can help guide you in creating a short mission statement. Use your short mission statement to provide a “handle” to your program for prospective sponsors, to share the focus of the program with staff, and to keep you on track in designing your program.

The Site for Your Festival. How many people do you expect to attend?

Do you need to set a maximum audience size, or are you prepared to welcome all that come? Will your festival be held indoors, outdoors or some of both? What will you need in your chosen setting to ensure the comfort of your audience so they can concentrate on enjoying the program. Consider the cost of each type of setting. Costs include site fees (or rent), staffing needs and support services such as sound support, security, custodial, set-up and strike, etc. What facilities are available? Look around your community. What facilities would benefit your festival? Don’t be shy about approaching businesses and schools as well as public facility managers for the use of their land and buildings. Providing the site for your festival it is one way they can be an event partner or sponsor. Match your program with the facilities you use. Outdoor settings offer a fair-like atmosphere, accommodate large audiences, but the weather is the gamble. Musicians, folk art displays and activities, and wandering street performers may add to your festival ambience—especially in-between storytelling sessions. Small group performances, break-out sessions, workshops, and evening performances are easier to arrange indoors and have a more formal atmosphere.

Designing Your Program

A single performance, an evening, a day, or multiple days, the number of performances and duration of your festival is determined by your mission statement, your budget, the availability of your facilities, your profile audience, the time of year you choose for your program, and the stamina of your staff. Begin with a program you can do well. Your program can grow as your experience and support grows.

>> Start a Festival