Association of Independent Festivals announce Festival Congress … – Access All Areas (press release) (registration)

Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) has announced its annual event will return to Cardiff for its fourth year in October.

The Festival Congress will play host to an incredible Pseudoscience theme, set to play homage to the nonsensical and weird experiments made by scientists and festival promoters alike.

The standout event will be led by a keynote by artistic director and CEO of Manchester International Festival, John McGrath, in addition to quick fire talks fromrenowned author Zoe Cormier about her book Sex, drugs and rock n roll: The science of hedonism and the hedonism of science, and John Kampfner, chief executive of the Creative Industries Federation, who will speak about creative industry red lines on Brexit.

There will also be a Question time style panel exploring political issues in relation to festivals and featuring some leading lights of the independent festival world, with other key topics at the conference including event security, welfare, booking processes, up scaling small festivals and creative production. Another headline panel discussion will explore the next steps of AIFs Safer spaces campaign, which reiterated the zero tolerance approach that festivals have to sexual assault with a 24 hour coordinated website black out in May.

Held in Cardiffs Wales Millennium Centre (WMC) on 30-31 October, the Festival Congress is a major fixture in the festival industry calendar.

Were back for a fourth year with Festival Congress, the ultimate conference and festival party for the independents, said AIF co-founder, Rob da Bank. Were proud of how essential this event has become and all at AIF HQ are buzzing to be joining the dots between festival promotion and science this year, in what promises to be a packed and extremely fun couple of days in Cardiff.

Attendees include notable festival organisers from the likes of Glastonbury, Bestival, Boomtown Fair, Kendal Calling, Shambala, End of the Road, Liverpool Sound City and many more. The event also invites speakers from every corner of the music sphere with a speaker alumni of Jude Kelly OBE (artistic Ddirector, Southbank Centre), Huw Stephens (Radio One and Swn Festival co-founder), Simon Parkes (founder, Brixton Academy), Professor Tim OBrien (Jodrell Bank observatory), Robert Richards (commercial director, Glastonbury) and many more.

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Association of Independent Festivals announce Festival Congress ... - Access All Areas (press release) (registration)