Festival Bytes is a blog initiated by the European Festivals Association (EFA), the Festival Network uniting festivals from all over Europe and beyond. Festival Bytes is a space for story-telling about festivals, a space to share the ideas of personalities from the festival and cultural sectors on the role of arts and culture in general and of festivals in particular. This blog invites and hosts bloggers: they make us think; they take us behind the scenes of their activities; they share their insights and expertise, exchange their ideas and visions, explore trends and best practices. They inspire us and invite to share our own (digital) stories.

Festival Bytes ensures a diversity of perspectives on a broad range of arts and festival related topics. It gathers opinions of communication and media experts, of established cultural personalities from the festival and cultural sectors, and of emerging festival managers from the Alumni Network of the Atelier for Young Festival Managers from all over Europe and beyond.

In 2011, the European Festivals Association (EFA) set up the Working Group “Communicating Festivals – Communicating Europe”. The participants are communication, marketing, PR and new media experts working for or with some of the most renowned festivals from all over Europe. The Working Group was created as a platform to exchange on current applications and recent innovations in communication and marketing tools applied specifically in festivals on the one hand; and to reflect on the challenges and the future of communicating festivals and communicating Europe on the other.

The group jointly set up the blog “Festival Bytes”. Next to exploring the use and application of digital and social media in festivals, the bloggers on Festival Bytes look at innovative digital arts initiatives, processes of audience development, the role of arts and festivals in reaching out to citizens and many more festival related topics.