Setting the scene for success
Festivals can be a bit of an adventure! Even if you have been working festivals for many years, having a ‘map’ on hand of who you are and what you want from the experience can help guide you through.
Common features of maps include:
- A way to determine direction (your values)
- A way to measure scale and distance (your personal definitions of success)
- A terrain and its edges (your boundaries)
Exploring these three areas can help build greater self awareness – it’s easier to find your way when you know what you value, what success means for you, and where your boundaries lie.
Let’s explore this metaphor in a little more detail.
Know your why
There are many types of meaning people can derive from working, creating, or performing in festivals. Being involved might represent a career opportunity; a way to gain financially or earn a wage; a way to build your experience or an audience; or myriad other reasons that differ from person to person.
Regardless of what has brought you into a festival, knowing why you want to be involved and how this links to what you value in life can help keep you motivated and on track.
To clarify your purpose, aims and objectives for a festival season try envisioning in detail the kind of ‘ending’ you want to achieve before you start.
Questions that can help you ‘find your why’ include:
- What is the purpose of this festival? Who is it for? (If you’ve worked for the festival before, or long term, is there anything new or different this time around?)
- What needs is the festival/your show/your role meeting? What gaps is it filling?
- How does this festival/your show/your role make a difference to people?
- What kind of impact does the festival want to make? What impact do you want to make by being involved?
- How does being involved in this festival align with your personal/team values?
- What legacy does the festival want to leave? What legacy do you want to leave? (Note! this can be as simple as ‘the people I worked with had fun’.)
If you are organising or presenting at a festival, consider discussing these questions in the lead up with your teams and collaborators.
If you are working or performing at a festival, consider using these questions as the basis for self-reflection or conversation: for example, by writing in a journal, by setting aside a little quiet time to think, or by talking them through with people in your life.
We often spend so much time focused on ‘the how’: how to get funding for our show or a wage in our pocket, how our show will look and be performed, how we’ll juggle our various responsibilities, etc. that it can be easy to lose focus on ‘the why.’
Returning to our ‘why’ works like a compass – it helps us know which way we are headed and provides clarity on how our festival-work aligns with our broader values, goals and needs.
Define success
Defining success on your own terms, rather than by other people’s ideas of what success is, is easier said than done!
But doing so, even once in a while, can show you where you are and how far you have come. For success to be personally meaningful, it needs to link to your values and identity.
Taking time to reflect on your values and identity means you can connect your sense of success directly to what you, personally, care about. Doing so, you’ll feel more fulfilled in your endeavours because you’re living a life that’s important and authentic for you.
It’s important to make your own measures of success rather than relying on what you’ve been taught or think you should do or by measuring your success in comparison to other people. The fact is, we never really know another person’s reality or truly understand how their circumstances and needs may differ from ours.
Defining success for yourself often involves investing time nourishing other aspects of your life and identity beyond your work. No matter what you do, remember that your art/work/job, is something you do, it’s a part of who you are, but not all you do and all you are.
Your successes as an artist or arts worker, or in a festival, are not the only things that define your value and worth.
For many of us this can be challenging to think about, as often we have grown up in a world that defines us by our artistic practice, by our specific skillsets, or by our job title.
Keeping a wider perspective on your work, and prioritising other important parts of your life beyond your work is very important for sustainable work practice and work/life balance.
It can seem simpler to focus on external measures (such as reviews, accolades, awards etc) when assessing if you succeeded in an endeavour. However, by bringing in your personal measures of success you add new things to aim for and gain access to more ways to succeed.
Over time, it becomes easier to experience and savour your various successes because you are not just aiming to achieve one fixed thing.
Before you start working a festival, or in between festival seasons, why not have a think about what your personal measures of success might be? For example:
- Why is this opportunity meaningful to me?
- Why this festival, at this time, with these people?
- What do I hope to get from the experience?
- What can I learn? How can I grow? Who can I meet?
- What skills and connections can I deepen or build?
Set boundaries
The final piece of the ‘map’ to explore is, of course, the terrain itself. Where are the paths to walk? Where are the edges to navigate? Which are the hills to climb?
Before a festival, or between festivals, try and take the time to define your relevant personal boundaries, for example:
- What hours will you be working?
- When will you check emails/messages, or when do you turn off or step away from work?
- What is your job within this project, and what is not your job?
- How can you set up your week to ensure self-care during the festival, such as eating well, getting some sleep and maintaining your important relationships?
- What supports do you have in place, and which can you set up for the festival period ahead of time?
- What do you need to feel and be well? How might working the festival impact this? What extra supports might you need during peak periods, or if you get ill or injured?
It’s important to define boundaries for yourself and communicate them effectively to others. Talk with the people you will be working with about what you need to thrive in your role and plan out how you will communicate effectively when those boundaries are being crossed.
For example; taking a break when working a long shift is not only important for sustainable practice, but also improves your performance on return.
