ABSTRACT
How do organisers of activist festivals include the local and activist community in their programmes? Is there a trade-off in reaching both levels? This chapter examines the role of the organisational and programme management in stimulating or hindering inclusion of different members and ideas in the activist as well as in the local community through gendered activist festivals. Whereas the shared political values and advancement of the movement’s goals define the first community, the latter describes spatial units. The ethnographic research (2015–2017) on self-identified women’s, feminist, and LGBTQ festivals in the post-Yugoslav territory indicates that activist festivals organised on do-it-yourself (DIY) principles proved to work best for building and sustaining the activist community, while professional (selective) art festivals have stronger potential for reaching out a broader audience in the local community. The effect proved to be in a reverse relation to the size of the existing activist, academic and (sub)cultural offer of the given local context: the most heterogeneous audience could be found in the smallest communities. This chapter bridges social movements and critical event studies as the findings illustrate models of best practices and lessons learned in respect to events’ accessibility, inclusion, and diversity.
