Festival and Event Management Masterclass – Turku

Are you ready to take your festival or event to the next level? The internationally acclaimed Festival and Event Management Masterclass is back in Finland. This highly regarded workshop is designed for anyone involved in planning, managing, or supporting festivals and events—offering expert insights, fresh ideas, and the inspiration to create unforgettable experiences.
The workshop has received consistently high praise (see below) with participants welcoming the valuable industry knowledge, creative new ideas and above all how inspiring they found the Masterclass.

Who Attends?
One of the strengths of the Masterclass is the really diverse range of participants. Here is just a small selection of the 2,000+ organizations who have attended the Masterclass

Music Festivals: Pori Jazz Festival, Calgary Folk Festival, Savonlinna Opera Festival, Flow Festival, Turku Music Festival, Rauma Blues Festival, BRQ Vantaa Festival, Helsinki Festival

Film Festivals: Helsinki International Film Festival , Banff Mountain Film Festival

Tourism and Placemaking: Göteborg & Co, Estonian Tourist Board, Regina Downtown

Municipalities: City of Espoo, Kuusamon kaupunki, Pirkkalan kunta, City of Helsinki

Dance Festivals: Oslo International Dance Festival, Kuopio Dance Festival

Book Festivals: Saskatchewan Festival of Words,

Family Events: Horsens Children’s Theatre Festival

Food and Drink Events: Vancouver International Wine Festival, Taste of Antwerp

Museums and Galleries: Lönnströmin taidemuseo , Estonian National Museum

Venues and Cultural centres: Jersey Opera House, Handelsbeurs Concertzaal, Korjaamo Culture Factory, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Other participants: Cirko, Stockholm Pride, Korjaamo, University of the Arts Helsinki, Oulu 2026, , Humak University, Copenhagan Photography Festival, Helsinki Baroque Orchestra

A full list of all those who have attended is available at www.festivalmanagers.com

What You’ll Gain

✅ Expert knowledge from a renown festival and event expert
✅ Practical strategies to improve your event’s success
✅ Inspiration to innovate and grow
✅ Connections with like-minded professionals

Masterclass Sessions

Day 1

Developing Great Festivals and Events
This session draws inspiration from successful festivals, events and destinations, looking at what we can learn from their approach, models and creative programming. It also looks forward to consider how AI can help develop festivals and events

People and Partnerships
Looks at how effective festival organisations manage their teams and staff, their relationships with stakeholders and collaborations with partners.

Programming
The key to the success of any festival is the strength and imagination of the programme. This session explores a number of successful programming strategies.

Sponsorship and Fundraising
This session considers how best to approach sponsors and explores other ways to generate valuable income.

Festivals, Tourism and Placemaking
This session considers the relationship between festivals, their towns and cities and explores how they can play a crucial role in raising the profile of a destination.

Day 2

Festival Marketing
This session examines a number of successful marketing approaches adopted by leading festivals

Venues and Festival Infrastructure
This session considers how to make the most of the venues available to your festival and developing the infrastructure required to run events successfully. The session also looks at how events can work towards making themselves more sustainable.

Working with the Media
Every festival needs a good relationship with the media and this session considers how best to achieve this aim.

Festivals – Impact and Evaluation
This session considers how festivals should look to maximise and evaluate their impact economically, socially and culturally.

The Masterclass is presented in English

Secure Your Spot

Early Bird Price: €395 (if booked by 10 April)
Regular Price: €450 (after 10 April)
Group Discount: €295 per person for organizations sending more than one attendees

Cancellation Policy

10 days or more before the course start date –  Full refund will be given

2 – 9 days before the course start date – 50% refund will be given

Less than 2 days before the course start date – 25% refund will be given

Here are some comments from participants at previous masterclasses. They are taken from the post course survey.

Stockholm The course was a vitamin injection in how to manage a festival and also how to evolve it. In short: The ultimate Crash Course in festival management!   City of Sodertalje

Stavanger I found the workshop both interesting, inspiring and helpful. I have gained new ideas for my own festival and also important confirmation of things we have done that seems to be the right thing to do. In short: I loved it! Nordlysfestivalen, Tromsø

Bergen  The course was well planned and insightful. Paul has loads of experience, is confident in himself, yet informal and easy to talk with, and great at involving the participants. I would recommend the course both for learning and motivational purposes.  Nordland Music Festival

Melbourne As a local government officer providing support for event organisers in our municipality, this course provided me with a variety of tips and tools that I can pass on as well as giving me the opportunity to look more critically at how we as a council support events and what we can do differently or better. The course was also a great way to meet others working in the events field from across Australia and create new mutually beneficial contacts. Alpine Shire Council

Göteborg All we talked about I can apply to my own way of thinking when it comes to our event, and I got so many new ideas and also confirmation that what we do is right, which leads me to believe that our dance festival will be even more successful this time around. Thank you Paul for two packed, and inspiring days!    Abundance International Dance Festival

Utrecht The two days masterclass really stirred things up in a positive way. And we look forward to showing our audience what we got for them.   Festival Mooie Woorden.

Helsinki Paul has the amazing ability to coach event management professionals participating in his Masterclass without them even knowing it! He inspires participants to think and connect the dots in a creative way in order to create stronger programmes, partnerships and networks for their festival and events. His passion is contagious Culture Export Management and PR Lounge

Trondheim You`re sharing so much practical knowledge and brilliant examples, I got one A-HA moment after another. LOTS of useful ideas (and energy!) to bring back home. Hilmarfestivalen, Norway

There is much more feedback on our website www.festivalmanagers.com