We are looking forward to meeting you again, because we want to talk about today and tomorrow, about green issues, sustainability and climate action. In over ten years of existence our pan-European think-tank GO Group like no other institution brought together hundreds of festivals, scientists, initiatives and suppliers involved in festival and event organisation to foster exchange on an international basis. Finally it is time for the next chapter! We are happy to once again present our interactive, dedicated, open and communicative format known as the „GO Group workshop“ with international guests and participants from all over Europe:
9th international GO Group Workshop
“Future-Fit Festivals”
Fabra I Coats | Barcelona (Spain)
17 & 18 April 2023
We kindly invite you to this 2-day seminar on April 17 and 18 2023 to a special place on the European festival landscape: Barcelona. We prepare this event with the kind support of Primavera Sound, FMA and Sound Diplomacy.The 9th international GO Group workshop will deal with what we need and what we can do to become „Future-Fit Festivals“.
We provide an exciting program featuring an extraordinary mix of inspiring keynotes, presentations of brand-new tools and case studies combined with creative workshops, discussions, talks and networking events on three days. We are looking forward to speakers from major events as well as scientists, experts and activists.
The program includes (more and details to be announced soon / subject to change / The workshop language will be English.):
GO GROUP workshop sessions on Mon 17 & Tue 18 April 2023:
Opening: GO Group is back „Harder, Faster, Greener, please!“
Finally, we’re back together again. Let’s kick this thing off in style! Learn who’s in the room and what is waiting for you – in these days and the future.
European Green Festival Roadmap 2030
The past year YOUROPE worked on Your action plan helping festivals achieving the goals of the European Green Deal. Let’s take a close look together. The Roadmap visualises areas where festivals and other events need to accelerate to cut their emissions by 2030 and become climate neutral by 2050, according to both EU policies and the UN Paris agreement. It contains easy access advice for a number of focus areas as well as differentiation on various levels of expertise in the organisation. Each focus area offers lists of measures applicable for different levels of impact and readiness. In this way, each festival or event will easily be able to create its own sets of goals and measures to follow the Roadmap. Each focus area is also connected to the relevant SDG.
Future Festival Tools
A dream team of leading organisations in events and sustainability from across Europe spent their time during the pandemic quite constructively. Future Festival Tools brought them together in a project to tackle the industry’s environmental impact by creating tools, resources & training for the festival industry and we show them today. They will help empowering event professionals across Europe to be future-ready, with green competency, tools and personal certification. We show you today Future Festival Tool’s:
- self-assessment tool
- green festival stories guide
- e-learning course
Festivals As Social Innovation Incubators
Let’s find out how festivals can realize their potential as platforms for young innovators to implement their own ideas for the benefit of society. A partner project involving Roskilde Festival and YOUROPE created a set of tools to help festivals, NGOs and young innovators to realize the potentials at hand.
In this session for the first time we will present you inspiring cases, a comprehensive toolbox and inputs from experts from the fields of education, social innovation, youth work and, yes, festivals.
Seriously, we need to talk… about BEER.
You honestly can’t imagine festivals without it. It is the standard drink of our visitors, artists and crews (after hours). It is a major source of income in the beverage department and at the sponsorship level. But what impact does beer have and how do we deal with it?
FMA’s brand new guide to circular festivals
Details to be added soon
Rototom Festival case study
Details to be added soon
The value of events – how to measure your social impact?
In this session, Azucena Micó will be presenting a project Sound Diplomacy has worked on with the Barcelona City Council to develop a tailored plan to analyse the value of events locally in order to determine public investment. With the aim to encourage more public support for events and festivals, drive recovery and meet the Sustainable Development Goals, Sound Diplomacy has developed a framework to analyse the economic, social, culture and environment benefits events and festivals bring to communities, to determine how governments can best to invest in them.
GO GROUP‘s (almost) legendary future-mapping workshop
Get your head, hands and hearts ready, but let u explain first: This workshop is based on the work of system scientists Otto Scharmer and Peter Sengeand at MIT -Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their Theory U process at the Presencing Institute aims at helping systems, societies and people to emerge a better future. The 3D Mapping is a tool we use to bring multiple dimensions and perspectives to seeing and understanding the elements of the system together (co-sensing). During this physical mapping process, the teams will collaboratively co-create one-or several – depending on groups size- 3D model(s) of festivals’ current reality and of the future. This thing actually is playful, interactive, surprising and a lot of fun, too!
Confirmed GO Group speakers (in alphabetical order)
- Fiachra Brendan Mc Donagh (Rototom Festival, ES)
- Nikita Coulter (AGF, IE)
- Marina De La Fuente (Asociación de Festivales de Música, ES)
- Chris Johnson (Green Event international & VISION 2025, UK)
- Azuzena Micó (Sound Diplomacy, ES)
- Claire O’Neill (AGF, UK)
- Paula Raez (Asociación de Festivales de Música, ES)
- Holger Jan Schmidt (YOUROPE / GO GROUP, DE)
- Fine Stamnitz (Green Music Initiative & Green Touring Network, DE)
- Linneá Svensson (Greeer Events, NO)
Networking events:
The Sunday night get-together (Sun. 16th April) As always we meet for a casual get-together on the pre-workshop evening at a nice location.
The GO GROUP Dinner (Mon 17th April) The official workshop networking dinner is the secret star of the event. Let’s follow up the day’s hot topics, get to know eachother more, start a friendship… everything can happen here!
Registration Fee:
- 150€ regular price incl. all fees and lunch on both days.
- special rates for YOUROPE members or partners please chose ticket number and enter your discount code (if you think you’re eligable to a discount, but don’t have the code, please get in touch)
This will be amazing! All the best & see you all in Barcelona!
The 9th international GO GROUP workshop is embedded in YOUROPE’s three-year project 3F – Future-Fit Festivals, which is co-funded by the European Union.

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