Festivals contribute to community resilience and a sense of belonging. To contribute to this important cultural practice and platform for folk and traditional arts, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival Incubator shares more than fifty years of event practice with peer festival organizers through workshops and exchange.

We believe that festivals are important for community well-being, strengthening relationships, and fostering a sense of belonging. They can also contribute significantly to the economic health of communities. Their ephemeral nature brings together groups of people to spend time in a particular place, boosting spending at local businesses. Festivals are also essential to the vitality of cultural practices, serving as a platform for performance, a marketplace for traditional craft and cuisine, and a space for convening and learning, while encouraging transmission of practices within a community.

Since 1967, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage has produced the Smithsonian Folklife Festival—one of the biggest cultural events in the United States—in partnership with communities across the United States and around the world. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival Incubator, led by experienced Festival staff, brings our practice to communities through training, mentorship, and exchange activities.

Key Activities

• Creating Engaging Festivals Workshop
  The curriculum, which can be delivered in one- or two-day formats, was developed and adapted by our staff over several years and projects within international and domestic contexts to cover curation, design, community engagement, marketing and promotion, budgets and fundraising, and evaluation.
• Virtual Q&A and Mentorship Sessions
  These sessions allow for deeper engagement for festival organizers to connect with Smithsonian staff and our festival practice network, focus on areas of interest and need, and implement improvement plans to adopt new practices at their events.
• Festival Exchange
  Festival organizers can participate in an in-person, behind-the-scenes look at the Folklife Festival with daily observations and assignments, hands-on learning, reflection sessions, and tours of Smithsonian museums. Following the experience, Smithsonian staff can travel to participant festivals for observation, participation, reporting and debriefing with local festival teams, and goal setting.