How will festival cities survive Covid-19? Lessons from Edinburgh, Galway and Helsinki

Cultural leaders from Helsinki, Edinburgh and Galway gathered on Wednesday 26 August for a discussion on festival cities’ pandemic-proof strategies organised by the Finnish Institute in London.

Edinburgh and Helsinki are renowned as summertime capitals of culture and Galway, in turn, is the current European Capital of Culture. Unfortunately, the current pandemic has caused most events to be cancelled over the past months. How has the crisis impacted these cities’ identities? How have local communities been taken into account? How do you establish a sense of place in a virtual environment?

The inaugural edition of the Finnish Institute in London’s Present-series featured panelists Julia Amour, Festivals Edinburgh Director, Marilyn Gaughan Reddan, Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture’s Head of Programme, and Sanna Forsström, the City of Helsinki’s Head of Events. The event was hosted by the Director of the Finnish Institute, Emilie Gardberg.

Present is a series of discussions focusing on the future of cultural events programming. Read more about the series with a visual summary of this discussion here (http://archive2025.fininst.uk/events/present/).