The arts festival movement has grown and diversified with amazing rapidity over the past ten years. As arts councils, arts centers, and city cultural affairs departments were created and multiplied, the festival concept became an important and effective vehicle for generating community involvement and unity. City officials and local governments have come to recognize this.

Three years ago, ACA sponsored a conference in Orlando, Florida on Arts Festivals. Since then, the number of festivals in the nation has multiplied ten times over, with some 1,000 arts festivals now held annually. Recognizing this tremendous growth and sophistication of the arts festival movement, ACA invited festival administrators to discuss the concept of festivals and to share their successes and failures. In June 1979, 144 speakers and delegates representing 30 states, assembled in Pittsburgh, PA. This particular site was chosen because two other major events were in town: the U.S. Conference of Mayors summer meeting, and the Three Rivers Arts Festival, a co-sponsor for the conference as well as a living laboratory for the conference delegates.

This pamphlet was written to document the conference and to share the major points with those in the field who were unable to attend. Recorders attended each session to prepare rough notes from which this document was written. This is not intended to be a comprehensive handbook or guide for administering a festival. It is, however, a valuable resource tool for festival administrators who want a national overview of the festival movement. (p. 1)

CONTENTS
Introduction.
Sessions: 
     Why a festival?
     Planning your festival.
     Festivals...vehicles for change.
     Image building and community involvement.
     Identification of resources.
     Psychological realities around festivals.
     Festival advisory boards.
     Caucus.
     Funding.
     Quality vs. quantity.
     From the chicken to the egg.
     The political, social, and economic importance of cities to festivals. 
Conclusion.