Future Festivals South Africa: Possibilities for the Age of Covid-19 is an international collaborative project developed by  King's College London (UK) and Rhodes University (South Africa). It aims to investigate the impact of Covid-19 on arts   festivals in South Africa (SA), building a new knowledge base - and a collaborative network - to enable them to survive  these challenging times, and to thrive in the future. In doing so, the project is partnering with some of the country's most  important festivals and will be seeking to develop a broad and inclusive network of stakeholders. The project brings  together an interdisciplinary team of researchers including cultural economists, cultural policy researchers and creative  labour specialists. Data collection has been carefully designed to integrate mixed-methods and to involve a wide range of  research participants including festival organisers, creative producers, and festival audiences. Qualitative interviews and  focus groups will be conducted with festival organisers and creative producers. Quantitative data will be collected with  festivals' audiences, via online surveys, exploring their patterns of cultural consumption and participation (before and since  the outbreak of Covid-19). Finally, a community engagement project will be undertaken - Letters, Videos and Pictures from  the Future - to gather creative contributions from stakeholders on their vision of what South African festivals should be like   in the years ahead. The project aims to provide an initial understanding of the how Covid-19 has affected arts festivals in  South Africa, but also to enable new ideas for future: including new business models, and new approaches to audiences  and participation.
The project has received ethics approval by King's College London (MRA-19/20-21126  ).  Full details of the   ethical guidelines and information sheet for the project are available online. 

Future Festivals South Africa: Possibilities for the Age of Covid-19 aims to investigate the impact of Covid-19 on festivals in  South Africa (SA). Working in partnership with some of the country's most important arts festivals we will build a new  knowledge base, and a new network, to enable South African festivals to survive these challenging times and to thrive in  the future. The project's main objectives are:

•  To understand the impact that Covid-19 is having on the working practices and activities of South African arts festivals:  including any initial responses that are being developed, such as new ways of delivering cultural content (online or with  social distancing), and business models that make it possible for festivals to continue.
•  To develop a new network - supported by an online knowledge exchange platform - to allow festival organisers and  creative producers to navigate together the uncertainties posed by Covid-19, and to be informed by up to date knowledge. 
• To understand the ways in which Covid-19 is changing festival audiences' patterns of cultural consumption and  participation in SA: including whether they have participated in online festivals, and whether this has changed their   perspective on the economic, social and cultural value of live and online events.
• To support a wide range of stakeholders (festival organisers, producers and audiences) to creatively develop visions of  'future festivals': new possibilities for South African festivals in the age of Covid-19