The innovation of arts festivals: Concepts, approaches and effects

Hosting festivals is commonly used as a promising strategy to market a destination to interested visitors and achieve various socio-economic goals amongst local population. This chapter focuses on arts festivals, a type of event that is quickly gaining in importance across the globe. In addition to a concise review and integration of the concepts and approaches in relation to innovation in arts festivals, a case study of Macao Arts Festival is presented. It considers the Macau Arts Festival as just such a loose alliance of stakeholders and also considers the development of innovations over the history of the festival. Whilst the chapter focuses on a particular case study, the Macao Arts Festival, nonetheless, it is likely that elements of the innovative approach taken in Macao will resonate with other festivals elsewhere. Macao Arts Festival was established in 1988. It had been managed by the Portuguese government until 1999, when Macao was returned to China as a special administrative region.