Image: Bayala: Out of the Vaults, Sydney Festival 2017
Festivals are often touted for their ability to transform a city, bringing in tourists, stimulation economic activity, championing new art forms and building new audiences.
But as the number of festivals mushrooms, the tendency to stick the label ‘festival’ on everything from a summer in-house program to a massive international gathering has made the term amorphous, perhaps even meaningless.