Abstract

Cultural festivals, with both an informative and spectacular approach, had a notable development in Italy in the last few years. In addition to being cultural attractors, festivals are also a tool for promoting territories, with different impacts such as reputation, attractor for audiences, discovery of the territory’s tangible and intangible heritage, social aggregation. In this year of health emergency, festivals had to stop their activities, with significant consequences on the aesthetic, social and economic levels. Almost thirty percent of the 1030 Festivals mapped by TrovaFestival cancelled the 2020 edition; and 13% of the festivals went online, with an entirely digital 2020 edition. If the sanitary measures had negative consequences on many festivals, this experience can also offer new opportunities. The analysis of the data led can help us to understand the way the pandemic is changing the participation to festivals and cultural events, during and after the health emergency.