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The 2024 festival which took place last week was without doubt the best yet. The sheer range of speakers and attendees who came to Perugia from all over the world was extraordinary. We are so proud to have hosted such a remarkable gathering of people.
The next festival will take place from 9 to 13 April 2025. In Perugia, of course.
The festival however is beginning to encounter issues caused by its success that need to be resolved. In January we published a post addressing the large number of proposals received for inclusion in the 2024 festival programme. We now need to address another symptom of success; queues to enter the festival venues.
Speakers and attendees will have noticed a substantial increase in the number and length of queues for English-language sessions this year. Some queues were so long that even those who began to queue up more than 20 minutes before the start of a session were unable to gain access.
Two initial points:
- We apologise for any inconvenience and disappointment. We are aware of how frustrating it can be to travel all the way to Perugia and then be unable to follow certain sessions in-person.
- The issue of queues to follow English-language sessions first emerged at the 2023 festival. Prior to 2023, queues were effectively only for high-profile Italian-language sessions. Queues are now for a broad set of English-language sessions. The average festival attendee profile has changed appreciably in a short period of time.
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What we will do to resolve this issue for the 2025 festival:
- Eliminate the smaller festival venues. It is now clear that venues with a capacity of less than 100 are no longer fully suitable for festival sessions. Two larger venues were unavailable this year due to renovation work (festival veterans will remember these venues from previous years) but will be back in action in 2025. In addition, at least one – possibly two – other town centre venues with appropriate seating capacity will hopefully also be available.
- We have considered the option of introducing registration and/or ticketing. And rejected it. The unique spirit of the festival remains rooted in its free entry structure and we do not wish to change that.
Regarding proposals for inclusion in the 2025 programme, there will be additional venue space and a programme reconfiguration to free up hotel rooms for more English-language speakers. These changes will allow us to accept more English-language proposals, which has become a necessity following our experience this January (see above). Reminder: the deadline for receipt of proposals is 31 December.
The ijf24 day-by-day photogallery can be seen here. And the ijf24 videogallery – with the videos of all sessions divided by programme category – can be seen here.
In addition, each ijf24 speaker has the photos and video(s) of their session(s) included in their speaker profile. And each ijf24 session has its photos and video included in its programme page.
We look forward to welcoming the festival community back to Perugia in April 2025. A big thanks to everyone who helped to make the 2024 festival such a memorable experience.
Arianna and Chris
Photo credit: Auditorium San Francesco al Prato #ijf24 by Monica Rizza.