The Art of Mass Gatherings (AoMG) is an experiential workforce development program that builds community resilience and climate change preparedness through the arts, culture, food, and festivals. Whether a single day learning event or a statewide training program, AoMG brings together a variety of professionals—including artists, event producers, and emergency responders— for hands-on learning and networking in a trauma-reduced setting. Participants meet one another and share knowledge and practices that increase the safety, accessibility, sustainability, and community engagement of large gatherings of people.
The challenge
How can festivals serve as a living classroom to meaningfully enhance community resilience? Every Art of Mass Gatherings is co-developed in collaboration with a local host committee. Host committee members help ensure the local relevancy and success of the symposium, tuning program content to meet community needs or defining specific outcomes for participants. With up to ten to twenty key stakeholders, it was critical to have reliable ways to collect and synthesize input, even for people who were not available during regular online meetings.
Events tend to look like their organizers, so ideally each host committee comprises a diverse mix of arts and cultural organizations, emergency service agencies, and subject specialists inclusive of diverse demographics. In an unfamiliar city, how can we identify and reach out to people whose voices should be part of the event?
The design solutions
An initial host committee survey identifies key priorities and goals for each event. Each meeting from that week forward emphasizes just one or two critical action items: making introductions to potential speakers, providing organizational details to share in the program, reviewing the schedule, etc. I created an online planning portal for each host committee, updated before and after each meeting with timely documents, action items, and more. This on-demand resource was accompanied by a push cadence of email reminders for action items and upcoming meetings.
Impact
Hundreds of people in ten cities across the United States have already participated in this innovative program, developed by Majestic Collaborations and featured by FEMA in its Arts & Experiential Learning Inspiration Book.