Hub festival grants

Leading transnational festival clusters

This programme selects six major West African festivals to become regional leaders, each anchoring a transnational cluster in different cultural sectors. As a hub festival, you'll develop and implement ambitious internationalisation strategies while supporting smaller festivals across the region to grow their international reach.

Who can apply: Large, well-established festivals with robust economic capacity, solid track records, high recognition and visibility, and ability to attract top-class artists. You must demonstrate strong links with regional artists and cultural organisations, plus capacity for international cooperation both within West Africa and with European festivals.

Your role as hub: Develop comprehensive work plans for your cultural sector showing how transnational cooperation will benefit all cluster members. Lead cluster coordination across multiple countries, host joint training programmes, and establish sustainable partnerships with European festivals through mentored exchange visits.

Cluster development: Each hub manages a cluster of approximately 7 mid-scale festivals from at least 5 different West African countries, including at least two linguistic backgrounds (English, French, Portuguese). You'll co-develop calls for cluster membership and coordinate activities that build lasting regional networks.

Sectoral focus: Six sectors will be selected during inception phase, potentially including music, cinema and audiovisual, heritage, literature, visual arts, and performing arts. Your application must articulate a clear vision for internationalisation specific to your cultural sector.

International partnerships: Receive dedicated mentoring support to identify and develop relationships with European festival partners. Participate in exchange visits to EU festivals during European festival season, followed by return visits from European partners during West African festival season.

Activities you can implement: Develop collaborations and co-productions, create festival circuits for artists and professionals, organise staff mobilities between festivals, arrange visits to major European festivals and networks, and pilot international marketing strategies and joint branding initiatives.

Financial support: Substantial funding covers dedicated staff person for cluster management, direct costs of implementing work plans, training programmes, international travel, and partnership development activities. Grants paid in tranches conditional upon activity implementation.

Selection criteria: Applications assessed on internationalisation vision, management capacity, commitment to gender equality and environmental sustainability, geographical and linguistic diversity representation, and ability to support cluster development across multiple countries.

How to apply: Applications must include detailed work plans showing specific activities, timelines, and expected outcomes for your cultural sector. Strong applications demonstrate existing regional networks, international ambitions, and commitment to supporting smaller festivals' development. Launch Date: 18.09.2025
Cut-off Date: 15.12.2025
Implementation Phase: 01.02.2026 - 31.01.2028