Five years of the YO!Fest: an interview with Giuseppe Porcaro

The YO!Fest that will take over the area around the European Parliament in Strasbourg in less than two weeks time has not always been the huge festival with thousands of young people getting together for a mixture of music, dance, art and political debate, as Giuseppe Porcaro, the Secretary General of the European Youth Forum and the person who started the YO!Fest explains:

“YO!Fest actually started out as a small reception in our office built upon the experience of the open doors day we were traditionally organizing at the Forum. In 2009 we included for the first time a space for members to display their work to our partners and visitors of the office. This proved so popular that we took it outside the office and it has just grown and grown!”

In 2010, the first YO!Fest took place in the park outside the Youth Forum’s office and we started experimenting with having some music at the event, through a collaboration with Jeunesses Musicales Internationales, which has continued through to today. This first incarnation of YO!Fest welcomed 100 young people and was sponsored by the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. It was took place at the very start of the structured dialogue process and, according to Giuseppe, although the YO!Fest was still in embryonic stages, it had already started to have a real advocacy impact.

Each year the YO!Fest has had a specific policy aim and in that way, uniquely combines politics with art, music and a fun-festival vibe. In 2011, it was both the 15th anniversary of the Youth Forum, as well as the Year of Volunteering and a Convention on Volunteering was signed during the YO!Fest. In that year YO!Fest took place on the Esplanade of the European Parliament in Brussels and already it had grown exponentially from the first year, with 10,000 attendees. As Giuseppe recalls: “this was a steep learning curve for us”. He remembers a huge storm the night before the YO!Fest started, which blew down a lot of the stands and tents. “It was a hugely challenging,” says Giuseppe “but we learnt a lot! And the visibility that we gained through the YO!Fest was incredible. We were able to showcase the fantastic work of volunteers to many people.” In 2011, for the first time there were two concerts, one of them developed around the unique concept of the “vertical stage” – Among the artists Al Doyle from Hot Chip and LCD Sound System played from the balcony of the old station in Place Luxembourg.

For 2012 YO!Fest was slightly scaled back and was just one day focused on internships. Despite its smaller scale, yet again the YO!Fest attracted high level political interest with Martin Schulz signing the Youth Forum’s Charter on Internships. But again the common thread was music, fun and a great atmosphere with a final concert by Babylon Circus that attracted more than 3000 people.

Last year, in 2013, there were more landmark moments: the League of Young Voters was inaugurated with a hot air balloon in Place Luxembourg, launched by Manuel Barroso. There were the usual mix of famous politicians and even royalty, with a Dutch princess as well as an astronaut attending! 5,000 young people danced the night away outside the European Parliament listening to the legendary Reggae Idol Alpha Blondy, with 3,000 the next night listening to Belgium rock and “I’m from Barcelona”. It was also the first year that saw the winners of the Emerging Bands Contest organized with Jeunesses Musicales International performing on the YO! Fest stage.

When summarizing how the YO!Fest has developed over the last five years, Giuseppe says: “it has evolved into a truly political festival where we bring together young people who wouldn’t usually necessarily be involved in politics, along with high level politicians, as well as our member organisations, showing what youth work is really about. It has proved to be an amazing instrument for making advocacy through different means: art, music, graffiti, dance… “ The key, according to Giuseppe, has been the ability to combine important political messages with other forms of expression, plus, for the Youth Forum itself, it has brought the platform to a wider audience as well as raising awareness of the key issues that it campaigns on.

The many fruitful partnerships that have been developed over the years are also essential to the success of the YO!Fest, including a cooperation with graphic schools in Brussels and a partnership with the RITS school of cinema, which saw the director of the Brussels’ Cinematek curating a YO!Cinema tent back in 2011.

The reason why the YO!Fest has continued to go from strength to strength is the fantastic, fun and relaxed vibe. Of course, there is a lot going on and, according to Giuseppe “for the organisers, it is not indeed so relaxed! But for participants the atmosphere is a chilled one”. Last year saw a “chill out” space and picnic area. And the vibe was so catching that Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou and MEP Doris Pack attending the debates joined the young people at the event and sat on the grass in an improvised spontaneous youth work activity “This was just the effect we wanted”, said Giuseppe.

When looking ahead to this year, his last YO!Fest, which will be part of the European Youth Event in Strasbourg (9th-11th May) Giuseppe is curious.. “it will be the first time that we have a truly pan-European YO!Fest with young people traveling from all over Europe to attend. I can’t wait to see how the YO!Fest has yet again evolved.”

For more about this year’s YO!Fest, see: http://www.yofest.eu/

Keep up to date with YO!Fest news via #YOFest and facebook https://www.facebook.com/yofest