Sustaining The Festival For The Next 25 Years
When the festival ended last September, many people told us it felt special, that it was the biggest and best one yet. And yes, this was absolutely true. The 25th anniversary edition was a success, and we’re proud of it. But now that the dust has settled, what has stayed with us isn’t just the scale and success of it, we’re also reminded of what it actually takes to keep something like this going.
For twenty-five years, the International Eressos Women’s Festival has grown alongside this village, the community that lives in it, and those who visits it. What started as a simple idea – bringing women together in Sappho’s birthplace – has grown into a full-scale production. This didn’t happen overnight. It’s been through trial, error, exhaustion, persistence, trust, and yes, also a lot of unpaid work.
From the outside, visitors often only see a week or two of our activities in September. What’s less visible is the year behind it, of planning, contracts, permits, insurance. Coordinating artists and volunteers. Watching budgets. Making safety decisions. These are real conversations that repeat themselves in our team every year, because the context in which they are needed keeps changing. None of what we do runs on autopilot, it never has in all these years.
At this point, running a festival of this size isn’t just about ambition or tradition anymore. Due to the exponential growth in recent years, we now also carry a lot more responsibility – to the women who attend, to the artists and volunteers, to the village that hosts us, and to ourselves. The need for us to address sustainability properly makes the difference between being able to continue, or quietly burning out.
For those who know the International Eressos Women’s Festival well, also know that full two weeks in September have always been part of our history. Many love that format, and so do we. Returning to it for the 25th anniversary felt the right thing to do. But it also confirmed something we’ve known for a while: repeating this particular event at this grand scale every year would stretch the organisation beyond what’s healthy, financially and in terms of capacity.
That’s why we’re returning to the format used in 2023 and 2024 – a focused ten-day programme.
A shorter schedule isn’t about doing less. It’s about concentrating resources where they matter. Our decision to run a shorter edition is not about savings; it’s about reallocating funds away from fixed logistical costs for those extra days and investing them directly into the core programme: artists, volunteers, professional staff, and the quality of the experience itself. It also keeps wristbands accessible, and it protects the village and its residents from overload. These choices are necessary so this festival can last another twenty-five years.
We’re incredibly proud of what the festival has become and committed to making decisions that allow it — and the wider work of Sappho Women — to continue.
The festival will continue. Just a few days shorter.
We’ll keep listening. To the women who return. To the village. To the realities of the work.
That hasn’t changed.
Wendy & Ioanna
Sappho Women
