Since 2011, Nuits sonores has created a new European space for meeting, exchange and networking, bringing together professionals through the European Festival Lab.

This platform, a true European think tank, is dedicated to the cultural, economic, political and media-related issues surrounding festivals.
The Lab is intended for all those involved in the development of festivals on a daily basis — festival directors, cultural professionals, entrepreneurs, media representatives, elected officials and partners — as well as those working more broadly on the most innovative forms of culture and creativity.

Created with the support of the European Union, the Lab is also a platform for reflection on innovation and creativity, the modernisation of cultural policies and their adaptation to the challenges of the 21st century, the deinstitutionalisation of culture, the changing uses of the city, and the relationship between new media, new social practices and emerging cultural issues. It is with this perspective in mind that Jeremy Rifkin will be the special guest of the 2012 Lab. The world-renowned American essayist, advisor to the European Union and to heads of state around the world, has just published The Third Industrial Revolution. The book is an essential contribution that announces the emergence of “lateral” power, based on networks and interconnected systems rather than hierarchical structures.
This theory, applied to the energy model, closely echoes the vision that Nuits sonores and the Lab defend for culture.

Jeremy Rifkin will therefore give a lecture on Saturday 19 May, bringing our four days of meetings and discussions to a close. He will recall that a cultural generation — the generation behind Nuits sonores — now wants to move beyond the all-powerful institutional model inherited from the 1970s and take part in creating a new cultural model.

Fujirock festival (JP), All mighty Shit (FR), Baleapop (FR), Berlin Music Week (DE), Bloc weekend (UK), Bucks University (UK), By:larm (NO), Calvi on the rocks (FR), Club to club (IT), ℅ Pop (DE), Cosmopop – Time Warp (DE), Distortion (DK), Dour Festival (BE), Echos Electrik (TN), Electroni-k (FR), Elita festival (IT), Étapes (FR), Eurockéennes de Belfort (FR), Euronews (International), Eurosonic Nooderslag (NL), Exit (RS), Festival d’Ile de France (FR), Festival OFNI (FR), Firefly Solar Company (UK), Fondazione Adkins Chiti : Donne in Musica (IT), Future Classic (AU), Green Events Europe Conference Convention (DE), Guzman Art Productions (BR), Haldern Pop (DE), Hove Festival (NO), Imperial (FR), Incubate (NL), InFiné (FR), Institut Français d’Orant (MA), Jarring Effects (FR), Jazz à Vienne (FR), Kernel Festival (IT), Kill your pop (FR), Les Électropicales (RE), Les Vieilles Charrues (FR), Libération (FR), Marsatac (FR), Melbourne Music Week (AU), Melt! (DE), MIGZ (RU), Mira! (SP), Moutique (DE), Muri Records (UK), Music:LX (LX), Mutek (CA), Nordic Music Export Office, NuMusic Festival (NO), On the Move (BE), Open Air St. Gallen (CH), Osheaga (CA), Paleo festival (CH), Pias (UK), Resident Advisor (UK), Reworks (GR), Roskilde (DK), Shambala / Kambe events (UK), Sinesteszija (ME), Super mon amour (FR), SXSW (US), Waves Vienna (AU), …