'Shakestivalling' in the New Europe

This article maps out the landscape of Shakespeare festivals in Europe and argues that the European Shakespeare Festivals Network (ESFN) has been crucial to putting them on the Shakespeare tourist map. ESFN is a cultural foundation established in March 2010 as an association of five Shakespeare festivals: Bath (United Kingdom), Craiova (Romania), Gdańsk (Poland), Gyula (Hungary), and Neuss (Germany). This article begins with documenting the Network's first ten years of activity (as yet not attempted) in a survey of its member festivals. The second part of this article offers potential directions for a broader exploration of European Shakespeare festivals as a phenomenon in its own right, as a form of Shakespeare tourism, with a place in the broader field of Shakespeare studies.