Idea 90 of 500. Cluster 4: The experience economy
Annual arts festivals, district by district
The mechanism, from the book
An app that tells people what is happening tonight converts a day visit into a 2-night stay.
Every idea in cluster 4 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Ask five artists and craftspeople in one district to show and sell their work for one Saturday in a school or temple hall, each paying a small table fee. Put up posters in guesthouses and tell Sri Lankans abroad through community groups. Visitors, sales, and artists asking to come back next year are the proof.
- Who pays first
- Local artists who need a buying audience, and visitors and Sri Lankan families abroad looking for work they cannot buy elsewhere.
- What leaves today
- District artists sell through middlemen or not at all; a festival sells their work directly and draws visitors to stay.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. FiveThe Most Photographed Rock in the World
What a day visit needs in order to become 2 nights
More from cluster 4
- 71Evening cultural performances on a fixed nightly schedule
- 72Moonlit storytelling: the legends, the kings, the histories
- 73Royal feast dinners recreating historical menus
- 74Costume and photography experiences
- 75Archaeology-themed treasure hunts for children
- 76Private guided tours led by historians and archaeologists
Idea 90 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.