Food fests, feasts, and gatherings address the role of food in events, gatherings, celebrations, and ceremonies. Exploring how people incorporate ideas about food into festival culture, including history, heritage, tradition, creativity, and social and political factors. 

In addition, it examines festivals in which food is not the main focus, yet contributes significantly to the atmosphere, memory, and tradition. It also looks at people's fascination with taste. In addition to examining these notions, we will also examine trends in the consumption and production of food.

We welcome submissions for a segment in next year's symposium (ISFC 2026) and journal (JFCIA 2026/7) examining food experiences through travel and the relationship between street food and food at festivals. We also encourage submissions that focus on policies, preparation, and organising festival food and food festivals. Practitioners are welcome to submit articles on their specific areas of interest in festival culture.

We welcome theoretically informed and empirically grounded narratives about festivals, feasts, rituals, gatherings, and celebration food, including but not limited to:

• History, heritage, and traditions

• Harvest

• Tourism

• Recipes and festivals

• Cultural identity and festivals

• Temporality

• Religion

• Religious celebrations

• Rituals and Ceremonies

• Food experiences

• Food: medicinal and ritual use

• Festival food and the senses

• Agriculture

• Food processing

• Taste and pleasure

• Food festivals

• Food festival competitions

• Festive cooking and eating versus everyday

• Organising and preparation of food 

Please note that you can submit to one or both of these calls. 

Symposium submissions: Please note our symposiums are usually held online.

Abstract proposal of up to 500-word (only abstracts/papers that have not been previously presented and published will be considered) and biographies of no more than 100 words (in Word .doc format). As part of the symposium, you will be required to prepare and present a 10-minute presentation.

Send Abstracts for consideration for next year's symposium here:https://form.jotform.com/251592334760357.

Register if you would like to attend the symposium next year June. Early registration link: https://eu.jotform.com/build/251592082152352.

ISFC 26 Key Submission Dates:

500-word Abstract Proposal Submission: 1st March 2026

Presentation Submission Deadline: 15th April 2026

Email us if you have any questions: festival.culture.edu@gmail.com.

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Journal submissions: Open, Ongoing

Please Note: We will continue to accept submissions for future volumes of our journal.

All submissions considered for inclusion will be peer-reviewed.

Please send your 500-word abstract (only abstracts/papers which have not been previously presented and published will be considered), and a bio of no longer than 100 words should be included (Microsoft Word Document).

Full articles no more than a 5,000 words. 

Abstracts/papers previously published or under consideration for publication while being evaluated for this Journal will not be accepted.

Submit Journal Abstract Proposal here:https://tinyurl.com/bdzejudr.

Submit full Paper(Food fest, feasts and gatherings): https://form.jotform.com/241575009751356.

Visit our journal https://www.festivalculture.co.uk/jfcia.