PURPOSE-AIM - To display and maintain a landmark monument. The tower remains open due to the cultural activities, welcoming both the local community and the visitors to the island, in contrast to the other (around 40) towers of Naxos. - To upgrade the social and cultural life of the island. The Festival programme gives the residents of Naxos the opportunity to become acquainted with notable representatives of the intellectual and art world and their creative output. - To support cultural tourism. The institution of the Festival created a steady demanding audience, while strengthening cultural tourism in the island interior, with positive consequences on the local economy. - To protect the broader natural environment. Many important Naxian monuments—the archaic temple of the goddess Demeter, the cave monastery of the Kaloritsa Virgin, and others—may be found within a range of a few kilometres from the tower. While continuing the effort to link the monuments with pathways, we also seek to protect the region and create a model of benign cultural and environmental development. Our purpose is not to create yet another Festival but to organise a restless, flexible institution, open to the cultural issues and demands of our time. An institution whose identity is located in the creative interaction of the arts and their representatives, within the specific thematic axis selected for each occasion. Within this framework we are developing partnerships with various Greek and foreign cultural vehicles, forging solid ties of communication, all of which are necessary to inscribe Naxos onto the contemporary cultural map. back