This thesis considers international Shakespeare Festivals as both individual events and as part of two distinct but connected phenomena: the global festival phenomenon and the international Shakespeare Festival phenomenon. Focusing on the festivals which make up the European Shakespeare Festivals Network (ESFN), I explore the opportunities they offer for artistic innovation, the challenging of received notions of "Shakespeare", and for collaboration across an increasingly fractured continent. Focusing on one organisational Network allows me to uncover a dynamic and dialogic networked "Shakespeare" by tracing links between "festival shakespeares" and mapping the many networks of meaning forged by festival programmers and festivalgoers. To answer my principal research question - 'What are the impacts of international Shakespeare Festivals?' - I draw upon case studies (2018), audience research (2019) and my experiences of online festivals hosted during the Coronavirus pandemic (2020). In five chapters I explore the main strategies by which "Shakespeare" is unsettled in festival contexts: by different cultures, by innovative adaptations, by new forms and new work, by programming that enables and encourages comparative viewing, and by outreach that shifts ownership. Part 1 introduces the Network, its member-festivals, and the festival shakespeares that they host. I develop an understanding of the events as exciting, intercultural spaces that offer audiences opportunities to rethink and, crucially, to network "Shakespeare". Focusing on the interactions between festivals, the productions they host and the sites that host them, I begin (in Chapter 1) by examining the festivals' complexities as sites which both commemorate and challenge "Shakespeare", suggesting - after Foucault - that they function heterotopically. I then (in Chapter 2) analyse peripatetic productions in order to illustrate the links that connect the Network. In Part 2 I explore the notion of festival time and interrogate the festivals' connections to the past, their engagements with the present, and their ambitions for the future. Part 2 complicates the positivity of Part 1, asking whether festivals dedicated to an early modern playwright can really be progressive (socially, politically, theatrically), and to what ends the festivals - and their audiences - might practically use these festival shakespeares. Chapter 3 (Past) explores nostalgia in three festival shakespeares, focusing on the ways in which superficial modernity can mask yearnings for imagined pasts. Chapter 4 (Present) showcases politically-engaged work from 2019 and, through audience research, begins to explore the real-world impacts of one international Shakespeare Festival in the context of Brexit Britain. The quali-quantitative audience study undertaken at the York International Shakespeare Festival tests my hypothesis that international Shakespeare Festivals can challenge audiences' preconceptions of what "Shakespeare" is and can be, as well as my personal conviction that these festivals make valuable social, cultural, and political contributions. Chapter 5 looks with trepidation and hope towards the future. I discuss the significant challenges faced by these festivals as the ESFN embarks on its second decade. Analysing their responses to the Covid-19 crisis, I suggest that the festivals most willing and able to adapt to challenges are those which will not only survive this difficult time but thrive, thereby continuing to present radical opportunities for international audiences and artists, and for "Shakespeare".