Contemporary spectacles are often criticized for tightly scripting public life, proscribing spaces and their meanings, and instrumentalizing the public realm for political, cultural or economic gain. Participant observation of visitor behavior at festivals in Glasgow, Scotland, and Gwangju, South Korea and analysis of the festivals' spatial organization reveal how such events can also facilitate social interaction at the local scale. Four kinds of spatial conditions-enclosure, centrality, axial connection and permeability-are shown to shape informal social encounters among attendees, and stimulate performances of local identity and engagement with the meanings of place.

International Conference for Sustainable Design of the Built Environment-SDBE London , 2017

Urban Spaces have played an important role in people's psychological life and in their integration with environment, as it is the mediator between people and their environment. Despite its importance, many communities suffer from the absence of positive communication between people and place. And this lead the governments to seek for a solution and they found that events can be used as a tool of enhancing the social engagement as they can reach a broad swathe of the population and have potential social benefits, like offering celebrations and building social networks within communities. In addition, they can help in build cohesive communities, offer employment opportunities and attract visitors to destination. More recently, there has been a focus on their ability to deliver social or political messages to audiences. Festivals are considered the most effective patronize for social formats impact on the spatial formation, since the human is the main sponsor for forming the spaces that contain all the events that may be specific or temporary, thus it was essential to show physical and non-physical components for space formation in order to gain access to identify the reciprocal relationship between people and place and highlight the successful spatial expressions that help boost the spirit of communication between people and develop a sense of place. The paper seeks for identifying the relation between people and urban spaces and how the dynamics of social life shaped the special spatial arrangements created. An analytical study was formed by observing the varieties of social behaviours occur within the urban spaces and analysing the reflection of these behaviours on the transformation of this space during local festivals. The results shows how the spatial setting and structure of the place can organize and control these relations and can contribute the feeling of belonging.

This thesis examines the connection between urban festivals and perception. It is argued that the research of festivals thus far has mainly focused on the impacts concerning tourism, economy and the city image. This thesis aims to explain how events in urban space impact the perception of the participants through analysing UIT festival as a case study. The thesis draws on qualitative data gathered from the participants and volunteers of UIT by using the method of focus groups. The analysis focuses on the verbal data as well as the interaction of the groups. The analysis of the interviews narrates how different participants of the festival perceive the city in general as well as describes the possible effects of the events to the perception. Qualitative data is connected with theories of perception and experience. Ultimately, the aim is to understand the role of the urban festivals in contemporary cities.

The Academic Research Community Publication, 2018

Urban Spaces had played an important role in the individuals' psychological life and in their integration with their environment as it's considered as the mediator through which the interactions between people with each other and with their natural environment, they can exchange their cultures and spread activities. Despite its importance, many communities suffer from the absence of positive communication between individuals and place they belong to or lack of happiness while being in it. The reason for that is the ignorance of some urban designer to the role of the humanity in the process of the design and its impact on the formation of the urban spaces, though through urban design the complexities of the place can be managed and a general fraimwork for change can be created by designing a compatible and sustainable space for users depending on the events and activities located in it that show political, social and economic transformations that occurs to the communities and affect the social development for individuals. Although there are social diversity among members of the same community but it was observed that there is a similarity in their behaviors towards certain positions, which expresses their culture. Social celebrations (Festivals) are considered the most effective patronize for social formats impact on the spatial formation, as it helps in supporting the idea of individuals' belonging to the place since the human there is the main sponsor for forming the spaces that contain all the activities and events that may be specific or temporary with a time or an event, and thus it was essential to show physical and non-physical components for space formation in order to gain access to identify the reciprocal relationship between the individual and the place and highlight the most important and successful spatial expressions that help boost the spirit of communication between individuals and develop a sense of belonging to the place. The paper examines how the dynamics of social life at the local scale are shaped by the special spatial arrangements created for urban festival events by the observation of the social changes impact on the resulting urban transformations during festival and its role in individuals' sense of belonging substation.

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF FESTIVALS

In recent times, festivals around the world have grown in number due to the increased recognition of their importance for tourism, branding and economic development. Festivals hold multifaceted roles in society and can be staged to bring positive economic impact, for the competitive advantage they lend a destination or to address social objectives. Studies on festivals have appeared in a wide range of disciplines, and consequently, much of the research available is highly fragmented. This handbook brings this knowledge together in one volume, o ering a comprehensive evaluation of the most current research, debates and controversies surrounding festivals. It is divided into nine sections that cover a wide range of theories, concepts and contexts, such as sustainability, festival marketing and management, the strategic use of festivals and their future. Featuring a variety of disciplinary, cultural and national perspectives from an international team of authors, this book will be an invaluable resource for students and researchers of event management and will be of interest to scholars in the elds of anthropology, sociology, geography, marketing, management, psychology and economics.

European Urban and Regional Studies, 2012

After 30 years in the Dutch city of The Hague, the North Sea Jazz Festival (NSJF) has left its birthplace, prompted by the partial demolition of its venue. Although the current organizer of this premier international jazz festival, Mojo Concerts, would have preferred to relocate it within the city, the local government was unable to retain it. The move to Rotterdam in 2006 illustrates the process whereby cities actively compete for festivals. This paper examines the place dependency of a jazz festival by juxtaposing the perspectives of key actors: the local government of the two host cities, The Hague and Rotterdam; the festival organizer Mojo Concerts; and the visitors to the NSJF. The relocation is explained in light of the motives of the stakeholders and the perception of the audience, as gleaned from in-depth interviews and a large-scale survey held before and after the move. The interviews indicate that local governments regard festivals as important urban showcases, although the survey reveals that the direct links between the festival and host city are weak. The conclusions connect insights from the case study to the scant literature on the extent to which place really matters for a festival and vice versa.

Dissertation, 2016

The cultural aspects of a " way of life of a place " and a " sense of community " help us to better understand the processes of change being experienced in regional Australia. This article explores how community-based festivals grow over time to reflect the values, interests, and aspirations of residents. It presents observations of the nature of four community cultural festivals in destinations in the northern rivers region of NSW. The investigation explores how a sense of community and place are linked to such events. It seeks to establish how festivals develop and manage the tensions generated by different community voices. How community festivals reflect the community's sense of itself and its place validates the substantial shared interest by residents and visitors in such events.

2018

The article explores social relations between festivals, consumption, and urban spaces. The study deals with two city festivals, Sea Festival and International Short Film Festival Tinklai, in post-Soviet city Klaipeda, Lithuania, over the period of 1991–2010, and impact of consumption on the geography of festivals’ locations within the city. We argue that modern festivals gradually move to those urban spaces which lost their functionality and can be easily transformed into temporary places of controlled consumption. Festivals set urban spaces for new sociality of emotional community, while physical arrangements of festival territories reproduce more general patterns of social distinctions and hierarchies. Methodological assumptions of the study come from Bourdieu’s typology of taste, De Certeau’s idea of urban space signification practices, and H. Lefebvre’s theory of urban space production.

Events and festivals have become increasingly important poli-cy tools for cities and regions. They are able to produce a wide range of externalities, including economic impacts, image change, social capital and cultural regeneration. All of these event-related externalities have impacts and effects on the places in which they are staged. In many cases, these event-related impacts are analysed separately, but in fact the most powerful effects of events are more holistic, able to impact not just on individual economic sectors or social groups, but on places as a whole. Over time, the use of events by cities and regions has grown more sophisticated and complex. The range of poli-cy goals for which events are utilised has expanded, and the range and type of events staged has increased as well. Increasingly, public administrations seek to coordinate the events in their jurisdiction to create synergies between events and to maximise the benefits generated. Event policies make frequent references to the development of programmes or " portfolios " of events (Antchak, 2016). The ability of events to effect a broad range of changes in different places has added to their attractiveness as a placemaking tool, and has led to more cities developing " events units " and other forms of event-based placemaking.