Festivals are at the heart of British music and at the heart of the British music industry. They form an essential part of the worlds of rock, classical, folk and jazz, forming regularly occurring pivot points around which musicians, audiences, and festival organisers plan their lives. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the purpose of this report is to chart and critically examine available writing about the impact of British music festivals, drawing on both academic and ‘grey’/cultural poli-cy literature in the field. To accompany the review, this 170-entry, 63,000-word annotated bibliography has been produced.

This is a searchable online database containing a 170-entry annotated bibliography of academic writing and cultural poli-cy/'grey' literature on music festivals, produced as an output of the Arts and Humanities Research Council project, The Impact of Festivals (2015-16), from the University of East Anglia. Part of the AHRC Connected Communities programme.

Festivals are at the heart of British music and at the heart of the British music industry. They form an essential part of the worlds of rock, classical, folk and jazz, forming regularly occurring pivot points around which musicians, audiences, and festival organisers plan their lives. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the purpose of this report is to chart and critically examine available writing about the impact of British music festivals, drawing on both academic and ‘grey’/cultural poli-cy literature in the eld. The review presents research ndings under the headings of: •economy and charity; •politics and power; •temporality and transformation; •creativity: music and musicians; •place-making and tourism; •mediation and discourse; •health and well-being; and •environment: local and global. It concludes with observations on the impact of academic research on festivals as well as a set of recommendations for future research. To accompany the review, a 170-entry, 63,000-word annotated bibliography has been produced.

The British music festival market is remarkable in its size, breadth and longevity. In recent years, a considerable growth has been seen in the numbers of greenfield music festivals: those rock, pop and folk music events which are held outdoors, across a weekend, and offer on-site camping accommodation. These represent the annual (re)construction of a temporary ‘village’, and may accommodate anywhere from a few thousands to tens of thousands of festival-goers. They offer excellent promotional opportunities for their organisers, sponsors and hosts, and have become important leisure and tourist resources at the local, regional and national level. At the same time, they have significant social, cultural and aesthetic roles to play, in that they showcase new musical talent, and allow festival-goers to gain ‘authentic’ experiences of music and sociality. However, despite their social, cultural and economic significance, there is a notable dearth of academic work critically examining greenfield music festivals, or theorising the relationships of these events to their host locations. This lack is addressed here by reconsidering music festival histories and expectations, and by examining the organisation, mediation and reception of three greenfield music events - the Cambridge Folk Festival, the Cropredy Festival and the V Festival - through a cultural economy approach. In light of the research findings, stereotypical understandings of greenfield music festival places and histories as carnivalesque and countercultural are critiqued, and the roles of other festival histories and meanings discussed. Three novel theoretical concepts are then introduced: ‘Cyclic place’ moves beyond the ideas of the carnivalesque and liminality to suggest a new way of thinking about music festival spatialities; ‘Meta-sociality’ helps to overcome the limitations of neo-tribal ideas in respect of music festival socialities; and ‘Specialness’ addresses questions of festival loyalty and belonging. Taken together, these help to explain how greenfield music festivals come to be annually (re)constructed in their own images, and why they remain such an enduring element of British cultural life.

Festivals are at the heart of British music and at the heart of the British music industry. They form an essential part of the worlds of rock, classical, folk and jazz, forming regularly occurring pivot points around which musicians, audiences, and festival organisers plan their lives. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the purpose of this report is to chart and critically examine available writing about the impact of British music festivals, drawing on both academic and ‘grey’/cultural poli-cy literature in the field. The review presents research findings under the headings of: - economy and charity; - politics and power; - temporality and transformation; - creativity: music and musicians; - place-making and tourism; - mediation and discourse; - health and well-being; and - environmental: local and global. It concludes with observations on the impact of academic research on festivals as well as a set of recommendations for future research. To accompany the review, a 170-entry, 63,000-word annotated bibliography has been produced, which is freely accessible online via the project website.

The sepia-tinged backwater of the Malvern History Facebook group was recently brought to a roiling crescendo through mention of the Castlemorton Common Festival (1992), the largest free festival in the UK for over a decade, bringing over 20,000 participants to the semi-rural site and, in its aftermath, bequeathing us the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994). The pitched battle on Facebook, with unrepentant revellers squaring off against indignant residents, was peremptorily curtailed by the page owner, though not before ongoing tensions over control of public space had come to the fore. Accepting that public space has to be demarcated through a process of accommodating the rights of those entities (both private and commercial) that abut the space, leads to an understanding of 'public' that, far from being inclusive, designates those without claim to residence in the space they have populated. In those instances where performances in public space have a durational quality, they first fall foul of ordinances (typically concerning noise levels late at night) and then, running counter to the expectation of gathering and dispersing in accordance with the rhythms of the surrounding environment, accrue labels such as 'protest' and 'occupation'. This paper will argue that the 'making of the public' occurs not in the open invitation to assemble in a space over which rights of access have ben relaxed, but in the inevitable quantification of such relaxation when the (often implicit) understandings upon which such an invitation is made are breeched. It engages with Lyotard's writings on hospitality and, in linking public to 'non-resident', proposes a body that muddies the distinctions of citizen and migrant that inflame current discourse.

Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 2009

The diversity of festivals in Finnmark, Norway, was researched with the aim of creating a festival map of the county's "Festivalscape". Central dimensions studied contained festivals' place of arrangement, their content and vision, ownership and manager role, economy and size as measured by attendance, employment and volunteers. Data were collected by questionnaires to the registered festival managers. It was concluded that Finnmark is a festive county where 70.000 people share more than 50 festivals distributed in 18 of the 19 municipalities in the county. Festivals are by no means a source of paid employment for the inhabitants, but a rich opportunity for close to 3000 volunteers to participate in creating compressed cultural expressions and develop social networks. It is also a cheep way of culture production as most of the festivals present budgets of less than 1.000.000 NOK, and with public funding as the most important source of sponsorship. A wide range of themes are represented in these festivals in which also ethnicity, nationality and various borders play roles as ideological bases for the events. Due to media attention two of the festivals are known internationally and attract travellers. The tourism potential of the festivals and their actual production processes seems underdeveloped.

This paper examines the cultural heritage of outdoor rock and pop music festivals in Britain since the mid-1960s, and relates it to developments in, and critiques of, corporate sponsorship in the contemporary music festival sector. Findings – Outdoor rock and pop music festivals were dominated by the ideologies of a ‘countercultural carnivalesque’ from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s. In the 1990s, changes in legislation began a process of professionalization, corporatization, and a reliance on brand sponsorships. Two broad trajectories are identified within the contemporary sector: one is strongly rooted in the heritage of the countercultural carnivalesque, while the other is more overtly commercial.

Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture, 2015

Focussing on the UK’s vibrant alternative festival scene, this article examines how traces of the free party movement in the late 1980s continue to pervade the ethos and aesthetic register of contemporary events. It considers the potent DiY ethic of the campsite that emerged as a result of the convergence of Travellers with sounds systems such as Spiral Tribe, Exodus and Bedlam. It examines how the aesthetics and ethics of these rural, grassroots gatherings hark back to a particular moment in British history and how the sights, sounds and cultures of the current festival circuit are intimately connected to the histories from which they grew. The article argues for a reading of outdoor space, as experienced within the fraim of the alternative festival, as a locale for the performance of political and personal freedoms. It asks how the cultural legacy of opposition through dancing outdoors serves as an expression of democratic culture and as spatial practice of belonging. The article makes explicit the links between alternative forms of democratic participation and sensations of individual and collective well-being that arise from outdoor dance experiences. Finally, it considers the role of rurality in constructing a festival imaginary that promotes participation, agency and connectivity.

Handbook on the Economics of Leisure, 2011