From host to guest settings: how the music festival has changed over time
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Over the past decades the number of music festivals has increased substantially – a trend often referred to as “festivalization” – especially within urban areas. While scholars have noted the socio-cultural and economic importance of music festivals for cities, how the process of festivalization has developed within urban space over time is less well known. Because of this our understanding of music festivals as a changing socio-cultural form, as well as how they relate to everyday lived-in spaces remains limited. Using an original dataset built from archival sources, we analyse music festival development in two cities (Rotterdam and Milwaukee) over a half century. The findings suggest that music festivals, as a cultural form, initially “hosted” visitors in spaces located at a remove from urban life. But since the mid-2000s, music festivals have increasingly emerged in the city, serving as “guests” in the everyday third places of neighbourhoods.
Source: Cultural Trends
Authors: Thomas Calkins, Britt Swartjes
Institution: Erasmus University Rotterdam
Language: English
Topic: Sport and Mega-Event Impacts
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4415475301