The Portable Community: Mobility and Modernization in Bluegrass Festival Life

Gardner, Robert Owen

doi:10.1525/si.2004.27.2.155

Cited by 43 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…This reasoning is consistent with prior research on events that has highlighted the importance of attendees identifying with the festival community as a possible explanation of attachment to an event, and of adopting the dominant behaviour accepted by the festival's community (Adsett, 2011;Bhattacharya, Rao, & Glynn, 1995;Gardner, 2004;Hays & Minichiello, 2005). For instance, Bhattacharya et al's (1995) study into art museum members' perceived belongingness to the organisation found three main elements that are related to the members' identification with the museum community: 1) organisational and product characteristics such as the perceived organisational prestige; 2) members' affiliation characteristics, for example, duration of membership, frequency of visits; and 3) members' activity characteristics such as donating activity and being able to confirm their expectations of the organisation's services.…”

Section: Festival Attachmentsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…Gardner's (2004) Although festival attachment was identified by managers and attendees as a factor influencing environmentally responsible behaviour at music festivals, it is important to note that the current research's quantitative analysis results show that place attachment is a better predictor than festival attachment of both environmentally responsible behavioural intentions and actual behaviours.…”

Section: Festival Attachmentmentioning

confidence: 64%

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Factors that influence engagement in on-site environmentally responsible behaviours at music festivals

Alonso-Vazquez¹

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The study of on-site environmentally responsible behaviours at outdoor events is important because of the negative environmental degradation that may be caused when hosting these events. Studying these behaviours is especially important at music festivals that are held in protected areas, and/or for festival managers who have an interest in controlling the events' negative environmental impacts. Despite recent interest by event managers in developing strategies to encourage attendees' environmentally responsible behaviours, this task is still a challenge because attendees may be disinterested in behaving pro-environmentally in the music festival context. Given this, event managers need to find novel ways to encourage attendees to participate more in on-site environmentally responsible behaviours.To contribute toward finding alternative ways to encourage more participation, this research investigated the major psychographic factors that influence attendees' engagement in on-site environmentally responsible behaviours at music festivals. To identify these factors, the following research activities were carried out: phone interviews with music festival managers (10 participants); two online questionnaires (pre-visit and post-visit to festivals) across multiple music festivals (1,313 and 420 participants, respectively); and on-site interviews with attendees at a three-day music festival located near an Australian national park (81 participants).The findings of this study reveal that event managers consider it important to build a proenvironmental culture into their event communities in order to capitalise on attendees' sense of community that may support environmentally responsible behaviours. The analysis also provides evidence of discrepancies between attendees' intentions to behave in an environmentally responsible way at the music festivals and their actual behaviours.Psychographic factors such as pro-environmental predisposition, self-identity as eco-friendly, festival attachment, place attachment, on-site management strategies, perceived benefits and barriers are all important contributors to attendees' on-site behaviours. Further, the study finds that some attendees exceed their intentions to behave responsibly towards the environment and that this is linked with their perceptions of the music festival's green status.Attendees also consider it important to behave in an environmentally responsible way on-site because of the benefits they perceive for the well-being of both the festival community and the environment. In terms of barriers to engaging in on-site environmentally responsible behaviours, the findings reveal that the main obstacle for attendees is the belief that their actions will not make a difference.These results are of great significance to event management settings and can contribute to the design of management strategies to encourage attendees' on-site eco-friendly behaviours.

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Section: Festival Attachmentsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Festival Attachmentmentioning

confidence: 64%

Factors that influence engagement in on-site environmentally responsible behaviours at music festivals

Alonso-Vazquez¹

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“…This is also what is usually implied by colloquial use of the term community by politicians and other stakeholders. While it can be argued that the concept of a community is widely understood and does not need to be defined (Creed, 2006), it has also been described as having a wide range and variety of meanings (Gardner, 2004). The difficulty lies in the values that are inherent in the word and the different ways in which it is used (Creed, 2006).…”

Section: Exploring the Communitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Music Festivals and Social Inclusion – The Festival Organizers’ Perspective

2015

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There is growing interest in how festivals can help to build strong and cohesive communities, particularly whether they can reach a broad swathe of the population or operate as enclaves. This article explores ways in which festival organizers may contribute to social inclusion goals through a qualitative phenomenological study of music festivals. Findings suggest that these festival organizers may contribute to social inclusion across four areas of society-consumption, production, political engagement, and social interaction or communitas-through factors such as providing opportunities for local participation, learning new skills, and access to education about social justice. However, it appears that these festival organizers tended to direct their social inclusion efforts toward portable communities, focusing on attendees but failing to reach out to local residents. This limits their ability to embrace the local community in its broadest sense, and calls into question their likelihood of achieving inclusivity outcomes.

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“…Hints at diversity were reported by Gardner (2004), for example, who claims that people from a wide variety of educational, occupational and religious backgrounds mingle at bluegrass festivals and Willems-Braun's (1994) study of Canada's fringe festivals warns that the attendees cannot be un-problematically categorised into social groups due to the possibilities of multiplicities within individuals and within the festival space. Curtis (2010) also suggests that new social connections are made between jazz festival performers, leading to new musical collaborations.…”

Section: Focus On Festivalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging and bonding: social capital at music festivals

Wilks

2011

Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events

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Abstract:This paper uses the theoretical concept of social capital as its framework to examine festivals in the context of social and cultural policy. Government policies have cited the arts as a tool for combating social exclusion, overcoming barriers between people and fostering community cohesion. Social capital theorist Robert Putnam specifically suggests that cultural events can bring together diverse social groups. To investigate these claims in practice, this study collected empirical data at three festivals: a pop festival, an opera festival and a folk festival. The empirical data, comprising observations, screening questionnaires and in-depth interviews, was analysed using critical discourse analysis to bring out styles and discourses relating to social interactions. It was found that the reinforcement of existing relationships, termed bonding social capital by Putnam, was an important part of the festival experience. The formation of bridging social capital: that is, new and enduring social connections with previously L. Wilks 2 unconnected attendees was not, however, found to be a feature of festivals, despite a sense of general friendliness and trust identified by some. Furthermore, drawing on Bourdieu's conceptualisation of social capital, festival attendees were found to be remarkably similar in their demographic make-up, also throwing doubt on policy-related suggestions that festivals could be sites of interconnections between people from diverse backgrounds. This study therefore suggests that music festivals are not valuable sites for social and cultural policy aims of combating social exclusion, bridging barriers between groups and fostering wider community cohesion.

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The Portable Community: Mobility and Modernization in Bluegrass Festival Life

Cited by 43 publications

References 35 publications

Factors that influence engagement in on-site environmentally responsible behaviours at music festivals

Factors that influence engagement in on-site environmentally responsible behaviours at music festivals

Music Festivals and Social Inclusion – The Festival Organizers’ Perspective

Bridging and bonding: social capital at music festivals

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