From Glyndebourne to Glastonbury: the Impact of British Music Festivals
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An Arts and Humanities Research Council- funded literature review FROM GLYNDEBOURNE TO GLASTONBURY: THE IMPACT OF BRITISH MUSIC FESTIVALS Emma Webster and George McKay 1 CONTENTS EXECUTIVE 4 INTRODUCTION 6 THE IMPACT OF FESTIVALS: A SURVEY OF THE FIELD(S) 7 ECONOMY AND CHARITY SUMMARY 8 POLITICS AND POWER 10 TEMPORALITY AND TRANSFORMATION Festivals are at the heart of British music and at the heart 12 CREATIVITY: MUSIC of the British music industry. They form an essential part of AND MUSICIANS the worlds of rock, classical, folk and jazz, forming regularly 14 PLACE-MAKING AND TOURISM occurring pivot points around which musicians, audiences, 16 MEDIATION AND DISCOURSE and festival organisers plan their lives. 18 HEALTH AND WELL-BEING 19 ENVIRONMENT: Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the LOCAL AND GLOBAL purpose of this report is to chart and critically examine 20 THE IMPACT OF ACADEMIC available writing about the impact of British music festivals, RESEARCH ON MUSIC drawing on both academic and ‘grey’/cultural policy FESTIVALS literature in the field. The review presents research findings 21 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR under the headings of: FUTURE RESEARCH 22 APPENDIX 1. NOTE ON • economy and charity; METHODOLOGY • politics and power; 23 APPENDIX 2. ECONOMIC • temporality and transformation; IMPACT ASSESSMENTS • creativity: music and musicians; 26 APPENDIX 3. TABLE OF ECONOMIC IMPACT OF • place-making and tourism; MUSIC FESTIVALS BY UK • mediation and discourse; REGION IN 2014 • health and well-being; and 27 BIBLIOGRAPHY • environment: local and global. 31 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 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 Cover images: (https://impactoffestivals.wordpress.com/project-outputs/). Main image: Glastonbury Festival 2010 Photography: ‘Flame’ by Edward Simpson, CC BY-SA 2.0 L-R: Edinburgh Mela Festival 2010 Photography: Robert Sharp, CC BY 2.0 Last Night of the Spring Proms 2013 Researchers and project partners Photography: Nottingham Trent The report was written by Dr Emma Webster and Professor George University, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 McKay of the University of East Anglia, as part of The Impact of Notting Hill Carnival 2013 Festivals project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council- Photography: ‘Blue is the Colour’ led Connected Communities programme, in collaboration with research by A Pillow of Winds, CC BY-ND 2.0 partner the EFG London Jazz Festival. Project administration and Chippenham Folk Festival 2014 Photography: Owen Benson, picture research support at UEA were provided by Rachel Daniel CC BY-NC 2.0 and Jess Knights. Festival of Britain 1951 brochure 2 3 Glastonbury is “ arguably the world’s most famous music festival. ” UK MUSIC 2015: 31 Glyndebourne has “ been called the cultural Wimbledon and seats are as coveted as those INTRODUCTION on centre court. ” CITED IN GIBSON AND CONNELL 2005: 224 Festivals are now at the heart of The 21st century has experienced three sometimes overlapping ways: A literature review of festival studies The more qualitatively-based research which shift focus from everyday social the British music industry and are a ‘boom’ in music festivals in Britain greenfield events which predominantly carried out by Donald Getz (2010) from anthropology, sociology and problems (Waitt 2008), or meaningless an essential part of the worlds of (Webster 2014), with a 71 per cent programme music, often involving found three main approaches at play: cultural studies, often takes starting collections of events (Payne 2006; AEA rock, classical, folk and jazz (Frith increase in the number of outdoor camping, open-air consumption and sociologically/anthropologically based points from Émile Durkheim’s 2006), which are ‘placeless’: divorced 2007). Festivals are big business: rock and pop music festivals held amplification; venue-based series of discourses on the roles, meanings concept of ‘collective effervescence’ from their local community (MacLeod one recent report by UK Music puts between 2003 and 2007 (Anderton live music events linked by theme or and impacts of festivals in society (1912/2001), Raymond Williams’ ideas 2006). Other fields which confirm the total direct and indirect spend 2008), and an increase of 185% in genre, usually urban; and street-based and culture; festival tourism; and about culture and society (1958), the space of the festival as one of generated by ‘music tourism’ for music festival income in Scotland urban carnival. festival management, the latter two Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the remarkable interdisciplinary interest festivals in the UK in 2014 at more over a five year period (EKOS 2014b). particularly focusing on economic carnivalesque (1968), Christopher range from medical studies to crowd than £1.7 billion, sustaining over Concurrently, there has been an The report has been restricted to impact and audience motivation. Small’s idea of ‘musicking’ (1998), management to waste management. 13,500 full time jobs (based on 232 increasing amount of academic festivals within Britain; critical work and current theorisations around the music festivals, UK Music 2015). interest around festivals and impact about festivals is included from English A number of economic impact reports process of ‘festivalisation’ (Bennett The report considers impacts on More specifically, Glyndebourne from a variety of disciplines language scholarship internationally. can also be found within the grey et al 2014; Newbold et al 2015); a local and regional economic and generates £11 million of Gross (cf Getz 2008, 2010). The report considers both festivals literature, more recently broadened to collection by George McKay (2015a) cultural competitiveness, and presents Value Added (GVA) for East Sussex’s that take place in permanent or encompass social and cultural impacts brings together work on history, music, the impact of festivals on both economy every year (BOP 2013a), From an initial focus on the economic semi-permanent structures, and those as well (cf Williams and Bowdin 2007; media, and culture of the pop festival. the temporary and the permanent while the total gross direct spend impacts of cultural experiences in outdoor festivals which utilise ‘mobile Chouguley et al 2011). However, the community which camps or lives at for the 2007 Glastonbury Festival the 1980s and 1990s, through to a spaces’ (Kronenburg 2011). more quantitative-based research Urban studies is also a rich source of the festival location. It also considers was estimated at over £73 million broader assessment of impact which tends to emphasise managerial, literature; accounts about festivals in the processes through which arts and (Baker Associates 2007). considers instrumental and intrinsic The focus on a single (admittedly logistical and marketing elements that general tend either to be celebratory, humanities research has impacted on value (Carnwath and Brown 2014), the quite large) geographical location can obscure the cultural and social focusing on the economic and festivals and offers recommendations literature shows that festivals play a ensures that the report gathers aspects of festivals (Anderton 2006). place-making benefits of festivals, for future research. significant economic, social and cultural together festivals which, to an extent or more critical, in which festivals are role at local and international levels. at least, have a shared economic and instruments of hegemonic power cultural history. One of our findings is Defining what constitutes a ‘music that there is more work on the impact festival’ is not a straightforward task; of festivals within the folk and pop indeed, a typology of British pop literature (rock, jazz, ‘world’, etc.) than festivals found seventeen different from the classical/opera literature, the types alone (Stone 2009). One can latter of which have ‘traditionally been broadly characterise festivals in concerned with works and composers Top left: Glastonbury Festival 2009 rather than the performance and Photography: Alan Green, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 concert context’ (Doctor et al 2007: Top right: Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2015 6). See Appendix 1 for notes on the Photography: Maureen Barlin, methodology employed. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 4 5 The local economy gets £100m a year ... So there’s “ no discussion about not allowing the festival a licence any more. They won’t stop it now. ” MICHAEL EAVIS, GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL; BBC 2008 ECONOMY AND CHARITY Festivals have been key to the Festivals have played a significant Festivals exist within a mixed growth of the live music sector in role in urban ‘cultural regeneration’ economy (Andersson and Getz 2008; the UK in recent times. As Simon (Waitt 2008), particularly in post- Payne 2012) and may themselves Frith (2007) notes, the most industrial cities in which traditional be charities or with charitable status significant means of expanding the manufacturing industries have (e.g. Cheltenham Festivals), or have size of the live audience for British declined and in which culture is used internal structures which use different promoters has ‘undoubtedly’ been as a means of attracting service- economic models (cf Posta et al festivals, which are now the ‘key sector professionals (Voase 2009). 2014) and which allow the festival to asset’ in promoters’ portfolios for However, a focus on festivals as ‘quick