‘These Things Don’t Happen by Magic’ Charismatic autonomy in festival production in the English East Midlands Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of De Montfort University for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy by Jennie Jordan Submitted August 2019 Acknowledgements Working on this thesis has been a labour of love, hate, frustration and despair. It would not have happened at all without Jem and George, who have put up with me throughout, supplied endless cups of tea/glasses of wine as required, mopped up my tears and made me laugh. It would also not have happened without my colleagues Jacqui, who inspired me to start; Chris M and Franco whose research into festivals gave me my topic; Chris N who kept me writing; and Heather, my personal cheerleader. I’m incredibly grateful to all the interviewees who gave me their time and expertise so generously. Jim McGuigan helped me shape my approach and pointed me towards Max Weber. Sue and Krista struggled through endless drafts, asked me questions about what I was doing and helped clarify my writing. Tim O’Sullivan drew my attention to time – both in keeping my research on track, and the centrality of rhythms within festival production. And, last but by no means least, my supervisor Alastair Gordon, who has put up with my digressions and rewrites and inability to see the wood for the trees and gently, but persistently, directed me back to the path with always pertinent questions and reading suggestions. Thank you. Abstract Festivals are special times in social life. They interrupt everyday life for periods of celebration. But festivals don’t happen by magic; they are the result of on-going, hidden work by festival producers. Urban arts festivals are multifaceted social phenomena reliant on complex place-based and cultural interest networks. They navigate values and norms with varied identity, place, economic and social meanings. This thesis questions how this largely invisible work shapes urban life, who undertakes this labour, what motivates them, who else is involved and how producers’ underlying value systems influence their effects in regional urban areas in England. In order to address the complexity of festivals as sites and artefacts, research for this thesis was multi-method. Ethnographic methods, cultural production and institutional concepts were synthesised with policy analysis and crystallised into a tripartite Weberian ideal type framework. The typology distinguished between festival’s primary purposes linked to their hetero-regulatory interest groups: arts curation based on aesthetic judgement; commercial priorities within creative industry sectors; and civic outcomes linked to public policies. Three case-studies, one of each type, were researched using thick description techniques to identify themes. The thesis is split into a theoretical section followed by ethnographic research to develop three case-studies: Buxton International Festival, Leicester Comedy Festival and Derby Festé. It asks if festivals are hetero-regulated institutions or autonomous, charismatic actors within their localities and concludes the case-studies were strongly influenced by their founders’ professional habitus within their artistic fields. Although responsive to structural heteronomy in their respective cities, they all resisted pressures to commercialise or lower artistic standards. The thesis concludes festivals are sites where values are negotiated throughout the production cycle and historically as festivals develop and align with wider interests. 3 Policy discourses used to justify public subsidy mask influential players’ power within localities. Professional expertise from founders’ cultural habitus was found to give them intrinsic and instrumental charismatic power. In viewing festivals as cyclical events produced by enduring organisations, this thesis contributes to the field by illuminating festival producers’ charismatic autonomy within the context of hetero- regulatory authorising environments shaped by neoliberal cultural and urban policies. 4 Contents Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................ 2 Abstract ............................................................................................................... 3 Contents .............................................................................................................. 5 Tables and Figures ......................................................................................................... 9 Glossary ............................................................................................................. 10 Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................... 12 Context ........................................................................................................................ 17 Festival discourses ........................................................................................................ 20 Festivals as institutions ................................................................................................. 23 Regional Urban Arts Festival Typology ........................................................................ 27 Aesthetic festivals ........................................................................................................ 28 Commercial sector festivals ......................................................................................... 28 Civic festivals ................................................................................................................ 29 Research methodology ................................................................................................ 30 Thesis structure ............................................................................................................ 31 Introduction summary .................................................................................................. 31 Chapter 2. Understanding festivals .................................................................. 33 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 33 Defining festivals .......................................................................................................... 34 Festivity, intensification and liminality ......................................................................... 36 Communitas, social structure and the carnivalesque ................................................... 37 Authenticity, heteronomy and commodification ......................................................... 39 Festivals as alternative spaces ...................................................................................... 41 Festival production ....................................................................................................... 45 Leadership, management and events studies ............................................................. 50 Understanding Festivals Summary ............................................................................... 51 Chapter 3. Festivals, Cultural and Urban Policy ............................................... 53 Cultural policy .............................................................................................................. 55 Cultural policy in the UK .............................................................................................. 56 Thatcherism and the Arts Council ................................................................................ 59 The Department of National Heritage and the National Lottery ................................ 63 Culture and social exclusion ......................................................................................... 65 Cool culture, festivalisation and city branding ............................................................. 68 Austerity and the Big Society ....................................................................................... 70 Placemaking ................................................................................................................. 72 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 74 5 Chapter 4. Perspectives on festival production ................................................ 77 Institutional theory ....................................................................................................... 77 Autonomous and heteronomous cultural fields ........................................................... 81 Cultural intermediaries, brokerage and entrepreneurship .......................................... 86 Bridging and bonding .................................................................................................. 90 Festivals in place and time ........................................................................................... 92 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 95 Chapter 5. Research Methodology ................................................................... 97 Methodological overview ............................................................................................. 97 Methodological influences ........................................................................................... 99 Research