Outdoor music festivals as cyclic places. Assessing authenticity, attachment and belonging

Outdoor music festivals are temporary events hosted in locations that are physical, social, imaginative, and heterotopic in form. Some festivals develop a sense of authenticity and a sense of place (Relph 1976) which is aligned to the location in which they are held and, through cyclic restaging and the repeat attendance of festivalgoers and others, fosters a sense of authenticity, attachment and belonging: of the festival to a place, and of festivalgoers to both the event and the location in which it is hosted. To paraphrase and twist a quote from the ethnomusicologist Bruno Nettl (1973), an authentic festival might be regarded as one thought to truly belong to the people who attend it, as one that ‘reflects their spirit and personality.’ Such identifications and interrelationships between an event and its attendees is a crucial element for those long-lived events that are less reliant on headliners or novelty, and more reliant on repeat attendance (an annual pilgrimage of cultural and social renewal) to be economically sustainable. As the cultural geographer Stanley Waterman (1998) has noted, festivals are ‘not simply bought and “consumed”.’ This presentation will explore theoretical understandings of belonging, authenticity and attachment in relation to the spaces, places and attendees of outdoor music festivals, drawing on fieldwork carried out over the past twenty years.