Festival Policy: a typology of local urban festivals and their policy implications

Abstract

This paper proposes a framework for understanding the relationship between a festival’s values, its production processes and its potential integration into local urban policies by identifying three types of festival: aesthetic, commercial and civic. By exploring the differences between festivals, better understanding of their potential to achieve different economic or social impacts is possible. After decades of neglect, the festivalisation of city policies is a growing area and this is, therefore, an opportune time to ensure that the variety of festival types is clarified and their potential within various policy domains more clearly defined. Given the complexity of the urban policy environment, it is unsurprising that there is a lack of understanding about the potential of different festivals to achieve non-cultural policy objectives. The festival types identified aim to help local authorities to integrate festivals more successfully into their policies by distinguishing their potential economic and social effects.