Festivals in the City and Their Tribes

The spread of cultural festivals in Italy and abroad is a striking phenomenon, but one that is difficult to quantify. The difficulty stems from the great variety of the events considered. Whereas traditionally understood festivals are artistic and cultural events that regularly take place in a city or region in a given period and for a limited number of days every year, today under the heading of festivals are grouped events of various nature, whose links to the traditional artistic or cultural sector are tenuous. Precisely for this reason it is difficult to develop a hermeneutics of festivals; we can only trace a profile that highlights the peculiarities of this type of events in the cultural offer of cities. In particular, the main sources of differentiation come into play in relation with three basic factors: the type of festival goers, the critical management issues involved in the creation and organization of a festival, and finally the results that are expected from this type of event by organizers and stakeholders participating in it.

Identikit of the festival goer

With respect to the first point it should be noted the extreme peculiarity of the social tribes that enliven festivals. In fact, according to one of the most recent studies of festivals, the European Festival Market Report 2014, the typical person attending a festival is young (26 years old, on average), not particularly rich (average yearly income of €12,300), single (in at least 40% of cases), looking for an opportunity to escape from everyday life and seeking leisure and entertainment (especially with friends). Festival goers typically spend 40% of what they spend for a festival before the actual event, often buying merchandising tied to the festival and its attractions (in about 30% the sample people state they do so). Contrary to what you might think, only 27% of festival goers cannot name a single sponsor among those present at the event. People going to festivals increasingly rely on smartphones and social media platforms like Facebook (92.5%) and Instagram (48.7%) to communicate during events and gather information on the festival itself. In a nutshell, the average type that goes to a festival is very different from your typical visitor of an art show or a theater goer, and this not only in terms of age, but also in terms of the motivations pushing him/her to participate. Festivals, in other words, represent a suitable cultural format to attract new audiences and make non-mainstream forms of art more accessible to the general public. If the festival goer differs from a museum visitor or a theater spectator, managing a festival is also different from managing other cultural institutions. The first macroscopic peculiarity is the panoply of events that festivals typically offer: not only performances or concerts, but also book presentations, conferences, debates, workshops for children and adults, film screenings, meetings with the artists. The festival as a product is usually born around a theme (think about the Italian festivals held in Mantua, Sarzana or Trento, and focusing on literature, the mind, and the economy, respectively) which constitutes the common denominator and is then developed according to a number of variations that must differ every year. Functional to this structure is therefore the ability of organizers not only to identify a festival theme capable of withstanding the passing of time and fashions,but also the skill to develop a kind of storytelling around the theme which is different and engaging every year.

Behind the scenes

A second critical variable for management is represented by dynamism of the organizational structure and variety in the composition of the staff. In fact, it looks like all festivals have an evolving structure that expands as the event approaches, only to be immediately deflated when the festival ends. In addition to the difficulties relating to the management of paid staff and unpaid volunteers (who tend to be employed by festival organizations), the concertina-like structure of festivals makes some phases in personnel management critical and challenging, such as the recruitment stage and development of personnel (which tends to change from year to year). A last differentiator compared to other forms of culture and entertainment pertains to the results expected from this type of event. In this case, the expectations of various stakeholders (especially local government) dominate traditional considerations assigned to cultural and artistic initiatives. Possibly because of their ephemeral character, festivals have the ability to improve the tourist attractiveness of a city/region and contribute to local economic development. In fact, they are so important that festivals often manage to overcome cultural, social, environmental and even political obstacles.

Cultural workshops

In this perspective, the choice of the period to organize a festival is often made to revitalize a region or a city in periods of low tourist flows. If this countercyclical function of the festival cannot be underestimated, it should also be emphasized that in many cases the festival represents an antidote to what one of the greatest researchers of cultural economy, Bruno Frey, calls the ossification of traditional, permanent cultural institutions. Compared to the latter, in fact, the flexibility of festival events allows more opportunities for experimentation, by offering a stage and a possible window of opportunity to lesser known artists or more innovative artistic productions. The Italian experiences of the Orizzonti festival in Chiusi or Mare Culturale in Milan are notable examples of how festivals can serve as catalysts for tourism and the local economy and, most importantly, play a supplementary role in cultural policy and as social aggregators.