Music Festivals and Regional Development in Australia

Chris Gibson, John Connell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317092018
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Anthropologie culturelle et sociale

Throughout the world, the number of festivals has grown exponentially in the last two decades, as people celebrate local and regional cultures, but perhaps more importantly as local councils and other groups seek to use festivals both to promote tourism and to stimulate rural development. However, most studies of festivals have tended to focus almost exclusively on the cultural and symbolic aspects, or on narrow modelling of economic multiplier impacts, rather than examining their long-term implications for rural change. This book therefore has an original focus. It is structured in two parts: the first discusses broad issues affecting music festivals globally, especially in the context of rural revitalisation. The second part looks in more detail at a range of types of festivals commonly found throughout North America, Europe and Australasia, such as country music, jazz, opera and alternative music festivals. The authors draw on in-depth research undertaken over the past five years in a range of Australian places, which traces the overall growth of festivals of various kinds, examines four of the more important and distinctive music festivals, and makes clear conclusions on their significance for rural and regional change.

Part I Music Festivals

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781315596778-1

The Girgarre Moosic Muster is held annually to bring the community of Girgarre together. They are doing it pretty tough on the land and this gives them a free weekend, where they can enjoy all styles of music and let their hair down! It also gives them a chance to learn to play instruments and not have to pay for their first lessons. All funds raised over the weekend go back into the community to help them out. The committee that run the weekend are all volunteers, a mixture of Girgarre and city folk, that come together for one cause, the Girgarre community. (Jan Dandridge (Little Miss Country)’s Blog, 13 January 2009)

Throughout the world the number of music festivals has grown exponentially in the last two decades, as people celebrate local and regional cultures, as musical styles diversify, and as councils, business coalitions and non-profit groups use festivals to both promote tourism and stimulate regional development. This is scarcely new; as long ago as the 1800s European cities on the Grand Tour staged festivals to harmonise social relations as well as generate trade, and draw in people from outside. What has changed has been the proliferation of festivals of all types, often in quite small places, their increasing diversity and, in many cases, the sophistication of their marketing and management. And, as at Girgarre, a tiny farming settlement in Victoria (population 300), they play a valuable and sometimes unexpected role in rural and regional life.

Academic and applied consultancy research on the social, cultural and economic dimensions of festivals has concurrently expanded. Festivals have been shown to draw communities together to celebrate local cultures (Duffy 2000); to involve people of disparate geographical origins whose community is catalysed by highly specialised passions, shared pastimes or intense fandom (Mackellar 2009a; Begg 2011); or simply to entertain large numbers of people. Festivals can also include and exclude people by drawing boundaries around ‘community’, through subcultural affiliation, pre-requisite knowledge to appreciate narrow music styles, specialist knowledge required for entry (in the case of, for instance, raves) or meaningful participation. They can annoy local residents by generating traffic, pollution and congestion; and by attracting ‘unwanted’ types of people (often revealing as much about local residents’ imagined picture of themselves as of the behaviour of the festival-goers). In places where tourism development has been rapid – and often linked to the rise of festivals – conflicts can ensue over local spaces, resources and the direction and meaning of regional development. This book seeks to discuss this range of issues, taking music festivals seriously as a regional development concern.

Debate surrounds what constitutes a ‘festival’. Some are community festivals that emerge from dedicated local people and only in time come to attract audiences beyond the immediate locality. Others are primarily commercial – essentially full-blown open air concerts, organised by metropolitan promoters, that may even be foisted on places and play little role in regional development, despite high ticket costs. At high-profile commercial music festivals the roster of acts is crucial, compared with local festivals which place higher priority on community building and are keen to showcase local talent without need for big name imported acts. Each of these types of festivals has a different influence on regional development.

In our festivals research, conducted in Australia over a decade, demarcation was made between infrequent, usually annual, musical events, which were included (pending other criteria), and regular, recurrent events held throughout the year. Generally festivals had to meet at least one (and preferably more than one) of the following criteria: use of the word ‘festival’ in the event name; being an irregular, one-off, annual or biennial event; emphasise celebrating, promoting or exploring some aspect of culture (in this case music); or being an unusual point of convergence for people with a given cultural activity, or of a specific subcultural identification. Some lasted several days and involved hundreds of performers, others took no more than a long evening; the latter group were in many ways little more than concerts and have been included here only where they seemed to make some contribution to regional life. Festivals then were understood, following Getz (2007:31), as ‘themed, public celebrations’. What makes festivals distinct is that they are usually held annually and generally have social rather than economic or political aims: getting people together for fun, entertainment and a shared sense of camaraderie. Most festivals created a time and space of celebration, a site of convergence separate from everyday routines, experiences and meanings – ephemeral communities in place and time.

At the outset it might also be queried what constitutes music – though we have chosen to ignore that as a stylistic consideration – and whether general community festivals that might have significant musical content ought to be considered for inclusion in this book. To take just one example, the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival, New South Wales (NSW), focuses on the 1950s, and markets itself through appeals to nostalgia – cars, clothes, dancing and music. Music is not necessarily the main attraction, but is an important part of why people attend. In some places we have discussed such examples, because music is clearly a part of what makes these festivals successful, but this book primarily focuses on festivals where music was the primary component.

Although the field of festivals and special events research has blossomed (even spawning dedicated academic journals such as Event Management; see also Getz 2010), most studies have tended to be rather specialised. They suit specific needs (e.g. in consultancy research funded by festivals themselves); reflect the disciplinary backgrounds and perspectives of those undertaking the research (for example, focusing almost exclusively on the cultural and symbolic aspects, or on narrow modelling of economic multiplier impacts) or they have examined different dimensions of single festivals held in one place. Likewise, until quite recently the environmental impacts of festivals have been neglected and thus not linked into discussions of the economic and social impacts of festivals (Jones 2009; Gibson and Wong 2011). Debates have raged over the narrow economic impact of individual festivals (see Chapter 4), rather than discussing a broader set of interrelated regional development issues. Concerns such as how festivals cumulatively stimulate inward investment, link to local business networks, inspire potential migrants to move to regional towns, generate and (unevenly) diffuse fiscal and educational benefits and nestle within place marketing and tourism image construction campaigns have been rarely integrated – if at all. Little has been written about the interrelationship between economic, environmental and cultural dimensions of festivals – about how festivals could and are being used to promote local and regional development in the broadest sense, and what kinds of political and social issues are at stake. This book seeks to fill that gap.

That this sort of synthetic analysis of festivals and regional development is needed is borne out when listening to festival organisers and representatives of host communities. In the small town of Queenscliff (Victoria), annual tourism income from its music festival totalled over $2 million¹ at the start of the century. For the festival’s manager, Barbara Moss, beyond the direct impact,

1 All dollar figures in this book are in Australian dollars unless otherwise stated. At the time of writing, the Australian dollar was worth approximately US$1.05, though in the past decade it has more typically fluctuated between US$0.75 and US$0.90.

that economic impact is tied to the social fabric of the community. It’s directly linked to the social health of the town and confidence is always a big factor in economic growth. A lot of local people become involved in the festival – up to 400 people volunteer to help out each year – and we’ve found that to be a big long-term stimulant to the economy. Some of those people might otherwise be lying in bed watching Oprah. Now they’re out getting involved. That connectivity, the bringing together of diverse elements, is what social wealth is all about. (Quoted in Williams 2002:44)

These kinds of interrelated social and economic returns are particularly meaningful in small towns like Queenscliff and Girgarre, with limited labour resources and support infrastructure. In small places festivals can scarcely go unnoticed; large segments of communities invest money, time and emotion in them.

In rural and regional areas economic decline, rapid changes in the agricultural sector, and dwindling and ageing populations, have created a dynamic setting for the staging of festivals. Most of the festivals we discuss in this book are situated in what are in Australia called country towns – usually ranging in size from 5,000 to 30,000 people (though some, like Girgarre, are considerably smaller). Many small towns are struggling with a declining agricultural base, and relatively homogenous populations with little in-migration, where Indigenous people are a small numerical minority. In some places – mainly on the coasts and in inland parts of Queensland and Western Australia – stagnation has been avoided by ‘sea-change’ in-migration from capital cities, resources and minerals booms, and the growth of tourism and creative industries. In such places there is a rather different, and dynamic, context of growth and prosperity. Festivals reflect such patterns of decline and growth, and the social and economic processes behind them. As we hope to show here, festivals have sometimes been actively incorporated into attempts by places to reinvent themselves, have helped turn around economic and population decline, or have played a substantial role in changing the character and distribution of benefits from the local economy.

In regional areas of countries as different as China and Australia, the tourism spin-offs deriving from the promotion of festivals are seen as one means of redressing rural decline (Walmsley 2003; Xie 2003). In 2003 an annual international music festival was argued to be the only viable means of rescuing the host Shoalhaven River Estate (NSW) from bankruptcy and mounting debts (Sydney Morning Herald 26 April 2003:5). Later that year the tiny former gold mining township of Hill End (NSW), with just 120 people, launched the inaugural Hill End Jazz Festival, which was expected to bring 1500 visitors and raise enough money to buy a defibrillator for the community (Sydney Morning Herald 24 October 2003:3). Regional places like Aldeburgh, Glyndebourne and Glastonbury in the UK, Bayreuth in Germany and Woodstock in the United States have been so successful that their festivals have substantially improved economic and social capital, and resulted in those places largely being known, even defined, through their festivals. The same is true for Tamworth and Gympie in Australia (Gibson and Davidson 2004; Edwards 2011). In such places, festivals have become a long-term place-marketing strategy rather than simply a short-term event (Hall 1989). Festivals are anticipated to bring multiple benefits to rural communities: to stimulate short-term employment; to improve the skills of residents and improve their chances of finding future work; to enhance social cohesion; and to re-invent places and their images. In short they can put towns on the map, and keep them there. And by and large they are an enjoyable way of doing so. In other places festivals are small and the real skill is in managing to marshal enough resources, to call on favours and make ends meet. Festivals fuel creative frugality.

For these reasons this book focuses on rural and regional contexts, excluding consideration of festivals in state capitals, such as Sydney and Brisbane. Although similar themes sometimes resonate with festivals in big cities (Waitt 2008), the different scale of the metropolis means that economic, environmental and social impacts are all more muted (Tindall 2011). By contrast regional festivals enable a particularly focussed discussion of the range of development issues and themes. Alongside the many cases of festivals putting places on the map, there are disappointments and economic losses, temporary benefits not sustained outside festival times, uneven distribution of profits (and aggravation of local conflicts), or concerns amongst local communities (and visiting participants) about the character, meaning and direction of festivals and their links to local economy. There can be tensions between economic success and environmental degradation, as in Byron Bay (Chapter 9), and over what images are appropriate for regional towns (Chapters 6 and 8). Such challenges complicate the relationship between festivals and regional development. While rural and regional festivals have gained some attention academically (e.g. Long and Perdue 1990; De Bres and Davis 2001; Higham and Ritchie 2001; Chhabra et al. 2003; Moscardo 2008), their treatment pales in comparison to that lavished on mega-events in major cities, and the complexities surrounding festivals and regional development remain largely unexplored. Such complexity is a central part of our story here.

Why choose music festivals in particular? Music is in the broadest sense the oldest and most common element of festivals. Musicians have always been present at community festivities around harvests, equinoxes, village fairs and Mardi Gras. In the Middle Ages musicians, often travellers themselves, added a soundtrack to the relaxation of social norms that accompanied seasonal celebrations. In more modern times, the proliferation of professional music festivals is remarkable – big, small, conservative, radical, alternative – every demographic and niche audience is catered for, from children’s music to speed metal, opera to techno. Music festivals are some of the largest festivals in the world – Berlin’s Love Parade, Roskilde, Lollapalooza, and in Australia, the Tamworth Country Music Festival (Chapter 8) – but, in their proliferation, they also fill some of the smallest and most specific niches: in the case of the Roy Orbison Festival in Wink, Texas or the Elvis Presley Festival in Parkes (Chapter 6) de...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• PART I MUSIC FESTIVALS: PROMISES AND PREDICAMENTS
• PART II MUSIC FESTIVALS: REINVENTING REGIONAL PLACES
• Bibliography
• Index