The social rhythm of the rock music festival

Popular Music ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aksel Tjora

AbstractOn the basis of observational studies in a number of rock music festivals during the period 2004–2012, I ask the following question in this paper: how does the music festival community arise and how is it maintained? With the help of perspectives from interactionist sociology and organisational studies I develop an analysis of how rock music festival ‘skills’ are collectively produced. A communally acknowledged competence is negotiated and made explicit by means, among other things, of the synchronisation of a daily rhythm that becomes common to many festivals. The present analysis will employ a close description of this rhythm's phases, and how transitions between them are interactively negotiated. While rock music festivals certainly celebrate fandom, this paper draws attention to processes that build strong senses of community between participants while joining together in the camping site, outside stage areas. The social rhythm, as it is interactively and artfully produced between participants, makes the festival recognisable as a festival, and attractive as a social event. A profound sense of connectedness between participants is to be found between the tents in the festival camp.

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-154
Author(s):  
Kostas Skliamis ◽  
Dirk J. Korf

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to: describe and contextualize the aims and distinctive and common characteristics of cannabis festivals in countries with different cannabis policies; assess characteristics of participants; identify reasons to attend cannabis festivals; explore to which extent cannabis festivals contribute to the social and cultural acceptance of cannabis, as perceived by attendees. Design/methodology/approach The approach incorporates three methods of data collection in the research design; quantitative research among 1,355 participants, participant observation and interviews with the organizers. Findings Cannabis festivals in Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome and Athens have common features but also maintain and reproduce local, social and cultural characteristics. Cannabis festivals, as well as their attendees, represent heterogeneous categories. The style of the festival – music festival or march combined with music – affects the main reason for attendance by the participants. In cannabis festivals more similar to music festivals the majority of the respondents attended for entertainment while at the cannabis festivals in the form of a march combined with music the majority attended for protest. Furthermore, increasing age, residency and the high frequency of cannabis use are factors that led the participants to attend for protest. Originality/value The research on cannabis festivals is limited. This paper not only explores the aims of cannabis festivals in four capital cities of Europe and the characteristics of their attendees including motivations, but also offers interesting insights for understanding the ways in which political and social constructions like cannabis festivals shape attitudes, perception and behaviors around cannabis use.


2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
João Pedro Portugal ◽  
Antonia Correia ◽  
Paulo Águas

PurposeMusic festivals offer new opportunities for leisure and tourist experiences in Portugal. Some tourists and residents, the so-called festival goers, participate and come back to these events, whereas others, the non-goers, never participate and are not willing to do so. The aim of this research is to understand the decision to participate or not based on facilitators and constraints to participate or not in a music festival, dismantling residents and tourists' attitudes.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 1,178 music festival goers and non-goers in Portugal. Content analysis was undertaken to depict the most important determinants of their decisions. Those determinants were categorized according to the three dimensions of factors of ecological systems theory, considering festival goers and non-goers as well as tourists and residents.FindingsThe results suggested that although constraints are not as often voiced as facilitators, both influence decisions that are expressed as delaying, postponing, avoiding or complying with others by participating in these events. Furthermore, the results suggested that the decision to participate or not depends on the social contexts of the festival goers or non-goers, and that these social contexts may invert their decision, be it by facilitating or constraining their participation.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is limited to festivals in Portugal and used a qualitative analysis that may be confirmed in other countries with quantitative methods. Nevertheless, this research opens paths to discuss facilitators and constraints through ecological system theory and gives insights into this industry.Practical implicationsThe results provide important insights for festival organizers to retain and build long-term relationships with festival goers. The results also provide insights into how to overcome the resistance which non-goers demonstrated.Social implicationsThis research offers an in-depth and insightful understanding of individuals' attitudes towards music festivals, allowing festival demand to be better understood. Furthermore, this research proves that attendance of music festivals is mostly a socially driven behaviour.Originality/valueBy eliciting facilitators and constraints of the decision to participate in music festivals, considering residents and tourists, festival goers and non-goers, this study provides a deeper understanding of the decision to participate, through a theoretical framework which is rarely applied in this field.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-226
Author(s):  
Rafał Lawendowski ◽  
Tomasz Besta

A correlational study was conducted among attendees of three music festivals in Poland ( N = 828). The main goal was to examine how functions ascribed to music are related to (a) a feeling of being united with other attendees, (b) the perception of being independent from or (c) interdependent with other attendees, and (d) a feeling of self-growth resulting in self-expansion. Using structural equation modelling, we showed the following. First, people who feel stronger connections and experience more personal relationships with other attendees report a stronger feeling of self-growth during music festivals and ascribe more importance to the social functions of music. Second, a strong, direct relationship exists between independent self-construal (i.e., an individualistic view of the self as autonomous from other people) and the self-awareness function of music as well as between interdependent self-construal (i.e., a more collectivistic view of the self as embedded in the group and community) and the social function of music. Finally, the results of the mediation analysis of self-expansion for the relationships between different aspects of self and the functions of music indicated that self-expansion is a statistically significant partial mediator of these relationships for the social and self-awareness function of music but not for the emotional function. That is, participants, who experienced changes in self-construct related to self-growth and self-development from their participation in a music festival used music to facilitate self-awareness and social relatedness.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyssa E Brown ◽  
Keith Donne ◽  
Paul Fallon ◽  
Richard Sharpley

Extant tourist experience literature focuses on ‘live’ space and time activity, while pre- and post-components are often neglected despite the opportunities offered by increasing use of digital media communication (DMC). Focusing especially on the pre-festival experience but also addressing peri- and post-phases, this study examines the role of DMC in tourists’ experiences at British rock music festivals. Interviews with festivalgoers revealed three core and inter-related themes: information, emotional response and communitas. Initial engagement with DMC enabled planning, generated feelings of anticipatory excitement and created a sense of communitas. Online activity reduced peri-festival but continued to enhance the live event experience, while the virtual communitas was extended at the post-festival phase.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136754942110086
Author(s):  
Paulo Nunes ◽  
Carolyn Birdsall

In recent years, music festivals have grown in significance within local cultural policy, city branding and tourism agendas. Taking the Mexefest festival in Lisbon as a case in point, this article asks how, in the digital streaming era, music festivals in urban environments are framed, curated and experienced. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, our analysis examines how music festival programmers curate the urban festival experience, for both locals and tourists alike. First, we identify the emergence of urban music festivals in recent decades, and how modern festival programmes have adopted the cultural technique of the ‘shuffle mode’ as an influential principle. Second, we investigate the work of festival programmers through the lens of ‘cultural intermediaries’, and ask how their programming strategies, particularly through digital mobile media (such as music playlists), contribute to an aestheticised experience of the city during the festival. Third, we focus on how the Mexefest festival events are staged in tandem with brand activation by sponsors like mobile phone company Vodafone and their radio station Vodafone FM. In doing so, we highlight the participation of festival-goers through their embodied engagements with digital media, music listening and urban space, and evaluate the heuristic value of ‘shuffle curation’ as a tool for the understanding of music festivals as a distinctly global and networked form of leisure consumption in urban culture.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 398-408
Author(s):  
Tatiana A. Tsvetkovskaya

The article analyses the cantata “Frau Musica” by the German composer P. Hindemith. This work has come to be widely understood as an example of Gebrauchsmusik in the works of O. Leontieva, K.-D. Krabiel, M. Breivik. Gebrauchsmusik is often identified as utility music, which means that it is created for some specific purpose; but the purpose does not have to be utilitarian. In order to assess the profoundness of the composer’s concept and to clarify specifics of the descriptive term, it is necessary to go back to the basics of the theoretical debates about the social role of art that unfolded in the 1920s. Their main participants were H. Besseler and T. Adorno. A valuable source of information is the programs of music festivals in Donaueschingen and Baden-Baden, where Gebrauchsmusik was evolving as a multi-genre artistic experiment. Hindemith played the leading role in this process. It is also important to understand the reasons that prompted the composer to use M. Luther’s text in the cantata “Frau Musica”.Today the Gebrauchsmusik’s ideas — revitalization of the audience, expanding access to musical education and practical musical activities that evolve collaborative work — have gained the most relevance. According to the author’s hypothesis, “Frau Musica” can be regarded as an illustrative example of a work that combines different views on the nature of musical participation: a spiritual act, a collective work, the highest level of musical accessibility. In this particular composition, Hindemith intuitively found the most promising ways for the development of creative interaction between the composer and the listener, which subsequently led to the creation of a whole corpus of participatory works, including Tod Makover’s “City Symphonies”, Alexander Radvilovich’s “Baltic Music”, Paul Rissman’s “Supersonic”.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Moot ◽  
Marie Crowe ◽  
Maree Inder ◽  
Kate Eggleston ◽  
Christopher Frampton ◽  
...  

Objectives: Research suggests that patients with co-morbid bipolar disorder (BD) and substance use disorder (SUD) have a poorer illness course and clinical outcome. The evidence is limited as SUD patients are often excluded from BD studies. In particular, evidence regarding long term outcomes from studies using psychotherapies as an adjunctive treatment is limited. We therefore examined data from two studies of Interpersonal Social Rhythm Therapy (IPSRT) for BD to determine whether lifetime or current SUD affected outcomes.Methods: Data were analyzed from two previous clinical trials of IPSRT for BD patients. Change in scores on the Social Adjustment Scale (SAS) from 0 to 78 weeks and cumulative mood scores from 0 to 78 weeks, measured using the Life Interval Follow-Up Evaluation (LIFE), were analyzed.Results: Of 122 patients (non-SUD n = 67, lifetime SUD but no current n = 43, current SUD n = 12), 79 received IPSRT and 43 received a comparison therapy—specialist supportive care—over 18 months. Lifetime SUD had a significant negative effect on change in SAS score but not LIFE score. There was no effect of current SUD on either change in score. Secondary analysis showed no correlation between symptom count and change in SAS total score or LIFE score.Conclusion: Current SUD has no impact on mood or functional outcomes, however, current SUD numbers were small, limiting conclusions. Lifetime SUD appears to be associated with impaired functional outcomes from psychotherapy. There is limited research on co-morbid BD and SUD patients undergoing psychotherapy.


Author(s):  
Abdolghani Abdollahi Mohammad ◽  
Mohammad Reza Firouzkouhi

Introduction: Quantitative research is not suitable for COVID pandemic research because it does not cover the social consequences of qualitative research. COVID 19 is a social event that is important because of the disruption of the natural order of society. To defeat the disease, social interaction is needed, so qualitative research is appropriate to find the challenges and experiences of society. Therefore, due to the inconsistency of people's health behaviors with epidemiological models, people's vulnerability in epidemics, unexpected consequences or surprising results, extracting participants' experiences from medical procedures and revealing flexibility in the face of social problems, the use of qualitative research in this pandemic that will be important.


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