Exploring Community Festivals and Events

The development of the festival and event industry has seen large scale growth and extensive government support as a result of objectives to enhance and project the image of place and leverage positive sponsorship and regeneration opportunities. As we move deeper into austerity measures prompted by economic recession, community festivals and events as a sacred or profane time of celebration can be considered even more important than ever before.

This book for the first time explores the role and importance of ‘community’, ‘culture’ and its impact through festivals and events. Split into two distinct sections, the first introduces key themes and concepts, contextualises local traditions and culture, and investigates how festivals and events can act as a catalyst for tourism and create a sense of community. It then questions the social and political nature of festivals and community events through examining their ownership. The second section focuses on communities themselves, seeking to examine and discuss key emerging themes in community event studies such as; the role of diaspora, imagined communities, pride and identity, history, producing and consuming space and place, authenticity, and multi-ethnic communities. Examples are drawn from Portugal, the Dominican Republic, the USA, Malaysia, Malta, Finland and Australia making this book truly international.

This significant volume will be valuable reading for students and academics across the fields of Event, Tourism and Hospitality studies as well as other social science disciplines.

Allan Jepson was awarded his PhD in 2009; which investigated community festival planning and decision making practices. He is currently a senior academic in Event Studies & Tourism, and researcher in communities and their events within the Marketing Insight Research Group (MIRU) at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. Over the last decade he has developed undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes, in Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management.

Alan Clarke works at the University of Pannonia in Veszprém in Hungary, where he helped to develop the English programmes at BA and Masters levels in tourism and hospitality. Since moving to Hungary he has continued his commitments in the UK and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Derby. His current research interests include religious tourism and finding the commonalities between wine tourism in Hungary and whisky trails in Scotland.