Festive Cities: Multi-Dimensional Perspectives - Theme Cities: Solutions for Urban Problems - page 526

Chapter 14
Festive Cities: Multi-Dimensional Perspectives

Wayne K﻽D﻽ Davies

The success of festivals and their impact on society depends on
the way themes, symbols, identities, values, time and traditional
social habits are organized
Friedrich 2000 , p. 4.

14﻽1 Introduction

A curious characteristic of the many contemporary attempts to resolve the prob-
lems of the modernist city has been the relatively limited attention paid by most
urban scholars to features of the city that relate to sensory not material attributes,
to consumption not production, pleasure not work, and to episodic rather than per-
manent characteristics. Festive events in cities combine these four traits. These are
activities consciously planned to last a limited time to mark special occasions, or
to promote specific events, often using spectacles and parades designed to create
excitement and joy, as well as achieving cultural, social and economic goals. Some
of these may also, in Friedrich's ( 2000 , p. xiv) words, “touch deep human instincts
which relate to origin and community” in addition to the impacts described in the
above quotation that primarily relates to historic events. An important early impetus
for the study of festivals came from the work of cultural historians, stimulated by
a three volume seminal work on Renaissance f￪tes (Jacquot 1956-75). They have
been increasingly investigated by other historians, anthropologists, sociologists
and geographers, in both traditional and modern societies (Strong 1992 ; B￩langer
and C￴te 2005 ; Di Meo 2001 ; Gotham 2005 ; Gravari-Barbas 2005 , 2007 ). More
recently the economic impact of festivals in particular has attracted tourism and
special events specialists (Allen et al. 2005 ; Picard and Robinson 2006 ). Some of
this increasing interest in festivals in contemporary cities comes from the growth
of a secular and leisure society with its members constantly seeking new experi-
ences and pleasure, in pursuit of what they consider to be the good or at least more