Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
have become part of our increasingly 'hyper-festive society' (Murray
1999
) and
form an essential element of what Debord (
1994
) viewed as our new 'society of the
spectacle'. Some indication of the change can be seen in the fact that a city such as
Montreal now boasts on its website that it is home to over a hundred different fes-
tivals. Even Calgary's website claims a total of 69 festive events, dominated by the
ten day annual Stampede which energizes the city for ten days in July. Over 1.2 mil-
lion people now attend the Stampede grounds during the event to attend the rodeo,
fun fair, agricultural exhibits, and many other attractions, with allied festive events
using cowboy themes taking place in many parts of the city, organized by private
firms and communities. Yet we must be cautious about claiming the contemporary
uniqueness of festivals, either in size or number, at least for bigger cities. It has been
suggested that the history of the city of Rome was embedded in festivals for there
were regularly 42 major events per year as shown in Miller's (
2010
, p. 173) survey.
Some were held on a specific day(s) annually, others organised at a time decided
by the city magistrates, while others were episodic, and often linked to the army's
victories, or were designed to placate the gods after various emergencies (Scullard
1981
; Miller
2010
). In the early modern period Curcio-Nagy (
2004
) has shown how
colonial Mexico City had five major festivals and a hundred other events annually,
but without the range of different rationales for the festivals found in contemporary
cities. Although each festive event may be transitory, their increasing importance
means that it is surely necessary for geographers and urban specialists in general to
include more of the celebratory, people-centred, participatory and emotional aspects
of life in their studies to make them more comprehensive, as well as meaningful, in
order to improve the richness of life of urban residents. This review is not designed
to study one festival, or even a sample of festivals. Instead, it is a conceptual over-
view of the ways that festivals in urban places can be studied and assessed, demon-
strating their origins, characteristics and multi-dimensional nature, in which each
dimension provides an insight into part of their functioning, an approach which is
also a basis for evaluating the utility of various urban festive events.
142
Characteristics of Festivals
Festivals are distinctive because they take people outside their normal behaviours
in time and space. They provide unusual activities and evoke feelings and emotions
that are very different to the regular and material routines of the workday. Tradition-
ally, most took place in spaces that are either normally used for other activities, such
as roads, or were empty spaces, but later become the exclusive sites for the period of
the event—sites usually temporarily transformed by decorations and events that add
to the sense of occasion and the separateness of the experiences gained in that space.
Throughout history, the major festivals were undoubtedly unusual spectacles of
sensory experiences, creating a kaleidoscope of colour and sounds that transcended
the typical urban day, creating fun, excitement, joy, even euphoria and awe. Many
festivals include parades as a focal ingredient, with participants displaying rich,
