Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
In the early modern period in northern and western Europe the rise of Puritan-
ism from the sixteenth century, with its intolerance of merrymaking, imagery and
serious purpose, led to the decline of many older festivals. Later, the growth of an
industrial society that created new settlements with an emphasis upon work and
limited holiday time, together with the growth of more secular values and modern-
ization of life, provided another reason for festival decline, if not the abandonment
of many, which were seen as relicts of increasingly abandoned social or religious
values. The growth of new national states, or political ideologies within them, from
the late eighteenth century onwards, often led authorities to implement new festive
events to celebrate their regimes in an attempt to create social solidarity.
The last half of the twentieth century saw a significant festival growth in cit-
ies. Some, like the Edinburgh Festival, originated as relatively small events in the
late 1940s, designed to promote music, theatre and art after the deprivations of the
war-time years. Although this high culture tradition has grown, the so-called Fringe
festival, composed of a wide variety of formal and informal activities has become
even larger, one that grew out of the situation where artists turned up in the city and
found performance space, despite not being approved by the organizing committee.
The explosive growth of these activities, both traditional, radical and experimen-
tal, means that the Fringe is now larger than the formal festival, and has become
the mecca for young artists to showcase their talent (Jarman
2007
). From the late
1950s more and more festive events have been added to urban places, aided by the
increase in leisure time and discretionary income, and lubricated by the greater
mobility of a population able to travel to these new events. In addition, the greater
tolerance in societies, plus the growth of civil rights legislation, has enabled people
of difference, whether ethnicity or life style, to add festive events to celebrate their
traditions and beliefs—or in the case of alternative music festivals, to throw over the
old conventions. The changes have added vibrant new events, full of colour, dance,
and music to the streets of many cities, adding to their heterogeneity and interest.
In the late 1960s increasing numbers of festivals sprang up in many small towns,
helped by the increasing mobility of population in the developed world. Some were
revivals of older events, others were new creations. Whatever their origin, the small
town festivals were seen not simply as events to stimulate culture and excitement,
but also as deliberate attempts to improve the local images, and economies of towns
that had often suffered decay as more mobile consumers shopped in large centres.
In some countries governments deliberately encouraged the development of such
events. For example, the federal Community Arts Board within a revived Australian
Council, wished not simply to recognize the emerging cultural growth and plural-
ism of the nation, but to find ways of integrating the artists into the local community
as local interpreters of history, folklore and culture (Gibson and Connell
2011
).
This has helped stimulate festivals in many small towns, as well as street festivals
in the bigger cities. Although these trends continued into the last two decades of
the twentieth century, this period also saw the initiation or enhancement of older
celebrations into what can only be described as mega-event festivals, usually seen
as those that attract over a million people and have budgets over $ 500 million (Al-
len et al.
2005
).
