Festivalisation of Urban Spaces

The Introduction is the first factual chapter of this book, which signals its main theoretical assumptions and contains basic information concerning the object of study discussed in this book. Further on, it is shown how festivals and festivalisation relate to the socio-economic changes taking place in modern societies. This chapter also presents the correlation between festivalisation and the new socio-economic processes observed after the Second World War in the developed countries. Other problems signalled in the Introduction include the impact of the changes in post-communist countries on the development of festivalisation. Introduction also presents a research hypothesis which relates the development of festivalisation to the cultural turn, cultural economy, creative and experience societies, as well as the urban development processes that took place during the post-industrial period. Further on, the chapter presents a detailed list of the research objectives which are achieved in this book. The Introduction also contains a description of other basic issues, such as the research methods, or the structure of the work, which consists of the preface supplemented with a biographical note about the author and six factual chapters, followed by a summary. The Introduction ends with a brief description of the structure of the book, presenting the contents of individual chapters and subchapters.

This is first of conceptual chapters of the book, presenting the basic ideas connected with the festivals their genesis, development and their diversity. The chapter presents definitions of the festival taken from various sciences, including anthropology, sociology and geography. The perception of festivals in contemporary science and the key characteristics distinguishing them from other events, such as business or sports events, are presented. The chapter also includes the description of the advent of festivals. In antiquity, festivals were an emanation of the culture and religion of primitive tribes. Later, they developed and became more diversified as a result of cultural advancements, among other things. This chapter covers the issues of the historical development of festivals due to an increase in the amount of free time and average income, as well as the emergence of so-called experience societies in the twentieth century. This part of the book includes the description of the main factors of festival development. Strong focus is given to the issues shaping the popularity of festivals in the twentieth century and creating so-called festival boom. Presentation of the basic types of festivals is also one of the main aims of this chapter. This chapter also characterises their typologies based among others on attitude to religion, seasonality, form of organising and financing the event, structure of festival visitors, theme, etc.

In this chapter, the key theoretical and methodological aspects of a scientific festival analysis are discussed. The first part of the chapter presents the different aspects of research on festivals. The reader can find here the characteristic of how this issue is studied in different sciences such as event studies or geography, describing the origins and study aspects. This part of the chapter explains why scientists became interested in festivals in the second half of the twentieth century and describes in detail major research themes, explored mainly as a part of these sciences. The second part of the chapter is devoted to the methodological issues. Beginning of the chapter presents basic terms, such as method or methodology, and next, research methods used in the study of festivals are presented. Methods are divided into general and detailed, quantitative and qualitative, and field and laboratory methods. Another part of the second section of this chapter is devoted to a detailed description of the main types of research methods used in the analysis of festivals. Using numerous examples, quantitative and qualitative, and field and laboratory methods used for studying this phenomenon are characterised. This chapter is especially aimed at students researching different aspects of festival development and its various impacts.

In this chapter, the basic conceptions and definitions related to festivalisation, the main impacts of festivals on space, the concept of festival tourism and the most important types of festivalisation spaces are characterised. The description of the basic conceptions and definitions related to festivalisation includes concepts such as geographical space and its types, or urban space. This is the theoretical basis for the analysis developed further in the book. The concept of festivalisation and its main features are investigated in this chapter as well. In the next subchapter, the most important impacts of festivals on urban space, divided into tangible, intangible, positive, and negative ones, are described. Further on, the reader can find references to festival tourism, first to the understanding of the concept of tourism and its classifications. The definitions of tourism, tourists and tourist assets are given here as well. Later the definition of festival tourism as one of the tourism types is formulated, and its influence on tourism space is briefly presented. The last subchapter presents festivalisation spaces. They are urban spaces which festivals influence most strongly: e.g. festival centres as spaces of permanent festivalisation, or theatres, museums, streets and squares, occupied temporarily for festival purposes. The theoretical characteristic of different festivalisation spaces is supplemented with many practical examples.

In this chapter, the city of Łódź and the festivals held there are presented in detail. It is then a particular case study showing a review of urban festivals and their influence on space. Łódź is a city in central Poland, inhabited by about 700 000 people. It is an example of a post-industrial and post-socialist centre undergoing a deep transformation. In 1945–1989, Poland was ruled by a communist system, imposed by the Soviet Union. Due to the “Solidarity” social movement, in 1989, peaceful reforms were introduced, which resulted in the implementation of market economy and democracy. That was how the process of transformation, i.e., the transition from the communist system to capitalist economy and a democratic state began in Poland. The transformation had a number of both positive and negative effects, which also affected Polish cities. After 1989, the changes in Łódź included a decline of the textile industry, the development of economy based on services, as well as significant spatial transformations. Łódź as an old industrial city based on traditional textile production was particularly strongly affected by the process of deindustrialisation (after 1989) and the resulting socio-economic problems. On the other hand, the free market and the introduction of democracy triggered social activity, also in the field of culture and festival organisation. There appeared many institutions and associations concerned with culture, art and entertainment. City authorities noticed that the activity known in the West as the cultural economy was successfully used for the purpose of restructuring post-industrial cities. Therefore, they began to support the development of culture in Łódź. This strategy, based on cultural and entertainment events, became one of the ways of developing the city. This led to the growth of the festival function in the city. This chapter presents a detailed description of Łódź as a city—its location, natural conditions and history. It is a broad background for the description of the major festival events held in Łódź, presented further in the chapter. This part of the book is based on own author’s research and other sources. The reader can find here description of 48 urban festivals and the evaluation of their influence on the urban space of Łódź.

This chapter is the last factual chapter in this book, which consists of two main parts. The first one presents the most important findings from the analysis of festivals, their development and influence on cities discussed in the book. The second part presents a model illustrating the development of festivals and their role in the urban space. The first section of this chapter refers to the earlier parts of the publication. It includes the most important conclusions from the work, also as regards its objectives formulated in the Introduction. In this way, the first part consolidates the findings regarding the concept and history of festival events. The main factors of festivals development are considered here. These are the factors which led to the festival boom in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This part also refers to the main research approaches and methods used in festival studies. The conclusions from the chapter concerning urban space festivalisation, including those concerning the impacts of events on the multifaceted urban space, are also presented. The reader would also find references to the case study of Łódź—a Polish post-socialist and post-industrial city here. In the second part of this chapter, there is a model of the development of festivals and their influence on urban space presented. It shows both the main festival development factors in recent decades and their influence on space. The model is universal enough to be used for an analysis of other cities of different sizes and geographical locations.