The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide 3031090934, 9783031090936

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The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide Sarah Thomasson

The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide “Festivals have proliferated since the 1980s. But what does ‘festivalisation’ do for cities, their inhabitants, and their visitors? On one hand, it instrumentalises cities for commerce, tourism, city-branding, and nationalism, taking over city spaces and creating homogenising city myths that exclude citizens with the least privilege. On the other hand, festivals are carnivalesque, challenging hegemonic authority, fostering community, articulating diversity, and forging social justice. This book examines these deeply ambivalent potentials of Festival Cities. Through a nuanced interdisciplinary engagement with Cultural Geography and Theatre and Performance Studies, and a detailed comparative transnational analysis that goes beyond conventional Euro-American focuses, Sarah Thomasson’s The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide shows why we urgently need to pay attention to festivals’ profound cultural and political impacts on contemporary urban life.” —Jen Harvie, Queen Mary University of London “In this thoroughly researched interdisciplinary study Sarah Thomasson explores the mutually constitutive relationship between the Edinburgh and Adelaide Festivals and the cities that host them. Located at the intersection of Cultural Geography and Theatre and Performance Studies, The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide provides a detailed materialist analysis of the place-making function of festival cultures that extends beyond the city to the nations they come to represent.” —Ric Knowles, author of International Theatre Festivals and 21st-Century Interculturalism

Sarah Thomasson

The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide

Sarah Thomasson Theatre Programme Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington Wellington, New Zealand

ISBN 978-3-031-09093-6 ISBN 978-3-031-09094-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09094-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Kenny McCartney/Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For Lucie

Acknowledgements

Parts of this book were written on the unceded lands of the Turrbal and Jagera Peoples, and extensive fieldwork was conducted on Kaurna country. I pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging. This book is the culmination of 10-years of attending, researching, and writing on the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide, during which time I have lived in three different countries: the UK, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand. It began as a Ph.D. dissertation at Queen Mary University of London but has been extensively revised and rewritten. I have been very fortunate to have had the guidance and support of wonderful mentors throughout this period. Firstly, I would like to thank Jen Harvie for guiding me intellectually and personally through my Ph.D. journey and for her generosity and encouragement of me and this project ever since. Thank you also to David Pinder for furthering this interdisciplinary project and lending disciplinary expertise. This project has also been strengthened by the rigorous feedback and comments of Ric Knowles and Emma Cox. I am enormously grateful to Joanne Tompkins who has read drafts, talked through ideas, and offered advice throughout this process from book proposal to submission. Thank you also to Talia Crockett for careful copy editing and to the team at Palgrave Macmillan. My time at Queen Mary was both intellectually and personally enriched by the research community within the Department of Drama. I would especially like to acknowledge: Catherine Silverstone, Keren Zaointz, Kim Solga, Michael Shane Boyle, Michael McKinnie, Martin Welton, and

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Bridget Escolme for their guidance and mentorship in both teaching and research. Thank you to my friends and surrogate London family, Sarah Bartley, Sarah Mullan, Sylvan Baker, Lynne McCarthy, Phillip Watkinson, Caoimhe Mader-McGuinness, Harriet Curtis, Michelle Nicholson-Sanz, and to Catriona Fallow for being there every step of the way. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues (current and former) at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington who have welcomed us into their wider Theatre wh¯anau: David O’Donnell, Nicola Hyland, James Wenley, Megan Evans, Kerryn Palmer, Sam Tippet, Paul Tozer, Miriam Ross, Cathy McCullagh, Katie Hill, Liz Thomson, Sean Coyle, Sally Richards, and Kathryn Sutherland, and to Suzanne Little who is a little further away in Dunedin. Thank you also to the wonderful team at Contemporary Theatre Review (current and former) from whom I continue to learn so much: Maggie Gale, Bryce Lease, Dominic Johnson, Broderick Chow, Clio Unger, James Growson, Caridad Svich, Fiona Wilkie, David Calder, and especially Maria Delgado for your ongoing mentorship and support. Thank you all for your collegiality and willingness to hold Zoom meetings in the early morning so that I can attend. I am also grateful for the institutional support this project has received across its different iterations. The original Ph.D. was funded by a college studentship from Queen Mary University of London, and I received further assistance through the Postgraduate Research Fund to cover travel expenses to conduct fieldwork in Adelaide. The preparation of this book would not have been possible without Research and Study Leave from Te Herenga Waka and a small Faculty Research Grant for research assistance. Some of the material that appears in Chapters Two and Three has been previously published in ‘“Mad March” in the Festival City: Place-Making and Cultural Clash at Adelaide’s Festival’, Australasian Drama Studies, 70 (2017): 187–208 © Sarah Thomasson, but has since been revised and expanded upon. Chapter Four is based on ‘“Too Big for Its Boots”?: Precarity on the Adelaide Fringe’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 29.1 (2019), 39–55, but has been expanded by comparison with an Edinburgh case study. Finally, thank you to my friends and family who have supported me throughout the huge changes of the past decade. To Catarina and John Hebbard, Rebecca Alexander, Diana MacKay, Dylan Barnes, Hamish

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Clift, Aaron Athorn, Kate Morrison, Peter and Dorothy Thomasson, Matthew Thomasson, Moira Dodsworth, Claire and Aaron McKell, we hope to be able to visit soon. To Ian and Lucie Dodsworth, thank you for taking this journey with me.

Contents

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Introduction: The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide Introducing the Festival Experience Festival Scholarship Institutional Histories: EIF and Adelaide Festival Origins Festive Atmosphere Conservatism Local Arts Cultures Venues Methodology Structure

1 3 10 18 18 21 21 22 24 26 28

The Place Myth of the Festival City What Is a Festival City? Edinburgh: Fortress on the Hill Auld Reikie Athens of the North Jekyll and Hyde City of Literature South Australia: The Benevolent Colony City of Churches The City of Corpses Towards a New Enlightenment?: Edinburgh Festival City

37 40 42 44 45 47 47 50 52 54 57 xi

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CONTENTS

The Festivalisation of Edinburgh South Australia: The Festival State Adelaide: Designed for Life Light Years Ahead Conclusion

61 65 67 68 70

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Culture Wars: The Festivalisation of Public Space Festivalisation and Public Space Clipsal ‘Bogans’ Versus Festival ‘Freaks’ Heritage Watchdog Takes on Rock ‘n’ Roll Cultural Conflict and the Right to the City Monopoly Rent Challenges to Monopoly Rent Creative Cities Cultural Conflict Conclusion

81 84 86 89 92 99 101 106 108 112

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Entrepreneurialism on the Fringe Open-Access: Origins and Tensions Neoliberalism The Festival Public Sphere: Case Studies Lee Versus Wood Alexis Dubus 2016 Creative Entrepreneurs Free-Market Competition Precarity and Cruel Optimism Interventions and Future Directions Conclusion

123 127 130 132 133 138 141 143 146 152 154

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Performing Nation: Revisionist Histories on the World Stage Performing Nation Within International Arts Festivals Offstage Drama: EIF Responses to the Scottish Independence Referendum ‘A Politically Neutral Space for Artists’? Reconciling the Postcolonial Nation Dramatising National Belonging in Rona Munro’s The James Plays Shifting the Perspective: Andrew Bovell’s Adaptation of The Secret River

165 167 172 174 177 183 187

CONTENTS

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Cultural Diplomacy Conclusion

190 193

Conclusion: Looking Beyond the Pandemic 2020–2021 Festivals in Review Closing Remarks

203 204 208

Index

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Abbreviations

ABC ABS ACC ACGB AETT ALP AR AUD BBC BSL CAIAF CBD CEC CEO CS CTR DPC ECF EFF EFFS EIF FT GBP GFC KPI MFI

Australian Broadcasting Corporation Australian Bureau of Statistics Adelaide City Council/City of Adelaide Council Arts Council of Great Britain Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust Australian Labor Party Augmented Reality Australian Dollar British Broadcasting Corporation British Sign Language Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals Central Business District City of Edinburgh Council Chief Executive Officer Creative Scotland Contemporary Theatre Review Department of Premier and Cabinet Edinburgh Comedy Festival Edinburgh Festival Fringe Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society Limited Edinburgh International Festival Financial Times British Pound Sterling Global Financial Crisis Key Performance Indicator Major Festivals Initiative xv

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ABBREVIATIONS

MSP NGO NSW NTGB NTS RBS RSL SA SAC SATC SATC SBS SE SECRA SNP STC STCSA UK UNESCO US VIC VR WCTU WWI WWII

Member of the Scottish Parliament Non-Governmental Organisation New South Wales National Theatre of Great Britain, also known as Royal National Theatre National Theatre of Scotland Royal Bank of Scotland Returned Services League South Australia Scottish Arts Council South Australian Theatre Company South Australian Tourism Commission Special Broadcasting Service (Australia)/Scottish Broadcasting Service (Scotland) Scottish Enterprise South East City Residents Association Scottish National Party Sydney Theatre Company State Theatre Company of South Australia, formerly United Kingdom United Nations Economic, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation United States Victoria (State of) Virtual Reality Woman’s Christian Temperance Union World War I World War II

List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 4.2

Calculating guarantee. Based on the Pleasance’s table Additional charges incurred by fringe artists

136 137

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide

The Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) and the Adelaide Festival, along with their associated Fringe Festivals, are large international arts festivals that deploy multiple venues, imbue their host cities with a festive atmosphere, and offer a concentrated number of events within a confined time and space to provide a heightened level of saturation for the festival participant. This model of communal, mass gathering in public spaces in celebration of art and performance may be facing an existential threat from the global health pandemic, with Edinburgh’s 2020 summer festivals cancelled for the first time in their history, but also from longer-term threats such as the climate crisis and even terrorism. The restrictions on social gathering associated with Covid-19 have, however, reinforced the importance of face-to-face contact and the need for the carnivalesque celebration that these modern, urban social rituals provide, even in their most commercialised forms. It is against this backdrop that this study explores the long, institutional relationships that these festivals have with the cities that not only host but also define them. In turn, these festivals have come to define both Edinburgh and Adelaide in the imaginaries of artists and spectators, locals and international visitors, politicians, business people, and the general public. Throughout February–March in Adelaide, and the month of August in Edinburgh, the streets and venues of these cities host a multiplicity of arts events from around the world. Where the official festivals offer © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Thomasson, The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09094-3_1

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a traditional range of dance, opera, theatre, music, film, and visual arts representing artistic excellence and acting as cultural ambassadors for their respective nations, the fringes encompass a broader range of comedy, theatre, dance, cabaret, circus and physical theatre, film, music, visual arts, and performance art by self-selected, and often self-funded, artists. Despite being located on opposite sides of the globe, the EIF and the Adelaide Festival, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (EFF) and Adelaide Fringe have similar models and histories. The Adelaide Festival, which began in 1960, was modelled on and inspired by the EIF, which was established in the wake of World War II in 1947. Local alternative performances appeared spontaneously in the same years as the ‘official’ events in both locations that would later formalise into both cities’ famous open-access fringe festivals. While these similarities provide the grounds for comparison within this study, Adelaide and Edinburgh also have unique histories and are located in different geographies, cultures, and socio-political positions within their nations. These differences are also contextualised here to avoid reiterating colonial narratives in which a European cultural phenomenon is transplanted unaltered into a postcolonial setting. A study of the Edinburgh and Adelaide festivals and their relationship with their host cities reveals that these long-running events have contributed to popular perceptions of these places for visitors and residents alike. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s insights into space as actively produced,1 I argue that in both cases these events have generated a core place myth that defines Adelaide and Edinburgh as Festival Cities. Sociologist Rob Shields defines place images and place myths as the meanings ascribed to certain places within discursive imagery that produce meaning through an interaction with the physical geography. As Shields argues, ‘A set of core images forms a widely disseminated and commonly held set of images of a place or space. These form a relatively stable group of ideas in currency, reinforced by their communication value as conventions circulating in a discursive economy’.2 In the case of both Adelaide and Edinburgh, these festivals form the ‘set of core images’ that are widely held and circulated about these cities. Geographer David Harvey suggests that in an era of globalisation the sale of place through image construction and advertising becomes important for cities seeking to gain a competitive advantage in attracting global capital.3 The Festival City place myth has been used to promote both Adelaide and Edinburgh in their respective tourism and promotional

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campaigns as great places to live, work, and visit. The unique history, culture, and geography of these places provides the festivals with their own distinctive identity that distinguishes these events from both each other and their many global competitors. As this study demonstrates, the Festival City place myth has also had important long-term effects on local culture and has directly impacted upon the material infrastructure of these locations. To investigate the complex relationship between festival and city beyond place promotion and creative cities discourses, this study draws on perspectives from Cultural Geography and from Theatre and Performance Studies. Together these approaches reveal how the festivals are necessarily shaped and produced by their host cities, and conversely, how these festivals intervene within the social, political, and economic fabric of their cities. This combination of approaches, moreover, considers how place-bound cultural events become contested sites for how the city is defined and whose interests are prioritised. This book charts the rise and role and contemplates the future direction of the Festival City place myth in both Adelaide and Edinburgh to investigate the function of cultural practices in producing the city both materially and discursively. In introduction to this topic, this current chapter sets the scene of the festival experience, provides an overview of festival scholarship, and sketches the points of comparison within the institutional histories of these four festivals, before outlining the book’s methodology and structure.

Introducing the Festival Experience Although Adelaide and Edinburgh are two very different proud, midsized cities located on opposite sides of the globe, they have more in common than it would seem, not least in that they host two major international arts festivals and their large open-access fringes. Today’s Adelaide, the state capital of South Australia, is founded on the lands of the Kaurna People, traditionally known as Tandanya. Edinburgh is the capital of the historic nation and is once again home to the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood since devolution in 1999. Adelaide and Edinburgh are also both mid-sized cities—of 1.29 million and 500,000, respectively— that have historically held reputations as being religiously conservative and devoid of a local arts culture.4 The claims that these festivals were parachuted into virtual cultural voids have been refuted, but they remain potent foundational myths of both the Adelaide Festival and EIF. Regardless, the Edinburgh and Adelaide festivals have helped to reform these

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cities’ cultural images over the last half of the twentieth century. At one time, South Australian licence plates declared their drivers to be citizens of the ‘Festival State’, whereas Edinburgh continues to be known globally as the Festival City. Nevertheless, these cities hold very different positions in the social and political ecology of their nations. My primary experience of the festivals of Adelaide and Edinburgh is as a visitor and a spectator. Edinburgh was an annual pilgrimage between 2012 and 2014 when I lived in London. The impact of the festival phenomenon on the visitor’s experience of Edinburgh is felt from the first moment of planning the trip. The high cost of accommodation (three times what I was paying in London for the month in 2013) is clearly inflated for the festival season. A visitor to Edinburgh during August is immediately aware that it is festival season at whatever time of the day or night they arrive. The overwhelming human traffic that greets you at Waverley station and continues for the length of Princes Street is an immediate indicator (the Royal Mile, with its myriad fringe show promoters, is generally avoided by residents and seasoned festival-goers). As I was attending the festivals for research, I stayed for the whole month and was able to pace myself in the number of events I attended each day. These tended to privilege theatre—across the EIF and EFF—but I also attended Book Festival events, the EIF lecture series at The Hub at Tolbooth Kirk, a series of talks on the history of the Traverse Theatre organised by Dr Xela Batchelder (of Waynesburg University) in 2013, and also comedy, dance, circus, and any shows that looked interesting from flyers that I was handed. Most performances and events I attended on my own unless the Edinburgh locals I stayed with were available and willing to catch a show and perhaps some dinner beforehand. Apart from 2014, when I stayed with a good friend from Australia who came to Edinburgh for her own pilgrimage, running into friends and acquaintances was a happy coincidence. This was a very different experience to that of Adelaide, where family and friends were in regular attendance, and I knew several artists either performing on the fringe or working for Adelaide Fringe Inc. In 2012 and 2013, I stayed in Adelaide for almost the whole duration of the festival (as much as schedules and funding allowed). To experience Adelaide as a festival participant, I attended individual performance events (particularly theatre but also other genres) at both the official and fringe festivals, as well as ancillary events such as the Writers’ Week. In both cities, I documented the process of my fieldwork through photography and by keeping a Festival diary, in which I kept detailed performance

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analyses of the events that I attended. Local newspaper reports were also a key source of information for how these festivals are intersecting with the wider public sphere. Subsequent trips to Adelaide’s festivals in 2016 and 2017 were organised around work commitments and were usually targeted to specific performances, which is how many interstate visitors experience the event. In 2018, I attended the festival as a Production Stage Manager for a Brisbane-based company performing on the fringe and therefore experienced the Adelaide Fringe as an artist. Fieldwork at these festivals over the past decade or so has allowed me to locate the hubs of festival activity; experience the spatial practices and atmosphere of the city during festival time; and analyse how the built environment—including both permanent and temporary venues—shapes the artistic content of the festival. They also helped me to identify performative events beyond the individual stages within both cities. Given the different experiences of these festival events, what is the value of comparing the relationships they have with their cities? In the rest of this section, I consider the points of comparison that warrant bringing them into conversation by way of introduction to the festival experience in each city. Adelaide is the fifth largest city in Australia in terms of population, with each capital city now hosting their own arts festival and, in most cases, fringe. Although Adelaide is still considered the most prestigious of these events, throughout the rest of the year, Adelaide itself is outstripped in terms of its cultural credentials by the larger (and longer established) cities of Melbourne and Sydney. Edinburgh, despite being the Scotland’s capital, has its own rivalry with the larger neighbouring central belt city of Glasgow, which hosts many of Scotland’s large cultural institutions such as the Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet, and Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Glasgow draws its own cultural credentials from its successful rebranding as a European Capital of Culture in 1990, and it hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2014. Within the UK, Edinburgh, through its festivals and long-established institutions such as the Traverse Theatre, is a key site for the development of new theatrical work in its own right, but is positioned in opposition to the global metropolitan city of London and its ‘Theatreland’. Both politically and culturally, the relationship between Edinburgh and London (and that between Holyrood and Westminster) continues to evolve, and came under increased scrutiny during the leadup to the referendum on Scottish independence in September 2014 and throughout the Brexit negotiations. The intensified political debate over

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Scottish independence and Scotland’s position within Europe inevitably placed renewed pressure on ongoing tensions between the local and the global focus within the EIF and EFF. The Adelaide and Edinburgh festivals are also shaped by their geographic locations, with the unique attributes of the urban environments defining these events. They are both compact and ‘walkable’ cities that are easily navigable by festival participants and tourists, which is said to contribute to the events’ success. Adelaide’s Central Business District (CBD) sits atop a one-square-mile grid and is surrounded by parkland and green space that is utilised by fringe venues and large-scale, open-air festival events. Kerryn Goldsworthy captures the orderliness of Colonel William Light’s original 1837 design of the city in her description of a fold-out tourist map: ‘planning a route from A to B on the Adelaide map is an easy and pleasant thing, more like negotiating a small piece of tartan cloth’.5 ‘During major Festivals’, the South Australian Government claims, ‘the “festival spirit” pervades the whole city in a way that is not possible in the larger cities of Melbourne and Sydney’.6 Each time I have arrived in Adelaide—whether I was living in London, Aotearoa New Zealand, or Queensland—it has been on a domestic flight from Brisbane. Arriving at the Adelaide Airport, signage welcomes the festival-goer to the city. Catching the bus or a taxi into the CBD, the surrounding suburbs are fairly quiet until you reach the main shopping area of Rundle Mall or the cafes and restaurants of the ‘East End’. Derek Whitelock, author of the only history of the Adelaide Festival to date, argues that ‘the Adelaide Festival is deeply influenced by its distinctive social and geographical setting’.7 He suggests that the founders of the Adelaide Festival were ‘encouraged’ by the cultural activity within the ‘social and physical environment’ of the city. He explains, ‘It seems there is a “physical and chemical” connection between the Adelaide community and its landscape; a deep affinity between this landscape and the Festival’.8 The festival hubs in Adelaide differ for the main stage festival and fringe. Adelaide Festival performances mostly take place at the Adelaide Festival Centre, which is located in the centre of North Terrace next to Elder Park, where the opening night events are often held. The Adelaide Writers’ Week is located across the road from the Adelaide Festival Centre at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden. This geographical proximity makes it physically easy to attend both events and suggests that they seek to attract an audience crossover. The Fringe is primarily based in Adelaide’s ‘East

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End’ where Fringe attendees can make the most of the cafés and restaurants that are situated along Rundle Street leading up to Rundle Park on East Terrace, which is the site of the Garden of Unearthly Delights. Moving between Festival performances at the Festival Centre and Fringe performances in the East End requires a brisk 20-min walk or relying on buses as the tram network (reintroduced to the city in 2006) does not extend this far east but rather bisects the city along King William Street. The timing of Adelaide’s main events in February/March takes advantage of the best weather conditions. The Adelaide Festival and Fringe are held on the cusp of autumn, when it is still warm with long days, but without the searing heat of summer. Most events are held in the evenings to cater for audiences who continue their ordinary work routines. The dry climate lends itself to major outdoor events like the opening Fringe parade each year, the open-air Adelaide Writers’ Week, and the outdoor concerts held in Elder Park next to the Adelaide Festival Centre. During the day, festival-goers (and performers) are usually free to explore South Australia’s other tourist attractions. These include taking the tram to Glenelg Beach; visiting the German village of Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills; or taking a wine tour in the nearby famous wine regions of McLaren Vale, Clare Valley, or Barossa Valley. Popular travel guide Lonely Planet describes Edinburgh as a ‘city that begs to be explored’.9 It is divided into two with the Old Town’s jumble of wynds, courts, stairways, and vaults, separated by the Princes Street Gardens from the New Town’s regular grid and ‘neoclassical terraces’.10 The Royal Mile, which stretches from Edinburgh Castle down to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in the east, is the focal point of Edinburgh’s tourist trade and the target of fringe artists trying to attract potential audience members outside Fringe Central. Importantly for festival-goers, the city centre is built vertically and compressed, as Michael Fry describes it: ‘The central area can still be crossed on foot in half an hour; anybody who does this is almost bound to meet an acquaintance. If a capital city, it often has the feel of a village’.11 The jumble of Old Town especially offers numerous found spaces that are converted into temporary venues during Edinburgh’s festivals, which take place in the summer holiday-season and allow audiences to partake in festivities from early in the morning until late at night. The EIF venues are dotted around the city and do not tend to have any geographical coherence. The Hub is the most centrally located Festival venue at the top of the Royal Mile near the entrance to the

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Parade Grounds. This venue houses the box office, host talks, and small performances and is the most visible to the casual festival-goer and visitor. Other major venues include the Edinburgh Festival Theatre on Nicholson Street, although this is often used for opera and large-scale musical productions. The main theatre venues are the Lyceum Theatre behind Usher Hall on Cambridge Street and around the corner from the Traverse Theatre; the King’s Theatre further away near the west end of the Meadows, in an area otherwise poorly served for theatre-going ancillary activities such as dining; and the Edinburgh Playhouse on the opposite side of town, near the top of Leith Walk. Travelling between these venues, or between these venues and fringe venues (except for the Traverse Theatre if you are at the Lyceum), is perhaps the most challenging. The Edinburgh International Book Festival, too, was until recently discretely located in New Town in Charlotte Square at the west end of George Street. I found that even staying out of the Fringe hubs in New Town I was able to walk to almost any venue (briskly) in 20– 30 min, including to the Traverse Theatre on Cambridge Street near the Castle or over to Summerhall on the other (east) side of the Meadows. Alternatively, there are plenty of buses available and the tram network has been (re)-established since 2014. Nevertheless, the geography of Edinburgh’s theatre venues undermines any spatial coherency for the EIF and makes it more difficult for uninitiated festival visitors to attend. This is one example of the ways in which the spatiality of the different festivals cultivates different audiences. The EFF, in contradistinction, tends to be organised around the ‘big four’ venues of the Pleasance, Assembly Theatre, Underbelly, and Gilded Balloon (explored in more detail in Chapter 4), making it easy to locate. Partly due to the sheer volume of performances that they produce, many commentators have noted that they have come, in James Seabright’s words, to ‘dominate the attentions of audiences and media alike’.12 These big four producers largely specialise in comedy and are focused geographically around Bristo Square. In the 2010s, experimental theatre and performance found new homes within Summerhall (formerly the Royal School of Veterinary Studies)—located at the east end of the Meadows— and, for a time, Forest Fringe (2007–2017), which, in later years, was located in the Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Leith at Edinburgh’s northeasterly extremity. These venues are outliers that push the bounds of the EFF both geographically in terms of location and artistically in terms of

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experimental performance practices that have been called the ‘Fringe of the Fringe’ or the ‘Real Fringe’. Today, these Festival Cities both host a plethora of events beyond their premier international arts festivals and fringes. At the time of writing in January 2022, there are eleven festivals held in Edinburgh annually and at least eleven city-specific festivals held in Adelaide each year.13 These events are spread throughout the annual calendar, partly due to seasonal appropriateness (such as the Scottish New Year celebration of Hogmanay) and partly due to local authorities’ strategic decisions to maintain a festive atmosphere in the city year-round. As I argue throughout this study, it is the conglomeration of events that centre on the international arts festivals and fringes, but also include WOMADelaide and the Adelaide Writers’ Week in Adelaide and the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Edinburgh, that make these Festival Cities culturally and economically competitive. These events are collectively referred to as Edinburgh’s summer festivals and Adelaide’s ‘Mad March’ locally and are adopted as terms here. Beyond the similarities in structure, these festivals also maintain what is a historic and ongoing relationship. Knowledge sharing between these Festival Cities has occurred from the very beginning of the Adelaide Festival and continues in the twenty-first century with both establishing umbrella organisations—Festivals Edinburgh and Festivals Adelaide—to represent all of these events. Festivals Adelaide (which began in 2011 and was incorporated in 2012) once again took its cue from Festivals Edinburgh (which was created in 2007) to act collectively on behalf of these individual events to guide their strategic development, maintain their global competitiveness, and better advocate for the importance of festivals to both cities’ identities.14 The relationship between the four festivals was extended even further in 2016 when they entered into a series of agreements to co-commission major productions, develop artists and staff, and share institutional knowledge.15 These official agreements reflect a myriad of informal networks of staff, performers, producers, and artists who travel between the two each year. This is particularly evident between the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society and Adelaide Fringe Inc., which continue to hold official information sessions annually at each other’s events. According to Adelaide Fringe Inc., moreover, ‘Every year across the pond, Edinburgh Festival Fringe becomes a roll call of Adelaide Fringe alumni. All the top Edinburgh Fringe venue promoters flock to

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Adelaide Fringe to discover the hottest new shows to take back to Edinburgh’.16 This trend is apparent after following the festival programmes for over ten years with many of the successful fringe acts working their way into the bigger and better advertised venues in both cities over time. There is also an extensive movement of staff between many of the major international arts festivals around the world. Analysis of this movement disrupts any notion that the knowledge transfer and circulation of ideas and innovations is a one-way transfer between Europe and Australia. A number of themes beyond these crossovers also recur within the histories of these festivals that underwrite their construction as ‘Festival Cities’ and thus reveal the imperatives, influences, and consequences of this particular place myth. The divergences and dissimilarities between these festivals, which arise from the unique character of the city and local culture in which they are embedded, also provide fruitful analysis. A comparative study such as this provides the basis from which to interrogate claims that these international arts festivals are imposed on their local cultures by analysing what is inherent to the festival and how it is shaped by its local environment. By drawing comparisons and making connections between two different examples, I investigate how the Festival City place myth is constructed in diverse locations, reveal what is being displaced by these hegemonic images in each example, and therefore expose what is at stake in this displacement. This transnational (or trans-hemispheric) comparison therefore enables an analysis of the role of now ubiquitous cultural events in place promotion within the global market.

Festival Scholarship The EIF and France’s Avignon Festival are generally considered the ‘foundational’ European international arts festivals, both initiated in 1947 to salve the wounds of World War II (WWII) through cultural exchange. As Ric Knowles notes, ‘Subsequently they have become progenitors and participants in a global circuit of “élite”, festivals that circulate highend performance products within a non-local, globalized marketplace for which, in many cases, they were created’.17 Similarly, Jen Harvie observes how the ‘internationally influential features of the EFF’, such as its openaccess format, enabling of risk-taking, and perpetual growth, have been emulated around the world.18 The Adelaide Festival and Fringe are both

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examples of how Edinburgh’s events have formed templates and provided inspiration for similar events in other locations. Particularly since the 1980s, there has been a rapid growth of citybased arts festivals worldwide, in a phenomenon known as ‘festivalisation’. A report on the competitiveness of Edinburgh’s festivals notes that ‘festivalisation’ refers not only to ‘an overcrowded festival landscape’ due to the rapid increase in the number of such events, but also to ‘the seriousness with which cities are now actively competing to attract, sustain and expand their roles in hosting and promoting cultural events of all types’.19 The popularity of festivals is fuelled by the need for place promotion, place marketing, and cultural tourism; the privileging of arts and culture within both the ‘experience’ economy and the creative economy; and the easy alignment of urban arts festivals with the prevailing neoliberal agenda. Irina Van Aalst and Rianne van Melik note that there is increasing competition among cities over their provision of arts and culture so that ‘Decision-makers feel they need to mount a festival to be able to compete with other cities – preferably an international festival that attracts media attention and a wide audience’.20 As such, festivals are seen as one way increasingly homogenised cities can define their unique identity within a globally competitive marketplace in order to compete for tourism, workers, and investment.21 Governments, concerned with justifying the seemingly ever-decreasing levels of public investment in the arts, emphasise the multiplier effect of every festival dollar spent for local businesses by commissioning and promoting economic impact assessments. Cultural Geographers have thus tended to be critical of these processes and the role of festivalisation in place promotion, cultural tourism, and creative cities discourses.22 The staging of spectacular urban displays has become a key strategy in selling positive images of the city. Festival displays serve as advertisements—literally as they are incorporated into tourism and promotional campaigns and metaphorically by promoting the cultural credentials—of their host cities. Spectacle and festival are drawn upon for what Bernadette Quinn terms their ‘connotations of sociability, playfulness, joviality and community’ that ‘provides a ready-made set of positive images’ for use within city branding.23 For these reasons, arts festivals have become a key strategy of place promotion, which John Gold and Margaret Gold argue ‘refers to the activity of consciously communicating selectively chosen and positive images of specific geographical localities or areas to a target audience’.24 As Kirstie Jamieson reveals, ‘Festivals and spectacular events

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serve discourses of “city branding” and the “creative industries” in a competitive global context’,25 which can have potentially negative effects if particular images are censored and voices silenced, and if the complexity and multiplicity of the city are not represented. Quinn notes that the overwhelming view within the literature is that ‘what is often consumed and experienced in festival settings is an idealised, sanitised version of the city’ rather than actual engagement with local culture, which has the effect of sidelining the ‘multiple realities of the place, for both local and visiting populations’.26 These alternative social realities that are being papered over during festival time in Adelaide and Edinburgh are considered in detail in Chapter 2. Festivals further epitomise and are appealing to the individualistic ‘experience economy’. The ‘experience economy’ arose during the 1990s and, according to Johansson and Kociatkiewicz, ‘denote[s] a socioeconomic system where aesthetic experiences, rather than goods or services, form the basis for generating value’.27 Intangible cultural experiences such as attending arts festivals offer unique encounters for tourists and festival participants and thus further distinguish the host city. ‘The experience economy’ is thus ‘about differentiation and engagement’ with the consumer.28 Moreover, it is seen to be participatory and enables consumers to navigate their own festival journey and to build their own personal programme by selecting from the thousands of events on offer. Although many urban arts festivals have seemingly embraced their role in urban governance—even aligning themselves strategically with these agendas to secure public and private investment—their artistic and cultural work cannot be completely reduced to or contained within them. While festivals do participate in these governance strategies and can present a sanitised, coherent image of the city that denies ‘ambivalence and multivocality’,29 this is not their only purpose or agenda. The EIF and Adelaide Festival were established to promote particular ideas of the value of culture, and they remain beholden to these ideals today in ways that may conflict with entrepreneurial agendas. They, along with the fringes and the other festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide, have always pursued their own cultural and artistic agendas, albeit while appealing to a certain proportion of the population with high levels of cultural capital. This elitism was immediately undermined in both Adelaide and Edinburgh with the spontaneous beginnings of fringe festivals in both cities. These events arose so that local artists could offset their lack of

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representation in Edinburgh and conservative programming choices in Adelaide. Angela Bartie acknowledges that the early EIF ‘was underpinned by “high culture”, and aimed to present the very best in music and drama performed by the very best the world had to offer’.30 Here, the arts and culture was seen as ‘a means of spiritual refreshment, a way of reasserting moral values, of rebuilding relationships between nations’, and of revitalising Europe in the aftermath of World War II.31 In doing so, Jamieson argues, the EIF provided legitimacy to the leisure pursuits of the city’s cultural elite: ‘The first program of high cultural performances codified cultural alliances and affinities of taste that symbolically transcended the geographies of war’.32 Jamieson is particularly scathing when she comments that ‘Festival culture paraded elite pleasures and a humanizing body of values along city center streets and in the fashionable tearooms of the time’.33 However, as Bartie demonstrates, the EIF was also an important site for cultural change within the period of her study, 1945–70, and ‘an effective lens through which to explore critical debates over culture in the post-war world, changing practices in the arts, and broader social change’.34 While international arts festivals have been viewed with suspicion for their championing of ‘high’ culture that remains today under the guise of ‘artistic excellence’, the picture is more complicated and nuanced than this. The histories of both the EIF and the Adelaide Festival are haunted by accusations of elitism, but they are also sites of cultural contestation that participate in broader debates around the role of arts and culture in society. The popular and open-access EFF and Adelaide Fringe have been seen as antidotes to the high cultural pursuits of the main stage events. This is partly due to how they evolved as counter performances to the official festivals that developed spontaneously in opposition to the programming of the main events (due to a lack of local representation in Edinburgh and conservatism and censorship in Adelaide). Jamieson acknowledges that Edinburgh’s festivals were a site of contestation where ‘The seriousness of the official festival culture was soon challenged by the young, playful, and irreverent’ EFF.35 The playful opposition represented by artists on the fringe is sometimes attributed to a contemporary expression of Mikhail Bakhtin’s ‘carnivalesque’ spirit.36 As Shields explains, ‘The carnivalesque as a ritual inversion of the norms of “high” culture is underscored by the celebration of the corpulent excesses and flows of the grotesque body and the “lower bodily strata” as opposed to the controlled, disciplined

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body of propriety and authority’.37 Expressions of excess and the celebration of grotesque bodies can be witnessed within the large-scale displays of ‘flyering’ and street performance on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and the Adelaide Fringe’s large opening night street parade, as well as in more intimate settings such as the popular circus-cabaret acts that take place in the spiegeltents littered across both cities at festival time. The increasing role of arts festivals within these urban entrepreneurial strategies is also seen as creating tension with their primary artistic aims. Quinn reminds us that ‘while contemporary arts festivals may fulfil a plethora of diverse roles and deliver an array of beneficial outcomes’, primarily, ‘arts festivals exist for artistic reasons’.38 There is also a risk that high-profile and visible events like arts festivals receive a larger proportion of the funding pie to the detriment of other local arts organisations. Quinn warns that a dichotomy may arise in which festivals are ‘more likely to prosper through a variety of public funding, public–private ventures and private sponsorship arrangements, than other cultural organisations with less potential for spectacle’.39 The prominence and success of Edinburgh’s summer festivals and Adelaide’s Mad March events could in fact ‘mask difficulties facing arts activities more generally’,40 especially in an era of economic austerity, cuts to arts funding budgets, and Covid19-induced recessions. The hosting of an international arts festival has required both Adelaide and Edinburgh to invest in material infrastructure such as state-of-the-art theatre venues. This presents a particular challenge for the artistic directors of these venues to find product and audiences for these venues year-round to justify the public investment. Arts festivals therefore have a complicated relationship with the local arts culture, both enabling it and potentially limiting its growth. Urban governance strategies may also co-opt arts festivals to mask urban tensions and inequalities. Selling places through their cultural resources produces both economic and social outcomes that include manufacturing consensus among local residents. According to Gerry Kearns and Chris Philo, this consensus aims to develop ‘a sense that beyond the daily difficulties of urban life which many of them might experience the city is basically “doing alright” by its citizens’.41 Beyond providing a marketing brand for external consumers, then, place images also give residents something to invest in and can therefore counter alienation. Thus, for Kearns and Philo, ‘the self-promotion of places may be operating as a subtle form of socialisation designed to convince local people, many of whom will be disadvantaged and potentially disaffected

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that they are important cogs in a successful community’.42 I explore how this logic informs the positioning of these festivals within the strategic plans and reviews of the local councils in both Edinburgh and Adelaide, but also how this process is complex and cannot be wholly reduced to manipulation from above. Moreover, different groups may be invested in ‘different visions of local culture’, examples of which are explored in Chapters 2 and 3.43 The role of cultural events such as festivals in place marketing requires further scrutiny in terms of its impact upon artistic goals; its contribution to urban regeneration programmes that commodify and homogenise local culture; and the silencing of divergent voices and interests that occurs as a result. This study thus draws attention to alternative and competing images of the city and highlights the tensions between festival and local culture made visible within key performative events. As this discussion has shown, the dominant view within the Cultural Geography literature is that festivals are commodified cultural products that easily fit within the agendas of urban entrepreneurialism and place promotion to attractively package the city for sale to visitors and residents alike. The glossy tourism photographs and rapid-cut promotional videos set to catchy pop songs are seen as deliberately disguising less desirable elements in the urban environment and obscuring social disadvantage within the city. Today, most urban festivals are expected to serve multiple agendas within overlapping policy areas. For the international arts festival in particular, this has also been accompanied by a shift in focus from primarily celebrating global (more commonly interpreted as European modernist) artistic excellence to a mandate to also promote local (and national) culture within a global arena to justify public subsidy and urban resource allocation. These festivals—‘official’ and ‘fringe’— are short-term events that offer, and in some cases curate, an intensity of experience within a given location over a short period of time. They are also long-term, well-established institutions that are embedded in the social fabric of their cities and are responsible for changing the physical and imaginative landscapes of their urban environments over time. Given these competing perspectives and priorities, how do we theorise festivals more comprehensively and how do we assess the cultural and social work that they perform? Here I turn to festival scholarship in Theatre and Performance Studies. Writing in 2003, Karen Fricker observed that ‘Festivals are a complex, and undertheorized, field within theatre studies’ and called for greater attention to ‘the ways that contemporary festivals function, and the

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meanings they contain and disseminate’.44 Early Theatre and Performance Studies contributions to festival scholarship tended to focus on the eventness of festivals: their spectacle, temporality, and the playful—potentially carnivalesque—experience for the festival participant.45 As Knowles summarises, ‘Scholarship on festivals that is not primarily concerned with their economic, management, or policy dimensions is largely concerned with whether the time-out-of-time experience is genuinely transformative […], or is fundamentally cathartic’.46 Recent festival scholarship from within Theatre and Performance Studies acknowledges a debt to these economic and social critiques while seeking to preserve the place of festivals as potential sites of ‘pressing social and political debate’47 and intercultural exchange.48 Keren Zaiontz argues that festivals are characterised by the ‘dual processes of counter-cultural performances and capitalist co-option’ and draws attention to how the political activism of artists is reconfiguring the festival space.49 Her short study for the Theatre & series recuperates the ‘socially democratic potential’ of festivals that can give rise to ‘cultural performances of resistance’ while carefully critiquing their ‘brute tribal nationalism and profit-driven agendas’.50 Building on this work, in her contribution to The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals, she charts the emergence of a ‘second wave’ of artist-led festivals since the 2000s that model ‘new social relationships and artistic processes’ to build movements and create alternative solidarities against the backdrop of creative cities discourses.51 Jen Harvie, too, is cautiously optimistic that there are alternative ways to fringe that can disrupt the EFF’s modelling of the key tenets of neoliberal capitalism and combat some of the negative effects that this has on artists and performing arts companies.52 The impact of market-based principles in shaping the policy, marketing, and management of festival organisations and how they have aligned themselves with the broader agendas of their local and national governments—on whom they rely for financial support and/or permission to hold performance events in certain spaces—is well established. There is also space to consider how these seemingly naturalised socio-economic trends can be resisted or subverted. The international flows of cultural production and reception also pose new methodological challenges for festival scholarship. Festival scholarship has tended to privilege Edinburgh and Avignon as the foundational post-war European international arts festivals, which were shaped by modernist ideals.53 The proliferation of arts festivals around the globe in

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recent decades, however, necessitates that the whole range of different impetuses, traditions, and outcomes that inform a truly global festival network are considered beyond the dominant European and North American contexts. Knowles, like earlier studies such as the 2003 special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review and Festivalising!,54 acknowledges the Euro-American bias in the field and seeks to expand the geographical spread of case studies by ‘incorporating work on Asia, Africa, and the pan-American, Arab, and Indigenous worlds’ within the Cambridge Companion.55 While edited collections have the ability to incorporate diverse voices from scholars with particular local expertise, and the benefits that come with this, detailed comparative studies have a different but also valuable role to play. A transnational approach, such as Denise Varney, Peter Eckersall, Chris Hudson, and Barbara Hatley’s study of regional modernities in the global era within the Asia–Pacific region or Christina S. McMahon’s focus on cultural transmission among the Lusophone (Portuguesespeaking) group of nations, is one way of overcoming the geographical gaps in the research.56 Alternatively, Alexandra Portmann proposes new Digital Humanities methodologies to explore how theatre production ‘is embedded within a dynamic global professional network’.57 While these new methodologies open up exciting areas for future research, this study focuses on the relationship between city and festival by proposing a transnational, comparative approach. As Knowles highlighted in a seminal article for Canadian Theatre Review, festivals like Edinburgh and Adelaide, ‘however international, take place within local markets, and in doing so set up complex tensions between the local and the global that are not always so easily contained’.58 Through comparison with Edinburgh’s internationally famous festivals, my project adopts a comparative methodology to also draw greater attention to Adelaide as a lesser-known Festival City. Geographer Jennifer Robinson believes ‘that revitalizing the comparative gesture is an important requirement for an international and postcolonial approach to urban studies’.59 While comparative studies have been viewed with suspicion for their universalising tendencies, Robinson believes that the modest approach of comparing two cities can internationalise theories of place by overcoming geographical blind spots, such as those identified within festival scholarship. Following her lead, I argue that transnational comparisons of urban-based arts festivals can open up

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new avenues for the study of festivals as well as contributing to our understanding of the relationship between culture and place. Such comparative studies also provide the foundation for future research into transnational networks located in diverse regions around the world. These networks are contextualised by both globalisation and colonial legacies, and as such studies of them must account for the flows of political, economic, and cultural power between festival sites, while also being attuned to the multidirectional circulations of influence and collaboration among them. Transnational comparisons therefore offer a way of mapping global networks among international arts festivals beyond a traditional focus on the well-known European post-war events and provide a way to tease out the complex interplay of global and local forces that will now be explored in a brief history of these festivals.

Institutional Histories: EIF and Adelaide Festival The institutional histories of the Adelaide Festival and EIF reveal overlapping themes and concerns that both inform the development of two very different Festival City place myths and highlight broader tensions in the relationship between mega events and their host cities. This section provides an overview of the origins of the Adelaide Festival and EIF organised around common themes. Over their decades-long histories, these festivals have been shaped by, and have contributed to the shaping of, their host cities and local culture. These international arts festivals pre-date the emergence of urban entrepreneurialism in the 1980s and the widespread adoption of creative cities discourses in the 2000s, suggesting that they cannot be reduced to vehicles for tourism and for selling the liveability, vitality, and attractiveness of the city, although a potential for wider economic benefits was acknowledged from the beginning in both cases. A historicised account of these events, therefore, establishes the interlocking relationship between festival and city, informs the emergence of Festival City place myth, and demonstrates the value of a comparative approach for festival scholarship. Origins Within the histories of the Adelaide Festival and EIF, significant overlapping themes both emerge and diverge as they become localised in each context. The EIF has had a long and turbulent relationship with

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the Scottish political and cultural landscape. The Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama, as it was first known, was conceived in the immediate post-war period as a cultural and spiritual balm to assist in the revitalisation of European culture and to prompt the recovery of the Scottish economy closer to home. Tellingly, there were no Scottish theatre productions included within the Festival’s inaugural 1947 programme, which contributed to the perception that Edinburgh was to provide the backdrop rather than the content for this largely European event. As Harvie has written, at the time, Scotland’s ‘current cultural practice, including theatre, was to be understood implicitly as provincial and unworthy of a place amongst an international elite’,60 which has led to the EIF being accused of ‘denigrat[ing] Scottish culture’.61 She and Bartie both argue that despite these historical criticisms, the EIF has made a significant contribution to the local economy and has had profound cultural effects both directly and indirectly, not least of which is the EFF.62 Nevertheless, the place of Scottish drama within the EIF’s programme, and therefore of the EIF within Scottish culture, remains an ongoing controversy, which once again became acute in the lead-up to Scotland’s 2014 referendum on independence. Edinburgh was not the first choice to host the festival that founder Rudolf Bing conceived of to re-establish his company the Glyndebourne Opera following World War II. Nevertheless, it was a logical site to stage an event designed to rejuvenate the arts and culture following the devastation of war. As EIF historian Eileen Miller explains: The city had suffered little bomb damage, had great natural beauty, a colourful history and close proximity to the sea and the Scottish Highlands. It was also large enough to accommodate from 50 000 to 150 000 visitors, with hotels, theatres, concert halls and art galleries.63

The fortunes of Edinburgh were also tied to that of the festival from the outset with John I. Falconer, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, declaring in the Foreword to the first souvenir programme the city authorities’ hopes that the festival will establish ‘our fair city as one of the preeminent European Festival Centres’.64 The festival was formed by a coalition of public and private interests, and despite Falconer’s assertions that ‘this Festival is not a commercial undertaking in any way’,65 it was expected to attract tourists and to produce economic benefits for Edinburgh and Scotland from the very beginning.66 Such prototypical models

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for urban entrepreneurial governance—in which civic authorities work together with local business interests—are located within the origins of both festivals. The beginning of the Adelaide Festival for the Arts in 1960 was similarly established through cooperation between civic authorities inspired by the example set in Edinburgh and local business interests who invested in the nascent event to boost the tourism figures and civic prestige of the city.67 In illustration of this, the festival was conceived by John Bishop, a Professor of Music at the University of Adelaide and artistic director of the first three festivals, in collaboration with Sir Lloyd Dumas, editor of the leading Adelaide daily paper The Advertiser, who provided the financial and managerial leadership to make the festival a reality. The success of the Edinburgh Festival in not only improving the city’s reputation but also bringing visitors and generating flow-on benefits for local business was cited by the Adelaide Festival’s founders as reasons to support the event. In a pamphlet circulated to the business community and potential sponsors in December 1958, Lord Mayor Hardgrave and his fellow founders declared that ‘We have in mind something on the lines of the now world famous Edinburgh Festival, but on a more modest-scale’.68 In addition to providing a format for the event, the Edinburgh Festival lent practical guidance via Ian Hunter, former Edinburgh Festival Artistic Director, who was invited to Adelaide to provide advice on setting up the festival. Despite these connections, the identity of the event has taken on a different form in Adelaide, where the founders aspired to bring performances of the highest international standards to the people of South Australia and the nation at large. The original mandate of the Adelaide Festival was to bring the best of the world’s performers to the city every two years, to overcome the ‘tyranny of distance’, and in local Arts Editor Shirley Despoja’s tongue in cheek assessment, ‘to make the arts more accessible to people of a parochially-minded and geographically disadvantaged area’.69 More so than in Edinburgh, then, providing accessibility to the arts was a key motivating factor in establishing the Adelaide Festival. This difference in emphasis between rejuvenating European culture and providing access to the arts has had a profound impact on how each festival has been perceived in each location. While Edinburgh has historically had an antagonistic relationship with the EIF, Adelaide has embraced its festival—declaring itself the capital of the ‘Festival State’—and, according

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to Whitelock, it has become ‘as much a part of the city’s consciousness and pride as Light’s city plan’.70 Festive Atmosphere The festive atmosphere that is now created by artists and arts-lovers ‘taking over the city’ for a month each year was not a foregone conclusion in either city at the inception of their international arts festivals. Post-war rationing in Edinburgh and the tyranny of distance in Adelaide caused opponents of both festivals to question whether these cities were capable of generating the necessary atmosphere to support such largescale events. Miller notes that creating the right festive atmosphere was a particular concern for Rudolf Bing (who became the EIF’s first director), who was worried whether a ‘festive spirit’ could be created in post-war Edinburgh where food rationing continued, strict liquor licensing laws prevailed, and hotels were not yet de-requisitioned.71 Similarly, Adelaide in 1960 seemed an unlikely host for a successful international arts event. Commentator I. I. Kavan, writing for the June 1960 edition of the Australian Quarterly, felt that ‘the archaic laws and customs which prevail in South Australia’ detracted from the success of the first Adelaide Festival that year. He continued: ‘The dead Sundays, the 6 o’clock closing time on weekdays, the comparatively poor gastronomic achievements and notable shortage of good hotels, restaurants and night clubs, makes the visitor’s life at the Festival difficult, and, at times, tedious’.72 Today, both cities hold a number of events—including the fringes, the Edinburgh Book Festival, and the Adelaide Writers’ Week—at the same time as the official festivals in order to enhance this ‘festive spirit’. Conservatism Compounding these criticisms historically were the conservative, religious-inflected reputations that Edinburgh and Adelaide had prior to the start of these festivals. Bartie observes that ‘[Edinburgh] is a city that has often been associated with the “great grey hand” of Presbyterianism and moral conservatism’.73 Edinburgh was the site of the Scottish Reformation and the Kirk (Church of Scotland) is one of the four pillars of Scottish society; sectarianism, also, is still a significant cultural issue in Scotland, not least in its football league. Bartie contends that ‘Religion was pervasive in Scottish society in the 1950s and most adults in Scotland

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remained affiliated to the Church’.74 The relationship between the EIF and the Kirk is therefore a major theme running throughout her monograph. She demonstrates that in the immediate post-war period the two institutions shared similar values—with the Kirk actively involved in the festivals through initiatives like the Gateway Theatre and hiring their halls to fringe artists—but during the cultural upheavals now associated with the 1960s, these interests began to diverge.75 Adelaide, too, was known as a religiously conservative town. South Australia is proud of its non-Conformist heritage in which settlers from outside of the dominant Anglican religion could seek social advancement without the bounds of religious discrimination. Whether or not this case is overstated and played out in actuality, Goldsworthy cites this popular myth of Adelaide to counter the received opinion ‘about the piety and rectitude of churchgoing Adelaideans’. She argues that this view ignores ‘the fact that churches, when built, are dedicated to particular denominations, and the number of them in Adelaide attests not so much to a blanket piety as to the heterogeneity of worship and religious freedom that has been a feature of the city from its earliest days’.76 In any case, a corollary of this perceived religious piety in Edinburgh and Adelaide was strict liquor licensing laws and a consequent lack of restaurant culture that threatened to further undermine the desired festive atmospheres in the earlier years of both festivals. Local Arts Cultures The inhibiting impact of such religious conservativism on the local arts cultures in both places had perhaps a more profound and immediate impact on the EIF and Adelaide Festival. A persistent and pervasive (and well-documented) myth surrounding both of these international arts festivals is that they were parachuted into barren cultural wastelands. Recent scholarship contests this reading and acknowledges the wealth of local artistic activity in both Scotland and South Australia that pre-dates both of these festivals. Notably, the contributors to The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama assert from the opening line of editor Ian Brown’s introduction ‘how important and constant has been the Scottish love affair with drama’.77 They seek to remedy the view that the Scottish Reformation prevented the nation from developing a theatrical tradition by demonstrating how the Kirk, far from abolishing drama, ‘sought to shape it to its own ends’ by creating its own scripts and performances, which

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complemented a folk drama tradition that ‘flourished, despite the Kirk’s undoubted wish to suppress it’.78 Similarly, the key mandate of the Adelaide Festival was to bring the highest quality international arts to the state with hopes that it would inspire a local arts scene that could be sustained year-round. Indeed, the Adelaide Festival pre-dated the establishment of South Australian Theatre Company (SATC) in 1965.79 Nevertheless, as Geoffrey Milne has noted, while it took the intervention of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust (AETT), which was established in 1954, to build a ‘network of subsidised, non-commercial professional theatre companies’ by campaigning for government subsidy for the arts and for nurturing a nascent professional theatre sector, there was a healthy commercial sector dominated by J. C. Williamson Ltd and a prolific amateur theatre scene well established in Australia before the 1950s.80 This highlights that an established theatre industry did exist in both Australia and South Australia prior to the 1950s, and that it was these companies, as well as the thriving commercial scene, that laid the foundation for what Milne defines as a ‘first wave’ of change that occurred in Australian theatre from the 1950s instigated by the AETT. As can be seen from this discussion, each festival, although held for only three weeks annually, is also required to promote a year-round arts tradition for its city. This speaks to the other major tension that both the EIF and Adelaide Festival have had to negotiate throughout their histories: the place of local culture within these international events. Each festival was expected to contribute to the culture of their city (and by extension their state and/or nation) in an iterative way: by drawing on local culture, enriching it through comparisons with the best of international artistic endeavour, developing an audience appreciative of the arts, and reinvesting this into the local arts infrastructure to sustain permanent local companies year-round. The key tension in the early years of the EIF was the feeling that local theatrical work was not of an international standard to warrant its inclusion in the festival. Whitelock notes that the Adelaide Festival has also attracted broader criticism throughout its history in a manner similar to Edinburgh’s experience. He observes, ‘The programme itself, whatever it offered, was criticised from various quarters as being too international or too regional, too costly or too parsimonious, too elitist or too popular’.81 Similar to the EFF, the Adelaide Fringe has also traditionally alleviated some of the tensions over the official festival’s perceived elitism. The Adelaide

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Festival’s reputation was damaged in its infant years when the Board of Governors rejected three plays now recognised as seminal Australian works: Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year in 1960, and Nobel laureate Patrick White’s The Ham Funeral in 1962 and Night on Bald Mountain in 1964.82 Thanks to local amateur groups, however, these plays did receive Adelaide productions and the Adelaide Fringe was sparked partly in response to this short-sighted and conservative decision by the Adelaide Festival’s Board of Governors.83 Rather than being born in response to a lack of local representation, then, the Adelaide Fringe began spontaneously to combat a deeply conservative agenda being played out within the Adelaide Festival’s programming. In Adelaide, the lack of inclusion of local performances and the perceived elitism of the festival programming has also been a recurring criticism throughout its history, but without the same heightened investment in the debate as in Edinburgh. Analysis of the Adelaide Festival programme between 2012 and 2014 reveals that 40% of the theatre programming was Australian content.84 Moreover, within this Australian content, local South Australian and Adelaide-based companies, including the State Theatre Company of South Australia (STCSA) and Windmill Theatre, feature prominently each year, alongside several large coproductions with other Australian flagship companies and festivals from interstate. Despite the risk that Milne highlights of ‘many a new Australian drama [production being] overshadowed by or unfavourably compared with tried and tested headline acts from the northern hemisphere festival circuit’,85 this balance between local and international theatrical work within the Adelaide Festival’s programming perhaps encourages more local participation and a sense of ownership over the event. Indeed, as Warren McCann argues, the support of the local community provides Adelaide’s festivals with a major competitive advantage.86 This does not mean that the Adelaide Festival has wholly managed to escape controversy; however, its programming has become a site for broader debates over Australia’s evolving national identity, particularly the growing prominence and recognition of Indigenous cultures and the assertion of a new regional identity, at key points in its recent history. Venues A final theme shared by the Adelaide and Edinburgh festivals is the impact that they have had on the built environments of their respective cities.

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Today, Edinburgh and Adelaide both have permanent dedicated venues that function year-round but are named for their primary purpose: the Edinburgh Festival Theatre and the Adelaide Festival Centre. Prior to the construction of these theatres, however, a lack of suitable venues in which to host world-class, technologically sophisticated productions, especially for theatre, was a key controversy in both cities. The building of the Adelaide Festival Centre in Elder Park was inspired by the need for an appropriate venue to hold performances (especially drama) during the Adelaide Festival of the Arts. Labor Premier Don Dunstan spearheaded the building of this multi-purpose arts venue that opened on 2 June 1973 and today houses three theatre spaces, as well as provision for rehearsal space, workshops, administration offices, and storage space for resident drama company the STCSA. The Centre, like the Festival itself, is therefore a source of civic pride in Adelaide and was built in time for the eighth biennial Festival in 1974. The EIF, on the other hand, did not receive a dedicated space for 47 years after its inaugural event. Before the new state-of-the-art opera house eventually opened in 1994, international companies performing at the Festival would have to adapt any large productions to the small scale and technologically limited capabilities of the King’s Theatre. In 1991, the Edinburgh District Council agreed to purchase the Empire Theatre for £2.6 million and the further £11 million needed to refurbish it was raised through a combination of public and private funds. As a result, almost 50 years after the beginning of the Festival, an appropriately sized and technologically advanced venue, the Festival Theatre, was opened in June 1994. This brief comparison of the Adelaide and Edinburgh festivals demonstrates the dual globalising and localising factors that shape these events. Despite sharing common histories, the multi-arts format, a focus on artistic excellence, and a place within the global festival circuit, the Adelaide and Edinburgh Festivals are also necessarily shaped by the material conditions of their respective host cities. The diverse weather and geographical conditions dictate the kinds of events that are held and types of spaces used, with Adelaide able to utilise many more outdoor facilities and Edinburgh offering diverse temporary venues with palimpsestic histories. Their different commitments to local performance and Adelaide’s emphasis on providing access to the arts has meant that the Adelaide Festival has been embraced locally while Edinburgh’s festivals continue to be viewed as impositions, with the council floating the

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idea of tourist tax in 2018 to combat this hostility.87 Although this current study focuses on comparing two case-study cities, this methodology could also be expanded to include other Festival Cities such as Edmonton, Canada; Makhanda, South Africa; Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand; and Avignon, France. The comparative approach, therefore, enables smaller, lesser-known cities and events to contribute to our understanding of the festival phenomenon and to broaden analysis of globalising processes by incorporating diverse regions. Having outlined the histories of these festivals here, I focus on each city and the integral role that these events have played in defining both the symbolic elements and material-spatial practices of their urban environment, in the subsequent chapters.

Methodology The combined role that these festivals—the EIF and EFF in Edinburgh and Adelaide’s Festival and Fringe—play in the production of their cities is revealed through analysis of key performative events. ‘Festivals’, Zaiontz observes, ‘are almost always symptomatic of the current social moment in which they take place. To study a festival is to take stock of the temper of the times in which participants gather to celebrate, to witness, to consume, to belong, and even to resist’.88 This study examines key moments, controversies, and debates sparked by the festivals over the past ten years that have attracted wider public and media attention beyond that of spectators at individual theatre performances or even festival participants engaging with the ‘meta-performance’ of the festival itself.89 Analysing these events as ‘performative acts’ after J. L. Austin’s speech acts, defined by Ian Brown as an act ‘where a statement is in itself the very act: the speech-act itself effects change’,90 reveals how these festivals contribute to the production of space within this particular historical period. In examining the contribution of festivals to wider debates within the public sphere, I also follow Christopher Balme’s lead in broadening the analysis of the impact of festivals beyond the temporality of the event— of ‘a particular performative occasion’ and its reception—to renewed interest in the ‘social and political imbrication’ of these long-established institutions within their cities.91 The public sphere, according to Balme, is a ‘discursive arena located between private individuals on the one hand and state bureaucracy and business on the other’.92 In highlighting

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the ‘role theatre and performance play[s] in this realm’, Balme (after Jürgen Habermas) seeks to characterise a theatrical public sphere.93 As revealed in the discussion of the histories of these festivals above, both the Adelaide Festival and the EIF grew out of early public–private partnerships involving local business, media interests, and local government. Beyond a commitment to the Enlightenment belief in educating the public through culture, these festivals were tasked with generating further income for local business and promoting a positive image of the city to attract visitors from the very beginning. With this range of stakeholders, public investment in these events and the fringes—directly through public arts funding and indirectly through the maintenance of venues, investment in infrastructure, and associated costs of events management such as security, rubbish collection, and traffic control—and the level of disruption caused by the influx of arts tourists and occupation of public spaces each year, it is no surprise that festival business is of interest to a broad cross-section of society beyond those who actually buy a ticket to a show. Moving beyond analyses of individual performances or even annual programmes, then, each chapter analyses performative events in which the festivals became the focus of debate within the public sphere. Such discursive events are inherently performative, such as the backlash against the festivalisation of Edinburgh’s key green spaces, the local embarrassment prompted by the accompaniment of the 2012 Adelaide Festival opening night concert by the V8 engines from a nearby racetrack (Chapter 3), the anger expressed by fringe artists who feel that they are subsidising these behemoth events for little financial reward (Chapter 4), the broader national conversations invoked by particular festival productions (Chapter 5), and the way that each of these festivals has been forced to negotiate the specific challenges of Covid-19 and the associated restrictions on mass gatherings (Chapter 6). In each instance, these debates and controversies spilled out beyond the festivals’ performance spaces, were reported by the media, and attracted the attention and comment of members of the public beyond those in attendance as festival participants. In this way, these events intersected with broader concerns and activated the public sphere by participating in debates and conversations over the place and importance of local culture, the rise in precarious employment, and the constant reformulation of national identities. The performative events examined in this book have extended beyond the participation of the usual festival-going audience and have prompted

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further social debate through traditional and social media that has interacted with the wider public sphere.94 As Balme notes, such performative ‘protests and scandals’ enable the study of this intersection between festival and the broader public sphere.95 The case studies considered here focus on the long-established institutional histories of the festival organising bodies and their relationship with their cities and therefore focus on the relationship between the arts event and the broader public sphere rather than individual theatrical performances. Analysis of these performative events involves contextualising these scandals within the local socio-political and cultural landscape, and highlighting how they intersect with even broader public debates, nationally and internationally. This is achieved through a cultural materialist methodology that is concerned with bringing ‘the analysis of the material conditions for the production of meaning to bear on the close reading of specific performances in the contemporary theatre’.96 Festivals are here understood as performances whose conditions of production and reception, which includes their histories, funding structures, local and national infrastructures, and positioning within cultural policy, can be analysed. Beyond the physical and material conditions, this methodology also highlights the iterative way in which these festivals contribute to the discursive or imaginative production of their cities. Cultural materialist critiques are particularly well suited for assessing how arts festivals, and culture more generally, contribute to or even resist broader urban and political processes in different contexts.

Structure In Chapter 2, I explore how the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide have transformed the reputations and associations of their host cities over time by affording them a sense of identity as Festival Cities. This chapter narrates the urban histories of Edinburgh and Adelaide through the lens of place images and place myths to explore how and why a reputation for excellence in festivals has been knowingly cultivated in both locations in recent decades. This analysis draws primarily on insights from Cultural Geography surrounding the role of events in place promotion, creative cities, and urban entrepreneurialism to examine how these arts festivals contribute to, or possibly resist, these agendas while revealing the stakes involved in displacing alternative cultural constructions. Here, I establish the Festival City place myth and chart its evolution in both the social

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imaginary and policy before going on to complicate this construction and demonstrate how it is being challenged in subsequent chapters. Chapter 3 is concerned with performative events that represent moments of rupture in the smooth surface of the construction of Adelaide and Edinburgh as Festival Cities and local resistance to this place myth. In March 2012, an overlap of the Adelaide Festival and Fringe with the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercar race produced an embarrassing contest over urban space by disrupting Ennio Morricone’s open-air concert. In 2018, the fencing off of West Princes Street Gardens for a commercial concert series became a tipping point for Edinburgh residents tired of increasing incursions into public space by festival events. Ongoing competition over the use of public space—between music fans and residents and between arts and sporting fans—is indicative of what geographer Don Mitchell calls a ‘culture war’ that exposes a conflict within these cities’ placemaking narratives and undermines the myth of the Festival City. If these conflicts are not resolved, they may also threaten the financial viability of a festivalisation strategy. Chapter 4 focuses specifically on the EFF and the Adelaide Fringe and how their open-access model and reliance on the precarious labour of artists perpetuate the key tenets of neoliberalism. In Edinburgh in 2012 and Adelaide in 2016, comedians performing on the fringe used social and mainstream media to call attention to the exploitation of artists. While their claims were contested by the fringe organising bodies, major venue producers, and even some of their fellow artists, as performative events, they drew attention to the pressure of artists to become creative entrepreneurs to survive in the competitive environment. In 2018, this was followed by the Fair Fringe movement in Edinburgh pressuring the local authorities to introduce minimum standards for workers on the fringe and naming and shaming venues and employers who failed to comply with the voluntary agreement. Building on insights by Jen Harvie and others, this chapter explores the risks of the EFF and Adelaide Fringe in perpetuating neoliberalism and relying on the ‘cruel optimism’ of artists to succeed while highlighting actions that the organising bodies are taking to foster inclusivity and accessibility.97 In Chapter 5, I return to the controversy around the programming of Scottish drama in the EIF when I examine how international arts festivals package national identities for sale within the global arts market. To assess the cultural work that these festivals perform beyond the city, this chapter examines two festival productions—Rona Munro’s The James

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Plays and Andrew Bovell’s stage adaptation of The Secret River—both of which present revisionist national histories to engage with and contribute to wider conversations and debates within the public sphere beyond the stage itself. These plays have now appeared at both the EIF and the Adelaide Festival (as well as London’s National Theatre of Great Britain), performing the role of cultural ambassadors for their respective nations. This chapter speaks back to the place-based literature to examine how festival productions comment on and participate in contemporary nation-building and reformulation within the public sphere. I conclude this study by returning to the provocation that began this introduction: how are these festivals responding to the global health pandemic and its irrevocable impact on the arts, and the live performing arts in particular? It is unclear how many arts organisations will survive the pandemic, its associated restrictions on movement and face-to-face gatherings, and the longer-term economic ramifications. This has implications for the festivals of Adelaide and Edinburgh that rely on travel, co-presence, and interaction. In this extended conclusion, I document some of the logistical and creative decisions taken by festival organising bodies in Edinburgh and Adelaide in response to the pandemic and highlight some of the longer-term impacts that may shape the future directions of these events. Together the performative events in this study highlight the cultural work that these festivals perform within the social, political, and physical geography of their respective cities. By comparing the Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide, this book offers an interdisciplinary, transnational approach for festival studies from which to assess the complex combination of global and local influences that continue to shape the phenomenon of festivalisation.

Notes 1. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1991). 2. Rob Shields, Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 60–61. 3. David Harvey, ‘From Space to Place and Back Again’, in Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1996), pp. 291– 326. See also David Harvey, ‘From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism’, in Spaces of

1

4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

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Capital: Towards a Critical Geography (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001), pp. 345–68. Adelaide’s population statistics are collected for the Greater Adelaide region, which includes the surrounding suburbs. Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘2016 Quick Statistics’, Australian Bureau of Statistics, https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/ census/2016/quickstat/4GADE?opendocument [accessed 9 November 2020]. Edinburgh’s population as of 30 June 2019 was 524,930. National Records of Scotland, ‘City of Edinburgh Council Area Profile’, https:// www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files/statistics/council-area-data-sheets/city-ofedinburgh-council-profile.html [accessed 9 November 2020]. Kerryn Goldsworthy, Adelaide (Sydney: University of NSW Press, 2011), pp. 12–13. Elizabeth Raupach, Theatre Spaces and Venues Audit (Adelaide: Arts SA, 2010), p. 8. Derek Whitelock and Doug Loan, Festival!: The Story of the Adelaide Festival of Arts (Adelaide: Derek Whitelock, 1980), p. 4. Ibid. Lonely Planet, Lonely Planet Great Britain (Travel Guide), 10th edn (London: Lonely Planet, 2013), Loc. 32,739. Ibid., Loc. 33,038. Michael Fry, Edinburgh: A History of the City (London: Macmillan, 2009), p. 384. Cited in Mark Fisher, The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide: How to Make Your Show a Success (York: Methuen Drama, 2012), p. 111. Festivals Edinburgh, Edinburgh Festival City, https://www.edinburghfes tivalcity.com/ [accessed 9 November 2020]; Festivals Adelaide, https:// www.festivalsadelaide.com.au/ [accessed 9 November 2020]. Festivals Adelaide, ‘About’, Festivals Adelaide, http://www.festivalsade laide.com.au/about/ [accessed 28 December 2013]. Festivals Edinburgh, ‘About Us’, Festivals Edinburgh, http://www.festivalsedinburgh.com/con tent/about-us [accessed 18 September 2012]. Brian Ferguson, ‘Edinburgh and Adelaide Join Forces on their Festivals’, Edinburgh News, 15 August 2016, https://www.edinburghnews.sco tsman.com/inspire-me/festivals/edinburgh-and-adelaide-join-forces-ontheir-festivals-1-4203890 [accessed 7 December 2018]. Adelaide Fringe, ‘We Saw Them First!’, Adelaide Fringe, 26 July 2013, http://www.adelaidefringe.com.au/media-news/we-saw-them-first [accessed 30 January 2013]. Ric Knowles, ‘Introduction’, in The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals, ed. by Ric Knowles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 1–11 (p. 2).

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18. Jen Harvie, ‘International Theatre Festivals in the UK: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe as a Model Neo-Liberal Market’, in The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals, ed. by Ric Knowles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 101–17 (p. 103). 19. AEA Consulting, Thundering Hooves: Maintaining the Global Competitive Edge of Edinburgh’s Festivals (Edinburgh: Festivals Edinburgh, 2006), p. 16. http://www.festivalsedinburgh.com/content/about-us [accessed 14 September] (p. 16). 20. Irina Van Aalst and Rianne van Melik, ‘City Festivals and Urban Development: Does Place Matter?’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 19.2 (2012), 195–206 (pp. 195–96). 21. AEA Consulting, p. 16. 22. Bernadette Quinn, ‘Changing Festival Places: Insights from Galway’, Social & Cultural Geography, 6.2 (2005): 237–52; Bernadette Quinn, ‘Symbols, Practices and Myth-Making: Cultural Perspectives on the Wexford Festival Opera’, Tourism Geographies, 5.3 (2003): 329–49. 23. Bernadette Quinn, ‘Arts Festivals and the City’, Urban Studies, 42.5–6 (2005): 927–43 (p. 932). 24. John Robert Gold and Margaret M. Gold, Cities of Culture: Staging International Festivals and the Urban Agenda, 1851–2000 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), p. 10. 25. Kirstie Jamieson, ‘Edinburgh: The Festival Gaze and Its Boundaries’, Space and Culture, 7 (2004), 64–75 (p. 65). 26. Quinn, ‘Arts Festivals and the City’, p. 936. 27. Marjana Johansson and Jerzy Kociatkiewicz, ‘City Festivals: Creativity and Control in Staged Urban Experience’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 18.4 (2011), 392–405, (p. 392). 28. Ibid., p. 393. 29. Ibid., p. 403. 30. Angela Bartie, The Edinburgh Festivals: Culture and Society in Post-War Britain (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), p. 2. 31. Ibid., p. 1. 32. Jamieson, ‘Edinburgh’, p. 66. 33. Ibid. 34. Bartie, The Edinburgh Festivals, p. 2. 35. Jamieson, ‘Edinburgh’, p. 67. 36. Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984). 37. Shields, Places on the Margin, p. 92. 38. Bernadette Quinn, ‘Arts Festivals, Urban Tourism and Cultural Policy’, Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 2.3 (2010), 264–79 (p. 269). 39. Ibid., p. 264.

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40. Ibid., p. 274. 41. Gerry Kearns and Chris Philo, ‘Preface’, in Selling Places: The City as Cultural Capital, Past and Present, ed. by Gerry Kearns and Chris Philo (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1993), pp. ix-x (p. ix). 42. Ibid.; original emphasis. 43. Ibid. 44. Karen Fricker, ‘Tourism, the Festival Marketplace and Robert Lepage’s The Seven Streams of the River Ota’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 13.4 (2003): 79–93 (p. 79). 45. Temple Hauptfleisch et al., ‘Festivalising!: Theatrical Events, Politics and Culture’, in Themes in Theatre: Collective Approaches to Theatre and Performance, ed. by Peter G.F. Eversmann (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007). 46. Knowles, ‘Introduction’, p. 4. 47. Keren Zaiontz, Theatre & Festivals (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), p. 4. 48. Ric Knowles, The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). 49. Zaiontz, Theatre & Festivals, p. 10; 12. 50. Ibid., p. 9. 51. Keren Zaiontz, ‘From Post-War to “Second-Wave”: International Performing Arts Festivals’, in The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals, ed. by Ric Knowles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 15–35 (p. 17). See Richard L. Florida, Cities and the Creative Class (New York: Routledge, 2005); Richard L. Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2002). 52. Harvie, ‘International Theatre Festivals in the UK’, p. 103. 53. David Bradby and Maria Delgado, ‘Editorial’, Special Issue on Festivals, Contemporary Theatre Review 13.4 (2003): 1–4 (p. 2). 54. Delgado and Bradby, eds. Special Issue on Festivals, Contemporary Theatre Review 13.4 (2003); Hauptfleisch and others, Festivalising! 55. Knowles, ‘Introduction’, p. 4. 56. Denise Varney, Peter Eckersall, Chris Hudson and Barbara Hatley, Theatre and Performance in the Asia–Pacific: Regional Modernities in the Global Era (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Christina S. McMahon, Recasting Transnationalism through Performance: Theatre Festivals in Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Brazil (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 57. Alexandra Portmann, ‘International Festivals, the Practice of CoProduction, and the Challenges for Documentation in a Digital Age’, in The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals, ed. by Ric Knowles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 36–55 (p. 36).

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58. Ric Knowles, ‘The Edinburgh Festival and Fringe: Lessons for Canada?’, Canadian Theatre Review (2000), 88–96, (p. 92); original emphasis. 59. Jennifer Robinson, ‘Cities in a World of Cities: The Comparative Gesture’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35.1 (2011), 1–23 (p. 2). 60. Jen Harvie, ‘Cultural Effects of the Edinburgh International Festival: Elitism, Identities, Industries’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 13 (2003): 12–26 (p. 17). 61. Ibid., p. 13. 62. Harvie, ‘Cultural Effects’; Bartie, The Edinburgh Festivals. 63. Eileen Miller, The Edinburgh International Festival 1947–1996 (Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1996), p. 2. 64. Falconer cited in Miller, The Edinburgh International Festival 1947–1996, p. vii. 65. Ibid. 66. Miller notes that the Festival had ‘been designed as a partnership between the Edinburgh Corporation [the local authority of the day], individuals interested in promoting the Festival and the commercial interests in the city, together with the British Council and the Arts Council of Great Britain’. Miller, The Edinburgh International Festival 1947–1996, p. 55. 67. For an overview of the festival’s history see, Catherine McKinnon, ed., Adelaide Festival 60 Years: 1960–2020 (Mile End, SA: Wakefield Press, 2020). 68. Hardgrave et al. cited in Whitelock and Loan, Festival!, p. 30. 69. Despoja cited in Whitelock and Loan, Festival!, p. 29. 70. Ibid., p. 175. 71. Miller, The Edinburgh International Festival 1947–1996, p. 8. 72. Cited in Derek Whitelock, Adelaide: A Sense of Difference, 3rd edn (Kew, Vic.: Australian Scholarly Publications, 2000), pp. 290–91. 73. Bartie, The Edinburgh Festivals, p. 13. 74. Ibid., p. 14. 75. Ibid., p. 176. 76. Goldsworthy, Adelaide, p. 4. 77. Ian Brown, ‘A Lively Tradition and Creative Amnesia’, in The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama, ed. by Ian Brown (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), pp. 1–5 (p. 1). 78. Ibid., pp. 1–2. 79. The SATC would become the official South Australian flagship company in 1972 and was known as State Theatre Company of South Australia (STCSA) from 1980. 80. Milne notes that ‘Repertory Clubs’ or ‘Little Theatres’ preceded the establishment of professional companies in most Australian capitals.

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81. 82. 83.

84.

85. 86.

87.

88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97.

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In Adelaide, these included the Adelaide Repertory Theatre established in 1908 (originally known as Bryceson Treharne’s Class), the Adelaide University Theatre Guild formed in 1938, and the Adelaide Theatre Group in 1946. Geoffrey Milne, Theatre Australia (Un)Limited: Australian Theatre since the 1950s (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), p. 5. Whitelock and Loan, Festival!, p. 7. Milne, Theatre Australia, p. 91. The semi-professional Adelaide University Theatre premiered The Ham Funeral in 1961 (just prior to the 1962 Festival), and this was followed by two more Adelaidean premières of White’s plays, all directed by John Tasker: The Season at Sarsaparilla in 1962 and Night on Bald Mountain in 1964. In 2012, the STCSA marked the anniversary of this controversy by staging The Ham Funeral as their contribution to that year’s Festival programme, signalling a posthumous recuperation of the playwright (who is better known for his novels) by this organisation. This is perhaps reflected by the comparatively larger size of the Australian population and the high cost of travel for international artists, but, more importantly, it reflects a desire of programmers to include local content. Milne, Theatre Australia, p. 380. Warren McCann, Light Years Ahead: Review of Adelaide’s Status as a Festival City (Adelaide: Government of South Australia, August 2013). http://dpc.sa.gov.au/sites/default/files/pubimages/documents/ICSG/ Light%20Years%20Ahead%20-%20Review%20of%20Adelaide%27s%20S tatus%20as%20a%20Festival%20City.pdf [accessed 20 March 2015], p. 14. Severin Carrell, ‘Edinburgh Festival Fringe Companies Back “Bed Tax” after Another Record Year’, Guardian, 27 August 2018, Factiva, accessed 6 March 2019. Zaiontz, ‘From Post-War’, p. 4. Knowles, ‘Introduction’, p. 2. Ian Brown, Performing Scottishness: Enactment and National Identities (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), p. 5. Christopher Balme, Theatrical Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 14. Ibid., pp. 4–5. Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., p. 15. Ibid. Ric Knowles, Reading the Material Theatre, Theatre and Performance Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 14. Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011).

CHAPTER 2

The Place Myth of the Festival City

The festivals of Adelaide and Edinburgh hold a pride of place within their locales and afford them a sense of identity. They are ‘Festival Cities’, a self-conscious designation that is invested in by local communities and mobilised within the strategic plans of city authorities. While this description plays an important role in the post-war history of these cities, there are also older competing ‘discourses of space’ that shape perceptions of both sites. Edinburgh, the historic capital of Scotland, was a key site of the Scottish Reformation in the sixteenth century and the Scottish Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, earning it a reputation as the ‘Athens of the North’. Edinburgh’s world-leading festivals play out against the backdrop of the city’s historic built environment, recognised by UNESCO world heritage status for the Old and New Towns, and its beautiful natural environment. Since the 1990s, Edinburgh’s festivals have seemingly overcome their uneasy relationship within their local culture to be actively promoted within the city’s tourism and cultural campaigns.1 Adelaide was built on the unceded territory of the Kaurna people who have 60,000 years of living culture and connection to the site. In its more recent postcolonial history, local authorities sought to replace popular references to Adelaide as the ‘City of Churches’ or the ‘City of Corpses’ by actively promoting the Festival State moniker. Unlike in Edinburgh, Adelaide’s festivals are largely embraced by the local population for whom they provide a source of pride and point of difference. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Thomasson, The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09094-3_2

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In Edinburgh and Adelaide, the peak festival period is defined by several concurrently run events each year. These events make visible use of outdoor public spaces, are colourful and creative, and imbue the urban space with a festive and celebratory atmosphere. Together, they form a ‘set of core images’,2 or place myth, that is widely held and used to promote each location as a Festival City. According to Rob Shields, a place myth is formed of the socially constructed meanings that are ascribed to places and is given shape through a layering of meaning that interacts with the physical geography of the city. It is the synergy between events that attracts visitors to what is known locally as Adelaide’s Mad March or Edinburgh’s summer festivals, where they can attend multiple events across the different programmes and festivals, and experience the ‘buzz’ generated by the festival season. Economic impact studies have confirmed that it is this ‘critical mass’ that the overlapping festivals create that ‘has enormous pulling power’.3 This chapter provides an overview of dominant historical narratives and popular understandings of these two cities to chart how the Festival City place myth developed in each location over time. This place myth operates at both sites, albeit with different impetuses and outcomes. Analysing how this place myth has evolved, how it is supported, and how it is contested provides a framework for assessing the role of these festivals in the place and identity construction of their cities. Edinburgh’s twenty-first-century reputation as the world’s leading Festival City builds on its earlier Enlightenment tradition and architectural heritage, competing with it to influence the city’s material processes and forms. As the Scottish capital, Edinburgh is home to the Scottish Government, the restored Scottish Parliament, and other important national institutions including the National Library of Scotland, National Museum of Scotland, and Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The EIF, along with the Fringe and other summer festivals, is well established as the leading event of its kind, firmly positioning Edinburgh as the global Festival City. Since the 1990s, the City of Edinburgh Council has embraced festivalisation within its cultural and tourism policies, and as part of a growth coalition of public and private interests, has capitalised on these events to achieve unprecedented growth in visitor numbers.4 Less organic than in Adelaide, then, ‘the Festival City concept is essentially a marketing initiative’ promoted by the strategic umbrella organisation Festivals Edinburgh, according to Jennifer Attala, who argues that ‘Edinburgh Festival City’ is a ‘specific brand designation’.5 As such, the Festival City place myth is actively promoted within urban governance strategies to offer a

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contemporary image of Edinburgh as the site of a ‘new enlightenment’ that updates the city’s heritage-based reputation for greater circulation within a creative economy. The Adelaide Festival, as the premier arts event in Australia, is popularly accredited with reforming the cultural image of the state of South Australia. Where Adelaide was once defined by its moral conservatism, the Adelaide Festival has been instrumental in reinventing the ‘City of Churches’ into the self-styled capital of the ‘Festival State’. In helping to transform the city’s reputation from conservative to cosmopolitan, the Adelaide Festival has served as an aspirational event from which residents of South Australia have derived a sense of pride and identity. The Adelaide Fringe has now grown to eclipse the ‘official’ event (in terms of both size and running length) and imbues the city with a festive atmosphere for the duration of ‘Mad March’. Today, this is acknowledged and supported by local authorities who similarly, but less aggressively than in Edinburgh, have sought to use its festivals to attract tourists, skilled workers, and investment to the city. As this chapter explores, it is also preferable to other, darker associations with the city. Analysing the post-war histories of Edinburgh and Adelaide through the theoretical lens of place images and myths also reveals the process of festivalisation in both cases to be constructed and contested. As Shields observes, ‘[p]lace images, and our views of them, are produced historically, and are actively contested’.6 As metaphors that become associated with sites through cultural products such as performance, film, art, songs and poems, and literature, place images and myths also reflect the power of certain groups. Don Mitchell argues that culture is ‘a struggled-over set of social relations, relations shot through with structures of power, structures of dominance and subordination’.7 A place myth that is actively promoted by local government authorities, therefore, is likely to create ‘a smooth surface, a mute representation, a clear view that is little clouded by considerations of inequality, power, coercion, or resistance’.8 But performative events associated with the festivals can serve as moments of rupture in the smooth surface of these representations, and in this chapter, I investigate the alternative cultural constructions that suggest opposition to and internal contradictions within the dominant discourse of the Festival City. In Edinburgh, where the festivals already have an uneasy relationship with local communities, a policy of festivalisation that commodifies urban space while compounding over-tourism and congestion has been met with resistance.9 In Adelaide, investment in the creative, leisure economy in the

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urban centre obscures social disadvantage at the periphery. By investigating the role that cultural events play in mythologising and promoting place, these case studies offer a model for interrogating economic and social inequality through the lens of the urban imagination to reveal the power relations behind the production of space. This analysis therefore also considers alternative constructions of Edinburgh and Adelaide to reveal what the popular and officially sanctioned Festival City place myth is obscuring or displacing as a result.

What Is a Festival City? The Festival City is an imagined, performative construct with real-world impacts. Festivals provide bright, attractive images that suggest movement and entertainment and are used for marketing material in place promotion and tourism campaigns. In this way, they provide what Shields terms a ‘place image’ for their respective cities, which is a relationship that relies on over-simplification and stereotyping.10 Place images can be defined as ‘the various discrete meanings associated with real places or regions regardless of their character in reality’.11 As the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide have been staged annually (or biennially) over many decades, they have formed ‘a set of core images’ that have become associated with these cities so that collectively they form a place myth. As Shields contends, these are images that are ‘commonly held’ and ‘widely disseminated’ about a place and they ‘form a relatively stable group of ideas in currency, reinforced by their communication value as conventions circulating in a discursive economy’.12 Locally, place myths can be a source of civic pride. Festival Cities develop reputations for arts and culture so that they become perceived as the natural settings for such events. For Edinburgh and Adelaide, this further recuperates their former associations with staunch Presbyterianism or social conservatism. Place myths are the symbolic associations that become attached to physical environments over time. As David Pinder explains, cities in general ‘are understood not as “things” reducible to their buildings and physical forms, but as spaces that are socially produced and that are dynamic, open and interconnected’.13 This understanding of space as socially constructed and relationally produced draws on French philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s conception of the production of space. Lefebvre’s central argument is that ‘([s]ocial) space is a (social) product ’ and once it is produced it ‘also serves as a tool of thought and action’.14 It is

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both a means of production and of control, ‘and hence of domination, of power’ although it is difficult to wield as an instrument and ‘escapes in part from those who would make use of it’.15 Beyond contributing to the material life of the city, these festivals are shown throughout this study to contribute to the symbolic imagery that has come to be associated with these cities and therefore to directly impact the lived experience of residents. As David Harvey argues, ‘[p]laces expressive of distinctive beliefs, values, imaginaries, and socio-institutional practices have long been constructed both materially and discursively’.16 These imaginative constructions—such as place myths and place branding—are therefore just as important as the built environment. The relationship between places and their representations is codependent and impact upon each other in an iterative way. For Shields, ‘[p]laces and spaces are hypostatised from the world of real space relations to the symbolic realm of cultural significations’.17 Traces of these place images are therefore contained within popular culture, which for Shields includes ‘postcards, advertising images, song lyrics and in the setting of novels’.18 Edinburgh, particularly, as a UNESCO City of Literature, has a second life as the world of fictional detectives Karen Pirie and John Rebus, and the affable group who congregate around 44 Scotland Street.19 American singer-songwriter Ben Folds sings of his adoptive home that there is ‘no hurry, fuss or worry, Adelaide’, where local Paul Kelly sings of ‘hedges all in a row’, and South Australian hip hop band the Hilltop Hoods reference multiple place myths when they rap, ‘I’m from the city of light with a sky of vanilla, known as the city of churches with the serial killer’.20 The Festival City place myth is given visual form through the photographic images of photojournalists and professionals that are recycled as postcards and in tourism campaigns as well as the happy snaps of festival-goers circulated via social media. These representations in literature, popular songs, and other cultural artefacts such as film and theatrical performance perpetuate and reinforce place myths. The Festival City forms a particular set of images that competes to define the ‘essential character’ of Edinburgh and Adelaide, and endures in the popular imagination beyond its promotion as a cultural and economic planning strategy. The festivals are shaped by their local environments while also contributing to the material and discursive production of urban space. Marjana Johansson and Jerzy Kociatkiewicz argue in relation to Edinburgh that the relationship between festival and city is mutually beneficial:

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‘City space, always rife with accrued significance, imbues the festival with meaning, but the process is reciprocal because the festival provides new meanings for the city it inhabits’.21 Whether it is Edinburgh’s impressive natural environment and architecture or Adelaide’s temperate weather and outdoor spaces, the festivals in these cities are shaped by their locale and contribute to the reputations of their cities in return. In both cases, it is the combination of events—headlined by a prestigious international arts festival and a large and exuberant open-access fringe—within a peak festival season that defines these Festival Cities. The Festival City is a peculiar manifestation of a place myth in that it is not unique to one city. By examining two examples of a Festival City in detail, I identify the common characteristics of this place myth as well as highlight the ways in which it has been necessarily shaped and remade in both contexts to respond to local needs and cultures. Moreover, as this sense of place identity is grounded in the cultural practices of international arts festivals, it allows for a specific interrogation of the ways in which cultural practices participate in and contribute to the negotiation and contestation of place images and myths. Beyond the local engagement and impact of one-off sporting events like the FIFA World Cup or the mega events of the Olympic and Paralympic Games on the one hand, and the year-long European Capital of Culture programme on the other, these recurring, annual festivals sited repeatedly in a single city are shaped by the particularities of their local environments and in return are expected to play an ongoing role in promoting and developing their local cultures. Lefebvre argues that if social practices are produced alongside the spaces associated with them, ‘then the job of theory is to elucidate their rise, their role, and their demise’.22 Charting the rise, role, and challenges to the Festival City place myth in Edinburgh and Adelaide therefore enables a broader examination of how cultural events contribute to the production of space and participate within broader urban processes.

Edinburgh: Fortress on the Hill The modern city of Edinburgh has been recognised as a settlement since the twelfth century when King David granted it status as a Royal Burgh, with this burgh eventually subsuming what was the neighbouring Burgh of Canongate to form today’s Old Town.23 Built on earlier settlements such as that of Din Eidyn (Din meaning ‘fort’), Edinburgh was immortalised in the poem Y Gododdin as early as the seventh century.24 This

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nomenclature as a ‘fortress on the hill’ also gives some insight into its origins and purpose as ‘the most defensible position of any among the heights rising out of the coastal plains of the Lothians’.25 Historically, then, Edinburgh has benefited from its topographical location—easily defensible and close to the trading port of Leith—while profiting from its capital city status as the centre for Scotland’s political, administrative, and religious functions. Known for its provision of major services, particularly the legal, financial, and educational sectors, it maintained a diverse economic base, which included manufacturing until the midtwentieth century, that aided its growth.26 It also remained a focal point for Scottish culture despite suffering from economic decline following the Union of the Crowns in 1603 and the loss of its parliamentary function with the Treaty of the Union in 1707. Robert Crawford notes that despite these political changes, ‘Edinburgh remained Scotland’s cultural centre, a self-conscious capital of art’.27 Edinburgh’s ‘physical character’, defined by the contrast between striking natural environment and picturesque cityscape, ‘has remarkable clarity and richness’ according to Brian Edwards and Paul Jenkins.28 This coherence is also written into the built environment so that the ‘city’s growth [can be read] as an unfolding chronology of political and artistic movements’.29 In Edinburgh, these multiple and coexisting historical narratives, still evident as layers within its built environment, enrich the various place images and place myths of the contemporary city. As the Scottish capital, Edinburgh has been the site of major historical events and is the seat of power of many of its key institutions that maintain the nation’s distinct identity. Perhaps the most recognisable and enduring place image of Edinburgh is that of its Castle perched above an extinct volcano, which dominates the city’s skyline. This is the first of three images of Edinburgh that Richard Rodger identifies as immediately identifying and standing in for the city.30 Castle Rock, which has housed a military base since the seventeenth century, has an expansive parade ground that today plays host to the annual Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Following the oft-travelled route from the Castle Esplanade down along the ‘Royal Mile’, visitors to the city encounter other famous Edinburgh landmarks, including the EIF’s headquarters at The Hub and St Giles’ High Kirk, as they pass through the throng of fringe artists who swamp the High Street at festival time, then past John Knox’s house and the Scottish Storytelling Centre, to reach the Scottish Parliament and the royal residence at the Palace of Holyrood, nestled at the foot

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of Arthur’s Seat. The jumble of the Old Town is in stark contrast to the ‘grid-plan representation of the New Town’, representative of the ordered Enlightenment aspiration for urban living, that Rodger identifies as Edinburgh’s second key place image.31 With different parts of the city—Old and New—converted into permanent and temporary venues each year, these two images combine to provide the physical setting for Edinburgh’s summer festivals. According to Rodger, ‘The promotional message has been of Edinburgh as a cultural capital, as a place of sophistication and consumerism, and as a World Heritage City’.32 The Scottish capital’s designation as the world’s ‘Festival City’ is therefore the final place image that builds on its existing attributes. Auld Reikie The city of Edinburgh has been made and remade throughout its history, and has undergone several planned expansions and the deliberate rewriting of its narratives and sense of place. As David Harvey argues, ‘Places are always contingent on the relational processes that create, sustain, and dissolve them. The coexistence of “multiple spatialities” in places undermines any simple, unitary sense of place’.33 Far from the gentile city of today, eighteenth-century Edinburgh was a place of squalor and social unrest. A mix of social classes living ‘cheek-by-jowl’ fostered a ‘democratic spirit’ and sense of community, but with negative repercussions for sanitation.34 One early nickname for Edinburgh was ‘Auld Reikie’ (‘Old Smoky’) after the poem of this name by Robert Fergusson (1750–1774), which may have referred to chimney smoke on the horizon, but also references the stench of open sewers.35 Before pipes were installed between 1672 and 1675, townsfolk were accustomed to hearing ‘cries of “Gardieloo!” (a Scots version of Gardez l’eau! —“Watch out for the water!”) shouted by residents of tall “lands”, or tenements, as they emptied the contents of their chamber pots from an upper storey onto the roadway below’.36 The Nor’ Loch was also a source of the infamous Edinburgh stench, having become a deposit for its sewage. Such place images, according to Shields, can come to signify the ‘essential character’ of cities and impact ‘material activities’ so that these reputations ‘may be clung to despite changes in the “real” nature of the site’.37 Recognition of this may have encouraged the eighteenth-century reformers who agitated for a ‘New Edinburgh’. This was made possible by the draining of the Nor’ Loch in 1759 and the construction of the

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North Bridge in 1772. Expansion of the city enabled new building developments and improved sanitation but exacerbated rather than resolved economic and social disparity. Edinburgh was transformed in the late eighteenth century with the phased development of New Town, which was based on James Craig’s (1739–1795) competition-winning design, albeit in a modified form. This altered the socio-economic dynamic within Edinburgh, with the more affluent segments of the population moving to the suburban New Town areas, leaving the Old Town to fall into greater degradation and poverty after 1775. By 1850, the Old Town ‘was reputed to be among the worst slums of western Europe’ and the collapse of a High Street tenement building in 1861, which killed 35 and left 100 more homeless, served to focus public attention on the need to raise standards and improve sanitation.38 Today, the Old Town is once again a sought-after location owing to a series of early urban regeneration programmes in the nineteenth century, which began with slum clearances in the 1860s and 1870s and were followed by more conservative approaches in the 1890s and 1920s—championed by Patrick Geddes, among others—to preserve the historic character of the city’s medieval quarter while rehousing displaced residents.39 Fry labels the development of New Town ‘revolutionary’, claiming that it ‘changed lives’, with different social classes no longer living among one another.40 According to Paul L. Knox, however, ‘The development of the New Town and its extensions had already initiated the process of socio-spatial segregation’ that would become more acute in the Victorian era.41 Athens of the North The rational grid-plan of the New Town is said to be the physical realisation of Edinburgh’s proud Enlightenment tradition. Shields argues that the social construction of space encompasses ‘both discursive and nondiscursive elements, practices, and processes’.42 Place myths, therefore, reveal this process by highlighting ‘the ongoing social construction of the spatial at the level of the social imaginary (collective mythologies, presuppositions) as well as interventions in the landscape (for example, the built environment)’.43 Craig’s neoclassical plan was centred around a wide boulevard connecting two squares at either end: Charlotte and St Andrew. Far from abandoning tenements, the middle-class adapted them and made them respectable for their new suburban lifestyles.44 This

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Victorian-era construction of tenement suburbs, what Peter Robinson describes as ‘a regulated four-storey forest of chimney heads punctuated by spires’, is responsible for the New Town’s homogeneity.45 ‘Their very solidity and coherence convey order’, continues Robinson, arguing that they are ‘still dominant and important to the visual perception of the city’.46 Charles McKean has challenged the received wisdom that the New Town’s visual homogeneity was the result of a grand plan, but argues that it was instead the result of competing commercial interests and feuing controls (whereby landowners would sell the title to their land in return for an annual fee, or feu, to be collected in perpetuity).47 Nevertheless, in the early nineteenth century extensions were made to the north, east, and west of New Town, which represented ‘an ambitious phase of civic development, with public buildings, monuments and statuary’, and earned the sobriquet of the ‘Athens of the North’ for Edinburgh, ‘as one of the major centres of the international Greek revival’.48 This is an early example of how city authorities used urban planning to intervene in the built environment and reform Edinburgh’s reputation. Edinburgh further benefited from a long association with the Scottish Enlightenment and the professions of law and medicine, as well as publishing, banking, and finance, which afforded it a reputation as an intellectual city. Following the Treaty of the Union in 1707, Edinburgh remained the seat of power for the ‘pillars’ of Scottish civil society: the Kirk, the law, and the education system.49 For over a century, roughly between 1840 and 1951, one in six employed men in the city was professional.50 This is coupled with Scotland’s ‘progressive and meritocratic’ education system based on impressive rates of ‘popular literacy and university entrance’,51 which according to Ewen A. Cameron plays into ‘Scotland’s image of itself’ as a ‘democratic egalitarian nation’ with greater social mobility than in England.52 In addition to this, the University of Edinburgh is associated with key Enlightenment thinkers including the economist and author of The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith (1723–1790); the atheist philosopher David Hume (1711–1776); the geologist James Hutton (1726–1797); the chemist Joseph Black (1728– 1799); and the neurologist Charles Bell (1774–1842). The contributions of these famous Scottish pioneers to scientific knowledge have imprinted Edinburgh with a reputation as an intellectual and gentile city that it continues to draw on today.

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Jekyll and Hyde The ‘socio-spatial’ segregation of Edinburgh that is physically represented by the divide between Old and New Town has also given rise to a characterisation of the city as having a darker underbelly that is thinly veiled by a veneer of respectability. Edinburgh is often personified as having a split personality in the vein of Robert Louis Stevenson’s infamous character within The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). The art historian Duncan Macmillan suggested that Stevenson’s characters could be seen as a metaphor for the mid-nineteenth-century social division between middle-class respectability and the slums, with the Old and New Towns ‘two aspects of a single, indivisible thing’.53 As John StuartMurray suggests, ‘[t]he two towns, while dependent upon one another and essential to the city’s completeness, represent divided and divergent aspects of the one individual’.54 Fry, too, attributes Edinburgh’s reputation as a ‘city of paradox’ reminiscent of Stevenson’s character to the construction of New Town (although he points out that this novella by one of Edinburgh’s most famous authors is actually set in London). In contrast to the squalor of Old Town, New Town is said to reflect the Enlightenment ideas of ‘progress, prosperity, order and elegance’,55 or an imposition of a new rational order emphasising cleanliness and symmetry. The development surrounding Charlotte Square, which was designed by Robert Adam (1728–1792), perhaps best represents this ideal and has been, until recently, the focal point of the Edinburgh International Book Festival each August. While New Town imposed a new rational order that emphasised cleanliness and symmetry, the Old Town fell into disrepair so that the two parts of the city represented sharp contrasts to one another.56 Despite the restoration of the Old Town, the social and spatial divide between Edinburgh’s two halves continues to inform cultural representations of the city today. City of Literature The duality of the Scottish capital as encapsulated within the juxtaposing natures of its Old and New Towns has also inspired a long-standing literary tradition that led to Edinburgh being awarded the title of UNESCO’s first City of Literature in 2004 ‘in recognition of the city’s literary heritage, vibrant contemporary scene and aspirations for the

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future’.57 From the long-standing Scottish greats Robert Burns (1759– 1796), Walter Scott (1771–1832), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), and Muriel Spark (1918–2006), to contemporary writers Ian Rankin, Irvine Welsh, Alexander McCall Smith, Val McDermid, and J. K. Rowling, Edinburgh’s landmarks and mythologies have fuelled the literary imagination and in turn provide a fictionalised second life of the city. While Conan Doyle is said to have based Sherlock Holmes on surgeon Joseph Bell, whom he encountered while a medical student at the University of Edinburgh, Stevenson was inspired by Edinburgh’s most notorious crime stories. The misdeeds of Deacon William Brodie—the town councillor-cabinetmaker-cum-bank robbing-philanderer—who embodies the duality between ‘dark and light, respectability and scandal’,58 are said to have inspired Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). So, too, the notorious crimes of serial killers William Hare and William Burke—who murdered sixteen Old Town residents between 1826 and 1827 and sold their bodies to the Royal College of Surgeons Fellow Dr Robert Knox for dissection—inspired Stevenson’s short story ‘The Body Snatcher’ (1884). The homes and haunts of writers, their fictional characters, and the reallife personalities who inspired them are all depicted on an interactive map, along with the sites of Edinburgh publishing houses and literary monuments, provided on the Edinburgh Your Library website.59 The ‘setting of novels’60 is one of the ways that Shields identifies as a means by which place images are constructed and transmitted within popular culture. As this discussion of Edinburgh’s literary tradition highlights, material aspects of the city and real-life events inform cultural representations, which in turn feed back into popular characterisations and understandings of the city that are then monumentalised in physical form. The focus on Edinburgh as a city of literature and professionals, however, neglects its manufacturing history, pushing its industrial past to the fringes, while further discouraging the development of new industry. Rebecca Madgin and Richard Rodger argue that Edinburgh’s pre-World War II economic success was partly down to a balanced local economy in which complementary activities smoothed the extremes of trade fluctuations. While a higher than average proportion of employed males worked in the professional and service sectors, they point out that between 1861 and 1951 half of the male workforce was in the industrial sector.61 Yet, with local land use policies in the 1970s favouring housing, retail, and tourism over industrial activity, by the 1980s ‘the myth became reality’

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and ‘Edinburgh was no longer an industrial city’.62 Madgin and Rodger stress the importance of planning, policies, and promotion within this process: ‘By manipulating its own image, and continually emphasizing the historic and picturesque, the myth of Edinburgh as a non-industrial city was invented and nurtured’.63 In earlier work, Rodger highlights the danger of this myth in driving away or failing to attract industry to the city due to the belief that it lacked the appropriate workforce and infrastructure.64 This is one example of how certain activities, having become associated with certain sites, are seen as appropriate to these locations to the exclusion of alternative practices.65 As will be reinforced in Adelaide’s postcolonial history, ‘forgetting can be as important as remembering’ with the ‘mental and physical’ landscape of Edinburgh rewritten to downplay its industrial past.66 In this case, Rodger argues, denying the impact of industry on Edinburgh’s physical landscape reinforces place-marketing campaigns that sell it as a cultural capital and the obvious host of major European festivals.67 The place images of Edinburgh from Auld Reekie to the Athens of the North have shaped the material and symbolic character of the city. In the postindustrial era, this small European capital has built upon its long cultural and intellectual tradition combined with the fame and vibrancy of its post-war international arts festival to reassert itself as a capital city. Edwards and Jenkins note that the Scottish capital has ‘provided a focal point for national culture’ but that this has gained international significance thanks to its festivals.68 As Madgin and Rodger have shown, place myths have a very real impact on urban planning and local government policies: ‘Place identification with its principal product may trap towns and cities in their historical past, saddling them with myths derived from centuries earlier and conditioning planning and conservation policies according to an embellished, if not fabricated, version of their past’.69 In Edinburgh, heritage priorities are not necessarily at odds with pursuing a cosmopolitan reputation, with the summer festivals drawing on the former while promoting the latter. In the twenty-first century, public– private urban partnerships have capitalised on the size and prestige of these events to pursue festivalisation as a strategy for growth to combat the impact of austerity. The EIF has not always been embraced locally, however, as its foundation myths will show. I turn first, however, to analyse an alternative trajectory in the development of a Festival City place myth in Adelaide.

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South Australia: The Benevolent Colony Adelaide was built on the lands of the Kaurna people on the coast of southern Australia. Traditional owners of Tandanya, or the Adelaide Plains, the Kaurna people are custodians of 60,000 years of living cultural practices on this site. When colonists arrived in South Australia in 1836, the new city was named Adelaide, for the Queen consort of William IV. With a population of over 1.29 million in the Greater Adelaide Region, Adelaide is the capital of South Australia, which is the second smallest Australian state in terms of population but third largest in terms of geographical size.70 Designed by the celebrated surveyor-general Colonel William Light, the Adelaide of today retains the gridiron pattern of Light’s original plan, intersected by the River Torrens. The city has a warm, dry climate that is often described as ‘Mediterranean’ within its promotional material and is celebrated for its many gardens and squares that, along with the street names, commemorate the founding fathers of its European settlement. Lacking the historical prestige of the older states of New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, and the economic prosperity of the large mining states of Western Australia and Queensland, South Australia defines itself through its ‘sense of difference’.71 According to local historian Derek Whitelock, the state derives its unique identity from its historical superiority as a planned community of morally upright settlers, free of convicts, and founded on Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s principles of ‘systematic colonization’ in which land sales were set at a ‘sufficient price’ in order to attract industrious and experienced settlers with appropriate capital.72 It was also the only colony in Australia to recognise prior Aboriginal occupancy of the lands and to extend the rights of British subjecthood to Aboriginal people within its Letters Patent and Order-in-Council, the legal instruments authorising the colony to be established.73 Adelaide has traditionally been seen as pious and conservative, despite the colony of South Australia being the first to recognise Indigenous rights and to give women the right to vote. Place images, according to Shields, are meanings associated with places that may not reflect reality but rather ‘develop through over-simplification and labelling, the stereotyping of places or their inhabitants, and prejudices towards them’.74 Before the founding of the Festival, Adelaide was known as a religiously and morally conservative city. South Australia was designed as a model colony that would be profitable and beneficial to Great Britain by easing

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overcrowding through the removal of ‘surplus population’, preventing the colonisation of Australia by the French, and granting self-rule to avoid an American-style rebellion. The goal of a peaceful invasion in which the rights and lives of Aboriginal people would be protected, however, was no more successful in practice in South Australia than in other Australian colonies.75 The planners of the South Australian colony sought to avoid the frontier violence experienced in the existing Australian settlements by compensating local Indigenous people for their land and extending them protection as British subjects.76 Initially, First Nations, including Kaurna, were compensated for their land with the provision of subsistence and, in the paternalistic thinking of the day, ‘moral and religious instruction’.77 The position of Protector of Aborigines was established to oversee Aboriginal welfare, and land was supposed to be reserved for Aboriginal use. As Rob Foster and Amanda Nettelbeck observe, however, this policy was ‘easily circumvented in practice’.78 It was tested as early as 1840 when colonists protested the reservation of 32 hectares of land by Protector Moorhouse for Aboriginal use, leading to Governor Gawler’s concession that land would only be granted for farming or use by ‘philanthropic groups to aid the “civilisation and Christianisation” of Aboriginal people’, with most of the reserved land eventually leased to settlers.79 Violence increased as the colony expanded and more Aboriginal people were dispossessed of their land and means of subsistence, making them reliant on government rations, which also facilitated surveillance by authorities.80 Christine Lockwood argues that in the early years of the colony, ‘A blind eye was increasingly turned as violence towards Aboriginal people increased and they were made scapegoats for settler transgressions’.81 One particularly violent incident that received attention at the time was the murder of five Milmenrura men by colonists in 1840 in retaliation for the killing of the survivors of the Maria shipwreck (presumably because of a failure to respect Aboriginal principles of reciprocity or perhaps due to the sexual assault of Aboriginal women). Kaurna of the Adelaide Plains and Ramindjeri people from the Southern Fleurieu Peninsula and Encounter Bay ‘bore the brunt’ of European colonisation in South Australia.82 Due to such early frontier violence, the impact of European-introduced diseases, and the disruption of cultural and religious practices through colonisation, the Kaurna population was very small by 1857.83 Successive state and federal government policies, from restricting the movement of Aboriginal people to reserves

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to the removal of mixed-race children, subjected Aboriginal people to ‘a coercive regime of state control’ contributing to a legacy of racism and discrimination that is still felt today.84 Despite a commonly held misbelief that there were no Aboriginal people in Adelaide from mid-nineteenth century onwards, Kaurna have had an ongoing presence in Adelaide and survived, in part, through intermarrying with the Narungga or Ngarrindjeri clans.85 In testament to their resilience, Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri have been actively ‘reclaiming their cultural and linguistic heritage’ and distinct identities from the late twentieth century.86 Tom Gara draws attention to the long history of Aboriginal paid performances on the site of today’s Botanic Gardens—where the WOMADelaide festival is held—that attracted thousands of spectators, or the Grand Corroboree at the Adelaide Oval in 1885. He observes that when Kaurna dancers perform as part of the festivals today, such as during the opening ceremonies, ‘their audiences are probably unaware that they are continuing a tradition of public performances that can be traced back’ to the 1840s and argues that while ‘Although Adelaide might pride itself on its “sense of difference”, it may be just like the rest of Australia in its ability to selectively forget aspects of its own history’.87 While colonial planners initially aimed to afford Indigenous South Australians the same protections as other British subjects, in practice this was not respected and the priorities of settlers/invaders prevailed. Nevertheless, these early policies contribute to Adelaide’s morally superior ‘sense of difference’. City of Churches A strict immigration criterion that controlled for piety and prohibited convicts from settling in the state was coupled with the strong influence of Methodism and the temperance movement to grant Adelaide a reputation as ‘a city of churches and morality’.88 In fact, ‘freedom in matters of religion’89 was one of the principles upon which South Australia was founded, and as Whitelock notes, the early settlement attracted members of the ‘Free Churches’ such as Methodists, Congregationalists, and Baptists. South Australia is therefore proud of its non-Conformist heritage in which settlers from outside of the dominant Anglican religion could seek social advancement free from the bounds of the religious discrimination that they had suffered in Great Britain. Related to this perceived religious conservatism was a perception of the city as deeply morally conservative.

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The temperance (or ‘wowser’) movement, which lobbied for strict liquor licensing laws, dominated Adelaide throughout the first half of the twentieth century and contributed to the city’s conservative image. According to Stuart Macintyre, ‘wowser was an expressive local term for those who sought to stamp out alcohol, tobacco and all other pleasures’.90 The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), formed in 1886, spearheaded both the women’s suffrage movement in Australia (with women achieving the vote in South Australia in 1895) and the wowser movement. According to Macintyre, The movement sought to advance women and reform society by purifying domestic and public life of masculine excess. It thus pursued a range of measures – temperance, laws against gambling, control of prostitution, an increase in the age of consent, prevention of domestic violence – to protect women from predatory men.91

As a pressure group campaigning against the sins of alcohol and gambling, the WCTU exerted ‘an extraordinarily strong influence upon the Adelaide lifestyle for the next four or five decades’ after its formation.92 Whitelock notes that wowsers held sway in Adelaide throughout the first half of the twentieth century, succeeding in maintaining strict liquor licensing laws (despite a tradition of heavy drinking in the state dating from the colonial period) but also limiting its cultural development: ‘From 1915 to 1967 Adelaide’s drinking habits were distorted by 6 o’clock closing and the infamous “6 o’clock swill”. During this period wowserish respectability prevailed and Adelaide acquired its teetotal, stuffy and hypocritical image’.93 Adelaide’s ‘sense of difference’ arising from self-styled snobbery and claims of social superiority also inevitably gave rise to accusations of conservatism, provincialism, and cultural philistinism from the other states. This image of Adelaide as a ‘City of Churches’ is an example of a set of place images that collectively form a place myth. This conservative image, however, placed limitations on the first Adelaide Festival in 1960, particularly in terms of the liquor licensing laws, weekend closing times, and lack of restaurant culture, with the beginning of the biennial festival providing an impetus for and means of reforming this now undesirable image. Whitelock attributes Don Dunstan, Labor South Australian Premier between 1971 and 1979, with reforming the state’s image from one of conservatism (South Australia

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had been dominated by Sir Thomas Playford’s conservative government from 1938 to 1965) to one with more progressive ideals. In an obituary written for the UK’s Independent in 1999, Robert Milliken describes how Dunstan ‘put that state on the map with a series of groundbreaking social reforms’ during his premiership, which became known as the ‘Dunstan decade’. Milliken describes how ‘His was the first government in Australia to introduce land rights for Aborigines, decriminalise homosexual acts, appoint a woman judge and introduce anti-discrimination legislation’.94 As such, Whitelock characterises Don Dunstan as ‘both [the] architect and leader of Adelaide’s social and moral revolution in the 1970s’.95 As an example of how place myths can change and evolve over time, in the case of Adelaide, the Festival City place myth has been harnessed to re-write Adelaide’s former representations and reputations at an official level once they became obstacles to modernisation and economic development. It is also an overt attempt to focus attention away from social disadvantage in the suburbs that has inspired a more ominous moniker. The City of Corpses Adelaide is also known colloquially as ‘Weird Adelaide’,96 the ‘Cruel City’,97 or the ‘City of Corpses’98 owing to a number of high-profile disappearances, rumoured paedophile rings, and macabre serial killings that have taken place in and around the city over the past fifty years. Salman Rushdie has likened Adelaide to Amityville, or Salem, a place where things ‘go bump in the night’.99 In town for the 1984 Writers’ Week, Rushdie was commenting on the trial of Bevan Spencer von Einem, convicted for the rape and murder of a fifteen-year-old boy and suspected of killing four others in a similar manner. As journalist and author of the true crime novel The Cruel City: Is Adelaide the Murder Capital of Australia?, Stephen Orr attests, ‘South Australia, and the city of Adelaide in particular, has often been cast (mostly by a media in search of a quick headline) as some sort of macabre killing field, with deranged, inbred perverts filling their days dismembering innocent children and depositing their limbs in barrels’.100 Adelaide first developed its reputation as the home of ‘weird sex murderers’, to quote comedian Ross Noble,101 in 1966 when the three Beaumont children—aged 4, 7, and 9—disappeared off Glenelg beach on Australia Day. This was followed by the disappearance of Joanne Ratcliffe (aged 11) and new friend Kirste Gordon (aged 4) from the Adelaide Oval during a football match in August 1973. No

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bodies have been recovered and these disappearances remain unsolved today. What Orr identifies as a Gothic, or grotesque, underbelly to Adelaide cuts across class boundaries. Orr notes that the grotesque in Adelaide does not just refer to what he describes as ‘dysfunctional families existing on welfare, living in state housing on the northern and southern fringes’ of the city, but also to ‘respectable Adelaide’, as he explains, ‘The wellheeled eastern suburbs have always been the domain of old money, old names’.102 Individual arrests such as that of von Einem and Magistrate Peter Liddy—who was convicted of child molestation in 2001—are rumoured to be part of larger networks of lawyers, judges, and senior police officers involved in paedophile rings similar to von Einem’s group of associates known as the ‘Family’. The suspicious circumstances surrounding the murder of criminal lawyer Derrance Stevenson, whose body was found stuffed into his household freezer in 1979, also suggest links between Adelaide’s elite and the criminal underworld. Police, too, have been implicated in these bizarre happenings. In 1972, three to four members of the local Vice Squad killed university law lecturer George Duncan when they visited a well-known local beat one night and tossed whomever they found there into the nearby Torrens River. The perpetrators of this crime were not revealed until 1986, although public outcry in the meantime ensured that South Australia was the first state to decriminalise homosexuality in 1972. These ominous and unexplainable disappearances and the cruel and sadistic serial killings, which were often of a violent and sexual nature— including the seven young women who were raped and murdered by James William Miller in 1976–1977 before he was killed in a car crash— seem to culminate in the notorious Snowtown murders of the 1990s. On 20 May 1999, police discovered the dismembered remains of eight victims in six barrels filled with hydrochloric acid in a disused bank vault in a small town 145 kms north of Adelaide. The subsequent investigation revealed a further four victims—all killed between 1992 and 1999—along with evidence of torture and even cannibalism. The ‘bodies in barrels’ case, as it would become known, shocked the nation and reinforced ‘Adelaide’s reputation as a murder capital, a “city of corpses”’.103 These events have also been made into the film Snowtown (2011), increasing its circulation in the popular imaginary. Such events would seem to vindicate Rushdie’s observation that,

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Adelaide is an ideal setting for a Stephen King novel, or horror film. You know why those films and books are always set in sleepy, conservative towns? Because sleepy, conservative towns are where those things happen.104

According to Shields, cultural representations such as films or this famous quote from Rushdie perpetuate and reinforce place myths, and can come to define its ‘essential character’105 and endure in the imagination despite material changes. A desire to deter such a representation, then, may also lie behind the South Australian government’s active promotion of the more desirable ‘Festival City’ nickname. Images do not necessarily need to be accurate; as Shields reveals, they can be partial, ‘exaggerated or understated’.106 And as any local would be quick to point out, these extreme examples do not translate into a higher than average crime rate in South Australia (although, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is perceived to be). Through a Crime and Safety Survey conducted in 2005, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) was able to measure perception of personal safety against actual incidence of personal crime in the nation and found that ‘Despite the perception held by South Australians that they are more unsafe than the nation as a whole, actual personal crime victimisation rates in South Australia are relatively low compared to those for other states and the country’.107 What is perhaps more telling about the Snowtown murders, however, is that all of the victims, along with the perpetrators, lived in what Kerryn Goldsworthy terms ‘the ghettoes of social disadvantage that bad planning and the vagaries of economic history have created in Adelaide’s outer northern suburbs’.108 These events reveal the social neglect in the outer suburbs that enabled the Snowtown murderers to prey on some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in society for seven years without detection. This aspect of Adelaide stands in stark contrast to both the morally superior image of its past and the cultural capital that it aspires to be in future. In fact, it is this contrast with, in Goldsworthy’s words, ‘the ideals of its founders, its “City of Churches” tag, its bragging about its convictfree origins, and the generally goody-goody aspect of its reputation’ that has drawn so much attention to the localised nature of these crimes.109 It is also indicative of how competing place images can reveal social divisions and a desire to overwrite or replace a place myth at an official level. Whitelock concludes his history of the first ten Adelaide Festivals with the observation that ‘The underlying questions remain: what purpose

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does the Festival serve, and for whom is it intended?’110 He posed these questions with regard to the tension, which is perhaps inherent to international arts festivals, between striving for artistic excellence by showcasing the best acts from around the globe and being tasked with contributing to and promoting local artists and local culture. Nevertheless, these rhetorical questions point to a tension within the Festival City between festival-goers and those who do not participate in the monthlong party each March. While the Adelaide Festival has been harnessed by local authorities to play a key role in transforming Adelaide’s image from the austere ‘city of churches’ into the capital of the proud multicultural and cosmopolitan ‘Festival State’, it also focuses attention away from social inequality and disadvantage. These competing place myths therefore reveal the role that place-making and marketing play in the battle for certain place myths to capture the imaginations of residents and visitors over others. Having explored how the Festival City place myth has taken hold in the social imaginaries of Edinburgh and Adelaide, I now analyse how it has been furthered through local cultural policy.

Towards a New Enlightenment?: Edinburgh Festival City The Festival City place moniker is one that has been self-consciously crafted by governmental authorities with the support of local business in both Edinburgh and Adelaide. As Lefebvre observes, ‘Obviously, a city does not present itself in the same way as a flower, ignorant of its own beauty. It has, after all, been “composed” by people, by welldefined groups’.111 Cliff Hague has identified three successive waves of festivalisation in Edinburgh and argues that its ‘global brand as the Festival City’ has been forged through an urban growth coalition of public and private interests.112 The summer post-war festivals of the EIF, EFF, and Edinburgh Military Tattoo were the first wave of festivalisation. This was followed by the diversification of festival offerings in a second wave in the early 1990s, partly in response to the ‘Glasgow’s Miles Better’ place promotion campaign and its European City of Culture designation in 1990. By the third wave, marked by the formalising of Hogmanay in the late 1990s, a range of festivals were spread throughout the festival calendar to enhance Edinburgh’s culture and tourism industries.113 Hague argues that against a backdrop of urban regeneration

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and the emergence of the experience economy, Edinburgh’s festivalisation ‘has been, at least in part, fabricated by marketing’.114 Following the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, austerity measures that were imposed on and by local councils placed increased pressure on the tourism, and subsequently festival, sectors to deliver continual growth, which has reignited historical opposition to these events.115 Shields contends that examining cultural discourses about places and how they are ‘composed’ determines the ‘relations established between sites’, but also ‘how they came into those relationships and under what authority, and by which groups, raising questions of power that lie behind conventions’.116 Similarly, an examination of how Festival Cities contribute to, and are resisted within, the formation of place identity also reveals power relations and agendas behind this construction. The Festival City place myth, while actively invested in by local authorities and business to attract tourism and investment in Edinburgh, has not wholeheartedly been embraced by residents. The relationship between festival and city has historically been one of suspicion and animosity. The EIF has been seen as a cultural imposition and characterised as a summer holiday destination for the London theatre elite and university students. Fry, at the end of his history of Edinburgh, is less than enthusiastic about the relationship between the festivals and Edinburgh locals, noting that they are often ‘unimpressed’ if not ‘irritated’ by the annual events.117 In a backhanded compliment, he attributes Edinburgh’s gradual reconciliation with the Festival to a decline of Calvinism and rise of hedonism in the city.118 The primary cause of local discontent with the EIF is its concern with high art as opposed to Scottish culture and an assumption that Edinburgh was supposed to look on rather than participate in the event. For this reason, Fry identifies the fringe and the Book Festival as more popular events among the local community. Of the fringe, he notes that it ‘brings a greater variety of culture, indeed a market in culture geared to pleasing audiences rather than gathering subsidies’.119 The widespread and deeplyrooted criticism of the EIF for its limited inclusion of Scottish cultural artefacts and for its elitism, or ‘implicit validation of certain arts over others’, is grounded in the original controversy over the programming of its inaugural event.120 These events have coloured local perception of the summer festivals throughout their histories and have ongoing repercussions for their engagement with residents and the development of this place myth.

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The EIF has traditionally been seen as an annual invasion of foreign artistic product promoted to tourists and visitors to the city rather than locals. As outlined in Chapter One, a failure to include Scottish drama within the inaugural 1947 Festival programme sparked accusations of elitism and denigration of Scottish culture and contributed to the perception that Edinburgh was to provide the backdrop rather than the content for this modernist event. According to EIF historian Eileen Miller, this lack of Scottish representation was raised as an issue from the very beginning in 1947. She notes, ‘the most serious criticism came from a number of prominent Scots who felt that there should have been far greater emphasis on Scottish music and drama’.121 The EIF’s mandate was to promote the highest artistic standards from around the globe, and therefore, a failure to include Scottish drama implied that it did not meet the benchmark for inclusion. A Scottish play had in fact been commissioned for the first Festival, with James Bridie being invited to write a new play based in the time of Mary, Queen of Scots. It was to have been directed by Tyrone Guthrie, produced by the Old Vic, and presented in repertory with Richard II . Unfortunately, relations broke down between Bridie and Guthrie, and the new play was replaced with The Taming of the Shrew two months before it was due to premiere.122 Following this controversy, a more concerted effort to include Scottish music and drama was made in 1948,123 with local playwright Robert Kemp commissioned to adapt Sir David Lyndsay’s sixteenth-century play Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaites, which was directed by Guthrie on his famous apron stage within the Assembly Halls and revived the following year. The success of this one Scottish play obviously did not resolve local acrimony towards the EIF, which endures to this day. The broader popular appeal of the fringe movement is highlighted by both Jen Harvie and Angela Bartie as a partial redress for the exclusion of Scottish drama.124 The fringe, which was directly provoked by this lack of Scottish representation in the first Festival programme, is commonly seen as a foil to the elitism and international focus of the EIF.125 The popular foundational narrative of the EFF champions eight Scottish theatre companies who turned up and performed, unsolicited, around the edges of the official programme in that first year. Together, the EIF and EFF, which Harvie and Bartie view as deeply intertwined, have made significant contributions to the local economy while also producing profound direct and indirect cultural effects.126

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Harvie argues that in addition to the fringe movement, the summer festivals have also supported Scottish theatre by helping to build a theatrical infrastructure and festival culture that supports the arts all year-round.127 Resentment towards the festivals was not completely resolved by the fringe movement, the popularity of which brought its own challenges. EFF historian Alistair Moffat recounts how criticisms over a lack of Scottish representation came to a head again in 1955. In this year, Duncan McRae, a local playwright who had successfully staged several popular, professional productions at the Palladium Theatre on the Fringe, publicly criticised then EIF Director, Ian Hunter, for excluding Scottish drama from the official programme. Writing in The Scotsman on 3 September of that year, McRae asserted, They aren’t ashamed of Scotch Whisky or Arthur’s Seat, but they seem to be of Scottish Drama. They almost pretend it doesn’t exist… One of the main criticisms levelled against Scottish plays is that no-one goes to see them anyway. I have tried to make that particular criticism invalid.128

According to Moffat, Hunter’s reply to the criticism was that ‘the Festival had not been offered any Scottish play which was good enough to be included in the Festival programme’, although it was good enough for the fringe.129 This tension between being sensitive and responsive to local culture while at the same time upholding an international standard of excellence, not to mention the implicit value judgement on Scottish culture within the assumption that these two prerequisites are diametrically opposed, remains a sensitive issue that continues to be negotiated by Festival Directors within their annual programmes. This antagonism between the EIF and its host city was exacerbated by its governance structures, specifically the maintenance of a London office for the Festival Director. According to Jennifer Attala, the early Festival Directors were more concerned with bringing international artists to Edinburgh than engaging ‘in the political and cultural life of the city’ outside of festival time, and therefore, ‘they did not have a strategic approach to addressing the issues which had emerged as a result of political change in Scotland or in the UK’.130 It was not until Brian McMaster became Festival Director in 1992 that the London Office was closed and the head of the EIF was expected to reside in Edinburgh all year-round. As Miller explains, ‘McMaster brought to an end the longstanding and frequently acrimonious dispute about the London office

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by moving to Edinburgh, a very popular decision with the staff and the local community’.131 Attala characterises this move as ‘re-orient[ing] the EIF to a position of cultural centrality and potential power in Edinburgh’.132 McMaster’s tenure (1992–2005) also marked the beginning of the EIF providing leadership in cultural policy formation through strategic relationships with local and national authorities. Ultimately, the organisers of the early festivals recognised Edinburgh’s qualities to provide the ‘ideal surroundings’133 for the new venture, and there is increasing recognition that local support is needed for their continued success. The EIF is financed through ticket sales and corporate sponsorship, and throughout its history, it has been subsidised by local, Scottish, and UK governments to help it to maintain its high programming standards and to enable artistic directors to ‘continue to include outstanding cultural events even if they were unable to attract large audiences’.134 While public sector funding shrunk in the decade following the global financial crisis, community participation and engagement is recognised as a necessary condition for ongoing investment and support. Today, the Edinburgh festivals contribute not only to the local economy and marketing campaigns but also to the place identity of the city. Hague notes that ‘overall the events were welcomed’ by the 1990s, despite the ‘residents who grumbled about the crowds in August’.135 Indeed, the authors of the second Thundering Hooves could report in 2015 that improved engagement with the local community saw local pride in the festivals jump from 35 to 77%.136 This rehabilitation of Edinburgh’s festivals from denigrating to championing Scottish culture has made it possible for local authorities in cooperation with business interests to pursue festivalisation as the basis for economic growth. The Festivalisation of Edinburgh Edinburgh has pursued an official festivals strategy that has directly sought to associate the city with its festivals within marketing campaigns nationally and internationally. Kirstie Jamieson argues that ‘With today’s competitive urban context, Edinburgh’s culture, heritage, and public spaces are regarded as assets that add rich social references to the lexicon of city marketing campaigns’.137 From the 1990s, McMaster oversaw business-oriented organisational change at the EIF that encouraged closer alignment with the city’s tourism marketing. In 1999, the

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City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) published Toward the New Enlightenment, a cultural policy for Edinburgh in the new millennium, which recognised the benefits of festivals in raising the city’s profile, generating economic development through tourism and investment, and supporting the service sector.138 Over the subsequent decades, the CEC in collaboration with other government and tourism agencies has commissioned a series of reports and economic impact studies to promote greater coordination between major stakeholders and to explicitly champion ‘Edinburgh, Festival City’ on an official level. Given the historical ambivalence towards these events, the explicit articulation of a ‘Festival City’ branding for Edinburgh could be read as a top-down attempt to impose a place myth on the city. Edinburgh is recognised as the world’s leading festival, but a persistent theme running throughout these reports is a concern with maintaining their competitive edge. As early as 2001, the authors of The Edinburgh Festivals Strategy argue that ‘Edinburgh cannot afford to be complacent about its place in the international festivals’ marketplace’.139 Ultimately, the report recommended that the festivals collaborate with primary stakeholders on ‘an effective advocacy and marketing campaign’ to ‘develop Edinburgh’s reputation as the festival city and as a city of culture, both nationally and internationally’.140 This was further developed in the first Thundering Hooves report in 2006 that examined Edinburgh’s competitive position in the face of the increasing number of UK and international festivals and ‘use of cultural programming (festivals and events) as strategic devices to promote tourism and to build the brand-identity of the cities or regions where they are located’.141 The report found that there was cause for optimism in the short term with heritage and geography providing Edinburgh’s festivals with a competitive advantage. The consultants argued that in the long term, Edinburgh’s pre-eminent position as the Festival City was vulnerable and provided recommendations to preserve it. Chief among these measures was an increase of the CEC’s cultural budget from 2.8% to 4%, and the formation of Festivals Edinburgh and the Festivals Forum. Festivals Edinburgh, which was officially established in 2007, is a voluntary city-wide organisation that brings together the directors of eleven member festivals to ‘maintain and develop the value of the Festivals’ [sic] and the Festival City’s position locally and globally’.142 This organisation also participates in the Festivals Forum, also established in 2007, which brings together the festivals’ key public

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sector stakeholders—including the CEC, Creative Scotland, the Scottish Government, VisitScotland, EventScotland, and Scottish Enterprise— with commercial interests for strategic decision making through ‘joined up thinking’. Hague identifies the Festivals Forum as ‘unambiguously a vehicle for festivalisation’ driven by ‘an agenda that connects culture with growing tourism’ and questions the use of public money to pay consultants to confirm, rather than challenge, the perceptions of these bodies.143 The second Thundering Hooves report, published in 2015, reviewed the progress of the Steering Committee against their self-defined key performance indicators (KPIs) and called for even greater coordination between the public and private sectors to safeguard Edinburgh’s global leadership role by reinvesting in transport, accommodation, cultural venues, and digital infrastructure to overcome perceived bottlenecks to enhanced growth.144 By their own indicators, this strategy has been enormously successful with significant increases in visitor numbers and spending between 2010 and 2015 in line with the Scottish government’s growth strategy (2012–2020).145 Hague finds that these governance structures, which resemble a ‘growth coalition’, have harnessed Edinburgh’s tourism and cultural strengths, increasing in importance relative to the financial sector diminished by the financial crisis, to prioritise economic growth over the capacity of the city to ‘absorb visitor numbers’.146 This calls into question the legitimacy of using public money to ensure local buy-in for the Festival City brand and, as Hague observes, has led to a reignition of the old hostilities towards the festivals.147 Where once the EIF was accused of being a foreign invading force denigrating Scottish culture, today Edinburgh’s festivals champion Scottish national identity on the global stage. Edinburgh’s festivals are ‘Scotland’s world-leading cultural brand’, and in 2014 collectively generated an economic impact of GBP£261 million.148 According to Festivals Edinburgh, they ‘offer a remarkable and unrivalled international platform and springboard for Scottish artists and companies, represent a major attraction and influence for those choosing to live, work, visit and invest in Edinburgh and Scotland and define Scotland’s cultural identity on the global stage’.149 In the twenty-first century, these festivals are expected to articulate an ambiguous position between being distinctively local but internationally renowned, which has seen them rhetorically rehabilitated as proudly Scottish events:

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They represent Scotland at its most confident, its most open and its most creative. They are distinctively Scottish and yet fiercely and famously international and are committed to capitalising their enormous global value for the benefit of Scotland.150

Hague notes that while Edinburgh’s festivals had enjoyed ‘a long period in which it appeared that previous popular and political dissent has been assuaged and forgotten’, overcrowding, rising accommodation costs, and exclusion from public spaces have contributed to some of this animosity re-emerging.151 These renewed tensions will be further explored in Chapter Three, but as this review of the positioning of Edinburgh’s festivals within local policies and reports reveals, festivalisation has been a long-term official policy to support place marketing and economic growth. Edinburgh has therefore pursued a festivals strategy at the official government level. From its earliest inception, festival management has been political, and changing attitudes and priorities of the local authorities towards the arts has influenced the festivals’ fortunes and artistic programming. Regardless of their acceptance by residents, these events have shaped Edinburgh materially and discursively over their 70-year history. As festival management was professionalised and became more businessoriented in the 1990s, there was also a growing recognition of the ways in which these events could be capitalised upon within tourism campaigns and place promotion. The Edinburgh Festivals Strategy at the turn of the century was an official attempt to brand the city with these events and to privilege this place myth over alternatives. The historical animosity held primarily towards the EIF, but also overcrowding during the EFF, is now viewed as an obstacle to maintaining Edinburgh’s reputation as the world’s leading Festival City. The re-orientation of these famously international events towards their local community cannot simply be attributed to the rhetoric of urban entrepreneurialism, however, as recent initiatives by the Scottish Government to support Scottish culture within the Festivals and to privilege the arts as a means of asserting a distinct Scottish cultural identity have also played a significant role and will be explored in Chapter Five. In stark contrast to Adelaide, the relationship between Edinburgh and its festivals remains, as it has throughout its history, complicated and contested.

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South Australia: The Festival State The Adelaide Festival for the Arts, as it was once known, was founded as a biennial festival in 1960 and remained so until 2012 when the South Australian government announced that it would be contributing additional funding to enable the event to be staged annually.152 While each Australian state capital now hosts its own international arts festival, Adelaide’s is recognised as the premier event. With 1,318 performances staged over four weeks in February and March in 2019, the Adelaide Fringe, which has been an annual event since 2007, is one of the largest and longest running open-access fringe festivals in the world.153 As outlined in Chapter One, the original mandate of the Festival was to bring the best of the world’s performers to the city every two years to overcome the ‘tyranny of distance’, and the civic and economic advantages for the city were recognised and used to attract sponsors from the very beginning. Unlike Edinburgh, the Adelaide Festival, according to Mary Ann Hunter, is both formed and supported by its city: ‘the Adelaide Festival claims foremost to be embraced by its local city constituency. It is widely considered to be Adelaide’s art festival: a festival sited within the city, which has also helped shape and define the city’.154 This local support for Adelaide’s festivals is seen as a source of competitive advantage over other events, including Edinburgh. South Australia has long championed its artistic and cultural credentials based on the prestige of its festivals. Adelaide’s Festival Centre, Australia’s oldest venue of this kind, is celebrated for inspiring other national complexes and representing the ‘entire State: the moniker “South Australia – Festival State” travelling untold kilometres on number plates across Australia’.155 The Liberal South Australian government, which came to power under Premier Steven Marshall in 2018, reaffirmed the importance of Adelaide’s festivals within its Arts and Culture Plan 2019– 2024: ‘the Adelaide Festival, the Fringe and “Mad March” have fuelled the oxygen of an entire generation’, promoting ‘an annual schedule of festival activity’.156 Adelaide Festival City has significant brand recognition among interstate travellers and is gaining recognition internationally for its creative culture.157 In 2015, Adelaide became a UNESCO City of Music with its citation promoting the role of WOMADelaide and the OzAsia festivals in the creation of a sustainable and vibrant city.158 While the South Australian government and City of Adelaide Council do not pursue an explicit policy of festivalisation in the vein of Edinburgh, they

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do champion Adelaide’s festivals as a key cultural strength and economic driver. Adelaide Festival City has been promoted as a place myth at an official level since the 1960s to provide popular images of the city to attract further visitors and investment. Analysing place images that are contained within popular culture, which for Shields includes advertising images, also reveals the material processes and institutional structures that support such constructions. In the mid-1960s and early 1970s, the South Australian Government Tourism Bureau published posters declaring ‘Adelaide: Australia’s Festival City’.159 This points to the longevity of Adelaide Festival City as a place image and how it has been harnessed by local authorities throughout its history. The fashioning of Adelaide as the capital of the ‘Festival State’ is therefore a self-conscious exercise on behalf of government officials that is illustrated most aptly by the moniker that adorned South Australian licence plates between 1981 and 2008.160 Images such as these are both derived from and reinforce this place myth of Adelaide. While the South Australian government does not have an official ‘Festival City’ strategy for tourism and economic development in the same way that Edinburgh has had, and the ‘Festival State’ moniker is no longer being added to new license plates, Adelaide’s festivals continue to contribute to the state’s branding and tourism initiatives. The styling of South Australia as the ‘Festival State’ therefore capitalises on the artistic and cultural heritage of the capital—primarily derived from the Adelaide Festival’s prestigious status—to promote the distinctiveness and advantages of the city. The favourable climate, its attractiveness and abundance of green spaces, and the small CBD with a concentration of venues (located within one square mile) recur in advertisements of Adelaide and the Festival alike. In this way, the urban space of Adelaide is used to define the unique attributes of the Festival, which in turn lends itself to the marketing of the city. Policy documents suggest that the Adelaide Festival (along with the Adelaide Fringe) continues to play a key role in the place construction of the city materially, through the direct benefits of tourist revenue, as well as discursively, by promoting a particular image of Adelaide as a cultural capital. There is a concerted effort across a range of policy documents at both the state and local level of governments, therefore, to build upon the reputation and prestige of Adelaide’s festivals to promote Adelaide as a liveable city.

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Adelaide: Designed for Life Adelaide’s festivals underwrite its creative city status through an annual performance of civic vibrancy and support Adelaide’s aspirations to be ‘the most liveable city in the world’.161 Adelaide’s Council defines liveability as ‘a great place to be, whether as a resident or business owner in one of the city’s precincts, a student of our world class universities, or a visitor to our famed festivals, cultural institutions and attractions’.162 In 2020, the Council’s strategic priorities centre around ‘thriving communities, strong economies, dynamic city culture, and environmental leadership’ as Adelaide recovers from the economic implications of the global health pandemic, and, as at the time of writing in January 2022, dealing with an outbreak of the Omicron coronavirus variant.163 In language reminiscent of Richard Florida’s creative cities thesis, the Council aims to ‘create a city that is welcoming, inclusive and accessible to all’ with a focus on affordable housing and improving digital connectivity, and the festivals are invoked to reinforce Adelaide’s dynamic and diverse culture.164 As the capital of South Australia, Adelaide is also the focus of the South Australian government’s initiatives as they have evolved over time. South Australia’s strategic priorities and arts policy direction in the early twenty-first century was stable under the long-running Labor government in power between 2002 and 2018, led first by Mike Rann who was succeeded in 2011 by Jay Weatherill. This former government’s 2011 Strategic Plan continued to declare that ‘We are the Festival State’, but rather than an overarching strategy it was subsumed within a vision of South Australian communities as ‘vibrant places to live, work, play and visit’.165 Population growth to maintain the state’s quality of life was a key priority under Labor.166 Despite a modest population increase with 1.3 million residing in Adelaide in 2020, the Marshall government was also concerned with this ‘relatively flat population growth’.167 This is accompanied by significant shifts in the South Australian economy, most notably the demise of the car manufacturing industry and the innovative transition to renewable energy. The global transition from industrial to knowledgebased economies is also given as a reason to pivot in South Australia’s Arts and Culture policy, with the renewable and aerospace sectors highlighted as new potentials. In 2020, South Australia reached its goal of 60% state-generated electricity from renewables and now aims to achieve 100% by 2030 and 500% by 2050.168 Well ahead of the rest of Australia, South Australia has led the transition away from a dependence on mining

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and fossil fuels and has pioneered projects such as the 2017 construction of the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in collaboration with Tesla.169 The promotion of festivals and events is also unashamedly positioned as part of the Liberal government’s growth agenda. The South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC) was established in 1993–1994, and in its first Marketing Plan for South Australia for the period from 1994 to 1997, it defines the South Australian brand identity as ‘based on the State’s (Adelaide’s) sense of difference’.170 The document continues to define this difference: That is, its: gracious character; heritage ambience; mediterranean [sic] climate and lifestyle, and: access to the Australian outdoors. The core themes we will highlight will include food, wine, festivals, and South Australia’s unspoilt natural environment.171

This brand identity has remained relatively stable across the decades with the Liberal government’s Visitor Economy Sector Plan 2030 (published in 2019) declaring ‘South Australia is bursting with culture, wildlife encounters, exceptional food and wine, events and entertainment’.172 The three ‘experiences’ that appeal to visitors are identified within the plan as food and drink, nature and wildlife, and events and festivals, which include sport, and can be leveraged to ‘promote our state and tell the story of South Australia’.173 Far from a holistic festivalisation strategy, the plan’s main objective in this area is to increase the economic impact of festivals and events as measured by the economic impact surveys. Adelaide’s festivals, nevertheless, have been drawn on from the 1960s to today to enhance its cultural claims and celebrate a ‘festive spirit’, which can also be promoted in tourism campaigns to attract potential visitors to the state.174 Light Years Ahead The City of Adelaide is dedicated to supporting the city’s reputation ‘as one of the greatest festival and arts cities in the world’.175 In 2013, consultant Warren McCann undertook a review to ‘identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Adelaide’s current status as Festival City, and to specify actions and strategies required to maximise the competitive position and the benefits, for Adelaide and the state of South Australia, of Adelaide’s major arts and cultural festivals’.176 The

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Lights Years Ahead report operates on the basis that Adelaide’s festivals already have a competitive edge: ‘The challenge is not so much one of building a leading position but maintaining it’.177 This preeminent position is based on the history and longevity of the city’s two leading events: the Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Fringe. Other advantages include the ‘clustering’ of events in March to attract visitors; the small size of the city enabling greater collaboration; and the geography and layout of the city (specifically that it is flat and compact), meaning that the ‘festivals are highly visible and take over the city with maximum impact’.178 The phenomenon of festivalisation and the shifting landscape produced by ‘new and pervasive digital technologies’,179 however, presents serious challenges to the future of Adelaide’s events. McCann argues throughout for the maintenance of government grants to the sector based on an acknowledgement of the important economic benefits, as well as social cohesion and community engagement that the festivals contribute to. The report recognises that there is a natural limit to government subsidy, however, and advocates Adelaide using its existing infrastructure more productively through partnerships with the private sector.180 The report’s 71 recommendations range from greater collaboration between the festivals, inclusion of a festival representative in various government committees (similar to Edinburgh’s festivals and events champion), and the creation of a South Australian innovation lab (also modelled on Edinburgh), to the suggestion that Adelaide become a training ground and educational provider for festival staff. This builds on the work of Festivals Adelaide, established in 2011, as the strategic umbrella organisation representing all eleven of Adelaide’s major festivals like its Edinburgh counterpart. Supported by the City of Adelaide Council and Arts SA, the purpose of Festivals Adelaide is to ‘act as a collective voice for this very important sector in South Australia’s reputation and economy’.181 Through this organisation, festival organisers cooperate to assert the significance of these events to the political economy and social life of the city to secure further investment and expand their role. Light Years Ahead is indicative of the way in which festival organisers and stakeholders are advised to leverage the discursive use of festivals within place promotion to secure urban resource allocation for these events. McCann highlights the discursive contribution of the festivals to the city over time, portraying Adelaide ‘as a culturally sophisticated and engaged city, a place of excitement and fun’, to argue that the festivals

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should be better leveraged within South Australia’s marketing campaigns and promotional efforts.182 Moreover, McCann asserts Adelaide’s reputation as a cultural leader since these events were established in 1960 and the strong, ‘savvy’, local audience for the work presented. Importantly, the report identifies the support of the local community as a major advantage (and implicitly one that Adelaide has over Edinburgh): ‘The South Australian community supports the concept of Adelaide as a festival city. Celebration of arts and culture and the belief that Adelaide is a cultural leader are both important elements of South Australia’s self-identification and pride’.183 This is supported by a study on behalf of Festivals Adelaide into the socio-cultural impact of these events in which 66% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the festivals contributed positively to South Australian tourism and 60% agreed or strongly agreed that they improved the state’s image.184 The material and discursive ways in which the city defines these festivals are seen to differentiate them on the global stage and give Adelaide a competitive advantage as a Festival City. The Festival City, which has appeared on advertisements and tourism brochures, and in government documents in Adelaide, has come to form a set of images that define the ‘essential character’ of this city. It has formed a place myth that endures in the popular imagination even after having been removed from the state’s number plates. Mark Billinge suggests that beyond selling existing place images, the role of place marketers is to reform these images. He explains, ‘[t]he primary goal of the place marketer is to construct a new image of the place to replace either vague or negative images previously held by current or potential residents, investors or visitors’.185 In Adelaide, as in Edinburgh, the Festival City is a place myth promoted by local government in collaboration with local business and other stakeholders as a vibrant and attractive spectacle capable of producing economic growth while enhancing civic pride.

Conclusion This chapter has proposed that the complex relationship between festival and city can be interrogated through Shields’s conception of a place myth. Rather than viewing these cities as the backdrop of these international arts festivals and fringes that merely provide local colour and investment from the public purse, this analysis has considered the histories of city and festival alongside and intersecting each other. The purpose of this analysis

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has been to demonstrate that the relationship between festival and city— in both Adelaide and Edinburgh—is one of depth and complexity that cannot simply be attributed to their role in place promotion and urban entrepreneurialism. In both cases, the Festival City place myth pre-dates the global trend of creating arts festivals for the purpose of selling place, and these events have played both direct and indirect roles in shaping the physical infrastructure and socio-political, economic, and cultural processes of these cities. Despite the rhetoric of arts festivals contributing to social cohesion, this comparative analysis has revealed a different level of local investment and engagement that can be attributed to the specific local evolution of these events. By exploring several competing discursive constructions of Adelaide and Edinburgh within the urban imagination, moreover, I have sought to reveal the power relations and agendas behind their constructions as Festival Cities. The Festival City place myth has contributed to the production of space within both Adelaide and Edinburgh. Recognition of the ways in which arts festivals construct cities, materially and discursively, provides a basis for future intervention and the creation of alternative constructions. Shields argues that by ‘remembering that the spatial is more than the historically and spatially specific ontological arrangements through which we live our lives’,186 we can make interventions by imagining spaces functioning in different ways. This has implications for politically engaged cultural practices that seek to imagine and enact alternative social realities. Shields continues by arguing that ‘by paying attention to the specific technologies of manipulation and formation of everyday spatial notions and practices, we can build a base in theory from which to criticise these arrangements and to imagine other arrangements, other worlds and, even, different experiences of the lived body’.187 As I have demonstrated throughout this chapter, the power relations and agendas that shape the production of space can be explored through an analysis of popular constructions within the urban imagination. The Festival City place myth is a symbolic image that has grown out of the international reputation of these cultural events, but more recently it has been harnessed within place promotion to serve particular agendas. The effects of this instrumentalisation for tourism and urban planning, and challenges to the Festival City place myth, will be explored further in the next chapter where I reveal how festivalisation continues to be contested, particularly when it encroaches on public space.

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Notes 1. Cliff Hague, ‘The Festivalisation of Edinburgh: Constructing Its Governance’, Scottish Affairs, 30.1 (2021): 31–52. 2. Rob Shields, Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 60. 3. SQW Economic Development Consultants and TNS Travel and Tourism, ‘Edinburgh’s Year Round Festivals 2004–05 Final Report’ (Edinburgh: City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian, EventScotland, VisitScotland, 2005), p. 65. 4. Cliff Hague, ‘The Festivalisation of Edinburgh: Manifestations, Impacts and Responses’, Scottish Affairs, 30.3 (2021): 289–310. 5. Jennifer Attala, ‘Performing the Festival – A Study of the Edinburgh International Festival in the Twenty-First Century’ (Phd Dissertation, University of Glasgow, 2012), p. 214; 137. 6. Shields, Places on the Margin, p. 18. 7. Don Mitchell, Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), p. xv. 8. Ibid., p. 113. 9. Hague, ‘Manifestations, Impacts and Responses’. 10. Shields, Places on the Margins, p. 47. 11. Ibid., p. 60. 12. Ibid., pp. 60–61. 13. David Pinder, Visions of the City: Utopianism, Power and Politics in Twentieth-Century Urbanism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), p. viii. 14. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans Donald Nicolson-Smith (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1991), p. 26.; original emphasis. 15. Ibid. 16. David Harvey, ‘From Space to Place and Back Again’, in Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1996), pp. 291–326 (p. 306). 17. Shields, p. 47. 18. Ibid. 19. These are the characters of Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, and Alexander McCall-Smith’s novels set in contemporary Edinburgh. 20. ‘Adelaide’ by Ben Folds, ‘Adelaide’ by Paul Kelly, ‘City of Light’ by Hilltop Hoods. 21. Marjana Johansson and Jerzy Kociatkiewicz, ‘City Festivals: Creativity and Control in Staged Urban Experience’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 18.4 (2011): 394–405 (p. 395). 22. Lefebvre, p. 17.

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23. Brian Edwards and Paul Jenkins, ‘Introduction’, in Edinburgh: The Making of a Capital City, ed. by Brian Edwards and Paul Jenkins (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 1–16 (p. 8). 24. Ian Campbell and Margaret Stewart, ‘The Evolution of the Medieval and Renaissance City’, in Edinburgh: The Making of a Capital City, ed. by Brian Edwards and Paul Jenkins (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 21–41 (p. 21). 25. Michael Fry, Edinburgh: A History of the City (London: Macmillan, 2009), p. 25. 26. Edwards and Jenkins, pp. 1–2. 27. Robert Crawford, On Glasgow and Edinburgh (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013), p. 5. 28. Edwards and Jenkins, p. 2. 29. Ibid., p. 7. 30. Richard Rodger, ‘Landscapes of Capital: Industry and the Built Environment in Edinburgh, 1750–1920’, in Edinburgh: The Making of a Capital City, ed. by Brian Edwards and Paul Jenkins (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 85–102 (p. 85). 31. Ibid., p. 86. 32. Ibid. 33. David Harvey, Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), p. 190. 34. Donald Campbell, Edinburgh: A Cultural and Literary History (Oxford: Signal, 2003), p. 40. 35. Cited in Crawford, On Glasgow and Edinburgh, p. 17. 36. Ibid., pp. 17–18. 37. Shields, p. 47. 38. Lou Rosenburg and Jim Johnson, ‘“Conservative Surgery” in Old Edinburgh, 1880–1940’, in Edinburgh: The Making of a Capital City, ed. by Brian Edwards and Paul Jenkins (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 131–49 (pp. 131–32). 39. See ibid. 40. Fry, p. 227. 41. Paul L. Knox, ‘Edinburgh’, Cities, 1.4 (1984): 328–34 (p. 330). 42. Shields, p. 7. 43. Ibid., p. 31. 44. Peter Robinson, ‘Edinburgh—A Tenement City’, in Edinburgh: The Making of a Capital City, ed. by Brian Edwards and Paul Jenkins (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 103–25 (p. 109). 45. Ibid., p. 124. 46. Ibid.

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47. Charles McKean, ‘Twinning Cities: Modernisation Versus Improvement in the Two Towns of Edinburgh’, in Edinburgh: The Making of a Capital City, ed. By Brian Edwards and Paul Jenkins (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 42–63 (p. 61). 48. Knox, p. 329. 49. Fry, p. 131. 50. Rodger, p. 86. 51. Ewen A. Cameron, Impaled Upon a Thistle: Scotland since 1880 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), p. 29. 52. Ibid., p. 218. 53. Duncan Macmillan, ‘A Single-Minded Polymath: Patrick Geddes and the Spatial form of Social Thought’, The Edinburgh Review 88 (1992): 78– 88 (p. 85). 54. John Stuart-Murray, ‘Landscape, Topography and Hydrology’, in Edinburgh: The Making of a Capital City, ed. by Brian Edwards and Paul Jenkins (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 64–80 (p. 78). 55. Knox, ‘Edinburgh’, p. 328. 56. Fry, Edinburgh: A History of the City, p. 322. 57. City of Literature Trust, ‘Creative Cities Network’, Edinburgh City of Literature, http://www.cityofliterature.com/ecol.aspx?sec=8&pid=37& item=1 [accessed 12 April 2014]. 58. Crawford, On Glasgow and Edinburgh, p. 78. 59. See City of Edinburgh Council, ‘Edinburgh Fiction Map’, Your Library, https://yourlibrary.edinburgh.gov.uk/web/arena/edinburghfiction-map [accessed 23 July 2022]. 60. Shields, Places on the Margin, p. 47. 61. Rebecca Madgin and Richard Rodger, ‘Inspiring Capital? Deconstructing Myths and Reconstructing Urban Environments, Edinburgh, 1860– 2010’, Urban History, 40.3 (2013): 507–29 (p. 512). 62. Ibid., p. 523; 525. 63. Ibid., p. 512. 64. Rodger, p. 100. 65. Shields, p. 60. 66. Madgin and Rodger, p. 527; 529. 67. Rodger, p. 100. 68. Edwards and Jenkins, p. 5. 69. Madgin and Rodger, p. 529. 70. Australian Bureau of Statistics, National Regional Profile: Adelaide (Statistical Division), http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@nrp. nsf/Latestproducts/405Population/People12006-2010?opendocum ent&tabname=Summary&prodno=405&issue=2006-2010 [accessed 9 January 2012].

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71. This is the theme, and indeed the subtitle, of Derek Whitelock’s history of Adelaide. Derek Whitelock, Adelaide: A Sense of Difference, 3rd edn (Kew, VIC: Australian Scholarly Publications, 2000), p. 75. 72. Ibid., p. 27. 73. Robert Foster and Amanda Nettelbeck, ‘From Protectorate to Protection, 1836–1911’, in Colonialism and Its Aftermath: A History of Aboriginal South Australia, ed. by Peggy Brock and Tom Gara (Mile End, SA: Wakefield Press, 2017), pp. 27–40. 74. Shields, p. 60. 75. Peggy Brock, ‘Introduction’, in Colonialism and Its Aftermath: A History of Aboriginal South Australia, ed. by Peggy Brock and Tom Gara (Mile End, SA: Wakefield Press, 2017), pp. xvi–xxiii (p. xvi). 76. Rob Amery, Warraparna Kaurna!: Reclaiming an Australian Language, (Adelaide: The University of Adelaide Press, 2016), p. 61. 77. Foster and Nettelbeck, p. 28. 78. Ibid. 79. Ibid., p. 29. 80. Ibid., pp. 31–32. 81. Christine Lockwood, ‘Early Encounters on the Adelaide Plains and Encounter Bay’, in Colonialism and Its Aftermath: A History of Aboriginal South Australia, ed. by Peggy Brock and Tom Gara (Mile End, SA: Wakefield Press, 2018), pp. 65–81 (p. 70). 82. Ibid., p. 65. 83. Ibid., p. 81. 84. Foster and Nettelbeck, p. 40. 85. Tom Gara, ‘Adelaide Had an Aboriginal History Too’, in Adelaide: A Sense of Difference, ed. by Derek Whitelock, 3rd ed. (Kew, VIC: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2000), pp. 205–08 (p. 205). 86. Lockwood, p. 81. 87. Tom Gara, ‘The Aboriginal Presence in Adelaide, 1860s–1960s: From Exclusion to Assimilation’, in Colonialism and Its Aftermath: A History of Aboriginal South Australia, ed. by Peggy Brock and Tom Gara (Mile End, SA: Wakefield Press, 2017), pp. 86–105 (p. 105). 88. Whitelock, Adelaide, p. 75. 89. Ibid., p. 100. 90. Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 133. 91. Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, p. 134. 92. Whitelock, Adelaide, p. 286. 93. Ibid., p. 283. 94. Robert Milliken, ‘Obituary: Don Dunstan’, Independent, 17 February http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary1999, don-dunstan-1071332.html [accessed 12 January 2012].

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95. Whitelock, Adelaide, p. 148. 96. Goldsworthy, Adelaide, p. 3. 97. This is the title of journalist Stephen Orr’s true crime book: Stephen Orr, The Cruel City: Is Adelaide the Murder Capital of Australia? (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2011). 98. Orr, The Cruel City, p. 186. 99. Cited in Goldsworthy, Adelaide, p. 162. 100. Orr, The Cruel City, p. xiii. 101. Ross Noble, ‘Nonsensory Overload’, Thebarton Town Hall, Torrensville, Adelaide, Saturday 17 March 2012, 8PM. 102. Orr, The Cruel City, p. xvi. 103. Ibid., p. 186. 104. Rushdie cited in Goldsworthy, Adelaide, p. 162. 105. Shields, Places on the Margin, p. 47. 106. Ibid., p. 60. 107. Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘Crime and Safety’, Australian Bureau of Statistics, http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Lookup/ 1345.4Feature%20Article1Nov%202009 [accessed 9 February 2012]. 108. Goldsworthy, Adelaide, pp. 162–63. 109. Goldsworthy, Adelaide, p. 167. 110. Whitelock and Loan, Festival!, p. 174. 111. Lefebvre, p. 74. 112. Hague, ‘Constructing’, p. 31. 113. Ibid., pp. 38–40. 114. Ibid., p. 38. 115. Ibid. 116. Shields, p. 31. 117. Fry, p. 380. 118. Ibid. 119. Ibid., p. 381. 120. Jen Harvie, ‘Cultural Effects of the Edinburgh International Festival: Elitism, Identities, Industries’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 13.4 (2003): 12–26 (p. 12). 121. Eileen Miller, The Edinburgh International Festival 1947–1996 (Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1996), p. 13. 122. Ibid., p. 7. 123. Ibid., p. 13. 124. Harvie, p. 21. 125. Ibid., p. 13. 126. Ibid.; Angela Bartie, The Edinburgh Festivals: Culture and Society in PostWar Britain (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013). 127. Harvie, ‘Cultural Effects’, p. 23.

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128. Alistair Moffat, The Edinburgh Fringe (London: Johnston and Bacon, 1978), p. 22. 129. Ibid. 130. Attala, p. 59. 131. Miller, The Edinburgh International Festival 1947–1996, p. 138. 132. Attala, ‘Performing the Festival’, p. 66. 133. Lord Provost John I. Falconer cited in Miller, The Edinburgh International Festival 1947–1996, p. vii. 134. Miller, The Edinburgh International Festival 1947–1996, p. 78. 135. Hague, ‘Constructing’, p. 40. 136. BOP Consulting and Festivals and Events International, ‘Edinburgh’s Festivals: Thundering Hooves 2.0. A Ten Year Strategy to Sustain the Success of Edinburgh’s Festivals’, Edinburgh Festival City (Edinburgh: Festivals Edinburgh, May 2015), p. 73. 137. Kirstie Jamieson, ‘Edinburgh: The Festival Gaze and Its Boundaries’, Space and Culture, 7 (2004): 64–75 (p. 65). 138. City of Edinburgh Council, Towards the New Enlightenment: A Cultural Policy for the City of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: City of Edinburgh, 1999), p. 22. 139. Graham Devlin Associates, ‘Festivals and the City: The Edinburgh Festivals Strategy’ (Edinburgh: City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Arts Council, Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian, 2001), p. i. 140. Ibid., p. 31. 141. AEA Consulting, ‘Thundering Hooves: Maintaining the Global Competitive Edge of Edinburgh’s Festivals’, Festivals Edinburgh (London: AEA Consulting, 2006), p. 3. 142. Festivals Edinburgh, ‘About Festivals Edinburgh’, Edinburgh Festival City, http://www.edinburghfestivalcity.com/about [accessed 25 January 2022]. 143. Hague, ‘Constructing’, p. 42; 41. 144. BOP Consulting and Festivals and Events International. 145. Hague, ‘Constructing’, p. 45. 146. Ibid., p. 31. 147. Ibid. 148. Festivals Edinburgh, Edinburgh’s Festivals: Defining Scotland’s Cultural Identity on the Global Stage (Edinburgh: Festivals Edinburgh, 2014), p. 3. 149. Ibid. 150. Ibid. 151. Hague, ‘Constructing’, p. 32; 48. 152. Matthew Westwood, ‘Festival a Bottom-Line Pleasure’, The Australian, 19 March 2012, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/festivala-bottom-line-pleasure/story-fncihiro-1226303278643 [accessed 27 March 2012].

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153. Adelaide Fringe, Annual Review 2019 (Adelaide: Adelaide Fringe Inc., 2019). 154. Mary Ann Hunter, ‘Utopia, Maps and Ecstasy: Configuring Space in Barrie Kosky’s 1996 Adelaide Festival’, Australasian Drama Studies, 44 (2004), p. 36.; original emphasis. 155. Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC), Arts and Culture Plan South Australia 2019–2024 (Adelaide: Government of South Australia, 2019), https://www.dpc.sa.gov.au/responsibilities/arts-andculture/arts-plan/arts-review-and-plan-for-south-australia [accessed 16 September 2021], p. 13. 156. The Marshall Government subsequently lost the election in March 2022 with Labor’s Peter Malinauskas replacing Marshall as premier. DPC, Arts and Culture Plan South Australia 2019-2024, p. 13. 157. SATC, The South Australian Visitor Economy Sector Plan 2030 (Adelaide: Government of South Australia, 2019), https://tourism.sa.gov.au/ about/strategic-plans [accessed 16 September 2021], p. 9. 158. UNESCO, ‘Adelaide’, Creative Cities Network, https://en.unesco.org/ creative-cities/adelaide [accessed 17 September 2021]. 159. South Australian Tourism Commission, ‘Adelaide. Australia’s Festival City’ Poster, circa 1970. State Records of South Australia SRSA GRG7/97/33, https://www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-sa/482 54486071/in/album-72157709569686536/ [accessed 25 January 2022]. 160. John Merriman, ‘Outback Tops the Number Plate Slogans’, Sunday Mail, 29 December 2002, p. 20. 161. City of Adelaide, 2020–2024 Strategic Plan (Adelaide: City of Adelaide Council, 2020), https://www.cityofadelaide.com.au/aboutcouncil/plans-reporting/strategic-planning/ [accessed 17 September 2021]. 162. Ibid., p. 11. 163. Ibid., p. 6. 164. Ibid., p. 16; 20. 165. Government of South Australia, In a Great State: South Australia’s Strategic Plan (Adelaide: SA State Government, 2011), p. 27. 166. Ibid., p. 40. 167. ABS, ‘Regional Population’, ABS, 2019–2020 Financial Year, https:// www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/regional-population/lat est-release#data-download, accessed 17 September 2021; DPC, Arts and Culture Plan South Australia 2019–2024, p. 11. 168. Michael McGreevy and Fran Baum, ‘Against the Odds, South Australia is a Renewable Energy Powerhouse. How on Earth did they do it?’, The Conversation, 25 February 2021, https://theconversation.com/aga inst-the-odds-south-australia-is-a-renewable-energy-powerhouse-howon-earth-did-they-do-it-153789 [accessed 17 September 2021].

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169. Sara Tomevska, ‘Tesla Battery in South Australia Expanded by 50 per cent, Energy Minister Lauds Benefits’, ABC, https://www.abc.net.au/ news/2020-09-02/tesla-battery-expanded-as-sa-energy-minister-laudsbenefits/12622382 [accessed 17 September 2021]. 170. South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC), Taking Tourism to 2000: South Australian Tourism Commission Marketing Plan (Adelaide: SATC, September 1994), p. 11. 171. Ibid. 172. SATC, The South Australian Visitor Economy Sector Plan 2030, p. 8. 173. Ibid., pp. 8–9; 26. 174. See South Australian Tourism Commission, Events in South Australia, http://www.southaustralia.com/events.aspx [accessed 13 June 2014]. 175. City of Adelaide, 2020–2024 Strategic Plan, p. 8. 176. McCann, Light Years Ahead, p. 7. 177. Ibid., p. 14. 178. Ibid., pp. 14–15. 179. Ibid. 180. Ibid., p. 6. 181. Festivals Adelaide, ‘About ’, [accessed 26 March 2015]. 182. Ibid., p. 26. 183. Ibid. 184. Festivals Adelaide, ‘Media Release: Adelaide’s Arts Study Reveals Wide Popular Support for Festivals’. 185. Mark Billinge, ‘Trading History, Reclaiming the Past: The Crystal Palace as Icon’, in Selling Places: The City as Cultural Capital, Past and Present, ed. by Gerry Kearns and Chris Philo (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1993), pp. 103–31 (p. 133). 186. Shields, Places on the Margin, p. 8. 187. Ibid.

CHAPTER 3

Culture Wars: The Festivalisation of Public Space

Since their inception, the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) and the Adelaide Festival and their associated Fringes have shaped their host cities physically and symbolically. Marjana Johansson and Jerzy Kociatkiewicz argue that ‘The city does not just serve as a backdrop for the festival; the festival also transforms the city, both by altering its spatial constitution and by conferring a particular identity on the city’.1 Hosting an international arts festival requires the requisite high-tech theatre and performance venues to stage cutting-edge international work; suitable accommodation to house the influx of visitors to the city and enough variety in restaurants and cuisine to satisfy them; appropriate transport infrastructure and policing capabilities; flexible licensing arrangements and approval procedures for temporary venues and pop-up bars; the provision of reliable, free public internet connections; and support from local governments and stakeholders to stage these large-scale month-long events each year. In return, the festivals create a party atmosphere or buzz in the city for the duration of the event; attract intense media attention from the national and international press; raise revenue through ticket sales; and bring tourists to the city. The historical prestige of the festivals and their long-term relationship with their host cities casts Edinburgh and Adelaide as vibrant Festival Cities that are attractive to live in, work in, and visit.

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The previous chapter explored how festivalisation, or ‘using cultural phenomena to achieve economic restructuring and urban competitiveness’,2 has been adopted as a deliberate strategy within Edinburgh and Adelaide, albeit to different degrees. ‘Culture’, as geographer Don Mitchell reminds us, ‘is both a source of power and a source of domination’ and is particularly powerful when it is linked to geography and space.3 This source of power is contested by different groups and can lead to conflict over the right to use and define urban space, particularly public space. This chapter analyses two discursive events in which festivals’ use of public space was called into question either through a clash of leisure activities between cultural groups or public backlash against disrupted access to iconic city spaces. These high-profile local debates are here framed as ‘culture wars’, which according to Mitchell, ‘allow us to see “culture” “in the making”; they allow us to see how “culture” is always and everywhere inextricably related to social, political, and economic forces and practices’.4 These culture wars represent a challenge to festivalisation as an urban growth strategy and potentially undermine public identification with the Festival City place myth. In March 2012, an overlap of the Adelaide Festival and Fringe with the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercar race produced an unprecedented contest over urban space, tourist revenue, and Adelaide’s continued self-definition as a ‘Festival City’. This cultural clash was played out symbolically (and audibly) at the de facto Adelaide Festival opening night event when the open-air concert by Ennio Morricone and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra was underscored by the low growl of V8 engines from the nearby racetrack. In Edinburgh 2018, an urban controversy arose from the construction of high black boards around the perimeter of West Princes Street Gardens for the Summer Sessions, a ticketed concert, which obscured access to and views of this important public space in the centre of the city. This controversy marked the beginning of intense debate in online and offline spaces, in mainstream and social media, over the commercialisation of public space and negative impacts of festivalisation. This chapter analyses these performative events through textual analysis of the debates within traditional as well as social media, as representative of the public sphere, and is deepened through contextualisation within the broader Cultural Geography literature. These culture wars over who should have access to, and decision-making power over, public space exposes conflict within place-making narratives and challenges Edinburgh and Adelaide’s statuses as leading Festival Cities.

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The historical prestige of the EIF and the enormity of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (EFF) have distinguished Edinburgh as the self-proclaimed ‘world’s leading festival city’.5 Similarly, the status of the Adelaide Festival as ‘Australia’s highest-profile arts festival’ combined with the size and atmosphere generated by the Adelaide Fringe has traditionally distinguished Adelaide as Australia’s Festival City. This image of Edinburgh and Adelaide as leading Festival Cities within their own geopolitical contexts also lends credence to both places’ claims to be cultural capitals and creative cities and serves to differentiate and distinguish them within the European and Australian markets by providing a source of monopoly rent. Monopoly rent is a concept proposed by David Harvey to understand the special quality of cultural products as commodities. Controlling a monopoly rent means the ability to trade on something (either directly or indirectly) that ‘is in some crucial respects unique and non-replicable’.6 The festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide provide a source of monopoly rent by distinguishing and differentiating their cities. Increased competition from the global proliferation of arts festivals and other urban events, however, undermines this monopoly rent and contributes external pressure to the sustainability of the Festival City place myth. In this chapter, I interrogate these performative events to analyse how Adelaide and Edinburgh’s constructions as international Festival Cities for the global market displace local culture and politics to appear attractive to tourists and investors. I argue that these controversies represent challenges to the Festival City place myth that has arisen due to a conflict over the use of public space and an erosion of local goodwill that may further weaken monopoly rent. Phil Hubbard and Tim Hall observe that ‘culture is contested and negotiated between different groups, and it is within this cultural struggle that urban regimes seek to shape the direction and form of their policies’.7 Examining these cultural challenges reveals a contestation over this place myth and the power relations behind the continued investment in the Festival City that promotes the interests of some groups while diminishing those of others. These clashes also suggest that both Edinburgh and Adelaide face a choice of whether to reinvest (materially and discursively) in their reputations as Festival Cities or to undergo a process of creative destruction and allow a new place myth to emerge.

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Festivalisation and Public Space Beyond physical and symbolic changes, the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide contribute to how space is conceived, perceived, and lived in within these cities. While they are temporary events—staged for one month in the year—they continue to produce enduring impacts on their cityscapes. The individual events within the festival programmes are staged across a range of purpose-built and converted venues, both indoor and outdoor, and most visibly, within the parks, squares, and streets of these cities. As such, they are part of broader trends towards the urbanisation of events and the increasing popularity of staging major events in public space. While ‘Urban arts festivals’, particularly fringe festivals, ‘were instrumental in bringing elite arts out of the concert halls and into public streets and squares’, Andrew Smith observes that they have become increasingly commercialised since the late twentieth century.8 By erecting barriers, charging admission fees, and contributing to overcrowding and environmental damage, festival events or hubs can limit the access of everyday users. As public spaces can ‘symbolise (synecdochically) the cities in which they are located’ and ‘communicate key values’, festivals that (temporarily) commandeer urban public spaces to stage their events can attract criticism from groups with competing interests and priorities.9 Public space is an increasingly blurred and contested term. ‘The idea of urban space that is owned by the people and managed democratically for the use of everyone’, concludes Smith, ‘is an idealistic vision rather than any discernible reality’.10 He argues nevertheless that ‘it is important to have high expectations of our urban spaces’ and that they should be used as ‘criteria with which to assess the public-ness of space’.11 The first of the three criteria Smith identifies is accessibility, which includes both physical and social access (how comfortable different groups feel in the space). The second is ownership, although he notes that public space is most often ‘defined by use rather than ownership’ (such as shopping malls) and that the line between public and private ownership is blurred.12 The third criteria is that of management, as ‘Space is deemed to be public if it is managed in a way that is conducive to public use and public benefits’.13 These criteria lead him to define public space as ‘urban space that is available for use by any person at no cost’ and therefore most commonly refers to city parks, squares, and streets. The festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide, partly due to the compact nature of their designs, are famous for ‘taking over’ urban spaces of these

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cities particularly during their flagship events and therefore contribute to the festivalisation of public space. Festivalisation, according to Smith, ‘represents how and why urban culture, urban space and urban politics have changed in recent decades’ and ‘is best understood as a broad city wide process where events are used in combination with each other and with other forms of consumption, entertainment and leisure’.14 During Edinburgh’s summer festivals and Adelaide’s Mad March, parks and squares play host to book/writers’ festivals and festival hubs, and streets and malls become the stages for street performers and parades, while building facades and even mountain peaks become vertical arenas for live and digital performance. Such festivalisation of public space contributes positively to the revitalisation of cityscapes by encouraging sociability and tolerance among residents and generates economic and symbolic capital for the city. As Smith argues, ‘events can be effective ways of animating spaces, inviting new users, encouraging new uses, and, ultimately, changing the identity of urban spaces’.15 More negatively, however, staging ticketed events in areas that would otherwise be freely accessible limits access to residents who can afford to participate. Events block access to public green areas that residents use for recreation and recuperation before, during, and after the event, and can cause damage to these areas such as the impact of foot traffic on grassy areas. They necessitate increased securitisation, such as the introduction of security to city streets with high levels of pedestrianised traffic, in part due to the increased (perceived or real) threat of terrorism posed to public events.16 They can also contribute to the commodification of these same public spaces by enabling the brands and logos of commercial sponsors to proliferate throughout these spaces. While use of city streets, parks, and squares as commercial billboards is temporary, the effects can be longlasting. ‘When public spaces are commercialised, privatised and securitised through events’, Smith argues, ‘it also helps to normalise these processes and outcomes’.17 Smith identifies these three processes as contributing to the erosion of public space. He also highlights the ‘inherently exclusionary nature of events’ that can exacerbate conflicts over urban spaces, for ‘There are very few, if any, events that appeal to everyone. Each event has a dedicated audience and staging events (and not staging them) automatically privileges some social groups and neglects others’.18 The discursive events from Adelaide and Edinburgh analysed below are examples of culture wars that have arisen over the festivalisation of public

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space and the contest over who defines these cities, and how they are symbolically represented. Clipsal ‘Bogans’ Versus Festival ‘Freaks’ At the 2012 Adelaide Festival’s opening night concert in Elder Park, attended by invited guests, state and federal politicians, and the city’s cultural connoisseurs, the violins of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra were accompanied by the dull hum of V8 engines from the nearby racetrack as the sun slipped over the horizon. The press reviews that followed made many puns on ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’ (in reference to ‘The Ecstasy of Gold’, one of Morricone’s more well-known scores from the film of that name), as Adelaide’s ‘shame’ and ‘embarrassment’ were reported throughout the land.19 To make matters worse, staff of the Adelaide Festival had chosen an untimely moment to prove their green credentials with a spot of recycling, and the cascade of glass bottles into the awaiting skip drew the comment of then Federal Arts Minister Simon Crean. A debate erupted in the press and calls were made by festival directors new and old to move the car race to another weekend so as not to smudge the ‘jewel in the crown’ of South Australia’s arts scene.20 So sets the stage for the ‘cultural clash’ that came to define the Adelaide Festival in 2012. Festival director, Paul Grabowsky, had opted not to programme an opening night event for the 2012 festival, preferring instead to encourage audience members to attend one of the ticketed festival performances that had already opened. When the Morricone concert was moved from Saturday 3 March to the night of Friday 2 March (to avoid competing with the sound systems of Slipknot and System of a Down appearing as part of the Soundwave Festival in Bonython Park), however, the open-air concert for 500 became the de facto opening night Festival celebration. The Morricone concert was held within a fenced-off area on the hill overlooking the Torrens River next to the Festival Centre with ticket prices ranging from AU$59 for B Reserve concession to AU$149 for premium seats. The (albeit unofficial) headliner status was reinforced by the guest list, which included: Kevin Scarce, then SA Governor; Jay Weatherill, then SA Premier; Mike Rann, former SA Premier; Simon Crean, then Federal Minister for the Arts; and Bill Shorten, who was Financial Services Minister at the time but briefly became the federal Leader of the Opposition. The papers reported that when the noise from Clipsal persisted,

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Premier Weatherill controversially tried to intervene via a text message to have his staff halt the race. The attendance of these high-profile state and federal politicians at this event also signals the continued importance of the festival to the political economy of the city (and state) and highlights the political dimension to the ‘cultural clash’ that followed. The ‘clash’ occurred due to a miscommunication between Festival and Clipsal organisers over the scheduling of a late race on the Friday evening. The Carrera Cup was not due to finish until 8:15 pm and therefore overlapped for 45 minutes with the beginning of the concert, which started at 7:30 pm.21 In a televised apology to concertgoers, Clipsal spokesperson, Mike Drewer, explained that while the organisers of the two events had held discussions over the scheduling, ‘Somewhere in that process there was miscommunication or a misunderstanding and the fact that there was a late race obviously fell through the cracks’.22 As the interlocutors between the two events, the state government also drew criticism and were forced to defend their policy of encouraging the staging of a critical mass of events in Adelaide in March. Debates over the importance of both events, and which should be given priority, were played out within the press in the weeks following.23 On the side of the Festival, former leader of the now (almost) defunct Australian Democrats Party, Natasha Stott Despoja, was one of the first to describe the event as a ‘cultural clash’ that embarrassed the city in a column for the local newspaper, The Advertiser, on the following Tuesday 6 March. She elaborates on her criticisms, That the Clipsal car race could be heard over the pre-eminent opening Adelaide Festival event is unforgivable enough, but that audience members, including the Federal Minister for the Arts Simon Crean, described bottles being recycled at one point during a lull in the performance, makes us a laughing stock.24

Words such as ‘cringeworthy’,25 ‘shameful’,26 and ‘embarrassment’27 were used repeatedly to describe the opening night concert in the press. In his summary of the Festival and Fringe on their closing weekend, Patrick McDonald, Arts Editor for The Advertiser, claimed that it ‘will be remembered as one of the greatest embarrassments in Festival history’.28 The interstate press were just as scathing with Mark Ellis, reporter for Melbourne’s The Age, describing how the clash of events ‘almost turned it into a shambles of monumentally embarrassing proportions’.29 While

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the majority of local reviewers and commentators characterised it as an embarrassment for the city, there were dissenters. Not everyone felt that the clash of violins and V8 engines warranted, in Lainie Anderson’s words, ‘statewide flagellation’.30 In an opinion piece for the Sunday Mail, Anderson attacks the (local) commentators who suggested that the culture clash made Adelaide a laughing stock, labelling such characterisations as evidence of Adelaide’s ‘inferiority complex’.31 She recounts a number of incidents including the State Bank disaster in 1991 as previous causes of embarrassment for the city and postulates that Adelaide’s inferiority complex is related to its status as the ‘smaller state sibling’.32 She also refers to the popular joke about Adelaide being ‘closed for business’ as driving the campaign to introduce public holiday trading in the city (a debate which coincided with the Festival), and suggests that residents needed to gain some perspective if they saw the Morricone/Clipsal clash as a ‘faux pas of national significance’.33 While the Morricone concert came to symbolically represent the clash of cultures within the press, however, the clash between fan bases of the Festival and Fringe on the one hand, and Clipsal 500 on the other, was played out through verbal insults on the streets of Adelaide. The culture clash became the talking point of the Festival and Fringe in conversations on the street, on Twitter, and within quips made by presenters and comedians alike, suggesting that Adelaide was too small to hold both events at the same time. Comedian Adam Hills tweeted, ‘I love Adelaide when the Clipsal Car Race meets the Festival. It shows you can have a Fringe and a mullet at the same time’.34 Journalist and author David Marr also garnered knowing laughter from the Writers’ Week crowd with his anecdote about almost missing the start of the State Theatre Company of South Australia’s (STCSA) production of Patrick White’s The Ham Funeral on Saturday night because all of the roads were blocked. He commented facetiously that it must reflect Adelaide’s ‘bigness’ that it could host a car rally and an arts festival at the same time.35 Against the intimations of the car racing fans being uncultured ‘bogans’ came the retort of ‘Festival freaks’ from the other side. Those who were drawn to the city to witness the next episode in the long-standing Ford-Holden (General Motors) rivalry (in 2012 Ford was victorious with driver Will Davison winning the race) were nonplussed about having to share the pubs, clubs, and restaurants of Rundle Street with arts fans. Reporting on Clipsal for The Advertiser, Craig Cook referred to fringe fans as ‘that arty-farty mob down the road’36 in a

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comment that is indicative of the wider sentiment and antagonism held by some racing fans. Such comments confirm that Adelaide remains beholden to its anxieties and the old labels of parochialism and philistinism. In a region known for its wine and food that tries to bolster its economy through tourism, the Adelaide Festival, and its prestige as the premier Australian arts event, therefore, are important replies against these charges and the historical legacy of conservatism. The conflict between these groups goes beyond the right to occupy the city’s landscape and soundscapes for their preferred leisure activity to the right to symbolically define the city through these competing events. Heritage Watchdog Takes on Rock ‘n’ Roll West Princes Street Gardens at the heart of Edinburgh’s World Heritage Site has become the battleground between popular music fans looking to enjoy their favourite acts against the stunning backdrop of Edinburgh Castle and local heritage organisations who decry the loss of access to public green space for rest and recuperation. In August 2018, Edinburgh’s newest music festival, Summer Sessions, which that year was headlined by Tom Jones, Bastille, Rag ‘n’ Bone Man, Paloma Faith, Kasabian, and Beach Boy Brian Wilson, incurred a local backlash when it erected a ‘monstrous 10-foot-high black barrier’ around the perimeter of West Princes Street Gardens, which not only obscured views of the concerts but also of the iconic Castle.37 Timed as part of the summer festival season, the concert series blocked residents’ access to the gardens and eclipsed visitors’ views of Edinburgh’s most popular place image, leading one commentator to describe it as the ‘most egregious interference with the public’s right to the city’.38 In response to public outrage of residents and politicians, the City of Edinburgh Council quickly forced the promoters DF Concerts to remove the barriers. This initial incident provoked public debate over the continued use of the Princes Street Gardens for large-scale events and has led to a sustained campaign against Edinburgh’s festivalisation strategy. Residents and politicians were angered by public space being blocked off for commercial use. Then Green MSP Andy Wightman was a vocal spokesperson in opposition to the barriers and was quoted in the press as reaffirming that the Gardens are ‘common land’ and that the public have the right to view them.39 This also put pressure on SNP Council Leader Adam McVey, who tweeted that while he supports ticketed events, they

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‘cannot put up barriers which are to the detriment of the city’.40 While DF Concerts claimed that the barriers that obscured the view of the Ross Bandstand were for safety and security concerns, many felt that the real reason was to prevent passers-by from enjoying the concert for free. After they were ordered by the CEC to remove the barriers mid-season (6–19 August), they opted to close part of the footpath during the performances instead. Rather than avoiding renewed controversy the following year when Summer Sessions returned, their solution of a retractable curtainsystem and cordoned-off benches only fanned the flames. Spokesperson for DF Concerts Archie McIvor asserted that the curtains were not to block the views of non-ticket holders but were to prevent people from climbing the fence (a security concern) or congregating on Princes Street (a safety concern).41 He argued that the curtains were a condition of their licence agreement with the CEC who wanted to avoid having to close the road and stop the trams during the concerts, which in 2019 were held from 7 to 18 August and headlined by Chvrches, Lewis Capaldi, Florence and the Machine, and Primal Scream. The opposition to the Edinburgh festivals’ perpetual growth and occupation of public green spaces is led by the historic Cockburn Association. Founded in 1875, the Cockburn Association is described by the press as Edinburgh’s longest running ‘heritage watchdog’ who have galvanised local resistance to an expanding use of public space to stage ticketed events.42 Named in honour of Edinburgh lawyer and conservationist Lord Henry Cockburn, the Association has historically aimed ‘to protect the amenity of this city and campaign for its improvement’.43 Chair and spokesperson, Professor Cliff Hague, has argued persuasively on his blog, in the press, in public lectures and meetings, and in academic articles that Edinburgh’s festivals ‘spread through the year, they commandeer public space, intensify the use of those spaces, displace local residents’, and undermine the democratic process.44 Expanding their focus beyond the summer festival season, the Cockburn Association exposed the failure of prominent fringe producers Underbelly to obtain planning permission or a building warrant for the construction of their ‘space deck’ in East Princes Street Gardens for the 2019 Christmas Markets.45 Underbelly, who have a £800,000 per annum contract with the CEC to run the seven-week long Christmas Market and Hogmanay festivities, attracted further criticism for blocking residents’ access to their homes and for leaving the Gardens looking like a ‘mudbath’.46 The repair bill for the Gardens was later reported as £150,000

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with Council-paid drainage works (£40,000) to the site delaying its reopening.47 Inflamed by photographs of market-related detritus strewn all over the muddy remains of the Gardens in the mainstream press and online in January 2020, public anger was directed at the promoters but also at the CEC for allowing it to happen, even resulting in a petition calling for Adam McVey to step down as Council Leader.48 Capitalising on these feelings of dissent, the Cockburn Association held a public meeting on 22 January 2020 in the Central Halls in Tollcross, facilitated by Stephen Jardine, that was attended by over 800 people.49 Festival organisers have responded to this criticism, however, with counter-claims of cultural elitism and snobbery on the part of the Cockburn Association and their supporters. Chief Executive of DF Concerts, Geoff Ellis, defended the right of music lovers to enjoy the Gardens, claiming that their ticket sales are evidence of the Summer Sessions ‘making incredible cultural experiences accessible to as many people as possible’.50 He further highlighted their benefits, pointing to the revenue generated by the Council for venue hire, visitor numbers attracted by the concerts, and the civic pride for locals in these events. Suggesting that criticism of the Summer Sessions is a matter of taste by comparing it to the Book Festival then held in Charlotte Square, Ellis asks if there is ‘one rule for literature and another for rock n’ roll’ and argues that preventing use of the Gardens as a music venue is ‘both selfish and elitist’.51 Both sides of the debate invoke long-standing tensions within the history of Edinburgh’s festivals over their benefit to locals and accusations of cultural elitism. ‘Culture’, argues Stanley Waterman, is ‘a highly disputed expression in which subjectivity, identity and ideology are prominent’ and this is yet another example of arts festivals as the site through which ‘culture is contested’.52 This theme was continued when the Summer Sessions announced a comeback in March 2021 after a brief Covid-induced hiatus in 2020. While DF Concerts would later postpone 2021’s concerts until 2022 due to the timing of Scotland’s easing of Covid-related restrictions, they had released their intended line-up in March 2021. At the time, they proposed seven shows to be headlined by Anne-Marie, Tom Jones, Simple Minds, Michael Kiwanuka, Travis, and DMAs. Pre-empting this announcement, the Cockburn Association had called for the ‘de-concentration and dispersal of festival events’ a few days beforehand, and pushed for community consultation to set the conditions under which the events could be staged.53 They proposed that events (including the 6,000-capacity

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Summer Sessions) should no longer be staged in West Princes Street Gardens and suggested shopping centre car parks and stadia grounds as alternatives.54 Even before publicising this position, the Cockburn Association attracted criticism from Major General Buster Howes, chief executive of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, who accused them of thinking ‘that an empty city is the best city’ and of wanting to turn Edinburgh into ‘an empty medieval theme park’.55 They also came into conflict with the Fringe Society for opposing Underbelly’s gated Circus Hub in the Meadows, leading Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society (EFFS) Chief Executive, Shona McCarthy, to accuse them of ‘cultural snobbery’.56 In Edinburgh as in Adelaide, staging multiple festival activities over a short period of time in central locations has led to increased competition among different groups to control not only the soundscape but also to set the future urban governance agenda. Cultural Conflict and the Right to the City Edinburgh’s summer festivals and Adelaide’s Mad March are examples of large-scale events that provide a platform for multiple voices to assert their ‘right to change and reinvent the city’.57 The intensification of these festival events, which in both cities has grown far beyond the progenitor elite international arts festival to encompass a range of overlapping and competing cultural and sporting events, has highlighted urban tensions as revealed by these performative events. In her study of competing city projects in Chile, Carla Pinochet Cobos analyses how cultural festivals foreground ‘a myriad of tensions and disputes about the city’.58 She suggests that ‘cultural festivals play a performative role in the construction of a particular city project, by dramatising and putting multiple competing agencies in friction with each other’.59 In the cultural conflicts outlined above, the public sphere generated around the festivals also provides ‘a channel for expressing tensions and urban conflicts that are latent throughout the year and acquire a greater visibility’ at festival time.60 Like other culture wars, ‘they are’, in Mitchell’s terms, ‘battles over cultural identities – and the power to shape, determine, and, literally, emplace those identities’.61 In both cases, which involve resisting the agendas of festivalisation, urban entrepreneurialism, and a reductive creative cities formula, residents are exercising a collective power to shape the processes of urbanisation and in doing so, claiming their ‘right to the city’.62

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The cultural conflicts in Adelaide 2012 and reigniting in Edinburgh 2018 represent local challenges to the negative impacts of the eventification of public space. ‘Eventification’, in Smith’s formulation, ‘represents the way events tighten spaces though [sic] commodification and the related processes of privatisation, commercialisation, and securitisation’.63 City parks have traditionally been treated as public goods that provide residents with green space for recreation and regeneration but are today increasingly popular events venues.64 In Edinburgh, in addition to East and West Princes Street Gardens being used for the Christmas Markets and Summer Sessions, Charlotte Square has traditionally hosted the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the Meadows has often hosted circus tents during the fringe, and even Arthur’s Seat became the stage for NVA’s Speed of Light show as part of the EIF in 2012. In Adelaide, Elder Park is a popular favourite for outdoor Adelaide Festival concerts; the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden across the road hosts Adelaide Writers’ Week each year; the Botanic Gardens at the end of North Terrace becomes the stage for the WOMADelaide music festival; and the main fringe hubs of the Garden of Unearthly Delights and Gluttony are held in the parks of the East End while the Royal Croquet Club has moved between Victoria Square, Pinky Flat (Tarntanya Wama), Adelaide University, and back to Victoria Square in the centre of town. Cultural festivals, like major sports events, require ‘a command management approach to logistics and space’ that Hague notes ‘can require cordoning off and commercialising parts of the city, as well as more management of the public realm’.65 The range of activities under the umbrella of the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide close off public spaces along a sliding scale. Some of these events are free and open to the public, such as Adelaide Writers’ Week, which takes place under large blue marquees with audience members free to wander in and out of sessions. Edinburgh International Book Festival audiences, by contrast, could access the grounds of Charlotte Square (via a controlled entry point) when it was still held there but had to buy a ticket to attend a session in one of the closed white tents or ornate spiegeltents. Fringe hubs, such as Bristo Square and Summerhall in Edinburgh, usually contain several performance venues, in addition to food and drink outlets and other amenities. While entry to the hub itself is free, it is nevertheless regulated. Similarly, Adelaide’s ‘vibrant and dynamic outdoor festival precinct’,66 the Garden of Unearthly Delights, is staged in Rundle (Kadlitpina) Park, while across the road in Rymill Park (Murlawirrapurka), Gluttony celebrates its ‘multiple areas to chill

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and watch the world go by at our open-air party in the park’ alongside its eclectic programme.67 These large outdoor festival venues are gated areas that are free for the public to access (through a security checkpoint that is closed at night), although ticket holders receive priority access during busy periods. Depending on the nature of the event, security may check IDs (if the venue is licenced to sell alcohol), check bags for weapons or drugs, and/or control crowd numbers. Ticketed events such as the Summer Sessions and WOMADelaide, as we have seen, close these spaces to the public for the duration. Access to these public parks, gardens, and squares is blocked not only for the festival season, but also before and after, which can be prolonged even further by the need to regenerate grassy areas. Environmental damage caused by these events can be a source of local tension, such as the ‘significant community ire’ generated by the annual Clipsal 500.68 Clipsal 500, later known as the Adelaide 500, was one of the major events in the Australian motor racing calendar, many of which take place in large urban areas that rely on the sport for place marketing. As Matthew W. Rofe and Clare L. Woosnam note, ‘Street circuits, by their very nature, require public road closures and the installation of large-scale safety and amenities infrastructure’.69 They cause major traffic disruptions and noise and air pollution, and due to their popularity—attracting 263,000 attendees in 2016—are associated with overcrowding and antisocial behaviour including vandalism.70 This evidences the ways in which eventification can physically denigrate public space as identified by Smith. As he observes, ‘Large sport events and cultural festivals often involve hedonistic or extreme behaviours’ that can lead to deliberate damage of both the public spaces and surrounding residences.71 Littering, public urination due to the inadequate provision of amenities, and concerns over public safety are other common themes. The disruption of Clipsal to everyday life in the city is particularly pronounced. ‘Events’, observes Smith, ‘displace everyday uses of public space (e.g. dog walking, jogging) causing disruption and inconvenience to many people’.72 Although the race itself was held over four days, access to Adelaide’s Eastern Parklands was restricted for up to eight weeks after the city’s flagship motorsports event to allow the green space time to recover. As in Edinburgh, these disruptions have caused residents to self-organise to put pressure on the local council to ensure that their own policies are adhered to. The South East City Residents Association (SECRA), for example, aim ‘To preserve and enhance the inherent character and

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heritage of the neighbourhood’ adjacent to the Parklands and have positioned themselves as a ‘public watch-dog’.73 Having received reports that many residents leave their homes for the duration of the race to escape the negative environmental and safety impacts, Rofe and Woosnam suggest that Clipsal ‘is an incubator of conflict’.74 Residents living within the event precinct are also particularly susceptible to the increased security measures that can accompany festivals in public spaces. Underbelly went further than interrupting routines during their Hogmanay Festival 2019, however, sparking outrage on Twitter when they required residents to carry permits to access their own homes. David McGillivray, Severin Guillard, and Emma Reid characterise the ‘furore’ that ‘accelerated the volume and intensity of online activity, drawing in both local media and national media outlets’ as calling into question the use of Edinburgh’s public space to stage these festivals.75 Reporting on the controversy for Edinburgh Evening News, Sean Murphy drew attention to the complaints that the CEC was receiving from angry citizens via their Twitter account @Edinburgh_CC.76 In response to news that residents living within the Street Party ‘arena’, which includes Hanover, Rose, and Frederick Streets, would have to apply to Underbelly for guest passes to host parties in their own homes during the festival period, resident Angus Duncan expressed his anger in a series of 12 tweets on 23 December 2019 that were liked, retweeted, and quoted by the mainstream media. Posting screenshots of Underbelly’s communication with residents including on their website, Duncan highlights that only six passes are available per residence and that ‘Even if access is granted, Underbelly will still impose restrictions on how you can get home [. …] Woe betide anyone who stands in the street to enjoy the fireworks on their way home’.77 An Underbelly spokesperson responded that ‘As a major city centre event it is necessary for additional security measures to be in place’ and that these were in consultation with the CEC and Police Scotland and were no different from previous years.78 Once again the promoters were brought into conflict with the CEC when Council Leader, Adam McVey, blamed Underbelly for ‘poor communication’ creating ‘unnecessary confusion’ for residents over their ‘rights & access to their homes’ and promising to hold a Citywide debate in 2020 to consider ‘how we manage the size & scale of festivals & tourism’.79 Describing the situation as ‘pretty dystopian’, Duncan’s description of Underbelly as ‘a business, whose job is to sell party tickets, who gets

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to decide whether you get to hold a party in your own home’ reinforces the link between securitisation and commercialisation.80 As Smith argues, staging events in public spaces can add new constraints such as freedom of movement within residential and shopping precincts and restrictions on what can be brought into the ‘street party arena’ in this example. He notes that while ‘justified on safety grounds’, these restrictions are ‘also designed to protect the commercial interests of sponsors and increase sales of items within temporary event venues’.81 This is particularly problematic when the sponsors are alcohol companies. Sponsoring events enables companies to visibly promote their products in public spaces where advertising would not usually be allowed. ‘Major events are used by corporations as vehicles to plaster their brands all over some of the world’s most famous parks, squares and streets’, notes Smith.82 The symbolic power of these public spaces augments these brands, which can have particular public health implications when alcohol companies are culturally normalised.83 Broadcaster Stephen Jardine was an outlier when he argued that the real controversy over the Summer Sessions in 2019 was that they were sponsored by Carlsberg and Somersby Cider. Pointing out that ‘Alcohol sales are inextricably linked to promotion’ and that the visibility of alcohol advertising, especially in sport, promotes an erroneous and subliminal link between alcohol and health, Jardine called for tighter controls over sponsorship for such events. Paul J. Tranter and Mark Lowes have examined this issue in detail in relation to Adelaide’s Clipsal 500 and motorsport in Australia more broadly. They argue that motorsport events ‘may have significantly greater negative environmental and health impacts and messages than other events’, in part because of their long associations with ‘the automobile, tobacco, and alcohol industries’.84 In Rofe and Woosnam’s study of Clipsal they also note that ‘Concerns have certainly been expressed regarding the intersection between motor-racing’s inherently hypermasculine identity, alcohol consumption and the anti-social behaviours that stem from these interactions’.85 They found that attempts to build a female fan-base for V8 Supercars were undermined by a ‘masculineoriented’ culture that objectifies women through the ‘inclusion of scantily clad grid-girls and bikini parades as entertainment’.86 This highlights the risk for sponsors when events cause local conflict or attract negative criticism, and may have led Clipsal (an electrical products company owned by Schneider Electrical) to drop their naming rights after 20 years of support. In making the announcement that Clipsal would not continue

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its sponsorship of the Adelaide 500 after the 2017 event, spokesperson for Schneider Electric, Gareth O’Reilly, cited a change in the company’s ‘global marketing approach’, explaining that ‘We’re currently working on new ways to connect and engage with more of our customers’.87 There are mutual risks and benefits for events and sponsors in entering into commercial partnerships, but the proliferation of corporate brands and logos within prominent urban spaces condones and normalises the messages sent and the products sold within the culture at large. Related to the processes of commodification and securitisation, staging events in public space is also linked to their increased privatisation. As Smith has argued, using parks as event venues ‘monetise[s] park space and time’, promotes them as destinations, and influences their governance.88 While there is a long tradition of hosting events in public parks and gardens, under neoliberal austerity in the UK, ‘public spaces have been reconstituted as assets that need to be exploited for economic gain’.89 Increasingly this has led to local councils outsourcing the management of public parks to private organisations who are charged with their maintenance and/or the upgrade of amenities.90 Public backlash against the lack of public accountability of these private organisations and perceptions that authorities are privileging revenue over residents’ rights are contributing to the cultural conflicts playing out over the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide. Added to this is a failure to provide an avenue or mechanism to include residents in the decision-making process over the management of the public spaces in their backyards, which is seen as a ‘democratic deficit’ and has prompted locals to self-organise in online or offline spaces or through neighbourhood organisations.91 The broader public debate over festivalisation in Edinburgh is further complicated by the desire of the CEC to undertake a £25 million revamp of the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens. The Ross Development Trust, established by hotel developer Norman Springford, was registered as a Scottish Charity in 2020 to fundraise and oversee The Quaich Project to ‘create a world-class, public, green space’, which aims to improve accessibility but also proposes to replace the Bandstand with a Pavilion and to upgrade amenities and access points to transform the gardens into a world-class performance venue.92 The Trust has called for a public– private organisation to be created to manage the space so that it is ‘self-financing’ once the refurbishment is complete, but has been drawn into the debate over how many events should be allowed to be staged in the Gardens.93

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The festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide bring together different groups in productive tension to debate the ongoing use of these cities’ parks, squares, and streets, and thereby reinforce their status as public space. As this analysis has shown, staging festival events in these cities’ public spaces contributes to their commercialisation and privileges certain uses and users to the detriment of others. Ticketed events, especially, Smith argues, restrict access to activities and users that are considered ‘more socially acceptable’ and participate in the more negative aspects of gentrification including removing ‘undesirable’ elements such as homeless people.94 On the other hand, the controversies surrounding these high-profile events provide an impetus for residents to come together— physically or virtually—to resist and shape neoliberal urban governance while providing greater visibility for these campaigns. In Edinburgh, with its historically uneasy relationship with its festivals, the current debate is over the volume and intensity of events staged within the city’s historic public spaces, the negative impacts of environmental degradation, restricted access for residents, and the flow-on effects of overcrowding on affordable housing. Where once the EIF and EFF offered a ‘time out of time’ experience each August, Edinburgh’s official policy of festivalisation with its focus on growth is leading the trend of cities that ‘are increasingly marketing themselves as places in which events are always happening’.95 In Adelaide, the temporal and spatial overlap between its flagship cultural festivals and a motorsports event that is completely at odds with how this gentile city sees itself caused conflict on the streets and embarrassment at an official level. What is at stake in these case studies is the right that different groups assert to their representation and autonomy in these public spaces. ‘Public spaces are the physical manifestation of the public sphere’, and good public spaces, argues Smith, facilitate peaceable interaction between different social groups.96 As Mitchell observes, representation will not necessarily arise when public space is planned and provided for. Political debate only arises when it must, such as spontaneously in response to the perceived threats to public space outlined above. This represents these interest groups to the broader public sphere and creates public space: ‘a space in which the cry and demand for the right to the city can be seen and heard’.97 Mitchell argues, after Lefebvre, that ‘More and more the spaces of the city are being produced for us rather than by us’.98 Despite capitalising on these long-standing cultural festivals within the neoliberal

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urban governance of public space, these events also stage local resistance and opposition to creative cities and festivalisation strategies.

Monopoly Rent The global proliferation of competing festivals around the world has intensified the pressure on the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide to continually expand and grow their visitor numbers and reputations. The very title of Edinburgh’s festival strategy, Thundering Hooves, conveys a sense of urgency posed by the threat of other cities catching up to and even surpassing its status as the world-leading Festival City. Within its Australian context too, the South Australian government committed additional funding to transform the Adelaide Festival into an annual (rather than biennial) event and extend the run of the Fringe for an extra week. In both cases, governance bodies were prompted to take action to preserve what they perceive as a competitive edge in the festival market that they rely on for revenue-generation. I argue, after David Harvey, that income derived from festivals—through ticket sales and visitor numbers to symbolic capital—can be characterised as monopoly rent. Responses to this increased competition from other festivals, which is admittedly at different orders of magnitude, have exacerbated existing local tensions and have, in part, produced the cultural conflicts discussed above. The cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide have traditionally traded off the premier status of their international arts festivals, the uniqueness of their large open access fringes, and scarcity of both events as commodified cultural products in their geopolitical region to derive a monopoly rent. ‘That culture is a form of commons’, argues Harvey, ‘and that it has become a commodity of some sort, is undeniable’.99 Rent is derived from assets controlled by private owners and monopoly rent is realised through ‘an enhanced income stream over an extended time by virtue of their exclusive control over some directly or indirectly tradable item’ (or experience) that is ‘unique and non-replicable’.100 The EIF and Adelaide Festival, for example, provide a source of monopoly rent whose reputations for artistic excellence attract cultural tourists. More broadly, Edinburgh and Adelaide derive a monopoly rent from the summer festivals and Mad March periods distinguishing the city in the arena of place promotion. While the festivals of Adelaide and Edinburgh have similar templates, as they are in opposite hemispheres at different times of the

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year, they tend to complement each other—by creating a circuit for fringe performers and festival artists—rather than being in direct competition. Monopoly rent can arise either directly or indirectly, both of which apply to the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide. Firstly, it can be produced directly by trading on an exclusive product such as buying and selling a Picasso painting as an investment. Here ‘the uniqueness of Picasso’ forms the monopoly rent and its scarcity that increases its value.101 The EIF and Adelaide Festival assure scarcity and uniqueness through their reputations for artistic excellence upheld year to year by the programming choices of their artistic directors. This includes the strength of the artistic vision for each festival, the mix of world premieres and commissions, and the number of international performances and shows exclusive to the region. In surveying festival attendees in Edinburgh, Richard Prentice and Vivien Andersen found that ‘serious consumers of international culture’ are attracted to the EIF on the basis of the excellence in programming rather than the city itself.102 They concluded that ‘The Festival succeeds through its intensity, excellence and reputation, not that it is unique’ and that ‘the Festival has acquired characteristics of a destination in its own right, in part removed from that of the historical city other than as setting and the offer of Scottishness’.103 The Adelaide Festival also trades directly on ‘a strong tradition of innovation and excellence’, that according to the website, delivers ‘the most compelling artists, companies and productions from around the globe’ to secure its brand.104 Directly, then, the prestige of the international arts festivals in both cities attracts serious consumers of ‘high’ culture. This primary arts market is supplemented by a broad range of visitors attracted by the festival atmosphere—generated, in large part, by the more accessible fringes—with a multiplier effect for local businesses. The second kind of monopoly rent is produced indirectly through locational advantage, where ‘social actors control some special quality resource, commodity or location which, in relation to a certain kind of activity, enables them to extract monopoly rents from those desiring to use it’.105 Here it is not necessarily the ‘land, resource or location’ that is unique and can be sold, but rather ‘the commodity or service produced through their use’.106 In his critique of site-specific performance, Michael McKinnie argues that ‘[m]onopolistic performances produce their value by appropriating and trading self-consciously on the non-replicable qualities of places according to a logic that is substantially economic’.107 Similarly, the character and heritage of Edinburgh are used to promote

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its festivals, from Edinburgh Castle sitting atop the extinct volcano and the architectural contrast between the mediaeval Old Town and Georgian New Town, to its many literary landmarks that are all within walking distance of the main theatre venues and fringe hubs. As evidenced by the many references to the warm climate, compact city space, and beautiful parklands and green areas in the promotional material for Adelaide’s festivals, too, the unique qualities of these events are also linked to the distinctive properties of Adelaide as a city. The iterative relationship between these festivals and the cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide forms the symbolic capital and the basis for monopoly rent in the arena of place promotion. There is also often a level of intersection between these two kinds of monopoly rent, for which Harvey cites the example of a vineyard that is traded upon both directly for its locational properties and indirectly for the unique wine that it produces.108 Similarly, the value of the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide as sources of monopoly rent derives both from the prestige of the EIF and Adelaide Festival and the size of the fringes within a compact city space that enables them to ‘take over’ the urban space, as well as the cities’ cultural reputations that are created and maintained through the Festival City place myth. I argue, however, that where once the EIF and EFF—as the world’s leading events—and the Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Fringe—as the premier Australian arts—formed monopoly rents within their regions, increased competition externally and cultural clashes internally can be understood as challenges to this monopoly. Challenges to Monopoly Rent The era of festivalisation has seen the rapid growth of festival events worldwide that challenge the speciality and uniqueness of the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide. Harvey identifies two contradictions associated with monopoly rent that inform urban governance strategies in relation to events and festivals. Firstly, while products need to be distinct to be marketable, they must also be comparable to be assigned commercial value. ‘[W]hile uniqueness and particularity are crucial to the definition of “special qualities”’, Harvey explains, ‘the requirement of tradability means that no item can be so unique or so special as to be entirely outside of the monetary calculus’.109 As Angela Bartie has explored, the EIF was informed at the outset by Matthew Arnold’s view of culture as

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‘the remedy to social anarchy’ and concentrated on presenting the work of the ‘grand masters’ across opera, classical music, ballet, and classical drama.110 The Adelaide Festival, too, understood its remit of educating audiences with the board of governors proclaiming in a report on its inaugural programming that ‘The highest possible standards of performance were considered essential and were, it is believed, maintained throughout the Festival’.111 In this way, the post-war international arts festival culture exposed spectators—in the UK and Australia—to the ‘best of the best’ international acts, thus cultivating a larger arts audience (or market) that was mutually reinforcing while making other events and festivals easier to promote. The international network of fringe festivals provides a circuit for artists to tour while similarly growing an audience for new work and emerging genres. The success of the EFF’s multi-arts and open-access format has inspired numerous similar events around the globe, as exemplified by the Adelaide Fringe. The International Fringe Festival Association, or World Fringe, which provides networking and consultancy for the ‘global Fringe community’ has over 250 member events.112 While a growth of these events potentially grows the audience for such work, the problem for monopoly rent lies in the sliding scale between uniqueness and marketability. As Harvey notes, ‘[t]he contradiction here is that the more easily marketable such items become, the less unique and special they appear’.113 Festivals cannot stake their claim to uniqueness on their artistic programming alone, and therefore rely on the history and topography of their host city for their differentiation within a global festival market. International or regional premieres can be a drawcard within a global festival network that necessarily shares product. Edinburgh usually premieres new work or launches new productions that then travel the world. The EIF is also in competition with the London theatres—particularly the Barbican Centre, which is a major hub and producer within the international festival marketplace—for exclusives and European premieres. In 2015, for example, the headlining theatrical performance of Antigone, directed by Ivo van Hove, had a season at the Barbican prior to the August festival. There is a long tradition of successful seasons in Edinburgh in August transferring to London, such as Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord’s productions of The Prisoner and The Malady of Death that premiered in Paris in 2018 and then travelled to the EIF before appearing in London at the National Theatre and Barbican Centre respectively.114

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Both productions discussed in Chapter 5, The James Plays (2015) and The Secret River (2019), appeared at London’s National Theatre after their premiere/European premiere at the EIF. Programming choices are not made in a vacuum and the tendency of major international festivals and venues to co-produce work diminishes their claims to exclusivity. The Australian tradition of sharing international touring artists between the major international arts festivals, particularly the summer festivals of Sydney, Perth, and Adelaide, is well-established. In Adelaide the desire to bring the highest calibre of artists from around the world exclusively to Adelaide must be balanced against budget considerations, the high costs of travel, and its associated environmental impact. In 2012, for example, the Perth and Adelaide Festivals shared programming highlights including two of the biggest drawcards, Ennio Morricone and James Thiérrée in Raoul.115 As the Perth Festival, which ran between 10 February and 3 March in 2012, preceded the Adelaide Festival, spectators in Perth were able to enjoy these international artists before those in Adelaide. With each Australian capital city now hosting its own international arts festival, Adelaide’s claims ‘of speciality, uniqueness, originality, and authenticity’, which Harvey argues underlies the ability of cities ‘to establish monopoly claims’, is undermined.116 Artistic director of the 2013–16 Adelaide Festivals, David Sefton, is acutely aware of the need to uphold the special character of the festival. Quoted in an article for The Australian in 2012, he reinforces the need for the Adelaide Festival to assert its own identity while acknowledging that there may be overlap with the other Australian festivals. He elaborates, I think it would be unrealistic if there wasn’t the odd overlap. Certain things are only doable because you’ve got more than one place doing them. But what we do not want is festivals looking the same. […] The whole point of having these rotating artistic directors is that you create a festival that has its own identity.117

The trend of sharing performances (both national and international) among the Australian arts festivals makes it harder for individual events to distinguish themselves and promote a unique identity. The second contradiction within monopoly rent that Harvey observes is that under capitalism the survival of the fittest competition also tends towards monopoly (or oligopoly). He argues, ‘It is therefore no accident

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that the liberalization of markets and the celebration of market competition in recent years has produced incredible centralization of capital’, which has led to the dominance of multi-national corporations such as Microsoft, Apple, News Corp, Amazon, and Meta.118 Edinburgh’s basis for monopoly rent relies upon its continued reputation as the world’s leading Festival City. The original Thundering Hooves report from 2006 was commissioned in response to the ‘widespread perception’ that Edinburgh’s ‘pre-eminence is under threat’.119 In response to the widespread adoption of culture-led urban governance and place promotion strategies, AEC Consulting compared eight competitor cities—Amsterdam, Barcelona, San Francisco, Singapore, Melbourne, Manchester, Montreal, and Newcastle Gateshead—on the criteria of: ‘economy, cultural offer and cultural spend, infrastructure, levels of innovation, workforce skills, quality of life, and new development projects’.120 The acknowledgement that the ‘winner takes all’ and that ‘second or third place—“silver” or “bronze” rather than “gold”—represents a position that is considerably inferior to that of pre-eminence’, highlights that Edinburgh’s monopoly rent is tied to its number one position.121 Edinburgh’s world-leading position as a Festival City has been actively sustained by a partnership between public and private stakeholders. As Cliff Hague explains, Edinburgh’s reputation as a tourist hotspot has been maintained ‘as a result of a sustained effort jointly undertaken by the Scottish Government, the City of Edinburgh Council, and the tourism, festivals and events industries’ in what he characterises as a ‘growth coalition’.122 The Thundering Hooves 2.0 report from 2015 reaffirmed the city’s festivalisation strategy with the report’s authors recommending that the Edinburgh Festival City—a sub-brand within Edinburgh marketing— be maintained to reinforce ‘Edinburgh’s position as the world’s leading festival city’.123 Under austerity measures that were devolved to city councils, moreover, this festivalisation intensified with Hague acknowledging that the ‘symbiotic relationship’ between the festivals and tourism sector ‘had delivered impressive results’ in terms of visitor numbers and economic impact up until the start of the pandemic in 2020.124 This very success, however, has produced local opposition to the overcrowding both of the festival calendar and of Edinburgh’s city streets that risks undermining the authentic experience upon which its world-leading status and monopoly rent rests. The Adelaide Festival is now one event in a busy Australian arts festival calendar. Held in March every year (as of 2012), the Adelaide Festival is

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at the end of a run of three festivals that take place at the beginning of the year, following the Sydney Festival in January and the longer-running Perth Festival (established in 1953) in February. Perth’s Fringe World, which began in 2011, has grown rapidly and has already become an important challenger to the size and vitality of Adelaide’s Fringe. Nevertheless, these summer festivals are timed so that internationally visiting productions can often tour the country as part of a circuit.125 Similarly, comedians often travel from the Adelaide Fringe straight to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, also held in March. The Brisbane Festival now takes place in September each year to coincide with the popular Riverfire fireworks display and the Darwin Festival is held in August. The Melbourne International Arts Festival was traditionally held in October but ended in 2019 and has been replaced by the RISING Festival, which has been delayed or cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19 lockdowns in Victoria. In addition to these major international arts festivals and their associated fringes, there are numerous other music and genre-specific arts festivals held around the country each year. With each Australian capital city now hosting their own version of the international arts festival, the monopoly rent that the Adelaide enjoyed as the premier arts event is reduced. The City of Adelaide Council recognises that it faces competition from other Festival Cities: ‘While Adelaide’s diverse program of successful festivals and events is a key strength in its visitor appeal, attracting thousands of interstate and overseas visitors each year, it faces intense competition from other cities’.126 In response to this, their ‘Arts and Culture Strategy 2012-14’ calls for more ‘formal, active, cooperative, “partnership” approaches’ to be introduced.127 As an example of this, they specifically cite cooperation with the Adelaide Fringe to introduce measures to reduce red tape in order to establish temporary venues. Moreover, the first challenge listed within this strategy also relates to the festivals: ‘Keeping Adelaide’s major events fresh, successful and innovative to compete effectively against the high expenditures on events and facilities elsewhere in Australia’.128 Increased competition from other festivals both interstate and internationally has therefore prompted local and state authorities to devise strategies to maintain this source of monopoly rent. The increase of funding by the state government to hold the Adelaide Festival annually from 2012 is one attempt to retain (or regain) the monopoly rent from this event. Then Premier Mike Rann pledged $8 million in 2010 to turn the Adelaide Festival, which has been biennial

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since its inception, into an annual event. SA Arts Minister at the time John Hill explained that this decision to go annual was to protect the Adelaide Festival’s status despite warnings from former festival directors that the same standard could not be reproduced on a yearly basis: ‘This was all about looking after the Adelaide Festival brand. It made sense in terms of ongoing planning and programming and the branding of [SA] as the “festival state”’.129 The shift to an annual event was also expected to increase ticket sales, as happened previously with WOMADelaide and the fringe. The change may also have been in response to the other major international arts festivals—those held in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, and Brisbane—all becoming annual events, but removed one of the unique attributes of the Adelaide Festival.130 In addition, the Adelaide Fringe was extended by a week from 2013 to enable it to attract even more artists and visitors to the city.131 Authorities in both Scotland and South Australia, then, have responded to increased competition from festivals within their regions with policies designed to preserve the unique and special character of their festivals, from which they derive monopoly rent, and reaffirm their cultural credentials as creative cities. Creative Cities The Festival City place myth has played a key role in promoting Adelaide and Edinburgh as Creative Cities to appeal to the Creative Class. Creative cities discourse, advanced by Charles Landry and Richard Florida, has had a pervasive influence on urban governance regimes and has been adopted by local councils around the world despite strong criticism of their approaches. The global trend in cities branding themselves as ‘creative’ and ‘vibrant’ places is driven by Landry and Florida’s prescriptions to secure competitive economic advantage by attracting talent and growing their creative economy. Florida, in particular, offers his recipe of the 3T’s of tolerance, talent, and technology to attract fickle, mobile, and privileged members of the dominant Creative Class whose presence attracts corporations to these centres.132 In their study of creative cities discourse in Australian state capital cities, Rowland Atkinson and Hazel Easthope find that Adelaide has ‘been heavily influenced by creative cities ideas’, with both Landry and Florida having undertaken speaking engagements around the country.133 The City of Adelaide’s Arts and Culture Strategy 2010–14 directly references these experts and incorporates their theories into its policy: ‘A vibrant cultural life is part of Adelaide’s appeal and is

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essential to the City’s ambitions to attract and retain the skilled, innovative and creative people who will sustain economic growth through the challenges of the future’.134 Similarly, a CEC-commissioned ‘Economic Impact Study’ from 2004–05 references these ideas when it concludes that ‘The link between the Festivals, image and inward investment or the role in attracting people to live and work could help understand other benefits and help inform policymakers [sic] decisions in allocating resources’.135 As these examples from two geographically diverse cities show, creative cities discourse is widely circulated and even directly cited within official government reports and policy documents. The Creative Class, as the new norm-setting class, represents a shift in values and attitudes towards individualism, meritocracy, diversity, and openness, which fits easily into a broader ‘economic rationalist or neoliberal’ framework.136 For Jamie Peck, a major critic of Florida, creative cities theories for economic development are attractive because they ‘work quietly with the grain of extant “neoliberal” development agendas, framed around interurban competition, gentrification, middle-class consumption and place-marketing’.137 Critics have also pointed out that cities scoring highly on Florida’s Creative Index also score highly for inequality and that these prescriptions have contributed to ‘a climate in which social difference and more marginal social groups have been policed, designed and priced out of central city areas’.138 Florida’s Creative Class includes only the tertiary educated, and the openness and diversity championed by his Bohemian and Gay Indexes reflect a ‘thin’ cosmopolitanism, which as defined by Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo, ‘lacks due consideration of either the hierarchies of power subtending cross-cultural engagement or the economic and material conditions that enable it’.139 It certainly does not involve any critique of such hierarchies. As such, Rofe and Woosnam find that ‘Creativity is classed and as such operates within and through complex power relations’.140 Recognising the contributions of arts and culture to economic growth has a positive impact on arts festivals that can leverage this debate to secure further public funding. The negative impacts of these policies in reinforcing urban inequality and gentrification and undermining housing affordability, however, require critique. The Creative Class thesis, Peck observes, ‘has proved to be a hugely seductive one for civic leaders around the world’ despite its limitations.141 The popularity of these formulaic policy prescriptions risks creating a cookie cutter template for the Festival City that undermines the authenticity and uniqueness upon which monopoly rents rely. Although the

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rhetoric of the Creative Class is built on authenticity and local specificity, the adoption of Florida’s prescriptions by diverse cities worldwide ultimately has a homogenising effect. Writing in the 1990s, Mark Billinge characterises this normalising tendency as a postmodern international aesthetic. As he argues, ‘The city is rebuilt to conform to this increasingly international aesthetic so that, although the beer is better in Glasgow, the Chablis and the spider plants are indistinguishable from those in both Cleveland and Pittsburgh’.142 Peck notes that a number of ‘hipsterization strategies’ espoused by Florida have become popular among city planners and consultants, which include: ‘“authentic” historical buildings, converted lofts, walkable streets, plenty of coffeeshops, art and live-music spaces, “organic and indigenous street culture”, and a range of other typical features of gentrifying, mixed-use, inner-urban neighborhoods’.143 The Festival City strapline within advertisements of Adelaide and Edinburgh, therefore, is situated within this Creative Class discourse and contributes to shaping these cities in a particular image. From a diverse restaurant culture to a cosmopolitan and friendly population, the marketing material of the Adelaide and Edinburgh festivals draws on their specific locational advantages (Adelaide’s open-air venues and warm weather; Edinburgh’s heritage industry and literature attractions) within this framework of a decontextualised, international hipster aesthetic. There is an inherent contradiction, however, that if all cities adopt Florida’s creative prescriptions, they risk undermining the very uniqueness and authenticity that they seek to create or reinforce. As Peck further observes, Florida’s list of creative attractions ‘might lapse into their own kind of “generica”. The creatives’ restless search for authentic experiences may, of course, lead them to spurn such places’.144 It is also not realistic for all cities to continue to invest in these attributes, with both cities making active decisions over whether to continue to invest in their Festival City identities or to undergo a period of creative destruction. Cultural Conflict The culture wars that have erupted in Edinburgh over the festivalisation of public space and in Adelaide between arts and sports fans are symptomatic of the ‘discursive constructions and struggles’ of different groups to be represented within the place myth of the city.145 As Sharon Zukin has established, public culture is a ‘process of negotiating images that are accepted by large numbers of people’, which is played out in

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public spaces.146 ‘The right to be in these spaces’, Zukin argues, ‘to use them in certain ways, to invest them with a sense of our selves and our communities – to claim them as ours and to be claimed in turn by them – make up a constantly changing public culture’.147 While this process is open ended and is constantly being negotiated between different social groups, those with economic and political power have a greater ability to shape public culture as instantiated within public space.148 The local stoushes between heritage aficionados and popular music fans, between festival ‘freaks’ and Clipsal ‘bogans’, are struggles not only over competing priorities, leisure activities, and resource allocation, but also over the right to define Edinburgh and Adelaide as Festival Cities. The ongoing success of the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide, and their ability to generate monopoly rents, therefore relies on ongoing local engagement and investment. For as Harvey acknowledges, ‘there is always a strong social and discursive element at work in the construction of such causes for extracting monopoly rents’.149 How the festival organisers and stakeholders respond to these local challenges will determine the ongoing survival of the individual events and the reputations of Edinburgh and Adelaide as Festival Cities. Sparked by the ‘vista-blocking barriers’ to obscure views of summer music concerts in 2018, Edinburgh is once again debating who these festivals are for and whether they are worth the inconvenience to locals.150 Critics of festivalisation point out that major events, particularly those staged in public spaces, risk undermining the ‘special environmental characteristics’ of Edinburgh’s unique heritage upon which its monopoly rent is based.151 The success of the ‘growth coalition’ in growing visitor numbers between the global financial crisis and the onset of the global health pandemic (2008–2020) has led to overcrowding and overtourism in the city at festival time and put further pressure on rising accommodation costs and housing affordability year-round. This increased foot traffic and events-related infrastructure has damaged Edinburgh’s natural landscape and has blocked residents from accessing the city’s green spaces for large parts of the year. Corporate branding and signage have accompanied major events, furthering the commercialisation and commodification of these spaces. These combined factors have renewed criticisms of a Disneyfication of Edinburgh that ultimately undermines the authentic experience of its world-famous festivals. The festivals, in turn, are responding to local complaints and are rethinking their relationship to the city. Claims of the Disneyfication of

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Edinburgh are not new. In her 2005 study, Jen Harvie analyses the impact of festivals packaging Edinburgh into a visually appealing tourist map and reductive ad campaign. Among the negative effects of this phenomenon, she notes that ‘it can reduce the city to an apparently culturally homogenous entity that is seemingly fully understandable through a handful of simplistic categories, images and maps that leave out large swathes of the city, physically and culturally’.152 She argues, however, that Edinburgh’s festivals have had several positive effects on Scottish cultural representation and expression and points to local engagement initiatives of the period. Similarly, festival organisers today are aware of and responsive to the emerging debate. Under the leadership of Chief Executive, Shona McCarthy, the EFFS no longer pursues a ‘growth agenda’, preferring to encourage existing attendees to attend more shows rather than attract new visitors in a policy introduced in 2018 that she calls ‘one more show, not two more feet’.153 EIF Director, Fergus Linehan, whose tenure ends in 2022, and Edinburgh International Book Festival Director, Nick Barley, have both signalled that they are thinking of new ways to respond to the climate crisis and reduce the festivals’ emissions. The Book Festival, too, has also relinquished its traditional Charlotte Square venue and relocated to Edinburgh’s College of Art from 2021 to reduce its environmental impact. The continued public debate over the intensity of festivalisation represents a ‘battle for identity being waged which invokes collective memories, mythologies, history, culture, aesthetics, and tradition’.154 While Edinburgh’s festivals have historically been characterised as foreign impositions, the ongoing debate reveals that as local institutions they are imbricated in the material life and discursive construction of their city. In Adelaide, local debate continues over whether to continue clustering events in Mad March in Adelaide or to spread them evenly throughout the year. In the wake of the clash with the Morricone concert in 2012, arts supporters such as former Festival director, Anthony Steel, expressed concerns about the impact on the festival: ‘The fact that there’s so much going on in March has been a total disaster for the Festival’.155 In a 2013 review of Adelaide’s festivals, Warren McCann notes that the City of Adelaide Council would like events to spread throughout the year to sustain the vibrant atmosphere but argues that the clustering of the events in March is what is attractive to visitors, ‘and in turn [has a] greater impact on the city in terms of profile, pride and a boost to the economy’.156 The concern for preserving the Adelaide Festival as the jewel in the crown

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of the city’s events, however, was duly noted. In 2017, a further clash between events was prevented when the Adelaide Festival’s free Neil Finn concert in Elder Park was allowed to go ahead in place of Clipsal’s traditional after-race concert on the Sunday night. More than just a car race, Clipsal was ‘in fact a diversified endeavour offering a range of experiences and sub-events’ to augment the main racing event, which have included ‘driver autograph sessions, aviation displays, support races and displays, a ladies day luncheon, fashion parades, a family play zone and rock concert entertainment’ over each of the four nights, and has featured Cold Chisel (2015), Rob Thomas (2016), Hilltop Hoods (Friday night, 2017), and Robbie Williams (Adelaide 500, 2018).157 The lack of a Sunday night concert, in addition to grid girls being cut in 2016, and high ticket, food, and drink prices were blamed for the lowest attendance numbers (244,000) for the final Clipsal event since 2004.158 COVID-19 has also marked a turning point in Adelaide’s event ecology with then Liberal Premier, Steven Marshall, announcing that the Adelaide 500 V8 Supercar race would not be returning after a pandemicrelated interruption. ‘The successful branding of a city’, Harvey observes, ‘may require the expulsion or eradication of everyone or everything else that does not fit the brand’.159 Adelaide has actively constructed itself as a cultural, and now ‘creative’ city, and the proud capital of the ‘Festival State’. Rofe and Woosnam call attention to the broader culture war at play behind the specific clashes between events. ‘While for some, Clipsal’, they observe, ‘is a vibrant celebration of car culture, for others, it is an inappropriate aberration within a refined city of culture’.160 They further note the ‘class-based associations’ within local objections to Clipsal and argue that it ‘is indicative of the clash between professional-class and workingclass creativity’ that is devalued within creative cities discourse.161 This is undoubtedly a key factor in the demise of Adelaide 500—despite Superloop coming on board as naming sponsor in 2019—but falling ticket sales, the termination of the South Australian car manufacturing industry, the environmental impact, and COVID-19 related economic pressures also contributed. In 2020, the Santos Tour Down Under, Adelaide’s flagship cycling race, was cancelled due to uncertainty over interstate and international border closures. In the discursive battle to define the city, however, car racing fans have lost out with the V8 Supercar race no longer fitting within Adelaide’s view of itself as a cultural, creative city with a clean, green future.

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Conclusion Performative moments within the public sphere surrounding the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide reveal that they are sites for cultural contestation over which groups have the right to define the city. These festivals have traditionally provided a source of monopoly rent to their respective cities by defining and differentiating them within their geopolitical contexts. The ability of local authorities to continue to extract rents from these events and maintain the dominance of the Festival City place myth is threatened in both places by internal divisions and increased external competition. These internal conflicts can be witnessed through the culture wars that were sparked by the Summer Sessions in Edinburgh in 2018 and continue to be waged over the future of festivalisation of the city’s public spaces, and between the Adelaide Festival and Clipsal 500 in 2012, with government support for the car race ultimately being withdrawn. They also point to a larger contest over who has the right to define the city and highlights the definition of Edinburgh as the ‘world’s leading Festival City’ and Adelaide as the capital of the ‘Festival State’ as top-down constructions imposed by cultural and civic elites. Far from ‘present[ing] a sanitized version of the city’,162 as Johansson and Kociatkiewicz have argued, these performative moments reveal these festivals as sites of contestation if the analytical framework is extended to consider these festivals as performances. Place myths both highlight and participate in the changing nature of regional specialisms over time suggesting that the continued promotion of the Festival City is by no means guaranteed in either city. The process of cultural formation is dynamic and constantly produced and re-produced. ‘The orchestrated production of an urban image can, if successful’, Harvey observes, ‘help create a sense of social solidarity, civic pride and loyalty to place’.163 The Edinburgh and Adelaide festivals were established well before the current trend towards festivalisation, and have always pursued their own cultural and artistic agendas that appeal to a certain proportion of the population with high levels of cultural capital. This elitist agenda was disrupted immediately in both cities with the spontaneous beginnings of a fringe festival, in which local artists contested their lack of representation in Edinburgh and the conservative programming choices of the board in Adelaide. As enormous open-access events, the meanings of individual performances within them cannot be prescribed and contained. While these festivals are implicated

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within creative cities discourse and culture-led regeneration, and unwittingly foster neoliberal agendas, as is explored further in the next chapter, they also provide a space for the impacts of these policies to be debated and contested. As Harvey argues, if different groups ‘participate in the production of an urban image through their production of social space, then all can at least feel some sense of belonging to that place’.164 This suggests that the festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide must reconcile these tensions and offer a renewed appeal to a broad spectrum of the urban population.

Notes 1. Marjana Johansson and Jerzy Kociatkiewicz, ‘City Festivals: Creativity and Control in Staged Urban Experience’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 18.4 (2011): 392–405 (p. 394). 2. Andrew Smith, Events in the City: Using Public Spaces as Event Venues (London: Routledge, 2015), pp. 33–34. 3. Don Mitchell, Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 293–94. 4. Ibid., p. xvi. 5. This is the tagline of the umbrella website, Edinburgh Festival City, Edinburgh Festival City.Com, http://www.edinburghfestivalcity.com/ [accessed 20 May 2015]. 6. David Harvey, ‘The Art of Rent’, in Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (London: Verso, 2012), pp. 89–112 (p. 90). 7. Phil Hubbard and Tim Hall, ‘The Entrepreneurial City and the “New Urban Politics”’, in The Entrepreneurial City: Geographies of Politics, Regime and Representation, ed. by Tim Hall and Phil Hubbard (Chichester, Eng.: John Wiley, 1998), pp. 1–23 (p. 22). 8. Smith, Events in the City, p. 9. 9. Ibid., p. 18. 10. Ibid., p. 15. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid., p. 16. 13. Ibid., p. 17. 14. Ibid., p. 36. 15. Ibid., p. 37. 16. ‘New Anti-Terrorism Barriers Planned at Edinburgh Festival’, BBC.com, 10 April 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgheast-fife-43713660 [accessed 3 November 2021]. 17. Smith, Events in the City, p. 101.; original emphasis.

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18. Ibid., p. 85. 19. See reviews including: Patrick McDonald, ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Adelaide’s Festivals’, The Advertiser, 17 March 2012, pp. 46–47; Mark Ellis, ‘Canvas: The Good, the Bad, and the Shambolic’, The Age, 5 March 2012 http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/canvasthe-good-the-bad-and-the-shambolic-20120304-1uau9.html [accessed 7 March 2012]; Natasha Stott Despoja, ‘Culture Clash Makes Us a Laughing Stock’, The Advertiser, 6 March 2012, p. 18. 20. Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Festival 2012 Programme (Adelaide: Adelaide Festival, 2012), p. 1. 21. Brad Crouch, ‘Clipsal 500 Noise Intrudes on Ennio Morricone Adelaide Festival Concert’, Sunday Mail, 3 March 2012, http://www.adelai denow.com.au/entertainment/festivals/clipsal-500-noise-intrudes-onennio-morricone-adelaide-festival-concert/story-fn489cz4-122628779 3167 [accessed 7 March 2012]. 22. ABC News, ‘Morricone and V8s Don’t Mix’, Transcript of ABC 7PM TV News, SA, aired 5 March 2012, http://www.abc.net.au/news/ 2012-03-05/clipsal-morricone-noise-clash-v8/3868226/?site=southw estvic [accessed 7 March 2012]. 23. Both Paul Grabowsky, then director of the Adelaide Festival, and Ian Scobie, director of WOMADelaide, were quoted in media interviews as expressing a desire for Clipsal to be moved. See ABC News, ‘Morricone and V8s Don’t Mix’; Samela Harris, ‘Womad Wants Clipsal Moved to Avoid Clash’, The Advertiser, 13 March 2012, p. 4. 24. Stott Despoja, ‘Culture Clash Makes Us a Laughing Stock’, p. 18. 25. Jonathan Pearlman Sydney, ‘Morricone Concert Labelled “Fiasco” After It’s Interrupted by V8 Supercar Race’, Telegraph Online, 2012, http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/austra lia/9123600/Morricone-concert-labelled-fiasco-after-its-interrupted-byV8-Supercar-race.html [accessed 10 April 2012]. 26. McDonald, ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’, p. 46. 27. Crouch, ‘Clipsal 500 Noise Intrudes’. 28. McDonald, ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’, p. 46. 29. Ellis, ‘Canvas’. 30. Lainie Anderson, ‘South Australia May Have Its Problems but a Clash of High-Class Events Is Not One of Them: Race Complex + Music Complex = Inferiority Complex’, Sunday Mail, 11 March 2012, p. 25. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. @adamhillscomedy, 4 March 2012. 35. David Marr, Patrick White Lecture at Adelaide Writers’ Week, West Stage, Pioneer Women’s Memorial Park, Adelaide, 2012, 1:15PM.

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36. Craig Cook, ‘Why Clipsal Is One out of the Box’, The Advertiser, 5 March 2012, p. 7. 37. ‘Editorial – The Guardian View on Edinburgh’s Cityscape: Preserving the Big Picture’, Guardian, 13 August 2018, https://www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2018/aug/13/the-guardian-view-on-edinburghscityscape-preserving-the-big-picture [accessed 24 September 2021]. 38. Ibid. 39. Tom Gordon, ‘Edinburgh City Council Orders Removal of Princes St Black-Out Fence’, Herald Scotland, 13 August 2018, https://www. heraldscotland.com/news/16414097.edinburgh-city-council-ordersremoval-princes-st-black-out-fence/ [accessed 24 September 2021]. Wightman later resigned from the Scottish Green Party and finished his term as an independent. 40. Cllr Adam McVey, @adamrmcvey, Twitter, 13 August 2018, https:// twitter.com/adamrmcvey/status/1028650766091919363?lang=gl [accessed 3 November 2021]. 41. Qtd in ‘Giant Curtain to Block View of Princes Street Gardens Concerts’, BBC.com, 19 June 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/ukscotland-edinburgh-east-fife-48694655 [accessed 24 September 2021]. 42. Brian Ferguson, ‘Heritage Body Wants Edinburgh Festival Shows Staged at Sports Stadia and Shopping Centre Car Parks’, The Scotsman, 24 March 2021, Factiva. 43. ‘Biography of Henry Cockburn’, Cockburn Association https://www. cockburnassociation.org.uk/history/biography/ [accessed 13 December 2021]. 44. Qtd in Jonathan Brocklebank, ‘Festival of Strife’, Scottish Daily Mail, 21 August 2021, Factiva [accessed 13 December 2021]. 45. ‘Cockburn Association Chronological Timeline’, Cockburn Association https://www.cockburnassociation.org.uk/history/timeline/ [accessed 13 December 2021]. 46. ‘Anger as Gardens Left a Mudbath by Edinburgh’s Christmas Market’, Herald Scotland, 11 January 2020, https://www.heraldscotland.com/ news/18153489.anger-gardens-left-mudbath-edinburghs-christmas-mar ket/ [accessed 24 September 2021]. 47. Conor Matchett, ‘£150,000 Bill to Repair East Princes Street Gardens after Christmas Market’, Edinburgh News, 9 July 2020, https://www.edi nburghnews.scotsman.com/news/politics/council/ps150000-bill-rep air-east-princes-street-gardens-after-christmas-market-2908111 [accessed 24 September 2021]. 48. Conor Matchett, ‘Petition Demands Resignation of Edinburgh Council Leader Adam McVey over “Disneyfication” of Capital’, Edinburgh News,

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49.

50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

65. 66. 67. 68.

69.

31 December 2019, https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/ news/politics/council/petition-demands-resignation-edinburgh-councilleader-adam-mcvey-over-disneyfication-capital-1351592 [accessed 24 September 2021]. ‘City for Sale’, Cockburn Association, 24 January 2020, https://www. cockburnassociation.org.uk/news/city-for-sale/ [accessed 13 December 2021]. Qtd in ‘It’s Selfish and Elitist to Object to Summer Sessions Concerts – Geoff Ellis’, Edinburgh Evening News, 20 August 2019, Factiva. Ibid. Stanley Waterman, ‘Carnivals for Elites? The Cultural Politics of Arts Festivals’, Progress in Human Geography, 22.1 (1998): 54–74, (p. 55). Hague qtd in Ferguson, ‘Heritage Body’. Brian Ferguson, ‘Summer Sessions Concerts To Go Ahead in Edinburgh this Summer and Return in 2022’, Scotsman, 29 March 2021, https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/sum mer-sessions-concerts-to-go-ahead-in-edinburgh-this-summer-and-ret urn-in-2022-3181707 [accessed 24 September 2021]. Qtd in Brocklebank, ‘Festival of Strife’. Ibid. David Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (New York: Verso, 2012), p. 4. Carla Pinochet Cobos, ‘Cultural Festivals in Urban Public Space: Conflicting City Projects in Chile’s Central Zone’, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies: Travesía, 28.3 (2019): 465–82 (p. 466). Ibid. Ibid., pp. 465–66. Mitchell, Cultural Geography, p. 11.; original emphasis. Harvey, Rebel Cities, p. 5. Smith, Events in the City, p. 79. Andrew Smith, ‘Paying for Parks. Ticketed Events and the Commercialisation of Public Space’, Leisure Studies, 37.5 (2018): 533–46, (p. 533). Cliff Hague, ‘The Festivalisation of Edinburgh: Manifestations, Impacts and Responses’, Scottish Affairs, 30.3 (2021): 289–310 (p. 291). ‘About’, Garden of Unearthly Delights https://www.gardenofunearthlyd elights.com.au/about [accessed 22 October 2021]. ‘About’, Gluttony, https://gluttony.net.au/about [accessed 22 October 2021]. Matthew W. Rofe and Clare L. Woosnam, ‘Festivals as a Vehicle for Place Promotion: Cars, Contestation and the Creative City Ethos’, Landscape Research, 41.3 (2016): 344–59 (p. 353). Ibid.

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70. Ibid., p. 354.; ‘Clipsal Records Highest Economic Impact’, 14 June 2016, https://www.supercars.com/news/championship/clipsal-recordshighest-economic-impact/ [accessed 3 November 2021]. 71. Smith, Events in the City, p. 96. 72. Ibid., p. 98. 73. Elizabeth Rushbrook, SECRA, Letter to Michael Lennon, Chair of State Planning Commission, Available SA Plan, https://plan.sa.gov.au/__ data/assets/pdf_file/0006/762585/South_East_City_Residents_Associ ation.pdf [accessed 13 December 2021]; Rofe and Woosnam, p. 354. 74. Ibid., p. 356. 75. David McGillivray, Severin Guillard, and Emma Reid, ‘Urban Connective Action: The Case of Events Hosted in Public Space’, Urban Planning, 5.4 (2020): 252–66 (p. 260). 76. Sean Murphy, ‘“Edinburgh Has Sold Its Soul”—Twitter Reacts Angrily to Underbelly Wristbands Controversy’, Edinburgh Evening News, https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-has-soldits-soul-twitter-reacts-angrily-underbelly-wristbands-controversy-134 8961 [accessed 26 October 2021]. 77. Angus Duncan, Twitter, https://twitter.com/Angus_Duncan/status/ 1208857248564436992 [accessed 26 October 2021]. 78. Quoted in Libby Brooks, ‘Hogmanay fury as Edinburgh residents told to apply for access to own homes’, Guardian, https://www.thegua rdian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/26/edinburgh-residents-restrictionshogmanay [accessed 26 October 2021]. 79. Adam McVey, Twitter, https://twitter.com/adamrmcvey/status/121 1584707319734273? [accessed 26 October 2021]. Severin Carrell, ‘Edinburgh Council Blames Hogmanay Festival Organiser for “Curfew” Row’, Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/ 30/edinburgh-blames-hogmanay-organiser-curfew-underbelly [accessed 13 December 2021]. 80. Duncan, Twitter. 81. Smith, Events in the City, p. 91. 82. Ibid., p. 84. 83. Paul J. Tranter and Mark Lowes, ‘Life in the Fast Lane: Environmental, Economic, and Public Health Outcomes of Motorsport Spectacles in Australia’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 33.2 (2009): 150–68 (p. 155). 84. Ibid., p. 153; 155. 85. Rofe and Woosnam, p. 356. 86. Ibid. 87. Cited in Sam Kelton, ‘Clipsal Switches Off 500’, The Advertiser, 29 November 2016, Factiva. 88. Smith, ‘Paying for Parks’, p. 544.

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89. 90. 91. 92. 93.

94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102.

103. 104. 105. 106. 107.

108. 109. 110.

111. 112. 113.

McGillivray, Guillard, and Reid, p. 254. Smith, Events in the City, p. 20. McGillivray, Guillard, and Reid, p. 262. ‘FAQs’, The Quaich Project, https://thequaichproject.org/faqs [accessed 13 December 2021]. ‘Ross Bandstand Backers Pledge No Increase in Number of Gigs’, Edinburgh Evening News, 15 August 2018, https://www.edinburgh news.scotsman.com/news/ross-bandstand-backers-pledge-no-increasenumber-gigs-582609 [accessed 13 December 2021]. Smith, ‘Paying for Park’s, p. 542. Smith, Events in the City, p. 35. Ibid., p. 19. Don Mitchell, The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space, 2nd edn (New York: The Guilford Press, 2014), p. 35. Ibid., p. 18.; original emphasis. Harvey, ‘Art of Rent’, p. 89. Ibid., p. 90. Ibid., p. 91. Richard Prentice and Vivien Andersen, ‘Festival as Creative Destination’, Annals of Tourism Research, 30.1 (2003): 7–30 (p. 25); original emphasis. Ibid., p. 26. Adelaide Festival Corporation, ‘About’, Adelaide Festival, 2012 www. adelaidefestival.com.au/about [accessed 29 April 2012]. Harvey, ‘Art of Rent’, p. 91. Ibid. Michael McKinnie, ‘Rethinking Site-Specificity: Monopoly, Urban Space, and the Cultural Economics of Site-Specific Performance’, in Performing Site-Specific Theatre: Politics, Place, Practice, ed. by Joanne Tompkins and Anna Birch (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 21–33 (p. 23). Harvey, ‘Art of Rent’, p. 91. Ibid., p. 92. Angela Bartie, ‘Culture in the Everyday: Art and Society’, in A History of Everyday Life in Twentieth-Century Scotland, ed. by Lynn Abrams and Callum G. Brown (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), pp. 206–27 (p. 213). Qtd in Derek Whitelock and Doug Loan, Festival!: The Story of the Adelaide Festival of Arts, (Adelaide: Derek Whitelock, 1980), p. 39. ‘About’, World Fringe Association, https://www.worldfringe.com/ about-world-fringe-association/ [accessed 1 November 2021]. Harvey, ‘Art of Rent’, p. 92.

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114. The Prisoner, written and directed by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne, appeared at the Royal National Theatre’s Dorfman Theatre 12 September to 4 October 2018. The Malady of Death (La Maladie de la Mort) by Marguerite Dumas, adapted by Alice Birch and directed by Katie Mitchell, appeared at the Barbican Theatre 3–6 October 2018. 115. Perth Festival, ‘What’s On’, Perth Festival, 2012 www.perthfestival. com.au [accessed 4 April 2012]. 116. Harvey, ‘The Art of Rent’, p. 99. 117. David Sefton cited in Matthew Westwood, ‘Here Comes a Classical Showdown with Rivals’, The Australian, 3 April 2012, p. 16. 118. Harvey, ‘The Art of Rent’, p. 93. 119. AEA Consulting, ‘Thundering Hooves: Maintaining the Global Competitive Edge of Edinburgh’s Festivals’, in Festivals Edinburgh (London: AEA Consulting, 2006) (p. 4). 120. Ibid., p. 27. 121. Ibid., p. 4. 122. Hague, p. 290. 123. BOP Consulting, Edinburgh’s Festivals: Thundering Hooves 2.0. A Ten Year Strategy to Sustain the Success of Edinburgh’s Festivals (Edinburgh: Festivals Edinburgh, May 2015) http://www.edinburghfestiv alcity.com/about/documents/196-thundering-hooves [accessed 22 May 2015], p. 10. 124. Hague, pp. 291–92. 125. The Canberra Festival coincided with the Adelaide Festival in 2012, although this is less well known than the arts festivals held in the state capitals. Tasmania’s Ten Days on the Island festival is also held in March. 126. Adelaide City Council, Arts and Culture Strategy 2010–2014, p. 4. 127. Ibid. 128. Ibid., p. 6. 129. John Hill cited in Brook Turner, ‘Or Theatre of the Absurd?’, Australian Financial Review, 15 March 2012, p. 63; original brackets. 130. The Brisbane Festival became an annual event in 2009. Brisbane Festival, ‘History of Brisbane Festival’, Brisbane Festival, 2012, http://www.bri sbanefestival.com.au/About/History [accessed 25 April 2012]. 131. Adelaide Fringe, ‘Fringe Extended in 2013!’, Media, News and Blog, 2012, http://www.adelaidefringe.com.au/media-news/fringe-extendedin-2013 [accessed 20 April 2015]. 132. Richard L. Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. ix; Richard L. Florida, Cities and the Creative Class (New York: Routledge, 2005). 133. Rowland Atkinson and Hazel Easthope, ‘The Consequences of the Creative Class: The Pursuit of Creativity Strategies in Australia’s Cities’,

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134.

135.

136. 137. 138. 139.

140. 141. 142.

143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150.

151. 152. 153.

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33.1 (2009): 64–79 (p. 69). Adelaide City Council, Arts and Culture Strategy 2010–2014 (2010) http://www.adelaidecitycouncil.com/community/arts-culture/ [accessed 21 March 2012], p. 1. Charles Landry claims he invented the term ‘Creative City’ in the 1980s and is best known for Charles Landry, The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators, 2nd edn (London: Earthscan, 2008), the first edition of which was published in 2000. SQW Development Consultants, and TNS Travel and Tourism, ‘Edinburgh’s Year Round Festivals 2004–05 Final Report’ (Edinburgh: City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian, EventScotland, VisitScotland, 2005), http://www.efa-aef.eu/newpub lic/upload/efadoc/11/festivals_exec_summary_final_%20edinburgh% 2004-05.pdf [accessed 14 September 2012], p. 80. Atkinson and Easthope, p. 66. Jamie Peck, ‘Struggling with the Creative Class’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 29.4 (2005): 740–70 (pp. 740–41). Atkinson and Easthope, p. 73. Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo, Performance and Cosmopolitics: CrossCultural Transactions in Australasia (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 9. Rofe and Woosnam, p. 346. Peck, p. 740. Mark Billinge, ‘Trading History, Reclaiming the Past: The Crystal Palace as Icon’, in Selling Places: The City as Cultural Capital, Past and Present, ed. by Gerry Kearns and Chris Philo (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1993), pp. 103–31 (p. 142). Peck, pp. 745–47. Ibid., p. 749. Harvey, ‘Art of Rent’, p. 103. Sharon Zukin, The Cultures of Cities (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1995), p. 10. Ibid., p. 11. Ibid. Harvey, ‘Art of Rent’, p. 103. ‘David McLean: Why I’m Done With the Edinburgh Fringe’, The Scotsman, 29 August 2018, https://www.scotsman.com/arts-andculture/david-mclean-why-im-done-edinburgh-fringe-581938 [24 September 2021]. Ibid. Jen Harvie, Staging the UK (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), p. 94. Qtd in Brocklebank, ‘Festival of Strife’.

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159. 160. 161. 162. 163.

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Harvey, ‘Art of Rent’, p. 107. Anthony Steel cited in ABC News, ‘Morricone and V8s Don’t Mix’. McCann, Light Years Ahead, p. 22. Rofe and Woosnam, p. 353. Patrick McDonald and Antimo Iannella, ‘Numbers Crunch on our Madding March Squeeze’, The Advertiser, 21 March 2017, Factiva; Adam Langenberg, Miles Kemp, Jade Gailberger, ‘Poorest Crowd Numbers in 16 Years but Last Clipsal 500 in Adelaide Still’, Adelaide Now, 6 March 2017, https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/motorsport/v8-supercars/last-clipsal-500-a-thriller-but-numbers-down/newsstory/3f294805c65ae6a23d26c1f414b45c1e [accessed 3 November 2021]. Harvey, ‘Art of Rent’, p. 108. Rofe and Woosnam, p. 345. Ibid., p. 354. Johansson and Kociatkiewicz, ‘City Festivals’, p. 403. David Harvey, ‘From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism’, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 71.1 (1989): 3–17 (p. 14). Ibid.

CHAPTER 4

Entrepreneurialism on the Fringe

Adelaide and Edinburgh both stage major festivals and events throughout the year but are known for their high-profile summer festivals that take over the city in February–March and August annually. While each hosts a conglomeration of overlapping events during this peak period, visitors are overwhelmingly attracted to the carnivalesque atmosphere generated by the energy and vitality of the open-access fringe events that have overtaken the official international arts festivals. In both cities, the sheer volume of fringe performances maintains the sizeable cultural and economic impact of the Adelaide and Edinburgh Festivals and sets them apart within the global festival marketplace. As key nodes within this circuit they also serve as major vehicles for the development and circulation of new work across all disciplines including theatre, comedy, music, dance, circus, and visual art. In recent years, both the Adelaide Fringe and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (EFF) have been the subject of high-profile scandals in which fringe artists have questioned the continued economic viability of the open-access model that promotes perpetual growth while relying on the precarious (and often free) labour of artists. Where once open-access meant guaranteeing artistic freedom and local participation, it is today aligned with the neoliberal agendas of free-market competition, precarisation, and the requirement of artists to become creative entrepreneurs.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Thomasson, The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09094-3_4

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This chapter is framed by the similar performative events occurring in both cities that have called into question the equity of the free-market open-access policy and brought the alignment between fringe and neoliberalism to the forefront of public debate. In March 2016, a debate erupted on social media and within the press over the size of the Adelaide Fringe, after long-standing fringe artists complained of poor ticket sales in the smaller independent venues.1 British comedian Alexis Dubus accused the Adelaide Fringe via Facebook of allowing ‘greed and complacency to dictate its direction’ resulting in an ‘atmosphere of entitlement among Adelaide audiences’ who are discouraged from attending smaller shows by less established artists by the ‘big venues’ allegedly giving away free tickets in order to boost their food and alcohol sales.2 In rebuttal, Heather Croall, director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Adelaide Fringe Inc., argued that the Fringe ‘has always been and remains an incredibly competitive market for artists’, thus defending the open-access fringe model.3 This was reminiscent of a debate four years earlier in Edinburgh when high-profile artists accused major producers on the EFF of commercialisation and exploitation. Just days before the 2012 Fringe began, comedian Stewart Lee accused the ‘big four’ venues—the Pleasance, Assembly Theatre, Underbelly, and Gilded Balloon—of fragmenting the Fringe, exploiting their artists, and ultimately causing the ‘slow death’ of the festival in an article for the Guardian.4 In response, Underbelly producer, Charlie Wood, characterised Lee’s critique as a self-serving publicity stunt.5 This focus on the welfare of artists within the highly competitive fringe market was expanded to consider the poor pay and working conditions of all workers on the EFF with the launch of the Fair Fringe campaign in 2017. The campaign prompted the City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) to adopt the Fair Fringe and Fair Hospitality Charter Guidelines in time for the 2018 summer festivals. That year, one of the major independent venue producers, C Venues, received two ‘Bad Boss’ awards for poor pay and a horrible working environment, and were subsequently targeted for investigation by the Fair Fringe campaign.6 Addressing poor pay and conditions remains an ongoing issue within the Fringe as does the soaring cost of August accommodation in Edinburgh, which has been identified by the Fringe Society as a key factor that limits the potential profits of fringe artists and is a major barrier to participation.7

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These debates are locally inflected in each location. The conversation in Edinburgh is dominated by concerns over commercialisation and the increasing costs of participation. In Adelaide, Dubus’s comments invoked old anxieties by questioning the cultural literacy of Adelaide (and by extension Australian) audiences. These controversies share an underlying concern with the perpetual growth of the fringe festivals at the expense of artists and workers, the dominance of the long-established ‘big venues’, and increasing barriers to participation that are common to both fringes and are at odds with the ethos of open-access. In this chapter, I analyse these controversies as performative events within the theatrical public sphere following Jen Harvie’s critique of socially engaged art in the ‘context of neoliberal capitalism’ to demonstrate how fringe participation is limited by ‘emphases on deregulation, the primacy of the individual and meritocracy, which is ostensibly the power of anyone who earns it, but is effectively the power of those who have the skills, resources and contacts – the cultural capital, in other words – to do so’.8 Contextualising these debates within festival scholarship from Theatre and Performance Studies and Cultural Geography, I argue that open-access fringe festivals risk perpetuating the logic of neoliberalism by promoting free-market competition, relying on precarious labour practices, and requiring artists to become entrepreneurs while taking advantage of what Lauren Berlant terms the ‘cruel optimism’ of artists’ aspirations for success.9 This pressure on fringe festivals to maintain perpetual growth—in artist numbers, audience attendance, and economic impact—may ultimately be undermining their sustainability. The EFF has inspired over two hundred fringe festivals worldwide, and while not all have adopted the open-access model, they all make important contributions to the production and transmission of culture. Fringe festivals are important sites for the creation of new work, providing a platform for emerging and established artists to reach wider audiences, and stimulating new directions in creative practice. Careers can be launched via the international festival circuit, and they facilitate intercultural exchange. With increasing financial risk for artists who participate, it is time to re-evaluate an economic model in which they are subsidising these large-scale events that bring visitors to the city and generate significant amounts of money for ancillary businesses. Recognising artists’ legitimate concerns, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society (EFFS) and Adelaide Fringe Inc. are working within their own contexts to address barriers to participation including cost of accommodation, pedestrian

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congestion, registration and ticketing fees, and the geographical and financial disadvantage of audience members, and by improving disabled access for artists and audiences. The EFFS is working to change the narrative around how the value or ‘impact’ of the event is measured, and Adelaide Fringe Inc. focuses on the artists’ experience by creating networking opportunities with major producers. Since 2010, Festivals Edinburgh in collaboration with BOP Consulting has sought to measure and promote the social, cultural, and environmental impact of these events, which helps to assert their contribution to Edinburgh and the rest of Scotland beyond the popular economic impact assessments that celebrate the percentage increase in visitor numbers each year.10 They have also published a Fringe Blueprint that explicitly addresses some of the issues raised by artists to guide their activities between 2018 and 2022.11 Adelaide Fringe Inc. has wellestablished programmes to help artists to develop their work beyond the festival event and engage communities outside the city. Through initiatives such as Fringe on Tour, the Honey Pot programme, the Fringe Club, and the more recent Adelaide Fringe Artists Fund, Adelaide Fringe Inc. provides networking opportunities to extend the touring life of fringe work and potentially mitigate precarity. While taking different approaches, both festivals are responding to the debates circulating in the public sphere and are re-formulating the open-access philosophy for the twenty-first century. The debate sparked, in part, by Lee and Dubus provides an opportunity to investigate in detail the dangers of open-access as an economic model and to reflect upon initial attempts to mitigate them as an important first step in strengthening and preserving the important cultural work that these festivals do. I interrogate the ways in which open-access fringe festivals can work to normalise or resist neoliberal ideology and ask how Edinburgh and Adelaide can sustain their long-standing and widely regarded events while also reasserting their mandate to foster wider participation. I first provide context for the EFF and the Adelaide Fringe including the subtle differences for how neoliberalism developed in Australia as opposed to the UK, before analysing in depth the discourses surrounding these events. The controversies over whether these fringe festivals are expanding at the expense of the well-being of artists and workers, sparked partly by Lee in Edinburgh in 2012 and Dubus in Adelaide in 2016 and highlighted by the Fair Fringe campaign, brings these questions into relief and provides an opportunity to analyse how

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open-access fringes today are not only influenced by neoliberal ideology but are also reinforcing it. With festivals increasingly dominating cultural landscapes, there is a growing need to examine their institutional structures, role in local economies, and social impacts through interdisciplinary approaches that go beyond the individual performances and the temporal event. While this chapter cannot resolve these issues, questioning the push for these events’ perpetual growth and their reliance on precarious labour is an important first step.

Open-Access: Origins and Tensions The Edinburgh Fringe began as an offshoot of the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) in 1947 when eight theatre groups turned up unsolicited and uninvited to the inaugural event. Redressing a lack of Scottish drama in the official programme (see Chapters 1 and 2), these pioneering groups were forced to find their own venues and market their own performances to survive independently of the main festival. Scottish playwright Robert Kemp is attributed with inadvertently coining the term ‘fringe’ in 1948 in an article for the Edinburgh Evening News, in which he described how ‘[r]ound the fringe of official Festival drama there seems to be more private enterprise than before’.12 Since then, performances in Edinburgh have embodied both connotations of the term ‘fringe’: those groups outside of the commercial and subsidised institutional sectors, as well as those artists serving an artistic ‘apprenticeship’ who are seeking to break into the professional industry. Preserving the do-it-yourself attitude of these original groups, the EFFS, which was formalised in 1958, maintains an open-access policy today. As former Administrator Alistair Moffat notes within his history of the Fringe, the participants at the time wished to establish a Society in order ‘to help the performers who came to Edinburgh and to promote them collectively to the public. They did not come together so that groups could be vetted or invited or in some way controlled artistically’.13 The registered charity Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society Limited, which employed twenty-four staff year-round in 2018, is a company limited by guarantee and incorporated in Scotland, with an open membership responsible for electing the Board of Directors, appointing auditors, and adopting the accounts each year.14 Their annual reports and website affirm a commitment to the open-access philosophy, which today is defined as ‘anyone with a desire to perform and a venue willing to

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host them is welcome. No individual or committee determines who can or cannot perform at the Fringe’.15 The Fringe Society, then, operates as an advisory organisation that offers support and advice to artists, producers, and venues; publishes the Fringe guide; runs the ticketing service; promotes the event locally, nationally, and internationally16 ; and has more recently taken responsibility for safeguarding the accessibility of the event and promoting the festival as the ‘greatest platform for creative freedom’.17 The open-access philosophy of the Fringe ensures that artistic freedom is located with the artist, but so is the financial risk. The EFF is often described as a kind of Darwinian survival of the fittest struggle for artistic triumph (and financial success). Every year in August, thousands of shows are pitted against each other in the fight for audiences, ticket sales, and media attention, as any pedestrian trying to negotiate the Royal Mile at festival time can attest. English actor Steven Berkoff has described the Edinburgh Fringe as ‘a place to really test yourself out. There’s a dynamic atmosphere of competition, which is very productive and because it’s very much performance-led, there’s a great camaraderie and some fantastic shows surface that you might not see anywhere else’.18 EFFS Chief Executive Shona McCarthy reaffirmed the Society’s commitment to its historical open-access mandate in 2019: ‘We have resolutely supported and maintained the open access of the event, which means that regardless of art-form, professional status or geographical location, everyone is welcome to participate’.19 Artistic merit, of course, does not necessarily guarantee financial success. In this way, an essential tension arises at the very heart of the Fringe. On the one hand, it grew out of opposition to the inherent elitism and agenda of an invitation-only festival, but on the other, this same artistic freedom appears to lend itself easily to the promotion of free-market competition and the potential for individual artists to incur high levels of personal debt. It has also led to the increasing commercialisation of the festival as producers and artists try to mitigate their risk by seeking private sponsorship, with the Fringe Society itself supported by both alcohol and social media companies. There is a risk, however, that this commercialisation compromises artistic freedom and that rising costs to artists will undermine the longterm sustainability of the event, which was the conflict that played out publicly within the media in 2012. As the EFF has inspired many similar events around the world, Harvie identifies the further risk that it poses in ‘normalizing, helping to globally disseminate, and serving to legitimate a

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neoliberal capitalist market ideology, environment, and set of practices’ to other open-access fringes.20 In Adelaide, what came to be known as the Adelaide Fringe began as a mostly local affair alongside the ‘official’ festival in 1960 as a biennial event and, like Ric Knowles notes of the EFF, has historically been positioned as an antidote to the perceived elitism and historical conservatism of the official festival.21 A complete, critical history of the Adelaide Fringe is yet to be published, but both Australian theatre critic Geoffrey Milne and author of the only history of the Adelaide Festival, Derek Whitelock, describe the Fringe in its early period as ‘small-scale’ and an ‘add-on’ to the main event.22 In 1975, the Adelaide Fringe, which was then known as Focus, began to professionalise, becoming an incorporated body with a new committee chaired by Frank Ford who outlined its open-access policy and commitment to local participation in a 1979 Annual Report: ‘[w]e are committed to supporting local talent, providing opportunities for performers, encouraging community expression and participation, and supporting experimentation and innovation. We make no lofty judgements regarding the standards of the arts’.23 This wider inclusion and participation in the Fringe has traditionally been assured by its open-access policy in which the organisation claims that anyone with a show and venue willing to host them can perform.24 This assertion underplays the amount of financial and artistic capital involved and underwrites the myth that open-access fringes function as sites of artistic freedom and experimentation. As Knowles observed of the EFF in 2000, however, ‘if this was ever the case, it isn’t anymore’.25 Since becoming an annual festival in 2007, the Adelaide Fringe has doubled in size, and in 2020 it staged 1,203 registered performances by 6,724 artists across 367 venues over five weeks in February and March (14 February–15 March), making it one of the largest multi-arts fringe festivals in the world.26 Today, the claims underpinning the concept of artistic freedom are further threatened by the high cost of participating in an event where artists are expected to be ‘creative entrepreneurs’ who self-produce their own shows and who, along with the venue managers, bear all of the financial risk. These processes and their effects are part of much wider international shifts in economics and politics, which will now be examined.

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Neoliberalism Neoliberalism describes not only the dominant set of macroeconomic policy prescriptions of late capitalism but also the hegemonic social and political attitudes that support and extend its influence. According to Marxist geographer David Harvey, ‘Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human wellbeing can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade’.27 Economically, it has led to ‘Deregulation, privatization, and withdrawal of the state from many areas of social provision’ such as education, health care, housing, and the arts, and socially it privileges the rights and responsibilities of the individual over the collective.28 Most importantly, according to Harvey, neoliberalism ‘has pervasive effects on ways of thought to the point where it has become incorporated into the common-sense way many of us interpret, live in, and understand the world’.29 In the UK, neoliberalism introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, but continued under New Labour, eroded the post-WWII welfare state, which is perhaps best symbolised by the National Health Service, and supported business at the expense of workers and systems of social support.30 Jamie Peck cautions that neoliberalisation is ‘an open-ended and contradictory process of regulatory restructuring’.31 He observes that neoliberalism ‘is a complex, mediated, and heterogeneous kind of omnipresence, not a state of blanket conformity’ and that free-market reforms are uneven and adapted to the local situation.32 Unlike the British and American experience, in which neoliberalism was first championed by conservative governments, the process of neoliberalisation in Australia was initiated by the left-wing Australian Labor Party (ALP) in the early 1980s. Erik Paul contends that neoliberalism ‘gained ascendency in the war of ideas in Australian politics in the 1970s with the dismissal of the [ALP] Whitlam government in 1975’ and was formalised under the successive Hawke and Keating Labor governments that first came to power in 1983.33 Initiated by Bob Hawke, then, but continued by subsequent governments on both sides of politics, the Australian economy was reformed through deregulation and privatisation, first of ‘state banks, airports and companies’, followed by ‘water, education, telecommunications, transportation and energy services’ and the financialisation of the

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economy,34 such that ‘[t]he income gap has grown sharply in recent years; at the top, salaries have risen dramatically, while the bottom 20 per cent of households have suffered a fall in income’.35 The process of neoliberalisation has been all encompassing and the cultural sector has not been immune. Neoliberalism has even encouraged the growth of festivals through government policies that ‘require communities to act as independent entrepreneurs within the marketplace’.36 As Jodie George observes, this has led to communities trying to engage tourism markets in part by commodifying cultural practices, which has seen the phenomenon of festivalisation flourish. ‘To generate specific and timely interest in a place’, she explains, ‘communities may […] monopolise on a pre-existing or newly developed event or festival, which provides an opportunity to engage the tourist market in a concentrated period of time within the location’.37 Festivals are therefore implicated in this process of neoliberalisation so much so that Bernadette Quinn argues that ‘arts festivals are now a mainstay of urban tourism and urban policy-making’ because they are ‘[f]ramed within a broader array of neo-liberal, culture-led urban regeneration strategies’.38 This push towards entrepreneurialism affects not just cultural practices at a community level, but, as has seldom been recognised, also the working conditions of individual artists. In an era of advanced capitalism, which has seen Fordist models of industrial production, state planning, and Keynesian economic principles give way to the self-governing, individualised, neoliberal state, precarious labour practices are the new norm. Rosalind Gill and Andy Pratt observe that these transformations in ‘modes of political and economic governance’, which are underwritten by improved transport and telecommunication technologies and the impact of globalisation, have ‘produced an apparently novel situation in which increasing numbers of workers in affluent societies are engaged in insecure, casualized or irregular labour’.39 From their position within the knowledge and service economy, cultural, and creative workers are ‘said perhaps more than any other [group] to symbolize contemporary transformations of work’.40 According to Gill and Pratt, Artists, (new) media workers and other cultural labourers are hailed as ‘model entrepreneurs’ by industry and government figures […]; they are exemplars of the move away from stable notions of ‘career’ to more informal, insecure and discontinuous employment […], are said to be

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iconic representatives of the ‘brave new world of work’ […], in which risks and responsibilities must be borne solely by the individual.41

As Nicholas Ridout and Rebecca Schneider note in their introduction to The Drama Review’s (TDR) special issue on precarity, ‘“creative capital” invests a kind of promise in precarity with words like “innovation”, “failure”, “experiment”, and “arts”’.42 The consequences of this precarity have been exposed during the global health pandemic when the live performing arts industry has been one of the worst hit sectors.43 Cultural practices are therefore not isolated or immune from these broader economic and ideological shifts, and as the debates over the economic viability of both fringes over the past decade suggest, openaccess fringe festivals are both circumscribed by and actively contributing to these conditions. To reveal the wider impact of this festival conversation, I now consider the intersection between the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Adelaide Fringe and the theatrical public sphere.

The Festival Public Sphere: Case Studies The theatrical public sphere, according to Balme, is activated when debates and ‘intensities spill out of the auditorium and intervene in and engage with sensitive social discourses’.44 While a scandal is not necessary to activate the public sphere, Balme observes that ‘protests and scandals’ can act as ‘focal points with which to study the interaction between the theatrical [or in this case, the festival] and the wider public sphere’.45 Seventieth anniversary celebrations in 2017, for example, attracted much attention and evaluation of how Edinburgh’s summer festivals are a vital part of the city’s cultural landscape and heritage. Within festival programmes, too, themes emerge signalling important topics for that year. In 2018, these included 29 shows around the theme of Women and Society in response to #MeToo and 42 shows on mental health at the EFF. These aren’t commissioned but rather respond to and further public sphere debates through performance and are subsequently identified by groups and initiatives such as the SIT-UP awards.46 The scandals surrounding fair pay and the exploitation of artists provide just such focal points from which to examine how festivals engage with and are implicated within wider social, political, and economic discourses and neoliberal governance structures. I now contextualise the media debates prompted by comedians Stewart Lee in Edinburgh in

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2012 and Alexis Dubus in Adelaide in 2016, as well as the C Venues controversy in 2018. By calling attention to the fringe artist as cultural entrepreneur embroiled within ‘survival of the fittest’ free-market competition and the volunteerism that enables these festivals, these performative events invite examination of how the dual processes of neoliberalisation and precarisation are shaping and are furthered by open-access fringes today. Cultural events are compromised by the very processes they are helping to normalise. Lee Versus Wood The first case study this chapter will consider is comedian Stewart Lee’s accusations of commercialisation and exploitation against major producers, which attracted counter-claims, threats of lawsuits against journalists, and dire predictions of the EFF’s ultimate demise. Lee initiated the debate with what has been described as ‘a spirited if frustratingly perverse newspaper rant’47 published in The Guardian just days before the 2012 Fringe began. Here, he accused the Pleasance, Assembly Theatre, Underbelly, and Gilded Balloon (the ‘big four’) of fragmenting the Fringe, exploiting their artists, and ultimately causing the ‘slow death’ of the festival.48 Lee claimed that artists performing at these venues lose upwards of £10,000 of their own money and that the dominance of the big four is symptomatic of the Fringe ‘enter[ing] the deregulated free-market phase of late capitalism’.49 Responding to this criticism, Underbelly producer, Charlie Wood, characterised both Lee and his ‘landlord’ Tommy Sheppard as ‘the Rising Damp of the Edinburgh Festivals scene’.50 He points out that Lee’s criticism is self-serving, and that the article promotes not only Lee’s own show but also the commercial interests of Sheppard’s own group of venues. Against their claims of ‘overcommercialisation and over-sponsorship’, Wood counters that Lee and Sheppard ‘seek to impose their model on a festival that was expressly set up not to be homogenous, but open-access, self-regulating and kaleidoscopic’.51 A good publicity-generating public argument is always welcome at festival time, but beyond the media antics of the key combatants, this discursive event crystallises some of the broader tensions and ongoing debates that have shaped the direction of the Fringe over the past ten years. The EFF was held that year from 3 to 27 August 2012, and despite overlapping with the London Olympic and Paralympic Games, it was

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reported to be the ‘largest ever arts festival in the world’ with 2,695 events held across 279 venues in the Scottish capital.52 While the number of performances had increased by six per cent from the year before, the media reported that ticket sales in the first week represented ‘one of the worst Festival openings in recent history’.53 Bad weather, the Olympics, and the proliferation of the Free Fringe (which grew to 814 performances that year) were blamed for a perceived slump in ticket sales.54 Initial fears were not borne out within the final figures, however, with overall ticket sales down only one per cent from 2011,55 suggesting that the Fringe Society’s marketing campaign was at least partially successful in offsetting what was dubbed the ‘Olympic effect’.56 Nevertheless, these figures (and the significant growth since) draws attention to intensifying competition on the Fringe that has not abated. The continual growth of participants coupled with rising expenses serves to heighten the level of financial risk borne by artists and venues. David Harvey has pointed out that one of the inherent contradictions of capitalism is that survival of the fittest competition tends towards monopolies (see Chapter 3).57 This is certainly true of the EFF, which has come to be dominated by major venues including the Gilded Balloon, Pleasance, Assembly Theatre, Underbelly, and relative newcomer, at the time, Summerhall. Partly due to the sheer volume of performances that they produce, many commentators have noted that they have come, in James Seabright’s words, to ‘dominate the attentions of audiences and media alike’.58 This is also reflected geographically, with Mark Fisher noting in his Survival Guide to the Fringe that ‘[i]n recent years, there has been a shift [in the festival hub] towards the south of the city, in particular the university-owned area around Bristo Square where […the big four] all have major operations’.59 Despite the rise of new festival hubs such as Summerhall, which has changed the landscape of the Fringe both geographically and artistically since taking over the former Royal School of Veterinary Studies in 2012 and turning it into a year-round ‘cultural village’ at the eastern end of the Meadows,60 the ‘big four’ venues still dominate the box office, reaping 58% of ticket sales in 2018.61 In 2008, these four venues came together to collectively self-brand as the Edinburgh Comedy Festival (ECF). Under the alliance, these venues produced a joint brochure, ran a ‘linked computerised ticketing system’, and coordinated their publicity and marketing campaigns.62 The ECF proved to be ‘one of the most divisive and damaging issues at the Fringe over the last decade’, according to journalist Brian Ferguson, as

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it rivalled the official Fringe programme and confused audiences, leading to the designation eventually being dropped in 2014.63 It is primarily against these four venues that Lee and Sheppard, and others who accuse the Fringe of having become over-commercialised, primarily focus their criticisms. To put the furore into context, Sheppard, founder of the Stand Comedy Club, a year-round local venue, was not consulted on or included within the launch of the ECF. Moreover, he was embroiled in a branding war with Assembly producer, William Burdett-Coutts, at the time.64 Burdett-Coutts ran the Assembly Rooms for thirty years and has maintained the Assembly branding for his group of venues (which are primarily located around George Square but also include the Assembly Hall on the Mound). In 2012, Sheppard’s company Salt and Sauce had won a fiveyear contract to run the City of Edinburgh Council’s Assembly Rooms on George Street after the venue’s £10 million refurbishment in 2011. Both producers stubbornly held their ground to retain the name ‘Assembly’ despite the obvious confusion for Fringe-goers. As Andrew Eaton-Lewis outlined in Scotland on Sunday’s ‘Backstage’ report, Sheppard ‘has taken every opportunity to undermine his rivals’ by making derogatory remarks about their temporary venues, leaving Assembly Theatre’s 30-year residency out of his introduction to the Assembly Rooms, and launching his new venue on the same night as Assembly’s gala event.65 Incidentally, while Sheppard went on to be elected SNP MP for Edinburgh East in 2015, Burdett-Coutts’s Assembly Theatre returned to its residency of the Assembly Rooms in 2017. Sheppard’s criticism of the rival big four venues for commercialisation did not prevent him from seeking external sponsorship. As Wood facetiously pointed out at the time: ‘I notice some bright orange alcohol branding and sponsorship adorning the new Assembly Rooms outdoor bars’ (in reference to sponsor Aperol Spritz).66 But as Eaton-Lewis contends, ‘If all this was just point-scoring by commercial competitors, it wouldn’t matter much, but Sheppard is also laying down an ideological gauntlet. Instead of charging performers upfront fees, he is running the new Assembly Rooms as a profit-share operation – and, implicitly, accusing other venues of exploiting artists by not doing the same’.67 This draws attention to the different venue hire arrangements offered by venues, which are run independently of the Fringe Society, in determining the level of financial risk shouldered by the artists versus producers, which consequently shapes the kinds of shows that are likely to be performed.

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Within their ‘Guide to Doing a Show’, the Fringe Society list the three most usual venue hire arrangements (outside of the free fringe model). Firstly, the ‘straight rental’ where the artists pay a fixed fee but keep their box office takings; secondly, the ‘box office split’ (which is the model favoured by Sheppard), which is usually 60/40% in the artists’ favour68 ; and finally, the ‘box office split with guarantee’ where artists pay either a flat fee or a percentage of the box office, depending on which is higher (which is the structure favoured by the big four).69 Gilded Balloon, for example, charges companies 40% of the total net Box Office income once a minimum guarantee has been met.70 This guarantee is calculated by working out the venue’s split if the show sold an average 40% capacity over the full run of the Fringe, based on average ticket price, with 20% required upfront as a deposit. This would mean that if a fringe artist at the Gilded Balloon charged an average ticket price of £10 for a 100-seat venue over the 27 days of the festival, their potential earnings would be £27,000. The rental fee owed to the Gilded Balloon based on a Box Office Split of 40% would therefore be £10,800. The guarantee is based on 40% of this rental fee, which would work out at £4,320 in this scenario (see Table 4.1).71 This means that the guarantee is effectively 16% of potential revenue. (To put this into context, the Fringe Society ‘suggests a projection of one-third of all tickets being sold’ for the majority of fringe groups.)72 The amount of box office earnings returned to the fringe artist would then depend on whether the split kicks in before or after the guarantee Table 4.1 Calculating guarantee. Based on the Pleasance’s table75 Step A B C D E F G H

Example Choose a venue and note the capacity Choose an average ticket price Note the number of performances that you intend to do Gross potential revenue Estimate minimum attendance Multiply gross potential revenue by min. attendance Estimate venue’s share of min. profits Multiply the potential revenue based on minimum attendance by the Venue’s share This is the guarantee Deposit

100 £10 27 £27,000 40% £10,800 40% £4,320 £4,320 £864

(A x B x C) (D x E) (F x G)

(20%)

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has been reached. For example, if this same fringe performance took £8,000 at the box office, the venue’s share would be £3,200 based on the 60/40 split. This is lower than the guarantee, so they would keep £4,320, leaving the artist with £3,680. But if the split kicks in after the guarantee, they would keep the £4,320, then calculate their share on what is left: a further £1,472, which would leave the artist with £2,208. This does not include additional expenses (see Table 4.2), which Gilded Balloon lists separately as mandatory (Commission Charge, Performing Rights Society, Publicity, Fringe Box Office Commission, and Insurance) and discretionary (operators, equipment).73 These expenses listed by the venue do not include the production costs, the Fringe Registration Fee, accommodation and travel expenses, and any additional publicity and marketing costs.74 These figures demonstrate that financial risk is borne by both venues and artists on the fringe, and reveal why fringe companies are advised that breaking-even is probably a best-case scenario. So why would any artist choose to perform at one of the big four venues? The answer is partly to do with exposure and the ability to take advantage of the marketing and publicity auspices of the venue itself, as well as their long-standing high profile. As Fisher argues, ‘With a boxoffice split, the venue has a financial stake in your success […] and is more likely to offer additional services’.77 It may also be partly related to Table 4.2 Additional charges incurred by fringe artists76 Mandatory

Discretionary

Commission charge Performing rights society Publicity Fringe registration fees and ticket commission (4%) Public liability insurance Phonographic performance limited VAT Performing rights Extra Production costs (set, costumes, props)

Operators Equipment

Accommodation costs (rent and utilities) Administration costs Tax (including foreign entertainers tax for box office takings over £10,000)

Costs associated with visa and entry requirements Travel expenses (including for equipment) Marketing

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external pressure. Scotsman journalist Claire Smith, who was twice threatened with lawsuits simply for asking ‘where does all the ticket money go?’, reported that PR and management companies ‘are said to be pushing performers towards bigger venues’ and then require artists to work for them throughout the year to pay off the huge bill.78 The ‘right to fail’ artistically at the EFF, then, is dependent on the level of financial risk that each artist is prepared to take. It also points to a possible reason why solo comedy artists—who have fewer overheads in terms of production costs and accommodation expenses—proliferate at the EFF, as well as in Adelaide. Alexis Dubus 2016 Alexis Dubus sparked a similar controversy in Adelaide to Lee in Edinburgh when he published an open letter on Facebook declaring that after seven years of presenting his work there, the 2016 Adelaide Fringe would be his last. Having just come from Perth’s revamped Fringe World festival, the comedian claimed that he had made twice as much on his opening night in Perth than the combined ticket sales of his first nine shows in Adelaide despite good reviews and that he was not alone, that many of his fellow veteran fringe artists were also receiving small audiences.79 The post was circulated and ‘liked’ among his fellow fringe artists and was republished on Adelaide’s local news site Adelaide Now, sparking a much larger debate. Citing an unwillingness of audiences to take a chance on performances by lesser-known artists, Dubus asserts that Fringe-goers need to change their attitude and to ‘re-evaluate the meaning of “fringe”’.80 He declares, I don’t want to be a hypocrite and be the one telling punters what they should be watching, but audiences choosing soulless, mass-produced bollocks over thoughtful, innovative works in quirky spaces is what has now turned the Fringe into what it was initially rallying against.81

Moreover, he believes that the ‘enormous venues’—by which he is referring to the Garden of Unearthly Delights in Rundle Park and the Royal Croquet Club then in Victoria Square—are ‘throw[ing] out hundreds of free tickets (because they can)’.82 Not everyone agrees with Dubus, however, and the press cited the success of American comedian Michael Burgos’s near sold-out season of The Eulogy at The Tuxedo Cat,

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which played at the same venue as Dubus’s Versus the World, in rebuttal to his claims.83 The implication that these producers are more invested in raising revenue through food and alcohol sales than they are in promoting good shows and of even supporting the ticket sales of individual fringe acts within their venues has also been refuted. Garden of Unearthly Delights producer, Michelle Buxton, has denied claims that artists were handing out free tickets and defended the megavenue’s right to supplement its income. Speaking to arts reporter Patrick McDonald, she argues that ‘All of the food and beverage money that comes in goes to hire the tents, to pay for production staff – I can’t cover the costs of the production just from our share of the ticket sales. I need the other income on site to make the art happen’.84 Fringe venues in Adelaide also reach their own arrangements with artists, but Adelaide Fringe Inc. lists the most common venue hire arrangements as: straight hire, where artists pay a flat fee but keep their box office takings; the box office split, where artists and venues share box office takings (usually 70–80% artist/20–30% venue); a combination of both, where the artist receives a discount on the rental fee for a small percentage of the box office (usually 10%); box office split with guarantee, where the venue takes a guaranteed amount as well as a percentage of the box office fee; and no venue hire, although the artist may incur fees to cover equipment and staffing costs.85 As in Edinburgh, these funding structures reveal that artists and venues share the financial risk but the balance between the two is dictated by each individual arrangement and the negotiating power of the artist. Nevertheless, the larger venues do physically dominate the Adelaide Fringe and attract a large percentage of audiences. Speaking on behalf of Adelaide Fringe Inc., Croall confirms that 60% of all ticket sales are split between the mega-venues of the Garden of Unearthly Delights, Gluttony across the road in Rymil Park, and the Royal Croquet Club, but that this is an improvement as ‘[t]here was a time when up to 80 per cent of total Fringe tickets sold were for shows happening at the Garden of Unearthly Delights’.86 This key multi-venue festival hub is located at the end of Rundle Street in Adelaide’s East End. Known locally as The Garden, it was established in 2000 by Strut and Fret Production House who, in collaboration with event managers Buxton Walker, ‘create a unique festival playground including multiple performance venues, bars, carnival rides, an array of world foods, market stalls, and the most unexpected sideshow surprises’.87 It features a curated programme—focusing on stand-up comedy, cabaret, and music, but also

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featuring theatre, circus, physical comedy, and family entertainment— across a number of spiegeltents and similar temporary outdoor spaces within the Adelaide Fringe each year. Receiving similar criticisms to the dominant ‘big four’ venues in Edinburgh, The Garden’s monopoly has been challenged in recent years by the alternative Fringe hub, the Royal Croquet Club, which was established in 2013 in Victoria Square but relocated to Pinky Flat (Tarnda Womma) on Adelaide’s northern riverbank in 2017 and then closer to the East End Fringe hubs at Adelaide University in 2019, before returning to Victoria Square. These ‘enormous venues’ curate their own specialised programmes across several venues; produce their own brochures and advertising materials; receive sponsorship from alcohol companies such as Heineken, Pimm’s, Coopers, and 5 Seeds Cider and media outlets Channel 7 (television), The Advertiser (print newspaper), and Nova (radio); and concentrate audience attention within a large and diverse festival programme both spatially and through their advertising presence. They form the most visible Fringe hubs that attract audiences through their carnivalesque atmospheres and the multiple entertainments on offer. While venues may be able to supplement their income through food and alcohol sales, this is less of an option for individual artists. Of concern in Adelaide as in Edinburgh, for artists and for venues, is the view that financial losses— what cabaret artist Tomas Ford calls a ‘financial sinkhole for independent producers’88 —are just a part of doing business on the fringe. The Adelaide Fringe body sees its role as purely advisory and does not take responsibility for the financial and artistic success, or otherwise, of individual acts. According to the Artist Handbook prepared for 2013, ‘Adelaide Fringe is primarily a service organisation for artists, presenters and venues, providing opportunities, support and advice to help them make the most of their Fringe experience’.89 In this way, the organisation avoids curating and thus restricting the ‘free expression’ of artists.90 ‘The role of the Fringe’, according to Jo Caust and Hilary Glow, ‘is to be inclusive and accessible, and to provide resources including affordable spaces to produce work, as well as to facilitate services for participants’.91 By creating only a framework that artists and fringe producers are then expected to fill with their own creative labour and business acumen, however, the Adelaide Fringe risks operating in the same way that Harvey describes neoliberal governments: by ‘creat[ing] and preserv[ing] an institutional framework’.92 Although artists, including Dubus, are complimentary and thankful for the guidance and assistance

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that fringe staff provide,93 the economic models of the Adelaide Fringe and the EFF risk limiting participation to artists who can afford to take the financial risk, thereby diminishing the myth of open-access. As an arts organisation, Adelaide Fringe Inc. is itself under pressure to prove its sustainability with two of the six goals listed under ‘Missions and Goals’ on its website dedicated to having ‘a strong and diversified financial base’ and being a ‘successful, flexible and adaptable business and agile organisation’.94 This is characteristic of arts organisations seeking to withstand arts funding cuts, which are symptomatic of what Harvie describes as the ‘erosion of social welfare structures’ as part of the broader neoliberal project.95 Harvie’s characterisation highlights the need to interrogate the relationship between the fringe and the broader frameworks of neoliberalism that requires artists to become creative entrepreneurs, reinforces the free-market logic of the fringe, and feeds into the growing precarity of cultural workers.

Creative Entrepreneurs Success within the competitive arena of the fringe today involves entrepreneurial business and negotiating skills and the ability to develop and enact effective marketing and publicity strategies, beyond creating an engaging and appealing artistic product. Caust and Glow’s study of entrepreneurialism on the Adelaide Fringe concludes that artists ‘are entrepreneurial; they need to be, just to participate’ and that ‘This is demonstrated [… by] the capacity to take artistic risks and innovate, the need to self-manage and promote, and the necessity of presenting something that will attract an audience’.96 The view that success rests on entrepreneurial skill as much as artistic merit is one that is shared by some fringe artists themselves, but risks undermining artistic freedom and commodifying arts practices. Three days after Dubus’s post, the same news site published an open response to the letter from another fringe artist, Christopher Wayne (of The Naked Magicians), who labelled Dubus’s post ‘unfair and inaccurate’, retorting that ‘How dare you tell audiences how to spend their money and their time (the thing they can’t get a refund for)?!’97 In Wayne’s estimation, Dubus needs to reassess his ‘approach to the business side of show business’, and notes that good reviews and more promo spots will not necessarily lead to larger audiences. Wayne’s winning formula for a fringe show is: ‘A clever show + twice as clever branding + spending time and MONEY on marketing =

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more punters’.98 In his final piece of advice to his fringe peer, Wayne states: ‘its [sic] very much The Hunger Games, so maybe it’s time to get a better weapon….’99 This equating of performing on the fringe with Suzanne Collins’s dystopian trilogy The Hunger Games, in which young people fight to the death in a compulsory annual televised event, humorously draws attention to the competitive and business-oriented nature of today’s fringe and is indicative of how artists are expected to succeed by acting in their own self-interest rather than questioning the rules of the game. The necessity of becoming a creative entrepreneur is not isolated to fringe festivals, but is symptomatic of broader international trends in the arts. Writing in the UK context, Harvie asks ‘what it means, now, to be an artist’ and highlights the increasing requirement of the artist to become a creative entrepreneur, or an ‘artrepeneur’.100 She argues that artists are ‘compelled’ to become entrepreneurs ‘through creative industries’ aspirations, cultural policy discourses and funding regimes’.101 She explains, Funding regimes in particular regularly exhort artists to model creative entrepreneurialism, marked by independence and the ability to take initiative, take risks, self-start, think laterally, problem solve, innovate ideas and practices, be productive, effect impact and realize or at least stimulate financial profits.102

In an Australian context, these ideals inform the funding criteria for ‘viability’ and ‘engagement’. Arts South Australia’s guidelines for organisational funding, for example, require ‘evidence of strong financial and operational management, including a realistic budget and timeline’ and the ability to develop ‘new markets, locally, nationally and/or internationally’.103 While entrepreneurialism can help mitigate the risk of producing a show on the fringe, and as Wayne’s comments suggest, is a necessary and vital skill-set for independent artists and producers to survive, it can also be detrimental to culture by ‘indulg[ing] and inherently celebrat[ing] neoliberal capitalism’.104 In Harvie’s view, this requirement for artists to be entrepreneurs damages culture in three ways: firstly, by prioritising ‘self-interest and individualism’; secondly, by naturalising creative destruction as an ‘inevitable by-product of innovation’; and thirdly, by obliging artists (and I would add arts organisations) to ‘pursue productivity, permanent growth and profit’.105 As will be shown, this assigning

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of responsibility for financial success solely to the entrepreneurial artist also deflects discussion away from a broader examination of the economic viability of fringe economics.

Free-Market Competition The Adelaide Fringe has attracted criticism for being too large and too expensive in recent years. Put succinctly by reporter Malcolm Sutton, ‘[p]urists say it has become too large or too packed with stand-up comedy to still be considered a true fringe’, a claim that is rejected by Frank Ford in the same article.106 In response to stand-up comedian Dubus’s suggestion that artists are not able to cover their expenses on the Adelaide Fringe let alone make money, Croall argues that ‘The arts is a business like any other and as in any business, success is not always guaranteed’.107 This ‘right to fail’ echoes similar debates at the EFF, but in both cases deflects attention from an economic model that relies on the free labour of participating artists and in which even successful shows on the fringe are not profitable. Writing on the EFF, reviewer Lyn Gardner reports the truism that ‘On the fringe, even if a show sells out it doesn’t mean that money is being made. But it can make reputations’.108 From her position as cultural commentator, Gardner supports a push for greater economic transparency of UK fringe productions through open-book accounting.109 Without this openness it is difficult to prove what is suggested anecdotally—in Edinburgh, but also in Adelaide—that fringes are being directly subsidised by artists. Gardner explains that on the fringe ‘most shows are budgeted on all the artists giving their time and labour for free. In some cases, performers will also pay for travel and their own accommodation’.110 This suggests that the Darwinian survival of the fittest mentality in which the invisible hand of the market is supposed to be arbiter of artistic excellence through free-market competition in fact allows fringe societies and local governments alike to abrogate the responsibility for the financial viability of the open-access model. This competition among artists is further exacerbated by the pursuit of endless growth that Harvie identifies. Figure 4.1 compares the number of events (defined as registered shows) on the EFF and Adelaide Fringe between 2012 and 2018. The graph demonstrates that the overall trend of both festivals during this period was to expand. Despite the growing discontent among artists, the Adelaide Fringe continues to champion the overall growth of the event, once again reporting record ticket sales

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in 2020, which were over 853,419, a 3% increase on 2019’s figures taking $AUD 21 million at the box office.111 Each year, Adelaide Fringe Inc. champions its ‘record growth’ in ticket sales, attendances, and gross economic expenditure generated by the event. This is partly because Adelaide’s festivals collectively need to assert their significant economic impact (particularly the flow-on effects to local businesses and visitor-generated new money for the state), to justify continued public investment and good will. For example, an economic evaluation of the 2016 Adelaide Fringe reported that it generated $AUD 77 million in gross expenditure, of which $AUD 21.7 million was new expenditure by visitors to South Australia,112 which had jumped to $AUD 96.7 million gross expenditure in 2020, of which $AUD 41.6 million was visitor related.113 Moreover, these festivals are also instrumentalised to foster tourism and to promote a positive image of a ‘Vibrant City’ that underwrites Adelaide’s brand identity and place marketing. Even more than Adelaide’s other festivals, the Fringe is responsible for creating the festival ‘buzz’ (or ‘wow’) in March by reaching what former Adelaide Festival Artistic Director, David Sefton, has described as a ‘critical mass’ in which the city ‘is completely dominated by culture’.114 This calls into question the ethics (and sustainability) of a free-market model that while generating $96.7 million for ancillary businesses and further immaterial benefits for the state, is underwritten by the precarious (and often free) labour of producing artists. This imperative for growth is similarly represented in the figures and reporting of the EFF. At the beginning of 2019, the EFF was reported as being worth £200 million to Edinburgh’s economy, which was up by £25 million since the last economic impact assessment was conducted in 2015. ‘The Fringe is now by far Scotland’s most lucrative regular sporting or cultural event’, according to journalist Brian Ferguson, generating 2,842 jobs in Edinburgh and a further 3,400 across the country each year.115 Over the past eight years, the number of fringe performances has grown by 45% (from 2,453 to 3,548 in 2018) and attracted artists from 55 nations in 2018. Despite this, EFFS Chief Executive, Shona McCarthy, is keen to promote the local involvement in the fringe, with over 900 productions identifying as ‘Scottish’ and Scottish ticket sales comprising 17% of box office takings in 2018. She also points out that ‘Fringe is a key player in promoting Edinburgh, Scotland and the UK’s international reputation. It fosters and embraces being culturally open, creative, welcoming and confident, which is fundamental to attract

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Fig. 4.1 Comparison of event/show numbers at the EFF and Adelaide Fringe 2012–2018 prepared using data from annual reports

people to invest, study, work and visit here. It’s also an economic powerhouse in its own right’.116 Moving away from the rhetoric of endless growth, McCarthy claims the EFF is ‘the biggest platform for creative freedom expression’ and seeks to ‘to continually develop ways to support and promote access, equality, inclusive [sic] and diversity, and champion initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint and continually evolve and innovate’.117 She argues that ‘The Fringe isn’t about numbers or size, it’s about ideas, experiences and creativity’118 and due to this argument, the EFF did not report its usual statistics—number of events, venues, and artists—in its 2019 annual report. This shift away from feeding the drive for the endless growth of the EFF, if not the Adelaide Fringe, is a positive first step. As Harvie has argued, while free-market competition ‘can make it look as though the most successful shows are those that are intrinsically best […], neoliberal systems tend to “recognize” merit when it is familiar, reinforcing the status quo’.119 Free-market competition also implies that the fringe is a level playing field, but both the EFF and Adelaide Fringe are a

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mixed economy of what Mark Fisher describes as ‘amateur and professional, mainstream and avant garde, local and international, serious and frivolous’.120 Rather than implying a particular ‘fringe’ aesthetic and independent production structure, open-access fringe festivals today encompass a wide range of independent, commercially funded, and governmentsubsidised ventures, with established artists competing against those at the beginning of their careers. In this kind of environment, it is increasingly harder for emerging artists and those producing experimental or innovative work to participate and attract audiences, which risks homogenising and limiting the development of new artistic work. The material conditions of the festival also shape aesthetic trends within the wider fringe movement. In addition to the rise of stand-up comedy, other festival influences include shorter shows that can fit within the onehour timeslot, less emphasis on production values, and the proliferation of one-person shows that are cheap to stage and easy to get in and out within short time periods. As Fisher points out, ‘If your definition of success is not losing money, you will be tempted to minimise the number of performers you need’.121 Under the heading ‘Reality Check’, within their 2013 ‘Guide to Doing a Show’, the EFFS advises participants that ‘Most performers consider themselves lucky to break even—losing money is more likely’.122 This advice is tempered on their 2020 website, which advises that in a highly competitive market it is important that artists determine their own achievable goals—such as testing new material in front of a live audience, making industry connections, gaining exposure, and media coverage—and that ‘Misjudging your goals could prove financially costly and make for a negative experience during August’.123 Artists are therefore advised to pursue other intrinsic motivations, beyond shortterm financial gain, when deciding to perform at the Fringe. Some artists view the EFF, in particular, as a long-term investment or as career development. The EFFS suggests that in addition to being ‘well reviewed’ and attracting ‘big audiences’, ‘goals’ for fringe performers may include ‘pick[ing] up a touring engagement’.124 Nevertheless, it is often the promise of possible success that keeps artists coming to Edinburgh, often at their own expense.

Precarity and Cruel Optimism A side effect of the increased marketisation of the open-access fringe is a corresponding increase in the precarity experienced by artists trying to

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make a living from their craft. In their study, Gill and Pratt distinguish precariousness from precarity: Precariousness (in relation to work) refers to all forms of insecure, contingent, flexible work – from illegalized, casualized and temporary employment, to homeworking, piecework and freelancing’, whereas precarity ‘signifies both the multiplication of precarious, unstable, insecure forms of living and, simultaneously, new forms of political struggle and solidarity that reach beyond the traditional models of the political party or trade union.125

The inequality of precarious labour has been exacerbated by the global health pandemic with workers on irregular contracts hit hardest while being excluded from social supports in many countries.126 Beyond the lack of security that accompanies insecure jobs, precarisation, according to French political theorist Isabell Lorey, ‘embraces the whole of existence, the body, modes of subjectivation’.127 For Lorey, ‘[p]recarization means living with the unforeseeable, with contingency’, and ‘It has become an instrument of governing and, at the same time, a basis for capitalist accumulation that serves social regulation and control’.128 According to Lorey, precarisation is a mode of neoliberal governance that is being normalised as it shifts from the margins to the centre of middle-class society,129 which is evidenced by the growth of precarious labour within the arts industry. Arts and cultural workers are claimed to model this kind of labour and are considered ‘the ideal workers of the future’.130 Gill and Pratt summarise the findings of several studies to define the key features of creative labour today: [A] pre-ponderance of temporary, intermittent and precarious jobs; long hours and bulimic patterns of working; the collapse or erasure of the boundaries between work and play; poor pay; high levels of mobility; passionate attachment to the work and to the identity of creative labourer […]; an attitudinal mindset that is a blend of bohemianism and entrepreneurialism; informal work environments and distinctive forms of sociality; and profound experiences of insecurity and anxiety about finding work, earning enough money and ‘keeping up’ in rapidly changing fields.131

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This long list suggests some of the negative impacts for individual artists engaging in this kind of work, but creative industries discourses’ championing of insecure, ‘flexible’ labour also risks normalising precarity in society more broadly. Precarity, in Lauren Berlant’s terms, is ‘the dominant structure and experience of the present moment’132 and yet it encompasses a wide array of subject positions. Creative workers are positioned as the ‘poster’ children of the new ‘precariat’, defined as ‘a neologism that brings together the meaning of precariousness and proletariat to signify both an experience of exploitation and a (potential) new political subjectivity’.133 Despite the popularity of this term, Berlant questions whether it is ‘accurate to call this phenomenon a new global class ’,134 noting, [D]escriptions of the affected populations veer wildly from workers in regimes of immaterial labor and the historical working class to the global managerial class; neobohemians who go to university, live off part-time or temporary jobs, and sometimes the dole while making art; and, well, everyone, whose bodies and lives are saturated by capitalist forces and rhythms.135

If creative workers belong largely to the (comparatively) privileged ‘neobohemian’ category, this raises the question of who is really participating on the fringe under these conditions. Growing precarity among artists and creative workers undermines the open-access policy of the fringe by ultimately limiting access and participation. As Harvie points out, one of the ‘worst effects of the neoliberal market’ is ‘intensifying the precarity of arts labour and making it labour that is increasingly only affordable to the independently wealthy, in other words, those who can afford to work for free’.136 Under these conditions, fringe artists need to be independently wealthy, have another source of (flexible) income, or to be in a position to go into debt to even consider taking a show to a fringe festival.137 In relation to Edinburgh, Gardner contends that ‘despite an open access policy the fringe is out of reach for many for both social and economic reasons’.138 Beyond the economic restrictions, she observes that the EFF ‘remains largely white, middle class, confident and, despite some advances [in 2015], non-disabled’.139 This is confirmed by trends within the arts and cultural industries more generally, with Gill and Pratt finding that,

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Structurally, research has also pointed to the preponderance of youthful, able-bodied people in these fields, marked gender inequalities, high levels of educational achievement, complex entanglements of class, nationality, and ethnicity, and to the relative lack of caring responsibilities undertaken by people involved in this kind of creative work.140

Precarious labour conditions that require artists to work for low pay or even for free therefore constrict access and undercut the open-access fringe model. Why do artists continue to perform in shows on the fringe if they are unable to cover their costs, let alone make money from their efforts? A popular rebuttal to the lack of box office reward for fringe artists is that it is a long-term investment in their careers. In his Survival Guide to the EFF, Mark Fisher argues that artists use the festival to assist in the research and development of new shows or as a marketing opportunity that will have a longer-term payoff for their careers.141 An example of a fringe success story is Danny Braverman’s Wot? No Fish!!, which first appeared at the EFF in 2013. While Braverman reported that he was paid ‘what I’d expect to get paid for a day’s lecturing’ for this show, its appearance at the Fringe ‘gave the show further and sustainable life’,142 which led to an international tour that included an appearance at the main stage Adelaide Festival in 2017. Despite the financial risks involved, artists continue to be drawn to the Fringe by aspirations of having a breakthrough hit show or of building a reputation and following over time. This fringe myth or fantasy can be understood as what Berlant has theorised as a relation of ‘cruel optimism’. ‘A relation of cruel optimism’, for Berlant, ‘exists when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing’.143 Among the examples that Berlant gives are political projects, new habits for improving well-being, food or love, and the ‘fantasy of the good life’.144 Fisher describes the fringe fantasy when he advises his readers that ‘it is likely that your expectations will be coloured by Edinburgh success stories’, among which he includes hit productions that went on to tour internationally and launch or cement the careers of their creators: Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), the musical Stomp (1991), Enda Walsh’s Disco Pigs (1997), and Gregory Burke’s Black Watch (2006). To this list could be added more recent fringe favourites the Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed (Internal, 2009; Audience, 2011; Fight Night, 2013; World Without Us, 2016;

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£¥e$ (LIES), 2017), Theatre Ad Infinitum (Odyssey, 2009, 2010, 2017; Translunar Paradise, 2011, 2012, 2017; Ballad of the Burning Star, 2013; Light, 2014; Bucket List, 2016), and Ireland’s Dead Centre (Lippy, 2014). The overwhelming, mainstream success of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag (Underbelly, 2013), which was subsequently turned into a twoseries television show by BBC Three and Amazon Studios in 2016, and Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette (Assembly George Square Studios, 2017), which was similarly televised by Netflix in 2018, perpetuates this fringe mythology. Seasoned artists may have more realistic goals such as covering their costs, but this spectre of success continues to motivate performers and producers to accept short-term financial risk in turn for the possibility of long-term gain. While Adelaide does not operate as a performing arts market on the same level as Edinburgh, Adelaide Fringe artists also aspire to market their show to producers and programmers, to generate favourable reviews and press interest, to raise their national profile, and to even win awards to take their show to Edinburgh. Caust and Glow found that artists do not expect to make money (although they are concerned with covering costs), but that ‘It is generally about being “seen”; gaining recognition from peers and having the opportunity to experiment, innovate and find a new audience’.145 The fringe fantasies, just like Berlant’s examples, are not ‘inherently cruel. They become cruel only when the object that draws your attachment actively impedes the aim that brought you to it initially’.146 In this case it is accepting the flawed open-access model, of which Gardner notes, ‘The economics simply don’t stack up without the willingness of thousands of performers and theatre-makers to self-exploit’.147 By accepting the self-exploitation of artists’ labour on the fringe, participating audiences and arts organisations, as well as local government and business stakeholders, reinforce the neoliberal values of perpetual growth and survival of the fittest competition and continue to accept the withdrawal of arts funding in favour of market-based models. Self-exploitation and volunteerism expand beyond artists to encompass a general attitude on the fringe, which relies on such (cheap) labour. The Fair Fringe Campaign, which began in Edinburgh in 2017, sought to redress the exploitation of workers on the fringe—particularly in hospitality—by agitating for stricter regulations. This approach succeeded with the CEC introducing the ‘Fair Fringe and Fair Hospitality Charter Guidelines’ in time for the 2018 EFF. The Charter seeks to protect the rights and conditions of workers for all the summer festivals by outlining ten

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expectations: that workers be paid the Scottish local government living wage with no uncertainty of contracted hours, are given rest breaks, and have safe passage to and from work; that the distribution of tips be clarified; that trials are not unpaid; and that employers adopt clear policies to prevent harassment and discrimination.148 The Edinburgh Festivals Workers’ Welfare Commitment of June 2018 was published as part of this document, which sets out aspirational targets for employers. Through their leadership in this area, the CEC asks other employers to also adhere to these standards. The Fair Fringe campaign maintained pressure on festival employers and venues to follow these voluntary guidelines throughout the 2018 festivals by running the alternative Bad Boss Awards. C Venues, who operate 20 spaces across Edinburgh, won two of the ‘not so prestigious’ awards: for poor pay and horrible working conditions as nominated by their employees. Because their employees were considered volunteers, they were paid only £200 and provided with accommodation for the duration of the EFF.149 C Venues were then targeted for further action by the Fair Fringe campaign who compiled a damning dossier on the promoter, which led to them losing two of their Fringe venues at the beginning of 2019: the University of Edinburgh’s Adams House and the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s George Street premises.150 C Venues defend their volunteer programming, asserting on their website, C venues is and always has been a volunteer-focussed organisation. […] We are working with Volunteer Edinburgh to ensure that our volunteer programme offers the best possible opportunities and potential outcomes to our volunteers.151

EFFS Chief Executive, Shona McCarthy, has suggested that forcing employers to pay a Living Wage threatens the diversity and affordability of the fringe, pointing out that there is a spectrum of tiny voluntary organisations to huge businesses operating at a loss.152 As Fair Fringe campaigner Mike Williamson told journalist Brian Ferguson, however, ‘The commercial success of the festival is built on exploitation and it’s high time that came to an end’.153 This further suggests that the huge economic impact that these open-access festivals generate for their host cities is not benefiting the artists and workers (and even venue promoters) who work to create it in the first place.

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Interventions and Future Directions The EFF and Adelaide Fringe are both cognizant of these criticisms and have introduced several initiatives to address the concerns of artists and residents. Adelaide Fringe Inc., for example, has worked with its funders to address the structural problems of the open-access model and to make it worthwhile for artists to participate by creating opportunities to further the life of their show. In their 2009 study, Caust and Glow found that ‘artists participate in Fringe to build their identity as artists, to practice their craft, to experiment, and to generate further work opportunities’ and therefore argue that ‘the fundamental value of the Fringe Festival is cultural, not economic’.154 If, as one participant reported to them, ‘Looking for financial reward from participating in Fringe is probably fairly naïve’ and ‘if you can cover your costs, then you’re doing really well’,155 then artists are subsidising this cultural value (both artistically and financially) on behalf of audiences, Adelaide, and South Australia. How, then, does the Adelaide Fringe help to create further opportunities for artists while mitigating the high cost of participation? Perhaps in response to the controversy ignited in part by Dubus in 2016, the South Australian government announced a funding boost of $1million in February 2017 that ‘will allow the Adelaide Fringe to abolish the inside charge to artists from 2018 for tickets costing $35 and below’ and halve those charges on tickets over $35.156 Dubus himself, returning to the Adelaide Fringe in 2018, was reported as being ‘delighted’ at the changes.157 The government hopes that this will enable Adelaide Fringe to ‘continue to attract a diverse and high calibre range of performers’ and will have flow-on effects to audiences by encouraging artists to keep ticket prices to below $35.158 Beyond this, Adelaide Fringe Inc. also has several initiatives that attempt to create opportunities for artists to extend the life of their performance beyond the fringe. This includes the Fringe Club, which is the only venue directly managed by Adelaide Fringe Inc. that provides an artist-only space for networking and collaboration; the Honey Pot programme through which artists can establish relationships with invited venue producers and festival programmers; and the Adelaide Fringe Artist Fund to provide support to Australian artists. Honey Pot has been fostering relationships between artists and ‘presenters, programmers, and producers of festivals and venues from around the world’ for over ten years, with the specific objective of creating opportunities such as ‘a

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national or international tour; a collaboration or commission; a residency or development of a new or existing work; or simply the beginning of a beautiful (and fruitful) friendship’.159 In 2017, 178 delegates attended over ten performances at the festival and met with artists at scheduled weekly sessions throughout the fringe, which resulted in 95 future presentations by July.160 In recognition that ‘[a]rtists at the Fringe are creative entrepreneurs’, and of the difficulties that they face, the organising body also established an Adelaide Fringe Artist Fund in 2014.161 Here the public are asked to donate money to this scheme, the proceeds of which are distributed among award winners to help acts to cover their costs on the fringe, with eight groups receiving $5,000 to support their work on the 2016 fringe. ‘We never want to forget we are a “fringe” event’, declares the organisation, ‘so the Artist Fund helps to ensure we will have daring and diverse contemporary work that surprises and wows audiences’.162 In this way, Adelaide Fringe Inc. and the South Australian government are working to reduce the high costs of participating, to create further opportunities for artists in reward for their outlay, and to partially redress the limits to access and inclusion that the free-market model exacerbates. In Edinburgh, the EFFS must also content with the concerns of residents. The number of venues participating in the EFF grew to 317 in 2018, prompting the CEC and the EFFS to float ideas to expand into New Town to ease pedestrian congestion on the Royal Mile and around The Mound. The Fringe Society proposes turning George Street and St Andrew Square, a previous Fringe area, into street performing hubs. George Street intersects with Charlotte Square, where the Book Festival had traditionally been held, and runs past the Council-owned venue Assembly Rooms to St Andrew Square at the eastern end. These plans would require Council support to pedestrianise the area, and if they were approved, would represent the largest expansion of the Fringe space in twenty years.163 What is the impact of continual growth on Edinburgh locals? Several reports that residents are losing patience with the Fringe appeared in local media throughout 2018. While this annual ‘take over’ of the city is not a new complaint, calls for the introduction of a tourist tax and the distribution of free tickets to residents are the latest suggestions for redress. In answer to this, the EFFS highlights their scheme, in collaboration with 29 community groups, that distributed £50,000 worth of free tickets and travel vouchers to Edinburgh locals who have never experienced the EFF

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in 2018.164 They also point out that artists have provided free tickets to young people in care and discounts to Edinburgh locals to promote access. There is a perception that there is a lot of money circulating on the Fringe, but little transparency about where it ends up. The EFFS has been proactive in identifying accommodation as the biggest barrier to participation and waste generation as a negative side effect of the event. The EFFS’s Blueprint is a statement of intent that outlines their aspirations up until 2022.165 The first of these is to remove barriers to participation. For this reason, fringe registration fees remain frozen until 2022 and the EFFS will reduce its commission on box office transactions from 4 to 3% by this time. There is a concerted effort to improve accessibility for fringe artists and audiences with disabilities by distributing free sensory backpacks, publishing a list of relaxed performances, promoting BSL interpretation and audio description, and encouraging and advising artists on how to improve the accessibility of individual shows. Reducing the event’s carbon footprint is also a long-term commitment of the EFFS who have championed several environmental initiatives such as turning waste collected on the High Street into ‘refuse derived fuel’ in collaboration with Enva, a waste management firm.166 Maintaining the EFF’s status as a ‘global meeting place’ by securing its permit-free status post-Brexit was another priority identified within the Blueprint. It is this aspect that is perhaps most at threat by the global health pandemic alongside the changing political landscape that is creating uncertainty for the years ahead.

Conclusion Where once open-access policies guaranteed local participation in the arts by providing the community an alternative space in which to express themselves, this very access is today under threat by the increasing marketisation and commercialisation of fringe festivals. The hands-off approach of fringe-organising bodies originated in a desire to offset the cultural elitism of the main festival and to avoid imposing standards on the arts and thereby foster new innovations in form. This model has today been co-opted by neoliberal agendas determined to create institutional frameworks within which free markets can operate that require artists to become cultural entrepreneurs to compete within an ever-expanding fringe event. It encourages precarious labour practices that are exacerbated by the withdrawal of state funding for the arts and results in a

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situation in which fringe performers are investing their own financial and creative resources to support an event that ultimately underpins both Edinburgh’s and Adelaide’s brand identity and reputations as Festival Cities. Nevertheless, Harvie encourages us to ‘imagine the resilience of arts and artists to keep making culturally and politically progressive arts, despite the constraints of their circumstances’.167 Fringe festivals are important sites for cultural expression and are fundamental for the development of new artistic work, and by exposing the economics of a model that relies on the precarious labour of artists, seeking ways to reduce associated costs while improving opportunities for future presentation, and removing the pressure for perpetual growth, open-access fringes can begin operating on a fairer model that supports rather than exploits the resilience of its artists.

Notes 1. Jane Howard, ‘Has the Adelaide Fringe Festival Become Too Big for Its Boots?’, Guardian, 8 March 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/cul ture/2016/mar/09/has-the-adelaide-fringe-festival-gotten-too-big-forits-boots [accessed 1 June 2016]. 2. Alexis Dubus, Facebook, 5 March 2016, https://www.facebook.com/per malink.php?story_fbid=10153946786950979&id=503780978 [accessed 7 November 2017]. 3. Croall cited in Patrick McDonald, ‘Top Adelaide Fringe Acts Slam Big Venues and Lack of Audiences on Facebook’, The Advertiser, 7 March http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entertainment/adelaide-fri 2016, nge/top-adelaide-fringe-acts-slam-big-venues-and-lack-of-audiences-onfacebook/news-story/f9eaa9a25143d682e3d667d1d1c0b551 [accessed 1 June 2016]. 4. Stewart Lee, ‘The Slow Death of the Edinburgh Fringe’, Guardian, 30 July 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/jul/30/stewartlee-slow-death-edinburgh-fringe [accessed 28 May 2013]. 5. Charlie Wood, ‘Why Stewart Lee Is Wrong About the Death of the Edinburgh Fringe’, Guardian, 16 August 2012, http://www.guardian. co.uk/culture/2012/aug/16/stewart-lee-edinburgh-fringe [accessed 28 May 2013]. 6. Brian Ferguson, ‘Edinburgh Fringe Urged to Ban Top Venue in Fair Pay Row’, The Scotsman, 16 January 2019, Factiva. 7. Brian Ferguson, ‘Edinburgh Fringe Chief: Accommodation Prices Will “Kill Life-Force of Festivals”’, The Scotsman, 28 July 2018, Factiva.

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8. See Jen Harvie, Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 4; Christopher Balme, Theatrical Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 9. Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011). 10. BOP Consulting and others, Edinburgh Festivals Impact Study: Final Report (Edinburgh: Festivals Edinburgh, 2011); BOP Consulting and others, ‘Ediburgh Festivals 2015 Impact Study: Final Report’, Edinburgh Festival City, July 2016, https://www.edinburghfestivalcity.com/assets/ 000/001/964/Edinburgh_Festivals_-_2015_Impact_Study_Final_Rep ort_original.pdf?1469537463 [accessed 8 February 2019]. 11. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, The Fringe Blueprint (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, 2018). 12. Robert Kemp cited in Alistair Moffat, The Edinburgh Fringe (London: Johnston and Bacon, 1978), p. 17. 13. Ibid., p. 44. 14. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, ‘Society Membership’, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2019, https://www.edfringe.com/learn/fringe-society/ membership [accessed 25 February 2019]. 15. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Annual Review 2017 (Edinburgh: EFFS, 2017), p. 5. 16. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Annual Review 2012 (Edinburgh: EFFS, 2012), p. 3. 17. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Annual Review 2017 , p. 5. 18. Qtd in Mark Fisher, The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide: How to Make Your Show a Success (New York: Methuen Drama, 2012), Loc. 4. 19. Brian Ferguson, ‘£200m Festival Fringe Boost to Edinburgh’s Economy’, The Scotsman, 4 January 2019, https://www.edinburghnews.sco tsman.com/news/politics/200m-festival-fringe-boost-to-edinburgh-seconomy-1-4851640 [accessed 18 January 2019]. 20. Jen Harvie, ‘International Theatre Festivals in the UK: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe as a Model Neo-liberal Market’, in The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals, ed. by Ric Knowles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 101–17 (p. 103). 21. Ric Knowles, ‘The Edinburgh Festival and Fringe: Lessons for Canada?’, Canadian Theatre Review, 102 (2000): 88–96. 22. Geoffrey Milne, Theatre Australia (Un)Limited: Australian Theatre Since the 1950s (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), p. 381; Derek Whitelock and Doug Loan, Festival!: The Story of the Adelaide Festival of Arts (Adelaide: Derek Whitelock, 1980), p. 163. For a history of the fringe see, 60 Years of Fringe (Adelaide: Adelaide Fringe Inc., 2020).

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23. Frank Ford, ‘Chairman’s Introduction’, Focus: Biennial Report 1979/80 (Adelaide: Focus, 1980), p. 1. 24. According to their website, ‘Anyone who wants to be a part of the Adelaide Fringe, can*!’, with the asterisk proviso being ‘*[s]o long as they’re not doing anything illegal ’. Adelaide Fringe Inc., ‘About Fringe’, Adelaide Fringe, 2017, https://www.adelaidefringe.com.au/ about-us [accessed 3 November 2017]; original emphasis. 25. Knowles, ‘The Edinburgh Festival and Fringe’, 91. 26. Adelaide Fringe, Annual Review 2020 (Adelaide: Adelaide Fringe Inc., 2020), https://adelaidefringe.com.au/2020-annual-review [accessed 7 September 2020], pp. 9–10. 27. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 2. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. See Jen Harvie, Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 12–16. 31. Jamie Peck, Constructions of Neoliberal Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 7. 32. Ibid., p. 30. 33. Erik Paul, Neoliberal Australia and US Imperialism in East Asia (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p. 1. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., p. 2. 36. Jodie George, ‘Examining the Cultural Value of Festivals’, International Journal of Event and Festival Management, 6.2 (2015): 122–34 (p. 123). 37. Ibid. 38. Bernadette Quinn, ‘Arts Festivals, Urban Tourism and Cultural Policy’, Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 2.3 (2010): 264–279 (p. 266). 39. Rosalind Gill and Andy Pratt, ‘In the Social Factory?: Immaterial Labour, Precariousness and Cultural Work’, Theory, Culture & Society, 25.7–8 (2008): 1–30 (p. 2). 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid., pp. 2–3. 42. Nicholas Ridout and Rebecca Schneider, ‘Precarity and Performance: An Introduction’, TDR: The Drama Review, 56.4 (2012): 5–9 (p. 5). 43. Esther Anatolitis, ‘Australia’s Arts Have Been Hardest Hit by Coronavirus. So Why Aren’t They Getting Support?’, Guardian, 8 April 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/as-we-crave-thereturn-of-our-cultural-life-arts-workers-and-organisations-are-being-leftbehind [accessed 30 August 2020]; ‘Coronavirus: Report Suggests Arts

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44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57.

58. 59. 60. 61.

62. 63.

Industry Faces “Ruinous Losses”’, BBC News, 8 June 2020, https:// www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52962636 [accessed 30 August 2020]. Balme, Theatrical Public Sphere, p. 15. Ibid. The SIT-UP Awards recognise Social Impact Theatre and help to amplify this social impact before, during, and after productions through support for theatre companies. See SIT-UP Awards, https://situpawards.com/ our-aims/ [accessed 2 September 2020]. Andrew Eaton-Lewis, ‘Backstage’, Scotland on Sunday, 5 August 2012, p. iv. Lee, ‘Slow Death’. Ibid. Wood, ‘Why Stewart Lee Is Wrong’. Ibid. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Annual Review 2012 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, 2012), p. 9. Tim Cornwell, ‘Beyond a Joke—Fringe Stars’ Fury at Slump in Ticket Sales’, The Scotsman, 15 August 2012, p. 15. Brian Ferguson, ‘Fringe Sales Suffer Amid Olympics and Rain’, The Scotsman, 9 August 2012, p. 13. ‘Edinburgh Fringe Ticket Sales Down 1%’, BBC, 27 August 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-193 90024 [accessed 28 May 2013]. Brian Ferguson, ‘Olympic Effect Slashes Festival Hotel Bookings’, Scotland on Sunday, 26 August 2012, p. 9. David Harvey, ‘The Art of Rent’, in Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (London: Verso, 2012), pp. 89–112 (p. 93). Cited in Mark Fisher, The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide: How to Make Your Show a Success (New York: Methuen Drama, 2012), p. 111. Ibid., p. 105. Summerhall, 2019, https://www.summerhall.co.uk/ [accessed 30 January 2019]. Mike Wade, ‘Record-Breaking Fringe Ends in Party Mood’, The Times, 28 August 2018, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/record-breakingfringe-ends-in-party-mood-qrg0lqhpr [accessed 30 January 2019]. Gilded Balloon, Performers’ Information (Edinburgh: Gilded Balloon, 2013), p. 5. Brian Ferguson, ‘Comedy Festival Bows Out at Edinburgh Fringe’, Scotsman, 21 March 2014, https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-cul ture/comedy-festival-bows-out-edinburgh-fringe-1541852 [accessed 2 September 2020].

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64. Who, at the time, also ran the Riverside Studios in London. He resigned in 2020 after twenty-seven years. 65. Eaton-Lewis, ‘Backstage’, p. iv. 66. Wood, ‘Why Stewart Lee Is Wrong’. 67. Eaton-Lewis, ‘Backstage’, p. iv. 68. Callum Leslie, ‘Doing Big Things Differently’, Festival Journal, 6 August 2012, http://www.festivaljournal.co.uk/article/doing_big_things_differ ently [accessed 3 June 2013]. 69. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, The Fringe Guide to Doing a Show (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, 2013), p. 15. 70. Gilded Balloon, Performers’ Information, p. 9. 71. Ibid., p. 10. 72. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, The Fringe Guide to Doing a Show, p. 12. 73. Gilded Balloon, Performers’ Information, pp. 12–13. 74. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, The Fringe Guide to Doing a Show, p. 10. 75. Pleasance Theatre Trust, Performers Edinburgh Fringe Application Pack (Edinburgh: Pleasance, 2013), p. 19. 76. Gilded Balloon, Performers’ Information, pp. 12–13; Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Fringe Guide to Doing a Show (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, 2020). 77. Fisher, The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide, p. 98. 78. Claire Smith, ‘Money’s Too Tight to Mention’, The Scotsman, 25 August 2012, p. 2. 79. Dubus cited in McDonald, ‘Top Adelaide Fringe Acts’. 80. Dubus cited in ibid. 81. Dubus cited in ibid. 82. Dubus cited in ibid. 83. Suzie Keen, ‘Adelaide Fringe: If You Can Make It Here…’, InDaily, 8 March 2016, https://indaily.com.au/arts-and-culture/adelaide-fri nge/2016/03/08/adelaide-fringe-if-you-can-make-it-here/ [accessed 7 November 2016]. 84. Buxton qtd. in McDonald, ‘Top Adelaide Fringe Acts’. 85. Adelaide Fringe, Artist Magazine 2018 (Adelaide: Adelaide Fringe Inc., 2017), p. 14, https://2016-assets-adelaidefringe-com-au.s3.amazonaws. com/production/2017/08/01/05/14/34/62526858-b313-408697eb-bad5d8250d9b/ArtistMagazine_FA_DIGITAL.pdf [accessed 9 November 2017]. 86. Croall qtd. in Patrick McDonald, ‘Adelaide Fringe Director Heather Croall Says Arts Are a Business, After Complaints by Comedian Alexis

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87. 88. 89. 90.

91.

92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97.

98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103.

104. 105. 106. 107.

Dubus’, The Advertiser, 10 March 2016, http://www.adelaidenow.com. au/entertainment/adelaide-fringe/adelaide-fringe-director-heather-cro all-says-arts-are-a-business-after-complaints-by-comedian-alexis-dubus/ news-story/2727f9a514effd4b5f73508aba142220 [accessed 1 June 2016]. The Garden, ‘About’, The Garden of Unearthly Delights, 2017, https:// www.gardenofunearthlydelights.com.au/about [accessed 24 April 2017]. Ford cited in McDonald, ‘Top Adelaide Fringe Acts’. Artist and Venue Services, Adelaide Fringe 2013 Artist Handbook, p. 7. Ford cited in Malcolm Sutton, ‘Adelaide Fringe: World’s Second Largest Arts Festival “Still a Fringe”, as Attention Turns to Interstate’, ABC News Online, 24 February 2017, http://www.abc.net.au/news/201702-24/adelaide-fringe-still-a-fringe-as-attention-turns-interstate/829 6886 [accessed 26 April 2017]. Jo Caust and Hilary Glow, ‘Festivals, Artists and Entrepreneurialism: The Role of the Adelaide Fringe Festival’, International Journal of Event Management Research, 6.2 (2001): 1–14 (p. 6), available at, www.ije mr.org [accessed 16 November 2017]. Harvey, A Brief History, p. 2. Dubus, Facebook. Adelaide Fringe, ‘About Us’, Adelaide Fringe, 2016, https://www.ade laidefringe.com.au/about-us [accessed 1 June 2016]. Harvie, Fair Play, p. 3. Caust and Glow, ‘Festivals, Artists and Entrepreneurialism’, p. 10. Wayne qtd. in ‘Adelaide Fringe Complaints: Artists Can’t Tell Audiences What to Like, Says Naked Magician’, The Advertiser, 10 March http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entertainment/adelaide-fri 2016, nge/adelaide-fringe-complaints-artists-cant-tell-audiences-what-to-likesays-naked-magician/news-story/cbd02db8f7a7676cfede395bc600f7bc [accessed 1 June 2016]. Wayne qtd. in ibid. Wayne qtd. in ibid. Harvie, Fair Play, p. 62. Ibid., p. 63. Ibid., p. 62. Arts South Australia, ‘Funding and Grants: Arts Organisations’, Arts South Australia, 2017, http://arts.sa.gov.au/grants/arts-organisations/ [accessed 26 April 2017]. Harvie, Fair Play, pp. 62–63. Ibid., p. 63. Sutton, ‘Adelaide Fringe’. Croall qtd. in McDonald, ‘Adelaide Fringe Director Heather Croall’.

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108. Lyn Gardner, ‘The Cost of Staging an Edinburgh Fringe Show: Artists Open Their Account Books’, Guardian, 4 August 2015, https://www. theguardian.com/stage/2015/aug/04/the-cost-of-staging-an-edinbu rgh-fringe-show-artists-open-their-account-books [accessed 20 October 2016]. 109. See also Lyn Gardner, ‘Should Theatres Open up Their Accounts?’, Guardian, 8 February 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/the atreblog/2012/feb/07/fringe-theatre-open-accountable [accessed 26 April 2017]. 110. Gardner, ‘The Cost of Staging’. 111. Adelaide Fringe, Adelaide Fringe Annual Review 2020 (Adelaide: Adelaide Fringe Inc., 2020), https://adelaidefringe.com.au/2020-ann ual-review [accessed 7 September 2020]. 112. These figures are taken from the ‘Economic Evaluation of the 2016 Adelaide Fringe prepared by Barry Burgan on behalf of Economic Research Consultants: 1/6/2016’ reported in Jack Snelling, ‘New Adelaide Fringe Funding—A Win for Artists and Audiences’, News Release—Premier of South Australia, 18 February 2017, http://www. premier.sa.gov.au/index.php/jack-snelling-news-releases/7094-new-ade laide-fringe-funding-a-win-for-artists-and-audiences [accessed 26 April 2017]. 113. Adelaide Fringe, Adelaide Fringe Annual Review 2020. 114. Cited in Valerina Changarathil, ‘Don’t Shift WOMAD out of Mad March’, Adelaide Now, 5 March 2013, http://www.adelaidenow.com. au/entertainment/festivals/dont-shift-womad-out-of-mad-march-saysadelaide-festival-artistic-director-david-sefton/story-e6free1u-122659 1000831 [accessed 17 April 2013]. 115. Ferguson, ‘£200m Festival Fringe Boost’. 116. Cited in ibid. 117. Cited in ibid. 118. Shona McCarthy in Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, ‘Chief Executive’s Report’, Annual Report 2017 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, 2017), https://www.edfringe.com/learn/fringe-society/ annual-review [accessed 25 August 2019], p. 3. 119. Harvie, ‘International Theatre Festivals in the UK’, p. 111. 120. Fisher, Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide, p. 57. 121. Ibid., p. 68. 122. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, The Fringe Guide to Doing a Show, p. 10. 123. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Putting on a Show, 2020, https:// www.edfringe.com/take-part/putting-on-a-show [accessed 4 September 2020], original emphasis.

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124. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, The Fringe Guide to Doing a Show, p. 33. 125. Gill and Pratt, ‘In the Social Factory?’, p. 3. 126. See Liz Alderman, ‘In Europe, Millions of Jobless Are Falling Through the Cracks’, New York Times, 13 August 2020, https://www.nytimes. com/2020/08/13/business/europe-precarious-workers.html [accessed 7 September 2020]. 127. Isabell Lorey, State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious (London: Verso, 2015), p. 1. 128. Ibid. 129. Ibid., p. 39. 130. Gill and Pratt, ‘In the Social Factory?’, p. 14. 131. Ibid. 132. Berlant, Cruel Optimism, p. 192; original emphasis. 133. Gill and Pratt, ‘In the Social Factory?’, p. 3. 134. Berlant, Cruel Optimism, p. 192; original emphasis. 135. Ibid. 136. Harvie, Fair Play, p. 185. 137. I thank Mojisola Adebayo for highlighting these conditions. 138. Lyn Gardner, ‘Is the Edinburgh Festival Really a Level Playing Field?’, Guardian, 29 August 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/the atreblog/2015/aug/28/is-the-edinburgh-festival-really-a-level-playingfield?CMP=share_btn_link [accessed 26 April 2017]. 139. Ibid. 140. Gill and Pratt, ‘In the Social Factory?’, p. 14. 141. Fisher, The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide, p. 269. 142. Gardner, ‘The Cost of Staging’. 143. Berlant, Cruel Optimism, p. 2. 144. Ibid. 145. Caust and Glow, ‘Festivals, Artists and Entrepreneurialism’, p. 10. 146. Berlant, Cruel Optimism, p. 1. 147. Gardner, ‘The Cost of Staging’. 148. City of Edinburgh Council, Fair Fringe and Fair Hospitality Charter Guidelines (Edinburgh: City of Edinburgh Council, 31 May 2018), p. 3. 149. ‘Fringe Venues Paying 50p an Hour Named and Shamed’, The Scotsman, 25 August 2018, Factiva. 150. Thom Dibdin, ‘C Venues Loses Second Edinburgh Fringe Home in Less than a Month’, Stage, 6 March 2019, https://www.thestage.co. uk/news/c-venues-loses-second-edinburgh-fringe-home-in-less-than-amonth [accessed 20 September 2020]. 151. ‘About C Venues’, C Venues, http://www.cvenues.com/cvenues/abo ut-us [accessed 16 September 2020].

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152. Brian Ferguson, ‘Edinburgh Festival Fringe Chief Says “Fair Pay” Activists a Threat to Event’, The Scotsman, 3 February 2019, https:// www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/edinburgh-festival-fringe-chief-says-fairpay-activists-threat-event-141858 [accessed 16 September 2020]. 153. Qtd in Brian Ferguson, ‘Edinburgh Fringe “Bad Boss Awards” Will Expose Top Offenders’, The Scotsman, 12 August 2018, Factiva. 154. Caust and Glow, ‘Festivals, Artists and Entrepreneurialism’, p. 4. 155. Cited in ibid., p. 9. 156. Snelling, ‘New Adelaide Fringe Funding’. 157. Adelaide Fringe Media Release, ‘Artists Praise Adelaide Fringe for Cutting Inside Charges’, Adelaide Fringe, 7 March 2018, https://adelai defringe.com.au/news/artists-praise-adelaide-fringe-for-cutting-insidecharges [accessed 16 September 2020]. 158. Snelling, ‘New Adelaide Fringe Funding’. 159. Adelaide Fringe, ‘Honey Pot’, Adelaide Fringe, 2017, https://www.ade laidefringe.com.au/as-arts-industry [accessed 21 November 2017]. 160. Ibid. 161. Adelaide Fringe, ‘Adelaide Fringe Artist Fund’ [accessed 1 June 2016]. 162. Ibid. [accessed 21 November 2017]. 163. Brian Ferguson, ‘Fringe Bosses Explore Official Expansion into Key New Town Areas’, Edinburgh Evening News, 22 August 2018, https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/fringe-bossesexplore-official-expansion-into-key-new-town-areas-1-4787665 [accessed 30 January 2019]. 164. Lynsey Bews, ‘Tories Call for Edinburgh Residents to Get Discounted Festival Tickets’, Press Association Scotland, 28 August 2018, Factiva. 165. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Blueprint (Edinburgh: EFFS, 2018). 166. ‘Rubbish collected During Fringe to be Turned into Renewable Energy’, Scotsman, 3 August 2018, Factiva. 167. Harvie, Fair Play, p. 154.

CHAPTER 5

Performing Nation: Revisionist Histories on the World Stage

International arts festivals grant local audiences access to the most innovative productions from around the globe as part of their mandate of artistic excellence while packaging national identity for sale on the world stage via this circuit. As Ric Knowles has identified, Edinburgh’s summer festivals have ‘come to serve national governments directly as international trade fair and showcase’.1 This is reflected in sponsorship arrangements where it is common for artists to be supported by their national governments to perform in prestigious international arts festivals overseas. While festival scholarship has tended to focus on the local role of these events in urban entrepreneurialism and place promotion, less attention has been paid to date to how festivals function as sites of national ‘identity formation and critique’.2 As Matthew W. Rofe and Clare L. Woosnam observe, however, ‘festivals are not just about the local, they are also about the regional, national and international depending upon the scale and scope of the festival’.3 To assess the cultural work that these festivals perform beyond the city, this chapter examines two festivals productions—Rona Munro’s The James Plays and Andrew Bovell’s stage adaptation of The Secret River—both of which present revisionist national histories to engage with and contribute to wider conversations and debates within the public sphere beyond the stage itself. Munro’s trilogy of plays dramatised the lives of early fifteenth-century Scottish monarchs James I, II, and III and was a high-profile cultural © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Thomasson, The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09094-3_5

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response to the debate over Scottish national independence in the leadup to the ultimately unsuccessful referendum on 18 September 2014. The original production headlined the 2014 Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) before transferring directly to the National Theatre of Great Britain (NTGB) in London and was remounted for a tour of the UK, Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia (including the Adelaide Festival), and Canada in 2016. Representative of the National Theatre of Scotland’s (NTS) mandate to represent Scotland at home and abroad, Munro’s trilogy mobilises historical narratives to explore contemporary Scottish culture and nationhood by invoking notions of place and belonging and therefore exemplifies what Trish Reid identifies as a ‘dynamic tension’ in Scottish cultural performance between inward looking towards the past and outward looking towards the world.4 Bovell’s adaptation of Kate Grenville’s award-winning novel, directed by Neil Armfield, was first produced by Sydney Theatre Company (STC) in 2013 and was performed in Sydney, Perth, Canberra, Brisbane, and Melbourne before being presented at the 2017 Adelaide Festival, where Armfield was co-artistic director. In 2019, it travelled to the EIF and then on to the NTGB in London. The adaptation, like its source material, problematised popular foundational myths of peaceful settlement to redress Australia’s ‘great silence’ in relation to the violence of the frontier wars. The play stages the confrontation between two families—the Dharug people and that of transported convict William Thornhill—when, having received his pardon, Thornhill claims 100 acres on the Hawkesbury River for his wife and children, violently driving the traditional owners from their land in the process. With a settler protagonist who ultimately participates in a massacre of the Dharug people, the novel’s publication in 2005 was another battle within the ‘History Wars’, a period of intense contestation over national identity and debate over how Australian history is retold. The production and reception of the theatrical production—necessarily involving intercultural collaboration between its Indigenous and non-Indigenous cast members and production team— continued this desire to confront Australia’s past as a necessary step in the process of reconciliation. These two festival productions therefore engage with national histories as a vehicle to comment on and participate in contemporary nationbuilding and reformulation within the cultural sphere. They are directed at local audiences within the international arts festival by rehearsing national concerns, while offering a cultural product that is recognisably

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either Scottish or Australian for potential circulation within the international festival marketplace. As Nadine Holdsworth observes, ‘In the contemporary world, nation is one of the most powerful […] markers of identity and belonging’.5 Despite the all-pervasive influence of globalisation, then, in a postcolonial, post-independence referendum, and post-Brexit world, festivals provide a space for debating questions of national belonging and identity that are of central concern within the public sphere.

Performing Nation Within International Arts Festivals International arts festivals provide a platform for performing national identity: for showcasing cultural heritage while participating in processes through which identity is contested and revised. Building on constructivist understandings of national identity advanced most prominently by Benedict Anderson’s concept of the nation as ‘an imagined political community’, theatre and performance scholars argue that cultural production actively participates in identity formation.6 ‘Theatre, as a material, social and cultural practice’, argues Holdsworth, ‘offers the chance to explore national histories, behaviours, events and preoccupations in a creative, communal realm that opens up potential for reflection and debate’.7 Beyond this mirroring function, theatrical performance, she continues, ‘is deeply implicated in constructing the nation through the imaginative realm and provides a site where the nation can be put under the microscope’.8 While Anderson’s study focuses primarily on the circulation of print media as a pre-condition for the imagined community, theatre scholars have highlighted the importance of embodied performance practices in this process. Festivals that represent the nation—openly or implicitly—by featuring cultural performance across a range of media in their programming ‘intervene in contemporary history’.9 Jacqueline Lo argues that ‘the act of re-presentation assumes the potential for commentary on and intervention in the ideological reproduction of the nation and its subjects’.10 She adopts the metaphor of staging to invoke the fluidity and ‘performativity of national construction: the act of doing/imagining calls the nation into being’.11 In Performing Scottishness, Ian Brown also ‘considers the conception of “Scotland” as a performed and performing community’ by examining the ‘“performance” of nationhood’ across historical events and

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pageantry, as well as cultural output such as theatre, literature, film, and television.12 There is no one fixed authoritative Scottish, or Australian, national identity, but rather multiple and diverse imagined communities that are constantly changing and evolving. Theatre, according to Holdsworth, challenges homogenous constructions and ‘opens up a creative space for exploring the paradoxes, ambiguities and complexities around issues of tradition, identity, authenticity and belonging associated with the nation’.13 Theatrical performance, alongside other cultural production, within festivals therefore contributes to the ongoing revision of national identity. Festivals ‘perform’ nation within the individual cultural performances and productions they stage as well as through their broader institutional framing. Christopher Balme writes that as a theatre body professionalises as ‘a fully-fledged institution, especially one enjoying public subsidy, so too does its function as a generator of and interlocutor in the public sphere change’.14 The case studies explored throughout this book demonstrate that festival organising bodies are also institutions that engage a wider audience—not just spectators of individual performances or festival-goers in general—in their debates, so that they too ‘sustain a public sphere of debate that goes beyond particular productions and performances’.15 In engaging directly with contemporary concerns within the nation, the case studies in this chapter intersect with debates that happen across festival events: temporally and geographically. Through its thematic concern with Scottish history, The James Plays directly invoked broader discussions of nationalism surrounding the independence referendum in 2014, but can also be read as addressing criticisms of a lack of programming on this topic in the 2013 EIF. The Secret River, also concerned with how Australian history is retold and dramatised, played out in different festivals and cities around the country, reaching a much broader national audience. The stage version built upon the reputation of the original novel, which was further amplified by its adaptation into a two-part miniseries for ABC television (the national public broadcaster) in 2016. The festival framing magnifies the cultural work that individual productions perform by participating in a much wider national public sphere. A remit to engage in nation-building and cultural diplomacy is reflected in strategic visions of festival organising bodies and public funding arrangements. The EIF’s mission statement, for example, specifically charges it with the dual mandate to ‘Offer affordable international

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culture to audiences from Scotland, the rest of the UK and the world’ on the one hand, and to ‘Offer an international showcase for Scotland’s rich culture’ on the other.16 The authors of the Thundering Hooves 2.0 report assert that the reputation and international recognition of Edinburgh’s festivals ‘represent a unique asset in identifying, maintaining and building on comparative advantages for Scotland’.17 Festivals Edinburgh, too, claim that collectively Edinburgh’s festivals are a ‘source of national pride’ as ‘defining icons in Scotland’s cultural portfolio that exude a sense of confidence, and contribute to our sense of self’.18 Beyond the positioning of the festival bodies themselves, Scottish Government investment in festival-specific funding arrangements also highlights the significance of Edinburgh’s festivals as international platforms for Scottish culture. The Scottish Government contributes dedicated funding through the Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund to support collaboration, innovation, and new work. Administered by Creative Scotland, the fund was established in 2007 to ‘help maintain our festivals’ global competitive edge; increase the funding available to Scottish artists and practitioners; [and] encourage creative collaborations’.19 A report on the first decade of the fund in 2018 found that ‘Celebrating the diversity of the Festivals and harnessing their combined power to enhance Scotland’s reputation as a creative nation, this support has generated remarkable new opportunities for Scotland’s artists and companies’.20 The original criteria for the fund remain, with proposals required to demonstrate that they ‘promote Scottish artists or companies in new work’, ‘involve Scottish artists/companies in international collaboration of new works’, ‘demonstrate international touring ambition’, and ‘encourage collaboration between festivals and sharing of skills, including within an international context’.21 The report found that between 2008 and 2018, the fund supported 550 new commissioned works and 11,000 performances, and estimated audiences to be over 5 million.22 Made in Scotland is a specific ongoing programme supported by this fund for the purpose of raising the ‘international profile of Scotlandbased artists through the promotion of their work at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe’.23 The programme is described as ‘a curated showcase that promotes high quality music, theatre and dance from Scotland-based artists, to international promoters and audiences at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe each year’.24 The funding and support is here targeted at ‘highquality, artistically ambitious productions or performances’ that promote

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Scottish artists and are export-ready, or involve Scottish artists in international collaborations (particularly with other festivals).25 This funding is particularly aimed at promoting international touring for Scottish artists and companies by leveraging the EFF as a major attractor of international promoters and its informal role as an annual international arts market. Adelaide’s festivals, while Australia’s preeminent events, operate as part of a larger national network in their support of Australian cultural production. The Australian federal government ‘supports the commissioning, development and showcasing of new Australian performing arts productions of scale for Australia’s major international arts festivals’ through the Major Festivals Initiative (MFI), which began in 2006.26 The MFI is managed by the Australia Council for the Arts, but supported projects are selected and their development managed by the Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals Inc. (CAIAF), which is a notfor-profit incorporated association comprised of the major capital city international arts festivals: Adelaide Festival, Brisbane Festival, Darwin Festival, Perth Festival, Sydney Festival, and Tasmania’s Ten Days on the Island.27 This funding arrangement requires these flagship festivals to collaborate to commission ‘new, high-quality, large-scale’ Australian work that can represent Australia internationally ‘as a sophisticated and artistic nation with a confident, outward focused arts sector’.28 To be funded, projects must be ‘new and innovative’, ‘distinctively Australian’ (in content or make up of the artistic team), and internationally competitive by ‘exhibit[ing] characteristics of rarity and specialness, [and] demonstrating creative leadership’.29 They must also have secured at least three Australian presenting partners (including at least two of the major festivals) and be polished and tour ready. According to Holdsworth, ‘the social circulation of a “national” play or performance has a role in contributing to the complex nexus of ideas and practices that constitute the social imagining of a nation and what a national identity must constitute’.30 With such a circulation built into the very funding structures of new festival commissions, I have argued elsewhere that ‘these flagship arts festivals contribute to a national repertoire of performance through the creation and dissemination of new Australian work’.31 Scotland and Australia have decentralised models of national theatres. Holdsworth identifies Australia as ‘One of the first devolved models’ emerging in 1968 ‘when the government decided to support not a single national theatre but an umbrella organisation that would facilitate

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and nurture theatre across the country rather than in the metropolitan centre’.32 1968 was the year that the Australian Council for the Arts was founded, which adopted the model of professional state theatre companies established by its precursor organisation, the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust (AETT). This devolved model has been maintained by the government’s current arts and advisory body, the Australia Council for the Arts, which was established as an independent statutory authority in 1975. Today these state theatre companies form part of the National Performing Arts Partnership Framework of 38 companies (across theatre, opera, circus, orchestral and chamber music, and dance).33 Launched in June 2021 to replace the major performing arts group of 28 companies, the new framework expanded support of Australia’s performing arts ecology to continue ‘growing and collaborating, developing audiences, producing new and diverse Australian works, creating opportunities and employment for Australian artists and arts workers, and reflecting and shaping Australian society and national identity’.34 While not part of this framework, the CAIAF members also contribute to a national performance network that encourages extensive touring within the nation across state and territory borders. Launched in 2006, the National Theatre of Scotland is a twenty-first century version of a decentralised national theatre championing a model of a ‘theatre without walls’ in response to devolution in 1999. Rebecca Charlotte Robinson notes that with ‘an undefined remit in terms of how it interpreted and fulfilled its national status’ and through its structure as a commissioning rather than producing body, the NTS ‘appeared, from the outset, to be created to both reach and represent a wide range of public’.35 Cultural policy has become particularly important in Scotland since devolution. David Stevenson argues that ‘As a devolved power, and arguably because of its importance in supporting a devolved nation delineating its nationhood within the boundaries of a larger state, cultural policy gained greater prominence in devolved Scottish politics’.36 Anne Bonnar notes that the shaping of Scotland’s cultural policy since devolution has taken place against ‘a dynamic and sometimes volatile political backdrop’.37 This is partly due to a complex situation in which the arts, along with heritage, education, and tourism, were devolved to Holyrood, while Westminster retained foreign affairs and broadcasting at this time. Arts funding in Scotland is managed by the quango Creative Scotland, which is an amalgamation of the former Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen. When it was created in 2010, the Executive of the

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Scottish Government retained direct funding of the national performing arts companies responsible for ‘bringing work of an international standard to their audiences, and showcasing some of the best performing arts activity produced in Scotland’.38 Borrowing from Australia Council’s model, these companies are responsible for maintaining the ‘highest artistic performing standards’ and include NTS, Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet, Royal National Scottish Orchestra, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra.39 Rather than receiving arm’s length funding, then, the NTS is directly funded by the Scottish Government. The performance case studies considered in this chapter toured extensively within their respective nations before travelling overseas. In discussing the role of national theatres within the globalised era, Janelle Reinelt argues that ‘If the previous functions of National Theatres such as identity formation and critique are carried out in other venues, as well as or in place of an actual National Theatre, perhaps it is more useful to conceptualize a network of theatrical sites that produce national identity’.40 International arts festivals, therefore, operate as part of broader networks that perform national identity by participating in identity formation and promoting cultural presentation on the world stage. I turn now to consideration of how The James Plays and The Secret River participate in the processes of nation-building and the interrogation of identity myths by analysing the wider public sphere debates that framed their staging.

Offstage Drama: EIF Responses to the Scottish Independence Referendum On 18 September 2014, Scotland held a historic referendum on whether it should be an independent nation and thereby dissolve its 1707 Treaty of Union with England and Wales. Despite 55.3% of the electorate ultimately supporting the No vote,41 the Yes campaign’s unexpected momentum in the final weeks before polling day forced the UK government in Westminster to place constitutional reform and further devolution firmly on the agenda (with flow-on effects of further devolution for Wales, Northern Ireland, and the English regions). Following this, the UK as a whole voted to leave the European Union in another referendum held on 23 June 2016, prompting the eventual Brexit withdrawal on 31 January 2021. Whereas 52% of voters across the whole of the UK opted to leave the EU, in Scotland 62% voted to remain, which led Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to declare that it would be a

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‘democratic outrage’ if Scotland were forced to leave the EU, and saw the SNP government briefly agitate for a second independence referendum to be held in 2019.42 While immediate plans for a second vote were abandoned, the independence movement, which began with the process of political devolution in 1999, has nevertheless ‘created a cultural momentum’, which Reid argues has ‘enabled and indeed required, reimaginings of Scotland and Scottishness’.43 Staged at the 2014 EIF immediately prior to the independence referendum and then at London’s NTGB during the referendum, the production and reception of The James Plays is framed by this political context. The public debate over the role of Edinburgh’s festivals in providing a space for the deliberation and discussion of these developments, however, flared before these plays had even been commissioned. According to Balme, ‘while what happens onstage can of course be directly pertinent to studying the theatrical public sphere, it is by no means coterminous with it: our focus, therefore, must be wider’.44 In the two years leading up to the referendum there had been much discussion over the role of Scottish culture broadly, and Edinburgh’s festivals more specifically, within the debate. During the 2013 summer festivals, a major controversy arose over a perceived lack of theatrical engagement with the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence. This dispute once again invoked distrust, particularly towards the EIF, and sparked renewed disputes over the role these festivals play within Scottish culture. Individual and collective senses of identity and belonging that compose Scottish nationalism are defined by the positionality of the Scottish ‘nation’ within the larger UK ‘nation-state’. ‘Scotland has a peculiar political, religious and constitutional history’ that Reid argues ‘has affected the development of its performance culture in a number of significant ways’.45 As Jen Harvie explains, ‘A state is a political authority that asserts power; but a nation is a sense that people share a culture, a culture that may or may not be coterminous with the state’s borders’.46 According to Scottish sociologist David McCrone, Scottish national identity is ‘nested in the broader British state identity’ and thus Scotland, Quebec in Canada, and Catalunya in Spain47 are ‘“stateless nations”, territories in which identification with the nation is greater than that with the state of which they are currently a part’.48 He argues that ‘Nationalism is above all a social and political movement’49 and identifies two forms of nationalism: civic and ethnic. Rather than ethnic nationalism that considers national identity to be ‘primordial, essential, unified and

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continuous’,50 civic nationalism is aligned with Anderson’s constructed ‘imagined community’. In Scotland, the devolution and independence movement has been carefully constructed to assert a civic national identity. Writing in 2000, Tom Nairn observes that the ‘process in Scotland [is] marked by successive attempts at reconstituting a broadly-based civicpolitical (rather than an ethnic) identity’.51 This is partly because Scotland retained its civil society—revolving around its autonomous Church of Scotland and the independent Scottish legal and education systems,52 what Nairn calls the ‘unassimilable features of the Scottish nation’— when it was incorporated into the British state in 1707.53 Thus McCrone asserts that ‘Scottishness is based on living in a common territory despite clear and abiding social, religious, and geographical differences’.54 On this basis, all Scottish residents over the age of 16 were eligible to vote in the 2014 independence referendum if they registered.55 ‘A founding principle’, then, according to Harvie, ‘is that national identities are neither biologically or territorially given; rather, they are creatively produced or staged’.56 As Brown points out, however, nationalism in Scotland does not exclusively align with independence and it is possible to hold a Unionist Nationalist sense of belonging.57 Performance practices, especially those that engage with historical material, therefore play an important role in reimagining and critiquing this complex landscape of national identity. ‘A Politically Neutral Space for Artists’?58 Sir Jonathon Mills, then artistic director of the EIF, stoked the coals of controversy at the 2013 festival when he announced two days into the festival that he would not be commissioning any work on Scottish independence for the 2014 festival (from 8 to 31 August), which was due to close just weeks before the referendum on 18 September. In an interview with Scotland on Sunday, Mills announced that he would draw inspiration for his final EIF programme instead from the one hundredth anniversary of World War I (WWI) and the Commonwealth Games, which were held in Glasgow from 23 July to 3 August 2014 just prior to Edinburgh’s festival season.59 Citing the forward planning involved in such an event, which required him to start working on the 2014 programme long before the date for the referendum had been set, Mills argued that the EIF’s artistic programming should not be influenced by local politics: ‘We would not wish our festival to be anything other than it has always

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been, which is a politically neutral space for artists. It is important that it remains that’.60 These comments immediately invited harsh criticism from commentators who highlighted the naivety of positioning either WWI or the Commonwealth as ‘politically neutral’,61 and from those who labelled this decision ‘an act of censorship’.62 Journalists and cultural commentators alike drew attention to the GBP £10 million that the EIF attracts in investment, half of which is publicly funded.63 Defending his claims in the same newspaper a week later, Mills clarified his position by claiming that while the EIF is not a ‘political apparatus’ and that it ‘does not propose a particular manifesto or seek a specific mandate’, he believes that his themes gave a broad scope to issues of nationalism and self-determination.64 His position was supported by Steve Cardownie—a SNP councillor who was deputy leader of the CEC (one of the EIF’s main funders) and festivals and events champion at the time—who affirmed and re-asserted the independence of the festival in terms of its artistic programming: ‘Festival directors should be free from political interference. It would be almost tantamount to state intervention. Festivals need that like a hole in the head’.65 Perhaps pre-empting Cardownie’s comments, Mills also asserts that ‘The autonomy and impartiality of the Festival is essential; that includes the ability to determine its own agenda, and choices’.66 Both politicians and arts advocates agree, then, that festivals should not become embroiled in party politics or receive programming directives from government. The decision to not programme work explicitly addressing the Scottish independence debate was in itself interpreted as politically motivated and implicitly aligned with the ‘Better Together’ campaign. Cultural commentator Lesley Riddoch, for example, asserts that ‘Scottish culture [has been] sidelined over the years in favour of “Britishness”’.67 This view is shared by playwright and national poet Liz Lochhead—author of Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (first performed in 1987)—who is quoted as saying, ‘It doesn’t surprise me that the Edinburgh International Festival under Jonathon Mills is not interested in commissioning or showing work around the theme of independence. He has never been very interested in work that is Scottish, let alone about independence. It is disappointing but predictable to me’.68 By refusing to actively participate in the debate over Scottish independence and to take a position, Mills (who is British-Australian) and the organisation he represents were interpreted as supporting the status quo and privileging British concerns over Scottish ones. It is also perhaps indicative of ‘the EIF’s longstanding

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policy of demanding that the “Scottish slot” at the Festival be filled by a world premiere’, which Mark Brown in conversation with former NTS artistic director Vicky Featherstone observes is seen to have ‘put Scottish theatre at a disadvantage’.69 Notably, Brian McMaster turned down Gregory Burke’s Black Watch for the EIF because he felt it was ‘too parochial’.70 Black Watch, directed by John Tiffany for the NTS, went on to be hugely successful when it premiered at the EFF in 2006 and toured internationally. The EFF, which has historically offered a counter narrative to the EIF, was once again deemed a more appropriate site to stage local debates where a range of perspectives could be presented free from political coercion in 2013. Mills himself proposed the Fringe as the solution in his original interview, claiming that ‘Fringe performers can react with much more ease to recent events than we can’.71 At the 2013 EFF, however, few Fringe artists seized this opportunity. Articles published in the early days of the 2013 Fringe,72 before the opening of the EIF on 9 August, criticised Fringe artists for not tackling the issue of Scottish independence. Nick Clark, for example, observed in an Independent Online article on 5 August 2013 that, It’s the talk of Scotland – but not of the Edinburgh Festival. With the independence debate dominating the Scottish political and media scene this year, one might have expected the contentious issue to course through the veins of the Fringe. But to the surprise of many, talk of Scotland’s future is largely absent, raising uncomfortable questions of why the Scots appear so creatively disengaged from the debate.73

Despite this perception, there were at least three high-profile Fringe performances that confronted the Scottish independence debate that received extensive press coverage: the Traverse Theatre’s I’m With the Band by Tim Price, a co-production with the Wales Millennium Centre; Preen Back Yer Lugs!, adapted from a Finnish play by Paul Matthews; and The Bloody Great Border Ballad Project at Newcastle’s Northern Stages, which was described by reviewer Laura Barnett as ‘Part concert, part political performance, it’s an attempt to consider the issue of Scottish independence through the prism of the border ballad, the traditional folk-song of the borderlands between Scotland and northern England’.74 There were also a number of high-profile Scottish artists and companies who featured within the EIF’s 2013 programme.

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In response to this debate, Joyce McMillan pointed out that an artistic director could not prevent Scottish companies presenting pieces as part of the 2014 EIF from working independence themes, debates, and issues into their artistic work.75 In the end, Rona Munro’s cycle of history plays The James Plays , which dramatises the succession of early fifteenthcentury Scottish monarchs James Stewart I, II, and III in three parts to explore Scottish culture and nationhood, headlined the 2014 programme. Its very production context as a historic co-production between the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS), the EIF, and what was billed as the National Theatre of Great Britain (NTGB), and its immediate transfer to London, highlights its ambiguity in not being easily aligned with either the nationalist or Unionist nationalist position. Writing in the programme note, Fiona Hyslop, Holyrood Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, signalled the intention for the performance: ‘I believe that these plays will vividly bring to life not only three generations of Scottish kings but also what it felt like to be in a country assessing its past and future, providing a complex and compelling narrative on Scottish culture and nationhood’.76 Referendum discussion featured far more prominently on the 2014 Fringe and more broadly, with Laura Bissell and David Overend providing an overview of performance events that ‘staged’ the independence debate throughout Scotland in that year.77 This analysis suggests that the EIF did participate in these debates over Scottish independence over the two years leading up to the referendum even within the very process of denying its responsibility to do so. This is one example of how international arts festivals engage with debates of national significance. While the EIF tried to avoid participating in the Scottish independence referendum discussion, Australia’s festivals deliberately invoked the History Wars and intervened in the reconciliation project by programming The Secret River.

Reconciling the Postcolonial Nation Adelaide’s festivals also create a potent site for examining the contradictory role of international arts festivals in both reflecting and projecting the cultural aspirations of the nation. Australia’s recent history as a relatively ‘new’ nation-state formed when the six self-governing British colonies united as the Federation of Australia in 1901 belies the 65,000-year living culture and history of the continent’s First Nations Peoples, encompassing over 250 language groups, and their survival and resilience in

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the face of violent invasion and colonial dispossession. On the eve of 2021, Scott Morrison’s conservative Coalition Government symbolically changed the words to Australia’s national anthem, Advance Australia Fair, from ‘For we are young and free’ to ‘For we are one and free’ in recognition of the ‘timelessness’ of this history.78 At the time of writing, however, the federal government has resisted growing calls to change the date of Australia’s national day from 26 January (the date British Sovereignty was declared in 1788, which is considered a day of mourning by Indigenous Australians).79 When in power, the Morrison Coalition government also avoided legislating an Indigenous voice to parliament, and ruled out implementing a key recommendation of the Uluru Statement to enshrine this body within Australia’s constitution.80 While Anthony Albanese’s Labor government, elected in May 2022, has promised action in this area, these contemporary debates evidence the continuing anxiety that underlies Australia’s project of nationhood and the evolution of a postcolonial (or decolonial) identity. Australian cultural production engages directly with processes of collective remembering and forgetting that are integral to national identity. Joanne Tompkins employs the term ‘unsettlement’ to recognise ‘that the history of settlement in Australia is both profoundly unstable and the cause of cultural anxiety. […] “Unsettlement”, then, refers to the disruptive process by which “settlement” took place; it also refers to the more contemporary traces of instability that recur throughout Australian cultural production’.81 Donald Pulford notes that ‘In a post-colonial context, the ascendant narrative is first determined by the invading culture, but this narrative’s supremacy is unstable and may weaken if the voices of the dispossessed come to be heard and splits occur in the dominant culture regarding its relationship to those voices’.82 The History Wars in the 1990s and 2000s, so-called because of a focus on how Australian history was taught within school curricula, were a period of national reflection on the hitherto great silence over the reality of the Frontier Wars that defined Australian ‘settlement’. Grenville references this collective forgetting within the title of her 2005 novel The Secret River, which was one of the first to provide a revisionist fictional history of colonisation. Denise Varney suggests that Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett’s commissioning of the theatrical adaptation in 2008 for the Sydney Theatre Company was ‘suggestive of an intention to position the performance within contemporary debates about Australian history, many of which were reignited in response to Grenville’s novel’.83 These debates

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that surround the publication of the novel and its subsequent adaptations have therefore conditioned the production and reception of the festival performance and highlight the cultural work that it undertook. Sue Kossew identifies Grenville’s The Secret River as part of the ‘Sorry Novel’ genre that emerged partly in response to the History Wars.84 In 1996, conservative Prime Minister John Howard spoke out in parliament against what historian Geoffrey Blainey had earlier termed ‘the black armband view of Australian history’,85 which he claimed in a subsequent speech, ‘reflects a belief that most Australian history since 1788 has been little more than a disgraceful story of imperialism, exploitation, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination’.86 Asserting that ‘the balance sheet of Australian history is overwhelmingly a positive one’,87 Howard and Blainey opposed what they saw as ‘an excessive emphasis in recent historical writing on past wrongs’.88 Here they are primarily referring to the work of historians such as Manning Clark and Henry Reynolds to reinsert Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history into the historical record, which is an attempt to redress what W. H. Stanner called the ‘Great Australian Silence’.89 This concept was asserted by Stanner in his 1968 Boyer lecture, After the Dreaming, in which he argued that ‘there is a secret river of blood in Australian history’, which is the direct reference that Grenville makes within her title. This was followed in May 1997 by Howard’s famous refusal to apologise for past injustices on behalf of the nation in his opening speech of the first Convention on Reconciliation. This refusal, Kossew argues, may have ‘impelled a number of writers of literature [and artists more broadly] to take the opposing view’ of a national history that championed heroic achievement while denying any sense of shame and expressions of ‘colonial guilt’.90 This desire aligned with and built upon the ‘Sorry’ movement. This popular movement culminated in the 2000 Sorry Day March when 250,000 people crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of reconciliation, which is said to have inspired Grenville, who was in attendance, to write the novel in the first place. In Kossew’s definition, the ‘main feature’ of a Sorry Novel ‘is to rework, rewrite, or reimagine history in order to make a political point about the present’.91 A desire to acknowledge the impact of colonisation and to advance the project of reconciliation motivated some Australian artists and the general public to agitate for a national apology despite disavowal from the political leadership at the time. This project continues despite Kevin Rudd’s

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subsequent ‘Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples’ in February 2008. Festival productions over the past three or four decades reflect these debates that play into broader tensions created by competing notions of Australian identity. Writing on the Camp Oven Festival on the Darling Downs (in Queensland) in the early 2000s, Shirley Chappel and Gregory Loades argue that it attempted to uphold Anglo-Celtic rural definitions of ‘Australianness’ dating from the nineteenth century ‘at a time when notions of Australian identity are vigorously contested as a consequence of rapid social, economic and demographic change’.92 They date the contestation of identities from the cultural politics advanced by Paul Keating’s Australian Labor Party (ALP) government (1991–96), with their focus on recognising Indigenous Native Title, becoming a republic, and repositioning Australia within its geography of Asia. Despite the progressive revaluation of Australian identity in the early 1990s, a resurgence of ‘traditional’ constructions of ‘Australianness’ had emerged by the late 1990s when Howard came to power.93 To understand the context for the History Wars and the broader public debate within which the novel and theatrical adaptation of The Secret River were intervening, then, it is necessary to take a longer view of how and why Australian national identity was so contested at this time. The evolution of multiculturalism as a defining feature of Australian policy and identity provides an insight into the racial tensions that underlie the broader identity debate. Support for Asian and Indigenous performance within Australia is closely tied to the evolution of multicultural policy since the 1970s and its relationship to national identity. Zoe Anderson argues that multiculturalism in Australia is a contested term that refers ‘concurrently to migrant settlement policy, the reality of ethnic diversity, and political statements about the nature of society’.94 She identifies three phases of multiculturalism within her study: nascent multiculturalism during the late 1970s and 1980s under the Malcolm Fraser (1975–1983) and Bob Hawke (1983– 1991) governments; the Paul Keating period (1991–1996) during which time the nation was realigned towards Asia and debated becoming a republic; and the late 1990s and 2000s, which saw a swing against this by the conservative John Howard (1996–2007) government. The term multiculturalism was borrowed from Canada (where it was introduced in 1968), and the first official reference to it in Australia occurred in August 1973 within a speech by Al Grassby, Minister for Immigration for the Whitlam government (1972–1975). It became an official policy

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under Malcolm Fraser, whose government provided the definition that would remain in place until 1996 and created the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs.95 According to Anderson’s historiographical analysis of Australian multiculturalism, the predominant view in the literature is that the policy was introduced in the 1970s because assimilation was failing and diversity was already a reality (with Asian immigrants representing 29% of the population by 1979 and the Vietnam War leading to an increase in the number of refugees).96 Multiculturalism in this period was therefore seen as a top-down approach based on the principle of non-discrimination but did not involve mainstream cultural change.97 The 1990s saw a shift in Australian multiculturalism as the Keating government sought closer alignment with Asia. Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo argue that the increased focus on multicultural programming during the 1990s should be understood within the context of Keating’s so-called ‘Asia enmeshment policy’. This was a top-down attempt to try to culturally reorientate the nation from its colonial ties with Europe towards its economic future in Asia. Here, the ALP’s dual agendas of republicanism and multiculturalism and a ‘desire to develop and project cosmopolitan tastes/identities’ were instrumentalised in part through cultural policy.98 Multiculturalism within the arts can here be understood as promoting internal social cohesion within an increasingly ethnically diverse society while promoting Australia’s external relations with its neighbours in the region (for economic and security reasons). Multiculturalism was not without its detractors during these earlier periods, but the swing back against the policy gained momentum after 2001. As early as 1984, Professor of History at the University of Melbourne Geoffrey Blainey declared that Australia was being ‘Asianised’.99 Pauline Hanson famously invoked this sentiment again in 1996 during her maiden speech to the House of Representatives, which criticised levels of Asian immigration and welfare benefits for Aboriginal Australians. According to Anderson, however, ‘2001 initiated a fresh decade of new considerations and racial panics that further disrupted the idea of a coherent multicultural Australia’.100 The September 11 attacks in the US contributed to an increased concern with Muslim immigration and ‘border security’ in Australia that underwrote Australian immigration policy and responses to asylum seekers in the subsequent decade. The Howard government’s response to two now notorious events in 2001 involving asylum seekers—the Tampa and ‘Children Overboard’ affairs—has shaped national immigration policies since. In August 2001

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the Howard government refused the MV Tampa, a Norwegian cargo ship, entry to Australian waters after the crew rescued 438 asylum seekers (mostly from Afghanistan) from their sinking vessel near Christmas Island (the asylum seekers were subsequently resettled in New Zealand).101 In October of the same year, the then Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, falsely accused asylum seekers aboard the distressed fishing vessel the Olong of throwing their children overboard in order to garner sympathy from the Australian public. Prime Minister Howard repeated this claim, which was later proved to be false, as part of his November election campaign.102 These events heralded in the Pacific Solution, in which all boat arrivals were processed offshore, a policy that was temporarily abandoned by the Rudd government only to be later reinstated. The Cronulla Riots in 2005, which targeted Lebanese Australians, provided the next flashpoint in Australian multiculturalism and, according to Anderson, are indicative of the ‘panic over Islam that has dominated […] discussions of how “multiculturalism” translates into practice’.103 Despite this, Chris Bowen, then ALP Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, reaffirmed Australia’s commitment to multiculturalism in 2011. In a speech to the Sydney Institute, Bowen argued that ‘multiculturalism has, without a doubt, strengthened Australian society’ and that it ‘is something we should recognise, embrace and proclaim’.104 Anderson notes that this ‘shift towards re-embracing multiculturalism [during the Rudd-Gillard Prime Ministerships] has been in sharp contrast to both international criticism of the idea, as well as continued hostility towards refugees’.105 Despite this reassertion in 2011, moreover, there is a growing sense that the Australian Government appears to have abandoned official multiculturalism as a policy. Kay Ferres, David Adair, and Ronda Jones note that despite this, ‘support for cultural diversity and indigenous arts and a commitment to equity remain important values guiding cultural planning’.106 This plays out rhetorically through a shift in discourse from ‘multiculturalism’ to ‘diversity’ in the cultural policy documents of the 2010s. These identity debates have influenced programming within the Adelaide Festival. Gilbert and Lo have argued that where the early programmes of the Adelaide Festival, for example, betray a EuroAmerican bias in their definition of internationalism, they began to include more Asian and Aboriginal performance in the 1980s and 1990s

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in response to the multicultural political agenda of the Keating government. Both Asian and Indigenous performance have long antecedents at the Adelaide Festival (with Asian performance appearing in the second programme in 1962 and Aboriginal performance much later in 1976). In an examination of festival data between 2004 and 2016, Julie Holledge, Joanne Tompkins, and I found that the vast majority (77.4%) of international productions appearing in Australian festivals were from the UK and Western Europe.107 Scottish and Australian national identity—under locally specific circumstances—have been recently subjected to rigorous and fiercely held debate and revision. The processes of identity construction and re-construction also shapes theatrical performance and expands the impact of discourses invoked by festival productions within the public sphere. Having outlined the broader cultural contexts that festival productions are operating within, I turn now to consideration of how the case studies of The James Plays and The Secret River, as history plays, are directly implicated in these wider national discussions.

Dramatising National Belonging in Rona Munro’s The James Plays Characterised by theatre critics as a Scottish reply to Shakespeare’s history plays, Munro’s trilogy is part of an established national tradition of staging history to politically intervene in the present.108 Paola Botham argues that twenty-first century British history plays are ‘one of the most effective forms of contemporary political theatre’.109 Although not a specific case study, Botham includes The James Plays as an example of a genre of plays in which ‘it is possible to create accessible, even popular, historical stage narratives which simultaneously activate critical readings of the past with a (present) political grip’.110 In Scotland, there is an established tradition of engaging with the past to intervene in the present by re-visioning nation and recovering counter-histories. According to Ian Brown, there is a ‘centuries-long presence of deep Scottish dramaturgical interest in historical topics as a means of addressing national identity and contemporary political issues’.111 In his study, History as Theatrical Metaphor, he analyses the ‘ways Scottish playwrights have treated historical material’ for ideological ends that ‘have embedded particular attitudes to conceptions of “Scotland”, its society and its relationship to national and international identities’.112 He observes that Scottish playwrights have

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employed a range of dramaturgical structures and strategies to engage ‘with historical material, often in order to address current political and moral issues’.113 While not necessarily written as a comment on the independence referendum, the socio-political conditions of The James Plays ’ premiere production continue to influence how they are read in performance. By staging historical material, albeit in a deliberately anachronistic and revisionist way, Laurie Sansom’s production theatricalised its historiography to celebrate a distinct Scottish cultural identity and to critique traditional (masculinist) representations of history. The James Plays dramatised decisive moments in each of the eponymous kings’ lives, working together as a trilogy while also standing on their own as separate entities with a distinctive aesthetic. Munro drew on primary materials to dramatise what she describes in her programme notes as a ‘virtually unknown’ period in Scottish history, while acknowledging the need for certain historical liberties within the narrative arc.114 While Munro makes no claims to historical accuracy, her engagement with historical material will necessarily have cultural ramifications in the present. As Brown acknowledges, ‘reasonable dramaturgical choices’ need to be made by playwrights when selecting and presenting historical stories, but these must be evaluated for their impact on the ‘meaning of the plays, their dramatic and ideological impact’.115 In his view, Munro misrepresents the historical record, presents the ‘Scottish nobles as thuggish’,116 and ‘reinforc[es] a potential inferiorist discourse’.117 Brown’s criticisms are grounded in Munro’s choice of language that sees even high-status characters speaking what he terms ‘a vulgarized demotic’ recalling urban street life.118 Alternatively, this lack of differentiation at a linguistic level between characters had an equalising effect among members of the Scottish court that reinforced notions of Scottish egalitarianism. There was a jarring juxtaposition of the fifteenth-century setting and contemporary dialogue, described as ‘a refreshing modern directness’ in the promotional material.119 According to the script, the ‘rhythm and language of the dialogue’ of the plays is ‘contemporary Scots’.120 Brown observes that the published script is primarily in English with a few Scots words, although he notes that Scots was adopted more in performance.121 Drawing on Jerome De Groot’s insights into how ‘historical texts undertake historiographical work’,122 I argue that Munro’s contemporary language highlights ‘the ways in which the past is communicated to the present’ within the plays and therefore prompts the spectator ‘to reflect upon the nature of historical representation itself’.123

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The James Plays had a contemporary feel despite their historical setting that drew attention to their historiography and encouraged spectators to actively reflect on constructions of nation. Design choices enhanced the anachronisms within the text’s use of contemporary Scots dialogue. These were most explicit in the third instalment, James III, which had a more modern design. This episode opened with the cast dancing to popular songs that included Happy by Pharrell Williams and Royals by Lorde, both released in 2013, but here played live in a traditional folk style. The characters in the third play also wore contemporary costuming, such as the tailored suit of Lord John, the Head of the Privy Council. The monarchs themselves wore bright colours— such as Queen Margaret’s red dress—to underscore key moments of the action such as when James III ‘shimmies out of his penitent robes to show shiny scarlet trousers’ in the abdication scene.124 Costuming, used to symbolise the Scottish nation, appeared most overtly in the last scene of the play when Princess Annabella is helping to prepare James IV for his coronation as he struggles with the guilt of having been responsible for his father’s death. As she begins to dress him in the jewellery of the ancestors who have populated the last eight hours of performance, she comments, ‘And it is your coronation, maybe we should dress you up a wee bit, eh? You’re Scotland today after all’.125 As she adds the final piece the symbolism is complete: ‘And now you can wear your father’s crown. Now you’re Scotland’.126 Rather than conforming to the fifteenth century setting of the play, Jon Bausor’s deliberate design anachronisms foregrounded these plays as new works exploring historical subject matter to comment upon contemporary Scottish cultural distinctiveness. Historical fictions can also call attention to ideological constructions within historical discourse and offer a way to explore the gaps in the historical record and celebrate marginalised voices. The trilogy’s title references a patrilineal dynasty and yet the women who shaped the nation are at the centre of each of the narratives. Here, the audience is introduced to a series of strong Scottish stateswomen who manage the domestic and public affairs of the royal households and pursue their own political agendas. Spectators are likely to be familiar with the more well-known of the Stewart line, Mary Queen of Scots, and her mother, Mary of Guise, both of whom attracted the ire of Presbyterian reformer John Knox. This earlier history focuses on James I’s English wife Joan, played by Stephanie Hyam, who is shown throughout to be a competent

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manager of the royal household. From her first appearance, she is busy issuing orders to servants and cattleman to prepare the food, wine, and music to host King Henry’s retinue. She expands on her duties when she assures her husband in their awkward first meeting after their wedding that ‘Everything expected of a wife and the keeper of a castle I can do well’: ‘I can plan. I can buy in. I can supervise the farms and ponds, the linens and the cellars. […] I can seat a bishop next to an ambassador and juggle the conversation between them’ and ‘remember the total of your treasury without a scribe and add and subtract it so that your wealth will never escape you’.127 The business of state and the national accounts are also the realm of Sofie Gråbøl, as the Danish Queen of James III, who governs in place of her husband ‘who dislikes the labour of kingship’ and becomes regent for their son when James III is eventually deposed.128 By focusing on the contributions and statesmanship of these Scottish Queens, but also their ladies in waiting and servants, Munro highlights the labour of women across the social classes within the play cycle. The cross-casting of Blythe Duff as a formidable presence across the three plays also foregrounds the matrilineal lineage within the history. In James I and II, she plays Lady Isabella—the ‘terrifying matriarch of the rebellious Murdoch Stewart clan’—who presents a challenge to young James I as he tries to win the loyalty of his hostile subjects.129 When James I returns to England after 19 years as Henry V’s prisoner, she and her husband Murdoch step aside as Stewards, disinheriting her three warrior sons in the process. She is dogged in her quest for power and is a canny political player, getting her way through cunning and intimidation. ‘My family’s the oldest royal house in Scotland’, she tells Queen Joan. ‘My grandmother cut down all the robber lords invading her castle with her own blade’ (p. 67). In James II’s time, she is a prisoner staring out the window at the gulls that she believes have been transmogrified into her dead sons, full of loathing still for James’s line, fuelling James II’s nightmares but earning a pardon for her advice. Her reappearance as the King’s aunt Annabella in James III provides a sense of continuity throughout the trilogy. This is reinforced in the text with the repetition of the line ‘A queen doesn’t get frightened’,130 delivered as a threat by Isabella to Queen Joan in James I but as a kindly reminder by Annabella to Queen Margaret at the end of James III . As De Groot observes, ‘popular history can challenge models of nationhood and national identity, even while appearing to underline and celebrate them’.131 Here as in her earlier work, The Maiden Stone (1995) and The Last Witch

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(2009), Munro offers a feminist revisionist history in a similar vein to Liz Lochhead and Sue Glover, to challenge traditional historiography and provoke reflection on masculinist constructions of national identity. Through the historic collaboration required to produce them and their direct engagement with Scottish history, The James Plays exemplify the project of a national theatre that Holdsworth claims ‘is still fought for as a way of signalling cultural autonomy, distinctiveness and legitimacy’.132 Reinforcing cultural distinctiveness is one function of theatrical nationalism, while self-reflexive critique is another, as demonstrated within the Australian case study.

Shifting the Perspective: Andrew Bovell’s Adaptation of The Secret River The theatrical performance of The Secret River, adapted by Australian playwright Andrew Bovell and directed by Neil Armfield, was performed on the lands of the Kaurna people in the former Anstey Hill Quarry as part of the 2017 Adelaide Festival. Adding to the sense of occasion, festival-goers without their own private transport had to take a short bus ride from the city centre to the venue where Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata was performed as part of the 1988 Adelaide Festival. Here, food and drink were served from temporary outlets before the show and during the interval. When it was time to enter the performance space, spectators took their seats among the large bleachers positioned so that the tall, imposing cliff face formed a backdrop for the action. The central campfire around which the Dharug clan and the Thornhill family alternately gathered symbolised how their lives mirrored each other in the same space—on 100 acres of the Dhirrumbin or Hawkesbury River—until one group violently took the land from the other. Adapting this historical fiction from literary novel to theatrical performance afforded an opportunity to shift the perspective from which the narrative is told. In her analysis of the original Sydney Theatre Company production in 2013, Denise Varney asks whether the play ‘redresses the perceived limitations’ of the source text.133 Odette Kelada has argued that in the novel, William Thornhill is humanised (even ‘potentially heroised’) whereas ‘the representations of Indigenous bodies appear more one-dimensional’.134 Expressing the view that, as a white writer, she did not have the right to inhabit the inner thoughts of Indigenous characters, Grenville reinforces the colonial gaze by which the Indigenous characters,

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known only by nicknames, are described by the settler/invader characters from a distance. Bovell asserts in the introduction to the published script that this would have been impossible in live performance.135 Stephen Page, then artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre, as artistic associate for the production, assisted Richard Green, the language consultant, to restore the identity of these characters as members of the Dharug clan and to teach them the Dharug language.136 The Dharug characters Yalamundi (Stephen Goldsmith), Buryia (Frances Djulibing), Gilyagan (Natasha Wanganeen), Ngalamalum (Shaka Cook), and Wangarra (Marcus Corowa), and children Narabi (Dylan Miller) and Garraway (Jaydan Bush/Liam Clarke), are not only named, but they also become three-dimensional when embodied by Indigenous actors. While the English translation is included in the published script, it is not provided in performance. This reinforces the sense in performance that while William Thornhill (Nathaniel Dean) and the other settler/invaders clearly understood when they were being warned not to destroy the yams or burn the oysters, for example, they wilfully ignored what they were being told despite relying on the Dharug people for their own survival. The shift in perspective from a one-sided colonial re-telling of the occupation and its violent consequences is further enacted by the introduction of Dhirrumbin as a narrator. As Varney observes, through her presence on stage throughout the action, Dhirrumbin (Ningali LawfordWolf) ‘further invites the audience to witness the performance as cultural memory from a bi-cultural perspective’.137 Dhirrumbin—the Dharug name for the Hawkesbury River—bears witness to the events of the play and recounts the details of the massacre in an epilogue after the fact. Thornhill returns home to his family after the battle scene (accompanied by the nursery rhyme ‘London Bridge is falling down’, which has been transformed into a ‘terrifying song of war’), telling his wife Sal (Georgia Adamson), ‘We won’t speak of this again’, to which she replies, ‘Is that it, Will? What we have now. Me and you? Silence’.138 Through Dhirrumbin’s narration, however, for the audience at least, the silence has been broken. This distancing effect also calls attention to how the fictional story has been adapted, and in doing so draws attention to its own historiography and intercultural project. The focus on Australian cultural memory is further reinforced by restricting the setting to Sydney Cove and the Hawkesbury River and cutting the earlier parts of the novel set in London. The poverty of Thornhill’s childhood and the injustice of his transportation and exile

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from England (despite receiving a pardon in the Thornhills’ opening scenes) is still apparent throughout the narrative. Whereas Sal counts down the five years until they have agreed to return home to London and keeps the dream alive by singing nursery rhymes with the children, Thornhill yearns for the freedom to climb the social ladder that the new colony offers. Thus, the narrator relays that after an altercation with his former transport captain, ‘Thornhill knew that there could be no future for them back in London. On the Hawkesbury a man did not have to drag his past around like a dead dog and a man’s son had no need to call another man sir’.139 Eleanor Collins argues that in the novel there is an underlying suggestion that ‘the Thornhills’ suffering in an unjust English class system’ has a direct bearing on the Dharug people’s ‘unimaginable suffering in an unjust colonial racial system’.140 This sense is retained and even emphasised within the play to encourage empathy with the main character, with Bovell explaining that ‘The Thornhills have escaped the brutality and poverty of the English class system and now aspire to a brighter future for their children’.141 The playwright claims that white audiences can readily identify with the Thornhills and that this provokes self-reflection: ‘once the audience empathises with the everyman, William Thornhill, given what he does at the end of the story, they must then consider whether, if they found themselves in similar circumstances, they too would choose to participate in a massacre, in order to secure that better future’.142 In humanising the character of Thornhill and working to understand his conflicting motivations and psyche, the play addresses and implicates a majority white settler/invader Australian audience. Confronting the violence and injustices of the past in the theatre may paradoxically be comforting for white audiences by giving expression to anxiety and reaffirming a virtuous progressive national identity that is willing to recognise its past wrongs. Bovell argues that the play collapses the distance between audiences and their forebears.143 Postcolonial scholar Rebecca Weaver-Hightower, however, highlights the danger of ‘Sorry Novels’ in displacing the collective guilt of non-Indigenous readers onto the past: ‘By expressing collective guilt, [these] novels act as a sort of cleansing ritual for readers who identify with characters and experience catharsis… [They] can also serve to depict the conflict of settlement as an event only of the past, safely displacing guilt onto one’s ancestors’.144 Kelada finds that although The Secret River presents white Australia with shame, it is not ‘ultimately threatened’ for ‘the writing of such a text with its genuine goodwill and willingness to relive the nation’s

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past atrocities, could read as a signifier of even more virtue’.145 Despite the genuine attempts of the artistic team to create a space for Indigenous perspectives, The Secret River remains a settler/invader controlled narrative that has been criticised by prominent Indigenous artists, including Rachael Maza, for failing to highlight the survival and resilience of First Nations Australians.146 In the years since the novel’s publication and the theatrical adaptation (and remounts), Indigenous writers are speaking back to the colonial narrative and creating their own historical fiction, notably Julie Janson’s Benevolence (2020) and Anita Heiss’s Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (2021), to redress this focus. In both cases, the analysis has so far focused on how these plays looked inwards to participate in the construction and critique of national identity for local audiences. I turn now to a consideration of the cultural work undertaken by these productions when they travelled to festivals internationally.

Cultural Diplomacy International arts festivals are sites for cultural diplomacy in which festival productions represent their nation abroad, especially when funded by national governments, while extending their touring life and reach. In considering the role of theatre in nation-building, Holdsworth asks us to consider: ‘What stories are told, and why are these the stories that a nation needs to narrate?’147 The dramaturgy of the Scottish trilogy does not easily side with a nationalism that favours either independence or the Union. Munro has commented of the premiere run that the performance was ‘charged in both directions [… a]t different moments, you felt different areas of the audience kind of lighting up and engaging’.148 Regardless, it popularised a little-known period of Scottish history and celebrated contemporary Scottish culture through its epic staging— particularly when experienced as a marathon—and sheer theatricality of Sansom’s direction. For Edinburgh-based reviewer Joyce McMillan, though, The James Plays indulged in a ‘patronising cliché about Scotland’ that failed to challenge views that Scotland is ‘still willing to see itself mainly through the eyes of contemptuous others’.149 Given the production context, the plays were indeed staged with the eyes of others in mind. In her analysis of its transfer to the NTGB in London, Reid finds that ‘Taken as a whole, the English reviews of these plays tended to emphasize perceived cultural differences between Scotland and England

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and in so doing often revealed […] much about the function of Scotland as “other” in the UK imagination’.150 Representing the nation and engaging in cultural representation can be fraught with tension, especially when that identity is actively contested. The international tour of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada fulfilled a further function of representing a devolved autonomous Scotland via the international festival network. The trilogy was remounted (with some elements, particularly in James II , reworked) and partially recast for a wider tour of the UK before travelling internationally to the Adelaide Festival, the Auckland Arts Festival, and Toronto’s Luminato Festival in 2016. In a post-devolution Scotland in which foreign affairs do not fall under the purview of the restored parliament of Holyrood, The James Plays ’ international tour is representative of NTS’s cultural diplomacy on the world stage. This tour followed an established global trajectory set by previous large-scale NTS tours such as that of Black Watch.151 Ariel Watson points out that it is not accidental that the stops on this tour are not only former colonies but also sites of Scottish diaspora. Despite being funded by the British Council, the international touring of the NTS (which is funded directly by the Scottish Government), according to Watson, ‘serves a very different role as cultural diplomacy: establishing Scotland and its National Theatre on the international stage as an autonomous and definable national body, distinct from a Britishness that defaults to Englishness’.152 This also necessarily impacts how they are read and understood as representative of Scotland, as Watson argues: the nation that is performed and interpellated by these tours is not simply geographical or political but also diasporic. It is also, by necessity, a fleeting and nostalgic chimera of nationhood, and one imbricated in the commercial and ideological processes of the heritage industry.153

Many of the reviews from the Adelaide Festival highlighted the focus on Scottish history as distinct from English history as popularised by Shakespeare. Jane Howard highlights the focus on the relationship between Scotland and England as an aspect that does not translate into the Australian context, suggesting that Munro’s plays are an ‘overt rebuttal to Scotland’s history left out of a theatrical canon dominated by Shakespeare, while the debate over Scottish independence rages on’.154 Cameron Woodhead, too, finds that a ‘cultural silence attends this period of Scottish history’ and constructs his review around comparisons to

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Shakespeare while drawing attention to the contemporary feel of the work through reference to the real politik of popular fantasy television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019).155 With most reviewers concurring with Matt Byrne that the trilogy was ‘An epic piece of theatre, superbly staged, acted, directed and designed, perfect Festival fare’, the next instalment James IV : Queen of the Fight reunites the same creative team for a Raw Material and Capital Theatres production in association with NTS premiering at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre in autumn 2022.156 Audiences in Australia and Scotland have an intimate understanding and knowledge of each other’s culture due to the historical legacies of colonisation and ongoing cultural exchange (that continues to be facilitated by these festivals). This familiarity (perhaps more assumed than fact) also inflected the reviews of The Secret River from the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh and Olivier Theatre in London. There were many references to the construction of Brand Australia for a British audience throughout the reviews. Patrick Marmion found that Armfield’s production was ‘even rougher – and bleaker’ than ‘Shane Warne, or Aussie “Rules” Football’ while also managing to be ‘moving and uplifting, too’.157 Underscoring the politics of language that the production stages, there were numerous comments by reviewers that they could not access the Dharug language and customs. Marmion commented that the Indigenous characters were ‘an enigma to both the colonists and most of the audience, using their own language and inscrutable rituals’.158 Michael Arditti complains that the Dharug characters are not given ‘an intelligible voice’, while Robert Gore-Langton comments that the audience has access to the ‘far less competent’ inner thoughts of the settler/invaders while the Indigenous characters are afforded ‘little individuality on stage’ and finds the representation of their rituals patronising.159 The London season and its reception were ultimately overshadowed but the tragic passing of Ningali Lawford-Wolf in Edinburgh only a few days before. One reviewer commented that the play had provided more roles for Australian First Nation’s actors than any other they had seen in London.160 This, and the comments about language, highlight, once again, the need for more Indigenous storytelling and Indigenous-led productions to be elevated beyond the national to the world stage. Reviewers of the UK tour understood The Secret River to be primarily addressed at an Australian audience, although some of the reviews of the EIF season highlighted the production’s broader comment on British colonialism. Alice Saville read the play as ‘designed to confront Australian

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audiences, digging away at the ground they stand on’ while Nick Curtis felt ‘a looming sense of self-congratulation in this cultural expiation for past sins’.161 Having seen the production at the EIF, however, Dominic Cavendish was among the reviewers who viewed the play as ‘acquir[ing] a vast-spanning significance’ beyond its specific narrative and cultural setting to provide a wider critique on the legacy of Empire.162 Despite her comment that the play was directed at Australians, Saville’s EIF review also ultimately found the play ‘an essential arrival in a UK theatre landscape that is only beginning to confront its own colonial past’.163 While The Secret River’s international tour primarily restaged a national debate over history and identity for a global audience, it was also an opportunity to speak back to the former colonial power. Only some reviewers, mostly of the Edinburgh season, however, read this performance as a comment on Scotland and England’s own colonial histories and the need to address and redress the repercussions of Empire.

Conclusion This chapter has investigated how festivals engage in nation-building by representing nation at home and abroad. The James Plays and The Secret River are recent high-profile productions that have featured at both the EIF and Adelaide Festival as well as numerous sites within their own nations. In both cases these plays offer revisionist histories that have sparked and participated in debates over national identity and cultural representation that extend far beyond their performance spaces. Partly through the high production values and reputation of the NTS, Scotland asserts distinctiveness as a nation and autonomy in cultural policy on the world stage by touring to other Commonwealth countries that were part of the Scottish diaspora. Australia asserts its willingness (among artists and some parts of society) to address and confront the violent processes of colonisation and acknowledge the racial tensions that continue to pervade official government policy and society today. Providing more opportunities for Indigenous-led productions to also be presented by festivals around the world will further respect and honour the resilience and survival of First Nations Peoples while taking incremental steps along the path of decolonisation. Festivals, then, are not just about local identity, but speak to a much wider audience and public.

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Notes 1. Ric Knowles, ‘The Edinburgh Festival and Fringe: Lessons for Canada?’, Canadian Theatre Review, 102 (2000): 88–96 (p. 91). 2. Janelle Reinelt, ‘The Role of National Theatres in an Age of Globalization’, in National Theatres in a Changing Europe, ed. by S. E. Wilmer (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 228–38 (p. 229). 3. Matthew W. Rofe and Clare L. Woosnam, ‘Festivals as a Vehicle for Place Promotion: Cars, Contestation and the Creative City Ethos’, Landscape Research, 41.3 (2016): 344–59 (p. 348). 4. Trish Reid, Theatre & Scotland (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 59. 5. Nadine Holdsworth, Theatre & Nation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 9. 6. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Verso, 2006), p. 6. 7. Holdsworth, Theatre & Nation, p. 6. 8. Ibid. 9. Jacqueline Lo, Staging Nation: English Language Theatre in Malaysia and Singapore (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), p. 2. 10. Ibid.; original emphasis. 11. Ibid., p. 3. 12. Ian Brown, Performing Scottishness: Enactment and National Identities (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), p. 15. 13. Holdsworth, Theatre & Nation, p. 7. 14. Christopher Balme, Theatrical Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 45. 15. Ibid. 16. Edinburgh International Festival, ‘About Us’, 2022, https://www.eif.co. uk/about [accessed 14 January 2022]. 17. BOP Consulting and Festivals and Events International, ‘Edinburgh’s Festivals: Thundering Hooves 2.0. A Ten Year Strategy to Sustain the Success of Edinburgh’s Festivals’, Edinburgh Festival City (Edinburgh: Festivals Edinburgh, May 2015), p. 9. 18. Festivals Edinburgh, ‘Edinburgh’s Festivals: Defining Scotland’s Cultural Identity on the Global Stage’, Edinburgh Festival City, 2 April 2015, https://www.edinburghfestivalcity.com/assets/000/000/350/Def ining_Scotland’s_Cultural_Identity_-_2014_original.pdf?1411041370 [30 July 2021], p. 13. 19. Scottish Government, ‘Arts, Culture and Heritage’, Scottish Government, 2022, https://www.gov.scot/policies/arts-culture-heritage/creative-tal ent-and-engagement/ [accessed 14 January 2022]. 20. Jakov Jandric, Ten Years of Expo. Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund: Mapping a Decade of Development (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Festival City, 2018).

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21. Ibid., p. 4. 22. Ibid., p. 3. 23. Creative Scotland, ‘Made in Scotland Funding’, Creative Scotland, 2022, https://www.creativescotland.com/funding/funding-pro grammes/targeted-funding/made-in-scotland [accessed 14 January 2022]. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. Ministry for the Arts, ‘Guidelines Major Festivals Initiative’, Australian https://www.arts.gov.au/sites/default/files/FINAL% Government, 20Major%20Festivals%20Initiative%20Guidelines.pdf?acsf_files_redirect [accessed 14 January 2022], p. 3. 27. The website still lists the Melbourne Festival as a member but this festival ended in 2019 and has been replaced by Rising (which was postponed or cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid-19). Australia Council, ‘Major Festivals Initiative’, Australia Council, https://australiacouncil.gov.au/investment-and-development/ multi-year-investment/major-festivals-initiative/ [accessed 14 January 2022]. 28. CAIAF, ‘Major Festivals Initiative’, CAIAF, https://www.caiaf.org.au/ about/major-festivals-initiative-mfi [accessed 14 January 2022]. 29. CAIAF, ‘MFI Investment Types and Criteria’, CAIAF, https:// www.caiaf.org.au/about/mfi-investment-types-and-criteria [accessed 14 January 2022]. 30. Nadine Holdsworth, ‘Introduction’, in Theatre and National Identity: Re-Imagining Conceptions of Nation, ed. by Nadine Holdsworth (Oxon: Routledge, 2014), pp. 1–16 (p. 6). 31. Sarah Thomasson, ‘The Australian Festival Network’, in The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals, ed. by Ric Knowles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 132–46 (p. 133). 32. Holdsworth, Theatre & Nation, p. 36. 33. At the time of writing in January 2022, Circus Oz is still on this list, but its Board announced in December 2021 their intentions to wind up the company. 34. Meeting of Cultural Ministers, National Performing Arts Partnership Framework (Sydney: Australia Council for the Arts, 2019) https:// australiacouncil.gov.au/investment-and-development/multi-year-invest ment/national-performing-arts-partnership-framework/ [accessed 17 January 2022], p. 4. 35. Rebecca Charlotte Robinson, ‘Funding the “Nation” in the National Theatre of Scotland’, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 18.1 (2012): 46–58 (p. 46).

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36. David Stevenson, ‘Tartan and Tantrums: Critical Reflections on the Creative Scotland “Stooshie”’, Cultural Trends, 23.3 (2014): 178–87 (p. 179). 37. Anne Bonnar, ‘What Does Cultural Policy Mean to You? The Practice and Process of Consultation on Cultural Policy in Scotland Since Devolution’, Cultural Trends 23.3 (2014): 136–47 (p. 137). 38. Scottish Executive, Scottish Executive Response on the Cultural Review (Edinburgh: Scottish Executive, 2006), 61, http://www.scotland.gov. uk/Resource/Doc/89659/0021549.pdf [accessed 14 April 2014], p. 40. 39. Ibid. 40. Reinelt, p. 229. 41. Cath Levett and Paddy Allen, ‘Scottish Independence Referendum Results—Visualised’, Guardian, 19 September 2014, http://www. theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/19/scottish-independence-refere ndum-results-visualised [accessed 1 December 2014]. 42. Severin Carrell and Libby Brooks, ‘Nicola Sturgeon: Second Scottish Independence Poll Highly Likely’, Guardian, 25 June 2016, https:// www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/alex-salmond-second-sco ttish-independence-referendum-is-certain [accessed 25 June 2017]. 43. Trish Reid, ‘Post-Devolutionary Drama’, in The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama, ed. by Ian Brown (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), pp. 188–99 (p. 188). 44. Balme, p. 46. 45. Reid, Theatre & Scotland, p. 3. 46. Jen Harvie, Staging the UK (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), p. 2.; original emphasis. 47. David McCrone, The Sociology of Nationalism: Tomorrow’s Ancestors (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 37. 48. Ibid., p. 128. 49. Ibid., p. vii. 50. Ibid., p. 52. 51. Tom Nairn, After Britain: New Labour and the Return of Scotland (London: Granta, 2000), p. 140. 52. McCrone, pp. 131–32. 53. Nairn, p. 234. 54. McCrone, p. 22. 55. Martin Currie, ‘Q&A: Voting in the Scottish Independence Referendum’, BBC News, 8 January 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-sco tland-scotland-politics-25420827 [accessed 22 June 2017]. 56. Harvie, p. 2. 57. Brown, Performing Scottishness, p. 84. 58. Sir Jonathon Mills cited in Brian Ferguson, ‘Scottish Independence Productions Not at EIF 2014’, Scotland on Sunday,

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59. 60. 61.

62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

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11 August 2013, http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/arts/news/sco ttish-independence-productions-not-at-eif-2014-1-3040283 [accessed 1 October 2013]. Ferguson, ‘Scottish Independence Productions Not at EIF 2014’. Mills cited within Ferguson, ‘Scottish Independence Productions Not at EIF 2014’. See, for example, cultural commentator Pat Kane, cited in Anonymous, ‘Mills Defends Ban on Independence Referendum Works’, Scotland on Sunday, 19 August 2013, http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/ arts/news/mills-defends-ban-on-independence-referendum-works-13051247 [accessed 1 October 2013]. For example, Independent Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) Jean Urquhart cited in Brian Ferguson, ‘Scottish Independence: Festival Plan Backed’, Scotsman, 19 August 2013 http://www.scotsman.com/ lifestyle/arts/news/scottish-independence-festival-plan-backed-1-305 1731 [accessed 1 October 2013]. Ferguson, ‘Scottish Independence Productions Not at EIF 2014’. Mills cited in Ferguson, ‘Scottish Independence: Festival Plan Backed’. Cardownie cited in Ibid. Mills cited in Ibid. Riddoch cited in Brian Ferguson, ‘Independence Won’t Get EIF Listing’, Scotsman, 19 August 2013, http://www.scotsman.com/lifest yle/arts/news/brian-ferguson-independence-won-t-get-eif-listing-1-305 1884 [accessed 1 October 2013]. Lochhead cited in Ferguson, ‘Scottish Independence: Festival Plan Backed’. Mark Brown, Modernism and Scottish Theatre Since 1969: A Revolution on Stage (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2019), p. 213. Ibid., p. 214. Mills cited in Ferguson, ‘Scottish Independence Productions Not at EIF 2014’. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe ran from 2–26 August 2013. Nick Clark, ‘Edinburgh 2013: Apart from a Finn and a Welshman— Festival Says No to Scots Independence; Works About Scottish SelfDetermination Are Conspicuously Absent at the Edinburgh Fringe’, Independent Online, 5 August 2013, http://www.independent.co.uk/ news/media/online/ [accessed 6 August 2013]. Laura Barnett, ‘Edinburgh Festival 2013: The Bloody Great Border Ballad Project, Review’, Telegraph Online, 6 August 2013, http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/edinburgh-festival-reviews/102 23942/Edinburgh-Festival-2013-The-Bloody-Great-Border-Ballad-Pro ject-review.html [accessed 6 October 2013].

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75. Joyce McMillan, ‘Planet Earth to Mills: Beam Us Up’, Scotsman, 16 August 2013, p. 27. 76. Fiona Hyslop, ‘Programme Note’, in The James Plays Programme (Edinburgh: EIF, 2014), p. 19. 77. David Overend and Laura Bissell, ‘Early Days: Reflections on the Performance of a Referendum’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 25.2 (2015): 242–50. 78. Alicia Nally, ‘Indigenous Leader Welcomes “Important Change” to National Anthem which PM Says Reflects the Australia “We Always Hope to be”’, ABC, 1 January 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/ 2021-01-01/what-leaders-say-about-change-to-national-anthem-words/ 13026006 [accessed 17 January 2022]. 79. Myles Morgan, ‘Why Australia Day Is Really Held on 26 January and the Push to Change the Date’, SBS, 25 January 2018, https://www.sbs. com.au/news/why-australia-day-is-really-held-on-26-january-and-thepush-to-change-the-date/2d59f3f3-4bd2-4d19-b1e7-718b51361946 [accessed 17 January 2022]. 80. Sarah Martin, ‘Indigenous Voice to Parliament Legislation “Imminent”, Coalition Sources Say’, Guardian, 18 November 2021, https:// www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/19/indigenous-voiceto-parliament-legislation-imminent-coalition-sources-say [accessed 17 January 2022]. 81. Joanne Tompkins, Unsettling Space: Contestations in Contemporary Australian Theatre (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmilllan, 2006), p. 6. 82. Donald Pulford, ‘Andrew Bovell in the History Wars: Australia’s Continuing Cultural Crisis of Remembering and Forgetting’, in Staging Loss: Performance as Commemoration, ed. by Michael Pinchbeck and Andrew Westerside (Cham: Springer International, 2018), pp. 95–107 (p. 96). 83. Denise Varney, ‘What the River Remembers: Theatricality and Embodied Knowledge in Performing The Secret River’, Communication, Politics & Culture, 48.3 (2015): 4–15 (p. 4). 84. Sue Kossew, ‘Saying Sorry: The Politics of Apology and Reconciliation in Recent Australian Fiction’, in Locating Postcolonial Narrative Genres, ed. by Walter Goebel and Saskia Schabio (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 171–83. 85. John Howard, ‘Questions without Notice: Racism’, House Hansard, 29 October 2006, http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/ display.w3p;db=CHAMBER;id=chamber%2Fhansardr%2F1996-10-29% 2F0001;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F1996-10-29%2F0 005%22 [Accessed 13 January 2018], p. 5975. 86. John Howard, ‘Address by the Prime Minister the Hon John Howard Mp. The 1996 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture. The Liberal Tradition: The

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87. 88. 89.

90.

91. 92.

93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

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Beliefs and Values Which Guide the Federal Government’, PM Transcripts, 18 November 1996, http://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/ transcript-10171 [Accessed 13 January 2018]. Howard. ‘Questions’. Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark, The History Wars (Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 2003), p. 3. See Sue Kossew, ‘Voicing the “Great Australian Silence”: Kate Grenville’s Narrative of Settlement in The Secret River’, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 42.2 (2007): 7–18, (p. 8). Kossew, ‘Saying Sorry’, p. 172. Grenville, herself, drew the ire of historians when she claimed in an interview with Ramona Koval for ABC Radio National that ‘a novelist can stand up on a stepladder and look down at this, outside the fray’ in answer to a question of where she would place her novel if laying out books on the history wars. See Ramona Koval, ‘Interview with Kate Grenville, “Books and Writing”’, ABC Radio National, 16 July 2005, http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/ booksandwriting/kate-grenville/3629894#transcript [accessed 1 January 2018] for the transcript and Sarah Pinto, ‘History, Fiction, and The Secret River’, in Lighting Dark Places: Essays on Kate Grenville, ed. by Sue Kossew (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), pp. 179–97 and Brigid Rooney, ‘Kate Grenville as Public Intellectual’, in Lighting Dark Places: Essays on Kate Grenville, ed. by Sue Kossew (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), pp. 17–38 for an analysis of the ensuing controversy. Kossew, ‘Saying Sorry’, p. 172. Shirley Chappel and Gregory Loades, ‘The Camp Oven Festival and Australian Identity’, in Festivals, Tourism and Social Change: Remaking Worlds, ed. by David Picard and Mike Robinson (Clevedon, Eng.: Channel View, 2006), pp. 191–208 (p. 192). Ibid., p. 199. Zoe Anderson, ‘Reading “Multiculturalism”: A Historiography of Policy and Ideal in Australia’, History Compass, 11.11 (2013): 905–17 (p. 905). Ibid., p. 910. Ibid., p. 908. Ibid., p. 909. Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo, Performance and Cosmopolitics: CrossCultural Transactions in Australasia (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 112. Anderson, ‘Reading “Multiculturalism”’, p. 906. Ibid., p. 910.

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101. ABC News, ‘1999–2009: The Asylum Seeker Issue in Australia’, ABC News, 17 April 2009, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-17/ 1999---2009-the-asylum-seeker-issue-in-australia/1654948 [accessed 28 May 2015]. 102. David Marr, ‘Truth Overboard—The Story That Won’t Go Away’, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 February 2006, http://www.smh.com.au/ news/national/truth-overboard--the-story-that-wont-go-away/2006/ 02/27/1141020023654.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 [accessed 16 February 2016]. 103. Anderson, ‘Reading “Multiculturalism”’, p. 912. 104. Chris Bowen, Multiculturalism in the Australian Context, available at Kate Lundy Senator for the ACT , 17 February 2011, http://www.kat elundy.com.au/2011/02/17/minister-for-immigration-and-citizenshipchris-bowen-multiculturalism-in-the-australian-context/ [accessed 16 February 2015]. 105. Anderson, ‘Reading “Multiculturalism”’, p. 907. 106. Kay Ferres, David Adair, and Ronda Jones, ‘Cultural Indicators: Assessing the State of the Arts in Australia’, Cultural Trends, 19.4 (2010): 261–72 (p. 264). 107. Julie Holledge, Sarah Thomasson, and Joanne Tompkins, ‘Rethinking Interculturalism Using Digital Tools’, in Interculturalism and Performance Now: New Directions?, ed. by Charlotte McIvor and Jason King (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 89–111 (p. 93). 108. David Archibald, ‘History in Contemporary Scottish Theatre’, in The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama, ed. by Ian Brown (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), pp. 85–94 (p. 85). 109. Paola Botham, ‘The Twenty-First-Century History Play’, in Twenty-First Century Drama: What Happens Now, ed. by Siân Adiseshiah and Louise LePage (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 81–103 (p. 81). 110. Ibid., p. 85. 111. Ian Brown, History as Theatrical Metaphor: History, Myth and National Identities in Modern Scottish Drama (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), p. 19. 112. Ibid., p. viii. 113. Ibid., p. ix. 114. Rona Munro, ‘Introduction’, James Plays Programme (Edinburgh: EIF, 2014), p. 29. 115. Brown, History, p. 206. 116. Ibid., p. 207. 117. Ibid., p. 208.

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118. Ibid., p. 207. 119. National Theatre of Scotland, NTS Press Release, 20 January 2014, https://nanopdf.com/download/press-release-national-theatre-of-sco tland-5ae676acee25c_pdf [accessed 31 January 2022], p. 2. 120. Rona Munro, The James Plays (London: Nick Hern, 2014), p. viii. 121. Brown, History, p. 205. 122. Jerome De Groot, Remaking History: The Past in Contemporary Historical Fictions (Oxon: Routledge, 2016), p. 22. 123. Ibid. 124. Susannah Clap, ‘The James Plays Review—Rona Munro’s Timely Game of Thrones’, Guardian, 17 August 2014, https://www.thegua rdian.com/stage/2014/aug/17/james-plays-edinburgh-sofie-grabolobserver-review [accessed 18 January 2021]. 125. Munro, p. 290. 126. Ibid., p. 291. 127. Ibid., p. 28. 128. Joyce McMillan, Theatre in Scotland: A Field of Dreams. Reviews by Joyce McMillan, ed. by Philip Howard (London: Nick Hern, 2016), p. 382. 129. McMillan, p. 381. 130. Munro, p. 67. 131. De Groot, p. 70. 132. Holdsworth, Theatre & Nation, p. 38. 133. Varney, p. 4. 134. Odette Kelada, ‘The Stolen River: Possession and Race Representation in Grenville’s Colonial Narrative’, Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature: JASAL, 10 (2010): 7–8. 135. Andrew Bovell, The Secret River: An Adaptation for the Stage (Strawberry Hills, NSW: Currency, 2013), p. xviii. 136. Monica Tan, ‘Indigenous Writer Bruce Pascoe: “We Need Novels That Are True to the Land”’, Guardian Australia, 18 February 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/18/indigenous-wri ter-bruce-pascoe-on-why-australias-literary-giants-have-failed [Accessed 14 January 2018]. 137. Varney, p. 12. 138. Bovell, The Secret River, p. 85; 86. 139. Ibid., pp. 39–40. 140. Eleanor Collins, ‘Poison in the Flour: Kate Grenville’s The Secret River’, in Lighting Dark Places: Essays on Kate Grenville, ed. by Sue Kossew (Amsterday: Rodopi, 2010), pp. 167–78 (p. 169). 141. Andrew Bovell, ‘Putting Words in Their Mouths: The Playwright and Screenwriter at Work’, Platform Papers, 52 (August 2017), p. 21. 142. Ibid.; original emphasis. 143. Ibid., p. 22.

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144. Qtd in Annalisa Pes, ‘Telling Stories of Colonial Encounters: Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, The Lieutenant and Sarah Thornhill ’, Postcolonial Text, 11.2 (2016): 2–3. 145. Kelada, p. 12. 146. Richard Watts, ‘Who Owns Indigenous Stories?’, Performing ArtsHub, 21 January 2015, http://performing.artshub.com.au/news-article/ news/performing-arts/richard-watts/who-owns-indigenous-stories246931 [Accessed 14 January 2018]. 147. Holdsworth, Theatre & Nation, p. 35. 148. Qtd in Rosemary Neill, ‘Battle Royale’, Australian, 20 February 2016, Factiva. 149. McMillan, p. 383. 150. Trish Reid, ‘“Sexy Kilts with Attitude”: Scottish Theatre in the TwentyFirst Century’, in Twenty-First Century Drama: What Happens Now, ed. by Siân Adiseshiah and Louise LePage (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 213–35 (p. 202). 151. Ibid., p. 203. 152. Ariel Watson, ‘Birnam Wood: Scotland, Nationalism, and Theatres of War’, Theatre History Studies, 33 (2014): 226–49 (p. 241). 153. Ibid. 154. Jane Howard, ‘The James Plays Trilogy Review—High-Stakes Historical Soap Proves Addictive’, Guardian, 2 March 2016, Factiva. 155. Cameron Woodhead, ‘Scottish Epic Is One for History Books’, Age, 1 March 2016, Factiva. 156. Matt Byrne, ‘HITLIST Best and Fairest for 2016’, Advertiser, 13 March 2016, Factiva; Capital Theatres, ‘James IV : Tickets on Sale & Creative Team Updates’, Capital Theatres, https://www.capitaltheatres.com/ about/stories/james-iv-tickets-on-sale-creative-team-updates [accessed 21 January 2022]. 157. Patrick Marmion, ‘We’re Off to See The Wizard in Oz Down Under in a Brutal But Brilliant Production of The Secret River’, Daily Mail, 30 August 2019, Factiva. 158. Ibid. 159. Michael Arditti, ‘Theatre’, Sunday Express, 1 September 2019, Factiva; Robert Gore-Langton, ‘The Secret River at the National Theatre has only Intermittent Power… The Heart Went Out of It with the Loss of Its Guiding Star’, Event Magazine, 1 September 2019, Factiva. 160. Nick Curtis, ‘A Brutal Collision in Australia’s Dark Past’, Evening Standard, 28 August 2019, Factiva. 161. Alice Saville, ‘Drama Played Out on Contested Soil’, Financial Times, 6 August 2019, Factiva; Curtis. 162. Dominic Cavendish, ‘An Unmissable Look at the Legacy of Empire’, Daily Telegraph, 6 August 2019, Factiva. 163. Saville.

CHAPTER 6

Conclusion: Looking Beyond the Pandemic

The global health pandemic, beginning in 2020, marked a turning point in the future of the global performing arts market, the festival circuit, and live performance. While Adelaide’s festivals went ahead before coronavirus reached Australia, only disrupting their final week, Edinburgh’s summer festivals were cancelled for the first time in their history. The 2021 events in both cities went ahead, albeit in a modified format, and were fundamentally shaped by new provisions for social distancing and travel restrictions including border closures. Covid-19 has had and will continue to have, wide-ranging repercussions in most countries around the world. Countless people across the globe have experienced loss and are dealing with the aftereffects of the virus. The impact of measures to combat the virus, too, has taken their toll on the health, mental health, well-being, and life chances of individuals, but also on social structures, communities, and the way we connect and relate to each other. It has exacerbated and exposed existing inequalities on a broad scale. Even within comparatively wealthy and privileged nations, the live performing arts sector has been one of the worst affected throughout the successive waves of the pandemic, and it will have one of the longest recovery periods. Despite this, artists—many of whom work precariously from contract to contract—have been left out of, or excluded from, Covid19-specific government welfare initiatives. It is unclear how many arts organisations will survive the pandemic, its associated restrictions on © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Thomasson, The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09094-3_6

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movement and face-to-face gatherings, and the longer-term economic ramifications. The festivals of Adelaide and Edinburgh along with their counterparts around the world, which rely on travel, co-presence, and interaction, are particularly affected. Despite this, there has been a proliferation of artistic activity and creative responses by festivals globally. The Adelaide Fringe sponsored its FringeVIEW programme of digital work in May 2020, the 2020 Edinburgh International Book Festival went ahead as an online event, and both the EIF and EFF ran a series of digital performances and online conversations throughout August 2020. In 2021, Edinburgh and Adelaide embraced outdoor spaces and more local content for a reduced socially-distanced face-to-face audience and digital ‘at home’ options for those unable to attend physically. Experimentation with digital platforms and different forms of connection are opening up new ways of working that provide long-term alternatives for a world in which global air travel may no longer be economically—or environmentally—desirable or viable. The global health pandemic has brought numerous long-term structural problems into relief, not least of which is the climate crisis, but also the ongoing debates over the role of festivals in place promotion, incursions into public space, the precariousness of the artist entrepreneur, and evolving constructions of national identity, all explored in this book. In this conclusion, I consider the challenges posed by the global health pandemic as the final performative event under consideration, and the initiatives that these festivals are already taking to address them.

2020–2021 Festivals in Review The festival organising bodies of the Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Fringe, EIF, and EFF have experienced the global health pandemic in different ways, but nevertheless there are key themes that have emerged from their responses throughout 2020 and 2021. Before the Omicron variant took hold, Australia had experienced far fewer Covid-19 cases than the UK. According to the Financial Times ’ Coronavirus tracker, as of 1 December 2021 Australia had 213,357 cumulative cases whereas the UK had 10,267,007. Less than two months later, this gap had reduced with Australia’s case rates up to 2,391,062 on 27 January 2022, compared to 16,149,319 in the UK.1 Australia’s early success in keeping case numbers low was achieved by controversially closing international borders to nonAustralian citizens, permanent residents, and their immediate families on

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20 March 2020, and requiring all those with an exemption to undertake 14 days of (self-funded) self-isolation in a managed isolation facility.2 Australians were also prevented from leaving Australia until the border was reopened in November 2021, with vaccinated travellers allowed to self-isolate at home in New South Wales (NSW) from that time. While the eastern states of NSW and Victoria had long periods of lockdown in 2020 and 2021 as in the UK, South Australia has largely avoided this necessity, although travel restrictions between states and territories have also impacted the festivals. The timing of the festivals also differentially affected the events in Adelaide and Edinburgh in 2020. Adelaide’s festivals were in their final week before coronavirus became a public concern. Despite this, the Adelaide Fringe acted quickly to support artists and crew and their livelihoods threatened by the necessary cancellations of live performance. In May 2020, they piloted ‘an online, digital Fringe experience’ through their Adelaide FringeVIEW programme that invited artists to share online content such as pre-recorded videos or run virtual tutorials or workshops.3 It was free for artists to participate and was a way for audiences to show support by buying a ticket for an online experience. The programme received 200 registrations, 51 events of which were live, and ran virtually between 1 and 31 May 2020.4 The experience, however, was very different in Edinburgh. On 1 April, both the EIF and EFF made the historic decision to cancel their 2020 events. This produced enormous financial challenges for the EFFS and what they describe as ‘existential consequences’ for the broader sector, which as they highlight in a submission to the UK Parliament, ‘is made up of many micro businesses from across the UK’ from venues to individual ‘creative professionals’.5 This document is one example of the advocacy that the EFFS undertook on behalf of the broader fringe ecology to ensure that Edinburgh’s festival infrastructure was not permanently destroyed by the pandemic. In October 2020, the EFFS was granted a GBP £1 million interest-free loan and £149,000 grant from the Scottish Government, and a further £100,000 from the CEC.6 Fringe promoters Underbelly and Pleasance also received large sums from the UK Government’s Cultural Recovery Fund (totalling £850,000 between them), while Creative Scotland provided £500,000 support for the Traverse Theatre and other Fringe operators.7 To support artists, the EFFS launched a Crowdfunder campaign, FringeMakers, in July 2020, which was successful in raising £360,000 in donations for

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artists and venues.8 Throughout August, they ran a ticketed digital weekly variety show, AJ Bell Fringe on Friday, to raise further money for artists and to keep the fringe spirit alive, and operated a Fringe Central Virtual Hub to provide professional development for fringe artists and a space in which they could connect and collaborate. For the fringe sector, ordinarily operating without public subsidy, 2020 destroyed the immediate earning capacity of artists and crew and threatened the future of venues and arts organisations. The EIF also focused energies on supporting the festival ecosystem and experimented with an online programme. Their digital programme, My Light Shines On, ‘was conceived with the intention of bringing joy to the Festival community’, and provided employment for the artists and companies involved as venues opened for the first time after lockdown.9 60 events comprised of light shows, soundscapes, and digital performances across ballet, music, and theatre served to remind ‘the world of the unique experience of the Festival City every August’.10 Billed as ‘A celebration of theatre on film’, the National Theatre of Scotland’s Ghost Light was a moving tribute to recent Scottish theatre history. Co-conceived by NTS artistic director Jackie Wylie with Philip Howard and written and directed by Hope Dickson Leach, the 30-minute piece takes its name from the practice of leaving a single light on in theatres that have gone ‘dark’ in a symbol of hope.11 Celebrating the integral work of actors, designers, backstage crews, and front of house staff, as well as playwrights and directors, the audience encounters key excerpts from Scottish writers from J. M. Barrie to David Greig as ghostly palimpsests played out throughout the building of Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre. Monologues from and references to recent NTS productions feature heavily, with James McArdle, for example, reprising his role of James I from Rona Munro’s The James Plays , this time in a dressing room. In the transition scene immediately prior to his monologue, a costume rack with the wardrobe from Gregory Burke’s Black Watch is wheeled past. In addition to these digital performances, the EIF also ran a series of online conversations on the theme of Artists in the Age of Covid. The development of Covid-19 vaccines meant that 2021 presented an evolving series of challenges, with the four festivals running in person events (usually with an additional online component) but with reduced venue capacities and social distancing measures in place. Adelaide Fringe Inc. continued their support of the broader fringe ecosystem and, through the aid of the state and federal government arts recovery funding,

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supported venues and artists to implement Covid-19-safe measures for live performance.12 These measures included cashless box offices, flexible bookings and refunds (for consumer confidence), and signage and sanitiser provided across all Fringe sites. A small number of events (7.2%) also offered a ‘Watch from Home’ option, which helped the fringe maintain its connections to international audiences.13 Outdoor spaces were also embraced alongside large light displays and ‘laneway activations’, with most indoor venues having to reduce their capacity to 50%.14 They also tripled their donations in 2021 through the Adelaide Fringe Foundation and offered $100,000 to First Nations grant recipients in addition to Adelaide Fringe Artist Fund and Quick Response Grants.15 Further developing existing priorities, special focus was given to improving the accessibility and sustainability of the fringe in Adelaide. These were key themes in Edinburgh, as well, where they also embraced outdoor pavilions and seating audiences in bubbles. The EIF included a free online programme for the first time, which helped them to continue to engage global audiences while improving accessibility. The dance and theatre programme included pre-recorded versions of live performance, from choreographer Akram Khan’s Chotto Xenos and Hannah Lavery’s Lament for Sheku Bayoh, which was presented in collaboration with the NTS and the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, to a recorded staged reading of Ahlam’s You Bury Me. The ‘At Home’ sessions were subtitled, and audio described (dance) or BSL interpreted (theatre), and were so successful that the EIF has flagged that ‘Our future accessibility plans will build on this experience of delivering a hybrid Festival of in person and digital events’.16 While the EIF is dedicated to continuing to bring artists and audiences from around the world to Scotland each August, shifts in ways of working online can ultimately reduce the amount of travel involved in programming and collaboration in the long term.17 The global health pandemic has presented an existential threat to international arts festivals, but to fringe festivals—composed of a myriad of small arts organisations, commercial venues, and countless individual artists and crew—operating without public funding, even more so. The festival organising bodies in Edinburgh and Adelaide have recognised their leadership role in the cultural sector and have acted to advocate to governments and funding bodies for greater support, and to raise money directly for artists, companies, and crew by appealing to audiences. They have responded creatively by experimenting with online and digital

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performance and events, and have maintained their hubs as virtual spaces in which artists can come together, share knowledge and experience, and develop new skills. Despite the many challenges of online environments, they have also presented opportunities to improve the accessibility and sustainability of these events in the long term. Festival organising bodies and the cultural sectors of which they are a part will continue to face challenges and to evolve with the changing circumstances.

Closing Remarks This book has combined approaches and literature from Cultural Geography and Theatre and Performance Studies. Each chapter has analysed performative events within the festival public sphere that have framed and intervened in broader public debate. My argument has centred on recognising the long institutional histories of the EIF, Adelaide Festival, EFFS, and Adelaide Fringe Inc. that embed these annual events within the socio-political and economic fabrics of their cities. Chapter 2 focused on the historical development of Edinburgh and Adelaide as Festival Cities by first investigating alternative constructions. In this chapter, I demonstrated how these festivals have contributed to the production of space, both materially and discursively, over the past sixty/seventy years. Where today festivalisation is pursued as an official strategy by a ‘growth coalition’ of public and private interests in Edinburgh and as part of a broader focus on ‘liveability’ by the City of Adelaide Council in conjunction with the State Government of South Australia, the Festival City place myth was already firmly established in the social imaginaries of both cities decades before this. The Festival City place myth is not uncontested, however, and in Chapter 3, I explored how the occupation of public spaces for ticketed festival events is causing increasing tensions between different groups in both cities. This chapter also analysed performative events through the debates highlighted in the Cultural Geography literature. In Adelaide in 2012, an embarrassing clash between violins and V8s caused a cultural clash that spilled over onto the streets of Adelaide, pitting arts aficionados against car-racing fans. While victim to a confluence of factors and events, the car race has ultimately been discontinued, suggesting it no longer fits with Adelaide’s image of itself as a cultural capital. In Edinburgh, the debate is still raging over what is an acceptable number of events within an already packed schedule for the city’s central green spaces. Pressure

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groups are calling commercial operators and their public regulators to account for the environmental degradation and disruption to residents’ everyday lives caused by their activities. For the Festival City place myth to continue to succeed, and Edinburgh and Adelaide to continue to profit—economically and symbolically—from their association with these international events, these oppositions must be reconciled, and continued local support fostered. Chapter 4 focused specifically on the large, open-access fringe festivals in both cities. Today, the EFF and Adelaide Fringe are the festivals most in the public consciousness. They involve more artists, more venues, and more audiences, are more visible, and generate exponentially more economic benefits for their host cities than either of the prestigious international arts festivals. They also, traditionally, involve less direct public investment in the artistic product and are therefore championed by city councils and state/national governments. While open-access should enable greater diversity and accessibility, the financial barriers to participation undermine this. Ultimately, this model risks reinforcing the norms of neoliberal ideology: free-market competition and the precarious working conditions of artists and ancillary festival staff. Where once the EFFS and Adelaide Fringe Inc. were beholden to reporting the perpetual growth (in shows, ticket sales, and visitor numbers), the necessary pause and reduction in scale brought about by Covid-19 have shown that a smaller fringe is not necessarily a negative, and can in fact improve the fringe experience for audience and artist alike. Festivals are overwhelmingly framed as place-based within the Cultural Geography literature. Moving beyond this to highlight the contribution of international arts festivals to a national public sphere, however, Chapter 5 returned to theatre and performance insights into the role of theatre in ongoing cycles of construction, debate, and reformulation of national identity. This chapter explored two theatrical case studies, which appeared in both the EIF and Adelaide Festival, but it also demonstrated how they were engaged in broader festival public sphere debates that circulated among festivals (geographically) as well as across festivals (temporally). It has highlighted the role of these festivals in performing cultural diplomacy, both state-sanctioned within funding models and unofficially by promoting national culture on a world stage. Cultural diplomacy is the focus of a collection edited by Milena Dragi´cevi´c Šeši´c with Ljiljana Rogaˇc Mijatovi´c Nina Mihaljinac, but this is an aspect

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of cultural performance that requires much more attention by future studies.18 Collectively, the case studies across the book demonstrate that the contribution of festivals to the production of space and the cultural work they do matters. Beyond their time-limited performance that is repeated each year, the debates provoked or furthered by these events affect a much wider cross-section of society than the festival-going public (dedicated or casual). The performative event case studies here considered have provided an opportunity to analyse current debates—as played out in social and traditional media, and within public festival spaces (like Book/Writers’ festival sessions, lecture series, or stand-up sets)—and their intersection with the festival public sphere, and to contextualise them within the literature from Cultural Geography and Theatre and Performance Studies. Hopefully, I have demonstrated the value in bringing these two approaches together in this way. This book has provided an in-depth study of two Festival Cities with a shared history and ongoing relationship, but the insights and methodology can be expanded and applied to other examples around the world. The French city of Avignon, which hosts the other major post-war international arts festival that is also accompanied by a fringe festival, is one example. Montreal in Quebec, Canada, is famous for its year-round festival calendar, whereas Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, is also known locally as a Festival City. Wellington in Aotearoa, New Zealand, home to the biennial Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts, fosters a reputation as a creative capital. Makhanda in South Africa, too, hosts the annual National Arts Festival, founded in 1974, and is the largest annual arts festival on the African continent.19 These cities all host similar events— an international arts festival and/or fringe—but, alternatively, the scope of comparison could be widened to encompass a much broader range of events. UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network, founded in 2004, for example, has 246 members in January 2022, across seven creative fields: ‘Crafts and Folk Arts, Media Arts, Film, Design, Gastronomy, Literature and Music’.20 Both Adelaide (Music) and Edinburgh (Literature) are members of this organisation that seeks to ‘promote cooperation with and among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development’.21 The popularity of Charles Landry and Richard Florida’s ‘creative class’ thesis within urban development policies has, in part, led to a greater emphasis on the cultural and creative industries as drivers of growth. How does this play out in other cities in

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conjunction with (or with the absence of) a well-developed Festival City place myth? The suggestion that Festival and Creative Cities can work together at the international level also highlights the need to further investigate how the international arts festival circuit operates as a network. These festivals are competitors—vying to attract prestigious international performers and cultural tourists—but they also must work together to co-commission or co-produce new work and facilitate global tours of famed productions. There are forums for festival directors and staff to share knowledge such as different strategies for coping with the global health pandemic and climate crisis, and to improve accessibility, sustainability, and implement technological innovations. As this book has shown, there is widespread collaboration between festival organising bodies within cities, just as there are national, regional, and now global networks that support the development of relationships between festivals. Investigating broader patterns within the global circuit of international arts festivals, such as which productions travel, to where, and why, requires new methodologies and digital tools. While the close reading of performance and performative events will always be central to Theatre and Performance Studies, this needs to be supplemented with digital humanities technologies and approaches that can provide a ‘distant reading’ of festival data.22 What are the key nodes in the international festival network? Which productions and artists are successfully touring via this network? What are the absences and where are the gaps in this network? Who is left out and how can this be addressed? What will be the role of online performance events in the long term, and how will festival organising bodies and live performance artists/companies reduce their carbon footprint while amplifying local concerns and debates and furthering them on a global stage? Embracing interdisciplinary approaches and developments in digital humanities methodologies can help to answer these questions in the long term. In their 2021 annual review, EIF Festival Director Fergus Linehan and Executive Director Francesca Hegyi note that ‘Festivals are fragile. They are little more than a commitment by an audience or a community to meet and celebrate in a certain place at a certain time’.23 If anything, the importance of co-presence, of performer and audience gathering in the same physical space for a set period of time, has been reinforced rather than diminished in the early 2020s. While online performance and experiments with digital technologies such as AR and VR may play a greater

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role in future, and the way we travel and experience events necessarily must adapt to changing circumstances, the place-based festival still fulfils a vital role. The festivals of Edinburgh and Adelaide have fundamentally shaped their cities over their histories and, I am hopeful, will continue to do so into the future.

Notes 1. FT Visual and Data Journalism Team, ‘Coronavirus Tracked: See How Your Country Compares’, updated 28 January 2022, https://ig.ft. com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=gbr&areas=aus&areas=bra&areasRegi onal=usny&areasRegional=usnj&cumulative=1&logScale=1&per100K= 1&startDate=2021-11-01&values=cases [accessed 28 January 2022]. This website also provides data on cases per 100,000 population. 2. Prime Minister of Australia, ‘Media Release’, Prime Minister of Australia, 19 March 2020, https://www.pm.gov.au/media/border-restri ctions [accessed 28 January 2022]. 3. Adelaide Fringe, ‘Fringe Goes Online with Adelaide FringeVIEW!’, Adelaide Fringe, 7 April 2020, https://adelaidefringe.com.au/news/fri nge-goes-online-with-adelaide-fringeview [accessed 28 January 2022]. 4. Adelaide Fringe, Annual Review 2020 (Adelaide: Adelaide Fringe, 2021), https://adelaidefringe.com.au/2020-annual-review [accessed 27 January 2021]. 5. EFFS, ‘Written Evidence Submitted by the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society’, Impact of Covid-19 on DCMS Sectors, https://committees.par liament.uk/writtenevidence/2942/pdf/ [accessed 13 December 2021], p. 1. 6. Brian Ferguson, ‘Edinburgh Festival Fringe promoters Underbelly and Pleasance secure major public funding bailouts’, Scotsman, 13 October 2020, https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/edi nburgh-festival-fringe-promoters-underbelly-and-pleasance-secure-majorpublic-funding-bailouts-3001763 [accessed 2 August 2021]. 7. Ibid. 8. EFFS, ‘Fringe Society: Review of the Year 2020’, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, https://edfringe.shorthandstories.com/review-of-the-year-2020/ [accessed 27 January 2022]. 9. EIF, Annual Review 2020 (Edinburgh: EIF, 2020), p. 2. 10. Ibid., pp. 2–3. 11. See National Theatre of Scotland, Ghost Light, https://www.nationalthea trescotland.com/events/ghost-light#cast [accessed 12 March 2021]. 12. Adelaide Fringe Inc., Annual Review 2021 (Adelaide: Adelaide Fringe Inc., 2021), https://adelaidefringe.com.au/2021-annual-fringe-review [accessed 27 January 2021].

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13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

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Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 9. Ibid., pp. 11–13. EIF, Annual Review 2021 (Edinburgh: EIF, 2021), p. 32. Rebekah Widdowfield and Fergus Linehan, ‘Fergus Linehan FRSE on the Impact of Covid-19 on Arts and Culture’, Tea and Talk Podcast Series 1, Episode Six, Royal Society of Edinburgh, https://www.rsecovidcommiss ion.org.uk/tea-talk-episode-six/ [accessed 22 October 2021]. Milena Dragi´cevi´c Šeši´c, ed., with Ljiljana Rogaˇc Mijatovi´c and Nina Mihaljinac, Cultural Diplomacy: Arts, Festivals, and Geopolitics (Belgrade: Creative Europe Desk Serbia and Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, 2017). National Arts Festival, ‘About Us’, National Arts Festival, https://nation alartsfestival.co.za/about-us/ [accessed 28 January 2022]. UNESCO, ‘About Us’, Creative Cities Network, https://en.unesco.org/ creative-cities/content/about-us [accessed 28 January 2022]. Ibid. Franco Moretti, Distant Reading (London: Verso, 2013). EIF, Annual Review 2021, p. 1.

Index

A accessibility, 20, 29, 84, 97, 128, 154, 207–209, 211 Adam, Robert, 47 Adamson, Georgia, 188 Adelaide 500, 94, 97, 111 Adelaide City Council (ACC), 119, 120 Adelaide Festival, 1–3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 18, 20–25, 27, 29, 30, 39, 53, 56, 57, 65, 66, 69, 81–83, 86, 87, 89, 93, 99–106, 110–112, 114, 119, 129, 149, 166, 170, 182, 183, 187, 191, 193, 204, 208, 209 origins, 18, 20 Adelaide Festival Centre, 6, 7, 25 Adelaide Fringe, 2, 5, 9, 10, 13, 14, 23, 24, 29, 31, 39, 65, 66, 69, 78, 83, 101, 102, 105, 106, 123, 124, 126, 129, 132, 138–141, 143–145, 150, 152, 159–161, 204, 205, 207, 209 origins, 23–24, 129

Adelaide Fringe Artists Fund, 126, 152, 153, 207 Adelaide Fringe Inc., 4, 9, 124–126, 139, 141, 144, 152, 153, 206, 208, 209, 212 Adelaide Writers’ Week, 6, 7, 9, 21, 93 Ahlam, 207 Anstey Hill Quarry, 187 Armfield, Neil, 166, 187, 192 Arthur’s Seat, 44, 60, 93 Arts SA, 69 Assembly Halls, 59 Assembly Rooms, 135, 153 Assembly Theatre, 8, 124, 133–135 Athens of the North, 37, 46, 49 Australia Council, 170–172, 195 Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, 171 B Bad Boss Awards, 151 Barley, Nick, 110 Bell, Charles, 46

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Thomasson, The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09094-3

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INDEX

Berkoff, Steven, 128 Black, Joseph, 46 Blanchett, Cate, 178 Bovell, Andrew, 30, 165, 166, 187–189, 201 Brexit, 5, 154, 172 Bridie, James, 59 Brisbane, 6, 105, 106, 119, 166, 170 Bristo Square, 8, 93, 134 Brodie, Deacon William, 48 Burdett-Coutts, William, 135 Burns, Robert, 48

C Charlotte Square, 8, 47, 91, 93, 110, 153 Chotto Xenos , 207 Christmas Market, Edinburgh, 90 City of Adelaide Council. See Adelaide City Council (ACC) City of Churches, 37, 39, 41, 52, 53, 56, 57 City of Corpses, 37, 54, 55 City of Edinburgh Council (CEC), 38, 62, 63, 77, 89–91, 95, 97, 104, 124, 135, 150, 151, 153, 162, 175, 205 climate crisis, 1, 110, 204, 211 Clipsal. See Clipsal 500 Clipsal 500, 29, 82, 88, 94, 112. See also Adelaide 500 Cockburn Association, 90–92 Commonwealth Games, 5, 174 Conan Doyle, Arthur, 48 Cook, Shaka, 188 Corowa, Marcus, 188 Craig, James, 45 Crean, Simon, 86, 87 creative cities, 3, 11, 16, 18, 28, 67, 83, 92, 99, 106, 107, 111, 113, 210, 211

creative economy, 11, 39, 106 Creative Scotland (CS), 63, 169, 171, 195, 205 Croall, Heather, 124, 139, 143, 160 cruel optimism, 29, 125, 149 culture war, 29, 82, 85, 92, 108, 111, 112 C Venues, 124, 133, 151

D Dean, Nathaniel, 188 DF Concerts, 89–91 Dharug, 166, 187–189, 192 language, 188, 192 people, 166, 188, 189 Dickson Leach, Hope, 206 Djulibing, Frances, 188 Dubus, Alexis, 124–126, 133, 138–141, 143, 152, 159, 160 Duff, Blythe, 186 Dunstan, Don, 25, 53, 54

E East End, Adelaide, 6, 7, 93, 139, 140 Edinburgh Castle, 7, 89, 101 Edinburgh Festival Fringe (EFF), 2, 4, 6, 8–10, 13, 16, 19, 23, 26, 29, 32, 57, 59, 60, 64, 83, 98, 101, 123–126, 128, 129, 132–134, 138, 141, 143–146, 148–154, 169, 170, 176, 197, 204, 205, 209 origins, 127–129 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society (EFFS), 9, 92, 110, 125–127, 144, 146, 153, 154, 156, 158, 159, 161–163, 205, 208, 209, 212 Edinburgh Festival Theatre, 8, 25

INDEX

Edinburgh International Book Festival, 8, 9, 47, 93, 110, 204 Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), 1–4, 6–8, 10, 12, 13, 18–23, 25–27, 29, 30, 38, 43, 49, 57–61, 63, 64, 81, 83, 93, 98–103, 110, 127, 166, 168, 173–177, 192–194, 204–207, 209, 211–213 origins, 18, 127 Edinburgh Playhouse, 8 Elder Park, 6, 7, 25, 86, 93, 111 Enlightenment, 27, 37, 38, 44–47 entrepreneur, 29, 123, 125, 129, 131, 133, 141, 142, 153, 154, 204 entrepreneurial, 12, 14, 20, 130, 141, 143 entrepreneurialism, 15, 18, 28, 64, 71, 92, 131, 141, 142, 147, 165 European Capital of Culture, 5, 42 eventness , 16 experience economy, 12, 58 F Fair Fringe, 29, 124, 126, 150, 151 Fergusson, Robert, 44 festivalisation, 11, 27, 29, 30, 38, 39, 49, 57, 58, 61, 63–65, 68, 69, 71, 82, 85, 89, 92, 97–99, 101, 104, 108–110, 112, 131, 208 Festivals Adelaide, 9, 31, 69, 70, 79 Adelaide Australia’s Festival City, 66 Festivals Edinburgh, 9, 31, 38, 62, 63, 77, 126, 169, 194 Edinburgh Festival City, 38, 104 Ford, Frank, 129, 143, 157 Forest Fringe, 8 Fringe Central, Edinburgh, 7 Fringe Club, Adelaide, 126, 152 FringeMakers, 205 FringeVIEW, 204, 205

217

frontier wars, 166, 178 G Garden of Unearthly Delights, 7, 93, 138, 139 Geddes, Patrick, 45 Ghost Light , 206 Gilded Balloon, 8, 124, 133, 134, 136, 137, 159 Glasgow, 5, 57, 72, 108, 174 Glenelg, 7, 54 global health pandemic, 1, 30, 67, 109, 132, 147, 154, 203, 204, 207, 211 coronavirus, 67, 203, 204 Covid-19, 1, 204 Glover, Sue, 187 Gluttony, 93, 139 Goldsmith, Stephen, 188 Goldsworthy, Kerryn, 6, 22, 34, 56, 76 Gråbøl, Sofie, 186 Grabowsky, Paul, 86, 114 Grenville, Kate, 166, 178, 179, 187, 199 Guthrie, Tyrone, 59 H Hague, Cliff, 57, 61, 63, 64, 72, 76, 77, 90, 93, 104, 116, 119 Hahndorf, 7 Hare, William, 48 Harvey, David, 2, 30, 41, 44, 72, 73, 83, 99, 101–103, 109, 111–113, 116, 118–121, 130, 134, 140, 157, 158, 160 Harvie, Jen, 10, 16, 19, 29, 32–34, 59, 60, 76, 110, 120, 125, 128, 141–143, 145, 148, 155–157, 160–163, 173, 174, 196 Hills, Adam, 88

218

INDEX

History Wars, 166, 177–180, 199 Hogmanay, 9, 57, 90, 95 Honey Pot, 126, 152 Hume, David, 46 Hunter, Ian, 20, 60 Hutton, James, 46 Hyam, Stephanie, 185 Hyslop, Fiona, 177, 198

I I’m With the Band, 176

K Kaurna people, 3, 37, 50, 187 Kemp, Robert, 59, 127, 156 Khan, Akram, 207 King’s Theatre, 8, 25, 192 Knowles, Ric, 10, 16, 17, 31–35, 129, 156, 157, 165, 194, 195 Knox, John, 43, 185

L Lament for Sheku Bayoh, 207 Lavery, Hannah, 207 Lawford-Wolf, Ningali, 188, 192 Lee, Stewart, 124, 126, 132, 133, 135, 138, 155, 158 Lefebvre, Henri, 2, 30, 40, 42, 57, 72, 76, 98 Production of Space, 30, 72 Linehan, Fergus, 110, 211, 213 Lochhead, Liz, 175, 187, 197 London, 4–6, 30, 47, 58, 60, 102, 103, 133, 159, 166, 173, 177, 188–190, 192 Lyceum Theatre, 8, 207 Lyndsay, Sir David, 59

M Mad March, 9, 14, 38, 39, 65, 85, 92, 99, 110 Marr, David, 88, 114, 200 Marshall, Steven, 65, 111 Matthews, Paul, 176 McArdle, James, 206 McCall Smith, Alexander, 48 McCarthy, Shona, 92, 110, 128, 144, 145, 151, 161 McDermid, Val, 48, 72 McMaster, Brian, 60, 61, 176 McMillan, Joyce, 177, 190, 198, 201, 202 McVey, Adam, 89, 91, 95, 117 Meadows, 8, 92, 93, 134 Melbourne, 5, 6, 87, 104–106, 166, 181, 195 Miller, Dylan, 188 Mills, Sir Jonathan, 174–176, 196, 197 Moffat, Alistair, 60, 77, 127, 156 monopoly rent, 83, 99–107, 109, 112 Morricone, Ennio, 29, 82, 86, 88, 103, 110 Munro, Rona, 29, 165, 166, 177, 183, 184, 186, 187, 190, 191, 200, 201, 206 My Light Shines On, 206

N National Library of Scotland, 38 National Museum of Scotland, 38 National Scottish Orchestra, 172 National Theatre of Great Britain (NTGB), 30, 166, 173, 177, 190 Royal National Theatre, 119 National Theatre of Scotland (NTS), 166, 171, 172, 176, 177, 191–193, 201, 206, 207, 212

INDEX

219

neoliberal, 11, 97, 98, 107, 123, 125–127, 131, 132, 140–142, 147, 148, 150, 154, 209 neoliberalisation, 130, 131, 133 neoliberalism, 29, 124–126, 130, 131, 141 New Town, 7, 8, 37, 44–47, 101, 153 Noble, Ross, 54, 76 Northern Stages, 176

precariousness, 147, 148, 204 precarisation, 123, 133, 147 precarity, 126, 132, 141, 146–148 Preen Back Yer Lugs!, 176 Price, Tim, 176 Princes St Gardens, 7, 29, 82, 89, 90, 92, 93, 97 public space, 1, 27, 29, 38, 61, 64, 71, 82–86, 89, 90, 93–99, 108, 109, 112, 204, 208

O Old Town, 7, 42, 44, 45, 47, 48, 101 Old Vic, London, 59 Olympic and Paralympic Games, 42, 133 open-access, 2, 3, 10, 13, 29, 42, 65, 99, 102, 112, 123–129, 132, 133, 141, 143, 146, 148–152, 154, 209 OzAsia Festival, 65

Q Quinn, Bernadette, 11, 12, 14, 32, 131, 157

P Page, Stephen, 188 Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden, 6, 93 place image, 2, 14, 28, 39–44, 48–50, 53, 56, 66, 70, 89 place marketing, 11, 15, 49, 64, 94, 144 place myth, 2, 3, 10, 18, 28, 29, 38–43, 45, 49, 53, 54, 56–58, 62, 64, 66, 70, 71, 82, 83, 101, 106, 108, 112, 208, 209, 211 place promotion, 3, 10, 11, 15, 28, 40, 57, 64, 69, 71, 99, 101, 104, 165, 204 Playford, Sir Thomas, 54 Pleasance, 8, 124, 133, 134, 136, 159, 205 precarious

R Rankin, Ian, 48, 72 Rann, Mike, 67, 86, 105 Reformation, 21, 22, 37 right to the city, 89, 92, 98 Rowling, J.K., 48 Royal Croquet Club, 93, 138–140 Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, 9, 92 Royal Mile, 4, 7, 14, 43, 128, 153 Rundle Mall, 6 Rundle St, 7, 88, 139 Rushdie, Salman, 54–56, 76

S Sansom, Laurie, 184, 190 Scottish Ballet, 5, 172 Scottish Chamber Orchestra, 172 Scottish independence, 5, 6, 173–177, 191 Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 38 Scottish Opera, 5 Scottish Parliament, 3, 38, 43 Holyrood, 3, 43 Scott, Walter, 48

220

INDEX

Sefton, David, 103, 119, 144 Seymour, Alan, 24 Sheppard, Tommy, 133, 135, 136 Shields, Rob, 2, 13, 30, 32, 38–41, 44, 45, 48, 50, 56, 58, 66, 70–76, 79 Shorten, Bill, 86 Smith, Adam, 46 Snowtown, 55, 56 Spark, Muriel, 48 Spiegeltent, 14, 93, 140 State Theatre Company of South Australia (STCSA), 24, 25, 34, 88 Steel, Anthony, 110, 121 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 47, 48 St Giles’ High Kirk, 43 Summer festivals, Edinburgh, 1, 9, 14, 38, 44, 49, 58, 60, 85, 92, 99, 103, 105, 123, 124, 132, 150, 165, 173, 203 Summerhall, 8, 93, 134 Summer Sessions, 82, 89–94, 96, 112, 116 Sustainability, 83, 125, 128, 141, 144, 207, 208, 211 Sydney, 5, 6, 103, 105, 106, 114, 166, 170, 179, 182, 188 Sydney Theatre Company (STC), 166, 178, 187 T The Bloody Great Border Ballad Project , 176 The Hub, Edinburgh, 4, 7, 43, 93 The James Plays , 30, 103, 165, 168, 172, 173, 177, 183–185, 187, 190, 191, 193, 201, 206 The Secret River, 30, 103, 165, 168, 172, 177–180, 183, 187, 189, 190, 192, 193, 201 novel, 168, 178–180, 190 stage-play, 30, 165, 168

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 47, 48 Traverse Theatre, 4, 5, 8, 176, 205 U Underbelly, 8, 47, 55, 90, 92, 95, 124, 133, 134, 150, 205 Upton, Andrew, 178 urban regeneration, 15, 45, 57, 131 Usher Hall, 8 V van Hove, Ivo, 102 W Wales Millennium Centre, 176 Wanganeen, Natasha, 188 Wayne, Christopher, 141, 142, 160 Weatherill, Jay, 67, 86, 87 Welsh, Irvine, 48 Whitelock, Derek, 6, 21, 23, 31, 34, 35, 50, 52–54, 56, 75, 76, 118, 129 White, Patrick, 24, 88 Wightman, Andy, 89, 115 WOMADelaide, 9, 52, 65, 93, 94, 106, 114 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 53 Wood, Charlie, 124, 133, 135, 155, 158, 159 World Fringe, 102 Wylie, Jackie, 206 Y You Bury Me, 207 Z Zaiontz, Keren, 16, 26, 33, 35