Festivals and Values: Music, Community Engagement and Organisational Symbolism (Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action) 3031397517, 9783031397516

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Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action

Waldemar Kuligowski Marcin Poprawski

Festivals and Values Music, Community Engagement and Organisational Symbolism

Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action Series Editors Sergio Salvatore, Department of Dynamic Psychology, La Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy Terri Mannarini, Department of History, Society and Human Studies, Università del Salento, Lecce, Lecce, Italy Jaan Valsiner, Psychologie, Aalborg Universitet, Aalborg, Denmark Giuseppe A. Veltri, Department of Sociology, Università di Trento, Trento, Trento, Italy

The book series develops and consolidates the innovative approach to policy-making and politics based on the recognition of the central role played by cultural dynamics, intended as on-going processes of sense making channelled by symbolic resources the cultural environment makes available and through which people make sense to the experience, therefore feel, think, act. It pursues both a theoretical and practical purpose: the development of the conceptual approach to policy and politics based on the view of human being as homo semioticus, as a subject engaged constantly with the need to make meaningful ordinary daily experiences, as well as participation in society.

Waldemar Kuligowski • Marcin Poprawski

Festivals and Values Music, Community Engagement and Organisational Symbolism

Waldemar Kuligowski Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań, Poland

Marcin Poprawski School of Arts and Cultural Management Humak University of Applied Sciences Helsinki, Finland

ISSN 2523-7314 (electronic) ISSN 2523-7306 Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action ISBN 978-3-031-39751-6 ISBN 978-3-031-39752-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39752-3 The work was supported by the National Science Centre, Poland, under research project “Festivalization of values. An axionormative dimensions of contemporary music festivals in Poland”, UMO-2018/31/B/ HS3/00384 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 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. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Contents

1

Introduction: Festivalising Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 10

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Festivals: Between Sacred Ritual and the Consumerist Profane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13 23

3

Values at Festivals: What and How to Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

27 38

4

Axionormativity as a Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organisers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Iconosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Additional Programmes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fan Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Art-Based Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix: Festivals and Values: Drawings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43 44 45 47 50 52 53 54 57 62 69

5

From Imitation to Creation: About a Certain Case of a Community-based Festival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

71 84

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Festivals and Local Cultural Ecosystems: The Comparative Perspectives of Audiences and Organisers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Festival as a Model of Cross-Sector Synergy in Culture . . . . . . . Festival-Friendly Organisational Models? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Relations Between Festivals and Policy Makers in Their Local Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . .

87 90 92

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95 v

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Contents

The Festival as a Space for Integrating Various Groups of the Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Festival Missions Explicitly Expressed: A Threshold to the Axionormative Dimension of Festivals as Organisations . . . . . . . . . . . 99 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 7

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Organisational Symbolism and Festival Planning Practices . . . . . . . Organisational Culture and Festivals as Organisations . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organisational Symbolism and Festival Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Festival Planning from the Perspective of Organisational Symbolism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Festivals and Consensual Planning: Examples of Empathetic Integration of Work and Leisure Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Possession and Ownership of the Plan: The Festival Organiser’s Attachment to and Control over the Programme of Festival Events . . . . The Dreams, Fantasies, and Aspirations of Festival Organisers Located in Their Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Festival Crisis Mode Planning and Organisational Heroism . . . . . . . . . Planning in Terms of the Perception of Time and the Rhythm of Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Total Management, the Tendency of Wanting to Control Everything. Cloud Distractors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Festival Planning in Times of Plague and Sanitary Restrictions . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Organisational Artefacts and Organisational Rituals of Festivals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organisational Symbolism and the Identities of Festivals Co-creators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organisational Artefacts as the Object of Organisational Studies . . . . . The Symbolic Power of Festival Names, Logos, and Slogans as Organisational Artefacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Festival Logos and Graphic Design as Organisational Artefacts . . . . . . The Festival Poster as an Expression of Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Festival Wristband as an Artefact of Access and Identity . . . . . . . . Festival T-shirts and Clothing Elements as Signs of Festival Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Symbolic Significance of the Festival Gate and Barriers: The Organisers’ Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Festival Organisers’ Talismans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Festival Chronicles and Other Forms of Recording as Carriers of Organisational Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Festival Sanitary Facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Festivals and Organisational Rituals in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organisational Rituals at the Start and End of the Festival . . . . . . . . . .

103 104 106 108 109 110 112 113 114 115 117 122 125 127 129 132 134 137 138 140 142 145 146 147 148 149

Contents

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Audience-initiated Organisational Rituals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 9

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Festival People. The Professional Identities of Festival Organisers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Founder, Originators, Leaders, and Heroes of the Festival . . . . . . . The Strength of the Festival Organising Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Many-Headed Dragon and the Organisational Heroism . . . . . . . . . Festival Volunteers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Security Guards: The Iconic Representative of the Festival Organiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Festival as a Human Being: An Exercise in Festival Personification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Festivals, Space, and Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Festival as a Compact and Intensive Organisational Format. Attempts to Define the Festival and the Meaning of Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Festival as a Place at the End of the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Festival Without a Festival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Circular Space and Its Role in Audience Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Multiplicity and Simultaneity of Music Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Festival Stages and Their Appearance, Practicality, and Symbolic Dimension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Scale of the Event, the Space, Its Limits and Conditions . . . . . . . . The Festival as a Natural Space for Integration. Festivals Blur Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Festival Village Phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cleanliness of the Festival Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ecological Values and Festival Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aesthetic Qualities of Festival Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Choice and Importance of Location: A Festival “with a View” . . . The Format and Location of the Festival as an Opportunity to Shape Attitudes and Habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Balance, Maintaining a Scale Appropriate to Needs, Resources, and Local Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Local Service Providers, Subcontractors, and Festival Partners . . . . . . . Festival Organisers Crossing Their Own Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix: Festivals and Values: Photographic Material . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

157 159 161 164 165 168 170 172 175

176 177 178 179 180 180 182 183 185 187 189 191 192 193 193 194 195 197 213

About the Authors

Waldemar Kuligowski is a professor at the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. He is also a head of the Section of Cultural Anthropology. He was conducting fieldworks in Europe, Asia, and North America. His research interests focus on the theory of culture, reflexive ethnography, anthropology of motorway, festivals, and festivalisation. His essays and articles have been published in many international journals such as “East European Politics and Societies”, “Transfers. Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies”, “Anthropos. International Review of Anthropology and Linguistic”, and “Punk & Post-Punk”. Recently, he has been implementing a 3-year research project devoted to music festivals as tools for communicating values and norms. In addition, he is a juror of the competition for the largest music award in Poland “Fryderyk”, as well as a supporting member of the Chamber of Commerce for Managers of Polish Artists. Marcin Poprawski (PhD) is a senior lecturer at Humak University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki. His academic interests include arts organisations, ethical and ecological dimensions of cultural management, cultural policies, audience engagement, aesthetics, and festivals as organisations. He coordinates COSM (cosm. humak.fi). He is Finnish team’s manager and researcher in the Horizon Europe “EKIP” (European Cultural and Creative Industries Policy Platform) led by Lund University. He is an expert of the Association of Polish Cities and the European Expert Network on Culture (Interarts, Barcelona) operating for the European Commission. In the years 2013–2018, he was the vice-president of ENCATC (Brussels). Previously, he worked for over 20 years at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He was also a guest lecturer at European University Viadrina, University of Arts in Helsinki, University of Salento in Lecce, DAMU in Prague, ZHAW in Zurich, JAMU in Brno, and the Heritage Academy of the International Cultural Center in Cracow. For 17 years, he worked as a cultural manager in the private, public, and civic sectors, including 8 years as a music festival director.

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Chapter 1

Introduction: Festivalising Values

Contemporary music festivals and values are the main themes of the present work. While conducting the 2019–2021 research project, we spent over a month at festivals in Poland. Sometimes these were outdoor events, in close contact with nature, while at other times they were located in the centres of crowded cities. Sometimes we took part in festivals attended by thousands of people, at other times they were intimate events where almost everyone knew each other because friendships had been formed over the course of many years. It goes without saying that music was central: we listened to reggae, rock, punk, jazz, ancient liturgical music, world music, folk and patriotic songs. We should emphasise that we do not limit ourselves in this book to just Polish festivals, however. Thanks to previously conducted research, we also include festivals from Hungary, Serbia, Canada, and Finland in the analysis. In this book, we also refer to particular cases of festivals from other countries. Nowadays, no day passes without a festival taking place somewhere. In all likelihood no other public cultural practice has become quite as widespread in the first decades of the twenty-first century as the festival. One can safely assume that several thousand music festivals—and this is the type we are most interested here— take place every year in Europe. In Estonia, with a population of less than one and a half million, more than 30 festivals are organised annually, according to Wikipedia. In countries with larger populations, the number increases accordingly: in Poland, we have at least 250 music festivals (according to the Central Statistical Office), in the UK there are almost 700 (Warman 2010), while in Germany alone over 300 classical music festivals take place (Music Festivals in Germany 2014). Although complete and precise figures are difficult to come by—festivals come and go, ephemeral events have to be taken into account, and heterogeneous nomenclature is used—even approximate numbers indicate the enormous scale of the phenomenon. Today, music festivals are a permanent feature of national, regional, and local cultural policies, an important element of television schedules, a valuable asset in the tourism industry (especially cultural tourism), and a significant source of income for an industry that has been adversely affected by the steady decline in physical sales of music. For the audience, on the other hand, it is an opportunity to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 W. Kuligowski, M. Poprawski, Festivals and Values, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39752-3_1

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participate in an event, an escape from everyday life, multi-sensory contact with art, an activity that stands for “full-body participation” (Festivals: an introduction 2011: 7)—a cultural phenomenon that drags people out of their homes like no other. In this respect, it can be said that the festival is “a total social fact” (Borland 2006). Yet the above enumeration is not complete. It is clear that after the era of large, open-air festivals presenting various genres (the key symbols being the Woodstock Festival or the Isle of Wight Festival), now is the time of smaller, “boutique” festivals. They usually focus on one specific genre of music, which results in a smaller and more homogeneous audience in front of the stage. “Boutique” festivals invite you to very different (sometimes surprising) places, such as metropolitan centres and quiet villages, or post-industrial areas and mediaeval ruins. In addition, they offer a wide range of accommodation: from conical teepees, through Winnebago motorhomes, to cabanas for 10 people which can be rented with room service. In terms of the gastronomic offer, traditional dishes of local cuisine or global fusion can be waiting for participants. The same trends that can be observed in popular culture in general are also evident in the case of festivals, thus we encounter specialisation, nicheness and customisation (Inda and Rosaldo 2008: 18). Global trends are reinterpreted in the context of local needs and ideas. There is one common denominator linking the above-mentioned features of contemporary music festivals (including the politicians’ visits, both official and private)—namely the world of values. Indeed, values are present at festivals both in the music and the festival brand, but also in the accommodation and catering on offer, which can sometimes be surprising. The fact that contemporary music festivals are visited by leading politicians is not without significance. In 2007, the Guca Trumpet Festival was officially visited by the Prime Minister of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, and the Prime Minister of Serbia, Vojislav Koštunica, who expressed his support for the festival with the words “If you love Serbia, you must also love Guča” (Mikeska 2007: 28). In 2010, Prince Charles paid a surprise visit to Glastonbury Festival. In 2017, the British Conservative Party leader David Cameron was among the audience at the summer Cornbury Festival in Oxfordshire (with The Bangles, Crowded House, and Paul Simon on stage, among others). The most recent example involves Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin walking around the grounds of the Ruisrock rock festival in a fashionable black Ramones biker jacket. Regardless of the venue, the axionormative dimension of the festivals proved to be very important. This is evident from the non-accidental locations and the lineups created consciously, with great care. The organisers’ “missions”, logos, banners, flags, and other organisational artefacts explicitly communicate specific values. These values are explicitly mentioned by artists and audiences: they can be easily identified in online forums and media reports; participant behaviour and festival “rituals” are shaped on the basis of values, additional festival programmes are created around values, and cooperation is built between the festival and the local community. We were most interested in this dimension of music festivals; it was the subject of our discussions, systematic observations, and source searches.

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The framework for the considerations in Chap. 2 is the period of the pandemic “freeze”, after which music festivals made a triumphant return to event calendars, attracting both artists and very large audiences. The events surrounding the COVID19 crisis prompt reconsideration of the question of the meaning of festivals. It is well known that the term festival belongs to the lexicon of many academic disciplines, while it also functions in everyday language (“festival of lies”, “festival of attractions”, “festival of sales”, etc.). The popularity of the term has consequently led to its proliferation. In this section of the book, we bring order to the definitional chaos by first recalling the findings of the “classics”, such as Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Roger Caillois, Mircea Eliade, Victor Turner, and Mikhail Bakhtin. We then supplement these conceptions with relevant contributions from Hartmut Häussermann and Walter Siebel, Alessandro Falassi, Judith Mair, and Donald Getz, as well as some findings from the field of event studies. An important reference is the activity of The European Festivals Association and the Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage promoted by UNESCO. This allows us to conclude that in the various approaches cited, the festival still remains something extraordinary, something outside the average, beyond the routine and norm of everyday life—a vital kind of holiday. Having made the necessary definitional clarifications, in Chap. 3, we turn to issues associated with research practice and, more specifically, the practice of ethnographic research on contemporary music festivals. We argue that music, as an element of culture, functions on many levels; that it is polysemantic, is based on emotions; and that it makes a significant contribution to the generation of norms and values, also within music festivals. In this connection, we draw on the category of “axionormativity” developed by Florian Znaniecki. According to his findings, the “axionormative orders”—present in systems of knowledge, religion, language, art, economics, technology—include specific norms of action and standards of evaluation. Standards and norms, which are expressed orally (through traditions and customs) and in written form (through legal, political, ethical, or theological documents), form “axionormative structures” that influence the actions and beliefs of individuals. In order to investigate the axionormative orders of festivals, it was necessary to reach for tools and techniques that are both qualitative (interviews, participant observation) and quantitative (surveys). An important part of our research involved elements of art-based research, allowing us to activate the “empathetic experience” (Eisner 2008: 7) which is sometimes difficult to express in other ways. The material we gathered from the ethnographic field research of festivals over the years can be summed up in three points: (1) the research was conducted over a short period, of just a few days; (2) the research was usually conducted in the presence of many people; and (3) the context of the research involved many practices, such as listening to music, being in a group of friends, making music spontaneously, eating, drinking, resting. All these factors determined the course of the research and the results obtained. In Chap. 4, the essential thread is the presentation of axionormativity as a practice. “Festival Bibles” handed out to all those involved, a demonstration, chanting about “free music” and a “festival without segregation”, “dream catchers” over market stalls, national and Rasta-coloured flags, morning masses, a local

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products fair, plastic garlands on the heads of female participants, pogo, jazz workshops—these are just some of the practices that express and narrate values. The illustrations (Chap. 4 in Appendix) made by the participants proved to be significant material for describing the world of festival values. They not only triggered the aforementioned “empathetic experience”, but could also prompt critical analysis (in the spirit of Roland Barthes). Through such an analysis, it becomes apparent that a programmatically pro-environmental festival is an aggregate of a specific experience of nature, in which nature is transformed into a multi-sensory attraction, reduced to consumption and entertainment functions. Chapter 5 begins with a return to the legendary alternative rock festival located in the Polish town of Jarocin. The first focal point is the sociological research conducted among its audience in 1983–1984, before the attention turns to the re-study carried out on the same festival 30 years later. This contextualisation makes it is easier to understand the axionormative transformation of the festival, which in recent years has undergone two concurrent processes: commercialisation and sentimentalisation. It is extremely interesting that the devaluation of the former axionormative aura of the Jarocin Festival is accompanied by the creation of a new festival, which was initially to be located in a different place in Poland. However, this new festival—Rock na Bagnie (Rock on the Swamp)—created its own axionormative order, thanks to which it can be seen as a community-based festival. Key elements of the—rather unexpected—success of the festival organisers were winning the favour of the local government, the cooperation of local craftsmen and producers, and the local community opening up to a musical genre that was essentially foreign to them. As a result, Rock na Bagnie is increasingly becoming a festival that is profoundly animated by the local community. Chapter 6 addresses the relation between festivals and local urban communities, and secondly, festivals as natural environments of cross-sectorial partnerships or synergies. These were the key research questions explored in the research project “Festivals impacting Polish cities” coordinated by one of the present authors, carried out in 16 regions of Poland, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The relations between festivals and local communities are bilateral and multidimensional. This phenomenon is evident when the summaries and parallel data collected from both festival audiences and festival organisers are studied. The outcomes of the conducted research support the thesis that festivals dominate cultural life in the social sphere today, including the entire local ecosystems—with public institutions, local administration, NGOs, and private entities as their natural inhabitants. The popularisation of festivals as quantitatively dominant forms of cultural activity has triggered both positive and negative processes which had previously been absent in the local cultural “ecosystems” (Holden 2015). The findings of the survey on the impact of cities on festivals and festivals on cities show that one of the elements creating this relationship was the building of broad, intra and intersectoral partnerships—mainly, but not exclusively, local. Creating cross-sector synergy is related to the unique nature of festivals as extensive events. It is precisely this, often interdisciplinary nature of festivals that “forces” the involvement of many people. That provides a basis for the diversity of festivals’

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organisational models. Some trends regarding the integrative roles of festivals can be identified from the findings of the collected data presented in that part of the book. What we have learned from the survey, the social media discourse analysis, and the field research at 50 festivals is that integrating the festival audience is a multifaceted process. Finally, the outcome of that study initiated some insights on the spectrum of festival missions and the axionormative dimensions of art festivals, the topic that was continued by both authors in the subsequent study discussed in the book, namely Uwierz w festiwal. Aksjonormatywne wymiary współczesnych festiwali muzycznych w Polsce (Dostlieva et al. 2022). Grounding festivals in specific values and norms is becoming an increasingly important element of festivals’ strategies and forms a key part of the entire local or regional cultural policies. Chapter 7 is focused on the organisational symbolism and festival planning practices. Interpreting a phenomenon such as a festival requires identifying the organisational contexts that influence the activities of artists and audiences, and especially the culture or subcultures, bearing in mind that music festivals are complex social entities. It is particularly important to investigate festival organisations as spaces that allow the study of social processes. We can observe individuals forming the teams that become the causal agents of festivals. The meaning of their existence emerges through the choices and actions taken within festivals as organisations. For the analysis of the empirical material presented in this chapter, the key terminological and theoretical concepts are provided by two elements taken from the fields of organisational sociology and anthropology, organisational aesthetics, and the management of cultural organisations, namely: organisational culture (Martin 2002; Schein 1985), and organisational symbolism (Strati 1998, 1999). These conceptual tools provide the theoretical framework for structuring the material presented in this section of the book. This chapter essentially concerns the festival as an organisational format and object of planning, where the thinking and acting described as “planning” can be treated as a clear example of organisational symbolism. Of additional significance here are the circumstances of the COVID-19 crisis, which gave “planning” the status of an even more complex and symbolically relevant activity. The organisational heroism that theorists of organisational symbolism include as an example of the symbolic dimension of planning is explicitly present in the descriptions of the organisers’ struggles with the situation caused by the pandemic. At the same time, however, the sensation of being in permanent crisis mode, of constantly putting out fires during the organisation of a musical event, is a key part of the perceived identity of the concert event manager, regardless of external circumstances and obstacles. In the empirical research on music festivals the theme of festival planning emerged in many statements provided by organisers and experts, as well as by audience representatives. These statements provide a great deal of information about the axionormative dimensions of festival organisers’ activities. Music festivals are organisational cultures with a significant symbolic component. The topic of festival planning considered in symbolic terms is only one selected example of phenomena in the field of subjects that are of interest for the humanistic study of the organisational practices of music festivals.

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The festival is a fascinating laboratory of human relations, and it tends to attract researchers interested in shedding light on the social dimension of organising artistic work. The aim of Chap. 8 is to explore the topic of music festivals as organisations in greater detail, with insights drawn from the perspective of organisational symbolism. Organisational culture is no longer understood as one of the characteristics or subsystems of an organisation: the symbolic approach does not treat culture as one of the constitutive components of an organisation, but rather sees it as constitutive of the organisation itself (Smircich 1983: 347). When viewed through the optics of symbolism, the organisation primarily becomes a continuous process of social construction—through symbols, values, and beliefs, as well as the patterns of purposeful action that people in organisations learn, produce, and reproduce. An organisation is simultaneously immaterial and material, ephemeral and permanent. While the previous chapter highlighted the phenomenon of festival planning and its axionormative potential, here we turn our attention to two other issues that arise when organisations are analysed from the perspective of organisational symbolism. These are the organisational artefact (Gagliardi 1990; Strati 1998; Royer 2020) and the organisational ritual (Strati 1998). The “organisational artefacts” identifiable within a festival are of particular interest in the study of festivals and the logic of their symbols and values. The examples discussed in this chapter cover a variety of objects of a more or less material nature. They constitute important artefacts for festival organisers because, for instance, they allow them to control the situation during concerts. This is exemplified by a wristband that identifies a person as being entitled to enter the festival grounds. However, this marking of the wrist of a festival participant also has other, symbolic meanings for the person wearing it. An organisational artefact of a different kind, although from the same group, is the steel barrier, that separates the audience from the stage, but there are examples of other kinds of objects that fall within the definition of an organisational artefact. According to Pasquale Gagliardi (1990), organisational or cultural-organisational artefacts embody deeper cultural phenomena. Artefacts affect organisational life from two different points of view. Firstly, in material terms they enable, facilitate, or hinder organisational activities. On the other hand, more generally, artefacts influence our perception of reality, to the extent that they subtly shape cultural beliefs, norms, and values. Artefacts are the truest reflection of an organisation’s cultural identity, its material culture, its symbolic landscape, its forms of control. This theoretical framework provides a context for specific examples of organisational artefacts relevant to festival organisations that our empirical research has highlighted. Since an artefact is a human-made object that conveys information about the culture of its creator and users, it can change over time in terms of what it represents, what it looks like, and how and why it is used, simply because the culture changes over time. Considering an organisational artefact in a broad sense reveals specific characteristics of the organisation. The aesthetic materiality of an object, such as a wristband, a poster, a logo, a slogan, or a t-shirt can speak volumes about the characteristics of the organisational life in which they are used. The focus of particular attention in this section of the book is not only the tangible and intangible objects with the characteristics of organisational artefacts, but also the

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behaviour of the people behind the festival organisation in relation to these artefacts and their identity. Rituals are elements of festivals that can be considered in terms of organisational symbolism. They convey numerous meanings and have a range of consequences. Organisational rituals can be viewed as occupying at least two planes of meaning. On the one hand, they are simply activities which, for the external observer, have their own ritual setting, linked to the celebration of certain situations, such as the beginning or end of a festival, the declaration of thanks, introducing artists to the audience, and then the initiation into the festival community. On the other hand, there are other planned or spontaneous activities that are explicitly treated as special, festive situations, which follow an appropriate course, and are perceived by the audience and the organisers as moments that are unique and different from the rest of the time organised during the festival. These activities do not always directly involve the organisers themselves, but it is indicated that they are repeated every year, and as such can be classed as ritualistic elements of the unofficial festival programme. Among the most interesting festival rituals, and those most precisely described by the organisers, are the activities associated with the start of the festival. On the one hand, the opening concert obviously has a special character, but it can also be a collective countdown to the start. Other events of a ritualistic nature are the briefing of staff and volunteers before the event begins and the more audience-oriented action of opening the festival gates. The welcomes and farewells, which take varied forms during festivals, as well as the final event of the festival, also have their own symbolic power. The organisational rituals in which festival co-creators participate, as well as the artefacts that symbolically mark their space of professional action, also directly touch upon the issue of the professional identity of festival organisers. This is addressed in Chap. 9. The careers of festival organisers develop along complex paths of learning and experimentation, go through a series of ups and downs, are characterised by involvement in numerous projects, as well as complex interactions with audiences, artists, sponsors, partners, and officials. In cultural policy and the management of cultural activities, the professional identities analysed in case studies are treated as the pursuit of professionalism, or as stories of individual or group development. Professional identities are also the subject of narration (Paquette 2012: 12) and in this respect it seems very useful to be able to adapt the narratological approach to professional identities in organisations dealing with performing arts, especially those that put on music festivals. The analysis of the material collected in the in-depth interviews carried out as part of the “Festivalization of Values” project may yield conclusions that concern both the founders of the festival and iconic figures who are crucial for the image of the festival as a whole organisation. Above all, however, it is worth focusing on the perceptions of the team of people who actually organise the festival, including the volunteers and those involved in activities that are associated with safety—festival security. In addition, in many statements of both the audience and the festival staff, the festival takes on the characteristics of a living organism: as both an organisation and a symbol it is the object of personification. This is an excellent example of how metaphors can shed light on the interface between the professional identity of festival organisers and the

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issue of values. In narratives concerning the professional identity of those involved in festivals, some space is devoted to the leaders, initiators, and founders of festivals, although the role of the whole team tends to be more often emphasised. The discussion on the role of the festival director oscillates between two poles: autocrat vs. democrat, enforcer of his own vision vs. consensual guardian of the team. Chapter 10, the final element of the book is devoted to the subject of the festival space in several significant dimensions: including as an organised symbolic area, and as a place of integration of the audience and organisers around specific, especially ecological values. Festival as a territory is made up of different zones and is shaped by organisational artefacts with different scales of symbolic impact, including: the appearance of the festival stages, the layout and location of festival villages, the organisation of the space of the catering area and the campsites. In these areas, the festival is a very real place, concretely located, but also a symbolic and intangible place “at the end of the world”, a place far removed from the everyday spaces used by festival visitors. For many, it is an entry into another reality. The organisational sociologist Silvia Gherardi (2021) calls the festival a texture for intensive organisational practice, and an organisation without walls, which is temporarily but concretely located in a given area. One of the most important elements for integrating the audience is the space, its shape, the atmosphere it physically delineates and the imagined territory that marks it. The border of the world that you have to get to in order to participate in the event. It is not about the formal delineation by local authorities of a place where a given organiser can set up a stage and invite artists and the audience. It is rather a symbol, a kind of a sign for the participant that something extraordinary is happening behind that gate. Sometimes this border is formed by the walls of a building: theatre, cinema, philharmonic hall, or by the natural terrain: an island, a riverbank, or a specific spatial structure of a city or town. In many opinions, an important issue associated with balanced, sustainable participation in festivals is their scale and size—which should be proportional to the venue and its conditions. The theme of ecology is one of the more prominent examples of values communicated explicitly to the audience, which are reflected in the selection of different organisational artefacts that encourage respecting nature and the cleanliness of festival sites. Talking to organisers and audiences about the specific values promoted and realised by festivals therefore directs us towards the values of sustainability, balancing the ecosystem. This includes ecology treated as a certain value conveyed at the level of the narratives themselves, a lifestyle that respects nature and other inhabitants of local ecosystems. It is also about the concrete decisions taken by organisations and individuals. It concerns both the dissemination of such values through the format of the events concerned, artistic content, and communication, but also through additional elements of festival productions. The space developed by human beings for cultural activities is a place fraught with dilemmas in the thematic field of ecology. There are more than a dozen threads that would constitute a shortened list of possibilities chosen by festival organisers, and from below by audiences, that reflect

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ecological values. The issue of litter and recycling is perhaps the most media-laden and popular theme associated with festivals and ecology. However, the management and use of space or land is an issue that is at least on an equal footing, since it involves the relationship of festivals to their immediate ecosystems. An important issue, which is at the same time a potential and very significant tool in the hands of festival organisers for influencing the quality of the space and the behaviour of its users, is their idea of the aesthetic dimension of the space that the festival occupies. Another fundamental issue associated with ecological values, and one that is too often underestimated in the festival environment, is that of maintaining a balance and avoiding over-scaling, over-production. These issues, in a systemic perspective, eventually become important in terms of the cultural policies. As the reader will quickly realise, numbers and statistics sit alongside descriptions and quotations in this work, and the organisers’ statements are accompanied by the opinions of academics. We refer to websites and documents, but above all we give the festival audience a voice—both through quotations and their drawings. This voice is by no means uniform, as it turned out that research into values was often transformed into a pretext for spinning tales about one’s life situation, one’s political preferences, and one’s understanding of freedom and responsibility. Memories were mixed with declarations, joy with regret, curses with dreams, prose with poetry. Thomas Pettitt (2005: xxi) was not wrong in noting that “Social history has learnt to appreciate festival as a valuable window on society and its structures”. We have tried to open all the windows available to us. The medium of music, the presence of many people, and the multi-sensory festival atmosphere with its inherent “turmoil” highlighted—as we anticipated— the importance of axionormativity. We found that festivals generate their own community (Cantwell 1991). This process involves the creation of new social networks, bringing together a variety of people—organisers, community, audiences, artists, volunteers, journalists, researchers—around the values they share. Whether these communities are highly durable or rather ephemeral, the values that accompany them, and the ways in which they are practiced and lived out, are something unique. The COVID-19 restrictions that were suddenly and unexpectedly introduced clearly had an impact on our research. However, what we initially saw as a malign turn of fate, resulting in festival events being cancelled or relocated, audiences being restricted, and rules being introduced that made it difficult to contact other people, began to seem like a unique opportunity, at least in retrospect. Why? Well, we had to conduct our research in months when almost no one was doing it; we were recording transient behaviour and fleeting emotions that were nevertheless of great significance; we were investigating a music industry plunged into a deep crisis through no fault of its own; we were describing a fragment of time that redefined notions of community, care, knowledge, and goodness. Through this circumstance, we hope that our research will prove to be relevant in dimensions that we could not have in any way anticipated. In this context, we fully agree with Don Handelman (1990: 9), who stated: “For the ethnographer, public events are privileged points of penetration into other social and cultural universes”.

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In conclusion, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the many people who have made our research, at various stages of it, at least a little easier and sometimes more enjoyable or informative. We offer our gratitude to the following people, in alphabetical order: Natalia Bassak, Bartosz Chaciński, Michał Choiński, Stephen Dersley, Jędrzej Dondziło, Lia Dostlieva, Juha Iso-Aho, Andżelika Jabłońska, Wojciech Knapik, Jakub Knera, Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, Piotr Kolaj, Tomasz Lipiński, Dawid Listos, Justyna Liszkowska, Dariusz Maciborek, Benny Majabacka, Andrzej Maszewski, Martyna Nawrocka, Natalia NowińskaAntoniewicz, Mirosław Pęczak, Maciej Pilarczyk, Jacek Poprawski, Anna Porębska, Mateusz Prendota, Tomasz Pochoryłko, Wojciech Siwek, Maciej Szajkowski, Agata Szakiel, Jarek Szubrycht, Aleksy Szymkiewicz, Honorata Szymkiewicz, Andrzej Talewicz, Pekka Vartiainen, Jarosław Wasik, Tomasz Waśko, Anna Ważna, Maciej Werk, Sławomir Wierzcholski, Michał Wiraszko, Jacek Żędzian. We would like to thank the National Science Centre Poland (NCN) separately for granting us the funding that allowed us to devote ourselves, over the course of three years, to work that many of our relatives and friends simply envied.

References Borland, Katherine. 2006. Unmasking Class, Gender and Sexuality in Nicaraguan Festival. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Cantwell, Robert. 1991. Conjuring Culture: Ideology and Magic in the Festival of American Folklife. Journal of American Folklore 104 (412): 148–163. Dostlieva, Lia, Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, Waldemar Kuligowski, Natalia NowińskaAntoniewicz, Marcin Poprawski, and Aleksy Szymkiewicz. 2022. Uwierz w festiwal. Aksjonormatywne wymiary współczesnych festiwali muzycznych w Polsce. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Książka i Prasa. Eisner, Elliot. 2008. Art and Knowledge. In Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues, ed. Gary J. Knowles and Ardra Cole, 3–12. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Festivals: an introduction. 2011. In Every Day’s Festival! Diversity on Show, eds. Suzanne Küchler, László Kñrti, and Hisham Elkadi, 1–18, Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing. Gagliardi, Pasquale. 1990. Symbols and Artifacts: Views of the Corporate Landscape. Berlin: de Gruyter. Gherardi, Silvia. 2021. Cultural Organisations & Sustainability: Festivals’ Resilience, COSM Talks 2. https://cosm.humak.fi/21-05-2021/. Accessed 10 April 2022. Handelman, Don. 1990. Models and Mirrors: Towards an Anthropology of Public Events. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holden, John. 2015. Ecology of Culture. London: AHRC. Inda, Jonathan Xavier, and Renato Rosaldo. 2008. Overture: Thinking the Global. In The Anthropology of Globalization. A Reader, ed. Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo, 3–46. Malden–Oxford–Carlton: Blackwell Publishing. Martin, Joanne. 2002. Organizational Culture. Mapping the Terrain. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Mikeska, Marek. 2007. Krátce a aktuálně ze Srbska. Navýchod 7: 28–29. Music Festivals in Germany. 2014. deutschland.de. https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/life/ music-festivals-in-germany. Accessed 25 August 2022.

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Paquette, Jonathan (ed.). 2012. Cultural Policy, Work and Identity: the Creation, Renewal and Negotiation of Professional Subjectivities, Oxford: Routledge. Pettitt, Thomas. 2005. Preface: Of Easterlings and Their Festivals. In Urban Carnival: Festive Culture in the Hanseatic Cities of the Eastern Baltic, 1350–1550, ed. Anu Mänd, xxi–xxv. Turnhout: Brepols. Royer, Isabelle. 2020. Observing Materiality in Organizations. M@n@gement 2020/3 (23): 9–17. Schein, Edgar. 1985. Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Smircich, Linda. 1983. Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly 28 (3): 339–358. Strati, Antonio. 1998. Organizational Symbolism as a Social Construction: A Perspective from the Sociology of Knowledge. Human Relations 51 (11): 1379–1402. ———. 1999. Organization and Aesthetics. London: Sage. Warman, Janice. 2010. How Music Festivals Are Singing the Changes. The Guardian 27 August 2010. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/aug/27/music-festivals-record-industry. Accessed 25 August 2022.

Chapter 2

Festivals: Between Sacred Ritual and the Consumerist Profane

In 1996, as part of the First Edinburgh University Festival Lecture, George Steiner suggested that there had been an exponential growth in the number of festivals, even leading to “festivals of festivals” being organised, and that the whole process had reached a level of “absurdity” (Steiner 1996). Fifteen years later, Michael Eavis, creator of the iconic European Glastonbury Festival, announced the inevitable and imminent end of the event. This rather surprising, given that the festival had suffered from neither a lack of fan interest (nearly 200,000 festival-goers at each edition), nor from a lack of willing performers (the world’s biggest stars appeared on stage), or from declining media interest. However, the organiser of the festival, which has been taking place since 1970, suggested that his event would only be able to survive for three to four years at most: “We sell out only because we get huge headliners. In the year Jay-Z played we nearly went bankrupt. I don’t see the market will be there in the future” (Festivals are dead! 2011). He added that audiences were now bored with the format of summer outdoor music events and predicted that as a result the festival boom would simply come to an end. The real end of festivals was supposed to have come a little later when, in April 2020, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a special adviser to the director general of the World Health Organisation, announced that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, major music concerts would be the last events to return after the restrictions—at least 18 months in the future. The festival industry was paralysed. Fans were devastated by the stream of decisions cancelling events such as Roskilde Festival, Glastonbury Festival (in its 50th anniversary year!), Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the Isle of Wight Festival, and Burning Man. Yet the crisis also inspired experiments: Italy’s Festival di Primavera moved to Facebook, with daily coverage of choir performances; the organisers of the Czech Mladí Ladí Jazz prepared a “Stay Home” playlist for the public to access via Spotify; the Polish city of Ciechanów, in turn, planned a series of concerts “in open urban spaces between multi-family buildings. It will be possible to listen to them from windows and balconies” (Chojnacka 2020). Despite the gloomy prophecies of Steiner and Eavis, despite the profound crisis of the entire cultural sector caused by COVID-19 restrictions, it turned out that the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 W. Kuligowski, M. Poprawski, Festivals and Values, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39752-3_2

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festival is not an anachronistic format. The fact that music festivals have returned after the pandemic “freeze”, attracting audiences and artists, convinces us that we are dealing with something more than a trivial form of entertainment. This chapter will attempt to answer questions about the meaning of festivals: what are their historical origins, what are they today, how have they been conceptualised by successive generations of scholars? The term festival clearly belongs to the vocabulary of many disciplines, such as socio-cultural anthropology, sociology, history, economics, marketing and management, social geography, psychology, folklore, etc. In this case, moreover, the term is not merely in scholarly use; it is also common in colloquial language, in phrases such as “festival of lies”, “festival of attractions”, “festival of experiences”, or “festival of sales”. The popularity of the term has led to its inevitable proliferation. In this regard, Judith Mair suggests that festivals “appear to defy any neat definition” (Mair 2019: 4). Mair’s helplessness stems from the fact that there are many different disciplinary perspectives: one thing is meaningful to an anthropologist, something else is significant for an economic analysis, still other phenomena are of interest to geographers or folklorists. In the following considerations, priority is given to anthropological findings, but we also try to include the contributions of other disciplines. One thing is certain: the history of festivals reaches back further than any written history. Researchers agree that the desire to give special treatment to certain occasions—such as harvest festivals or the autumn or spring equinox—in the form of public celebrations dates back to Neolithic times (Biaett 2017). They were organised, on the one hand, as a break from everyday life and hard work, while on the other hand their purpose was to integrate the group and to allow relaxation. Etymology provides an argument for the ancient origins of festivals and the universality of the phenomenon. The term “festival” derives from the Latin festum, while the Italian festa, the French fête, the Spanish fiesta, and the Portuguese festa belong to the same family (Falassi 1987: 1–2). While in the Middle Ages, most festivals in Europe took place under the patronage of local church organisations, as they formed an important part of the sacred calendar, at the end of the twentieth century “festival began to be used as a generic term for a large array of celebrations that carry few or no religious connotations (. . .). The world has been festivalized” (Ronström 2011). It can be assumed that, as indispensable form of cultural practice that has been reproduced across the generations, the festival is a vital part of cultural and social history. At the same time, the history of defining the festival is much shorter and does not extend beyond written history. The first milestone of anthropological reflection on the phenomenon of festivals is widely considered to have been created by the conclusions of Emile Durkheim. Drawing on data acquired through the study of indigenous peoples of Australia by Baldwin Spencer and Francis J. Gillen, Durkheim distinguished two fundamental phases in social life: dispersal and concentration. The former is dominated by practices of an economic nature, while the latter is dominated by festive practices. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life there is a very vivid description of concentration: “Once the individuals are gathered together, a sort of electricity is generated from their closeness and quickly launches them to an

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extraordinary height of exaltation (. . .) chaotic movements: shouting, screaming, gathering dust and throwing it in all directions, biting himself (. . .). The effervescence often becomes so intense that its lead to outlandish behavior (. . .) People are so far outside from ordinary life (. . .). In one world he languidly carries on his daily life; the other is one that he cannot enter without abruptly entering into relations with extraordinary powers that excite him to the point of frenzy. The first is the profane world ant the second, the world of sacred things” (Durkheim 1995: 217–220). The significance of Durkheim’s body of work, not least in the context of the study of festivals, lies in the introduction of the sacrum-profanum opposition. This opposition has become one of the universal analytical tools used in the field of humanities and social sciences. Jean Duvignaud (1976: 13) even argues that all classical analyses of festivals benefited from Durkheim’s thought: in addition to the division between sacré and profane, other formulations, such as “milieux sociaux effervescents” (effervescent social circles), have also been extensively put to use. Today we are aware that the author of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life actually continued a theme that had been taken up a few years earlier by his nephew—Marcel Mauss. In Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo, Mauss highlighted the importance of two distinct seasons: summer and winter. During the summer season, families dispersed, engaged in hunting and practised only certain residual customs of a family nature. In winter, on the other hand, the religious and ritual life of the clustered families reached a level of “paroxysm”. Mauss wrote explicitly that the Inuit winter season could be imagined as one long “communal feast” (Mauss 1979: 115). Describing the accompanying behaviour, the researcher evoked images of “veritable orgies”, “frenzied dances”, “communal meals” resulting in something resembling economic and sexual togetherness. The above ground-breaking analyses were followed by the findings of another French researcher, Roger Caillois. In his Théorie de la fête he appealed to Durkheim’s opposition of the sacred-profane and Mauss’ descriptions of tribal fête. Caillois posited that the festival is universal in nature and constitutes an important element of all cultures. He associated the festival with the existence of a mythical space-time, in which the festival was supposed to act as a catalyst for the rebirth of the world, thereby recovering its vitality and power. Seen as a return to the sacred, the festival revealed and updated the differences between the secular and the sacred. Referring to many examples—Inuit winter festivals, the Kwakiutl potlatch, Indigenous Australian and New-Guinean rituals, remittances from the Vedas, and the rules of Chinese culture—Caillois connected the festival with the sphere of the sacred, religious ritual, and the tribal life cycle. On a general level, Caillois defines a festival in terms of “collective euphoria and vertigo” (Caillois 2001a: 97) “paroxysm of society, purifying and renewing it simultaneously” (Caillois 2001a: 125). To emphasise the uniqueness of the event, he created a string of oppositions distinguishing everyday life from festivals: “dual continuity”/“intermittent explosion”, “daily repetition of the same material preoccupations”/“powerful inspiration”, “tranquil labor”/“fever of climatic moments”, “social dispersion”/“social concentration” (Caillois 2001a: 99). Caillois states that during the festival “normal” rules are suspended, and “excess constantly

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accompanies the festival” (Caillois 2001a: 101). Freedom of manners is recommended and “dietary and sexual sacrilege” (Caillois 2001a: 116), “forbidden and extravagant behavior” as well as “contrary acts” (Caillois 2001a: 122) are accepted. Caillois argues that the festival “connotes a large conglomeration of moving and boisterous people. These massed gatherings eminently favor the creation and contagion of an exalted state that exhausts itself in cries and movement” (Caillois 2001a: 97). Participants share the feeling of elation expressed through spontaneous exclamations, gestures, and reflexes. Although his Théorie de la fête refers primarily to tribal societies, Caillois identified some elements that were also present in urbanised and industrialised culture. One example of a festival already stripped of its sacred and ritual context is, in his view, the holiday season. Another relevant example is the category of the “Traveling Fair” (Caillois 2001b). According to this French researcher, none of these examples fully realised the idea of the holiday: “The festival is then succeeded by the vacation (. . .) it is always a time of free activity, of interruption in the pattern of work, but it is a phase of relaxation, not paroxysm” (Caillois 2001a: 127). In summary, Caillois was convinced that modernity does not provide the opportunity for collective euphoria, due to the fact that it marginalises the festival and transforms it into a possibility that is difficult to achieve. Mircea Eliade continued considerations of the festival from the perspective of the sacred. In his reflections on the worldview of the religious man, this Romanian religious scholar stated that for the religious man time is not a homogeneous entity. On the contrary, it is clearly divided into intervals of secular time and festive time. The former is devoted to everyday practices, functioning as a category of “ordinary duration” (Eliade 1993: 89). Escape from secular time is made possible through participation in festive time. The time of mythic origins becomes present then, actualizing the work done by divine beings in illo tempore (Eliade 1963: 43). The festival thus becomes a mechanism for an eternal return to mythical beginnings, and man—in an act of imitatio dei—becomes like the gods in its course (Eliade 1967: 23). It is also an occasion for regeneration, both of the world and of the individual. It is worth noting that in relating his concept to examples of numerous tribal cultures, Eliade referred to Gillen’s notes, used earlier by Durkheim, as well as to certain findings of Mauss. However, what happens in the case of the “nonreligious man of modern societies” (Eliade 1957: 70)? According to Eliade, he too experiences a certain discontinuity of time. After all, he is familiar with both the “monotonous time of his work” and “the time of celebrations and spectacles—in short, ‘festal time’” (Eliade 1957: 71). When listening to their favourite music, falling in love, or impatiently waiting for a loved one, a person may transcend the order of secular time. However, this “transhuman quality”, “divine presence”, and “break and mystery” remain essentially inaccessible to him (Eliade 1957: 72). Nevertheless, listening to music, falling in love, or intimate encounters are a very common part of the experience of contemporary music festivals. Another significant contribution to the field of festival studies was made by Victor Turner. Back in the late 1950s, he proposed the term “social drama” to

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refer to non-theatrical cultural phenomena (Turner 1957). He combined two key elements in his understanding of the term: the processual thinking of ritual, drawn from Arnold van Gennep, which, according to Turner, can also be applied to non-ritual events; and the metaphor of drama, derived from the theatrical tradition. In this context, it is worth noting that in 1972, the American anthropologist Milton Singer introduced a similar concept—that of “cultural performance”. According to Milton, this concept covers a broad spectrum of phenomena: “plays, concerts, and lectures . . . but also prayers, ritual readings and recitations, rites and ceremonies, festivals, and all those things we usually classify under religion and ritual rather than with the cultural and artistic” (Singer 1972: 71). Milton’s fusion of artistic and ritual events soon resulted in the emergence of a new transdisciplinary discourse focused on the category of spectacle. Turner’s role in shaping this discourse was to shift the centres of gravity: from structure to process, from competence to performance (Turner 1987: 21), which is now recognised as an essential element of the performative approach. The most significant element of Turner’s thinking is the concept of anti-structure. Turner suggests that while structure is everything that maintains divisions and determines differences, which, in effect, constrain human action, anti-structure negates these determinisms. How is this possible? In Turner’s conception, the key elements of anti-structure are communitas and liminality. Turner defines the former as undifferentiated, egalitarian, direct, nonrational (but not irrational), and spontaneous (Turner 1969, 1974). The resulting sense of “togetherness” allowed Turner to include a variety of groups in the communitas category: pilgrimages to holy places (to Poland’s Jasna Góra, to Mexico’s Guadalupe, to Ireland’s Knock), monastic communities, millenarian movements, the African-American street gang Vice Lords from Chicago—who are also involved in charity work, the Californian Hell’s Angels subculture, countercultural communes, hippies, etc. In contrast, the second element of the anti-structure, liminality, refers to the sphere of action, to the situation of “transition”. In contrast to communitas, liminality is a sphere of activity rather than a social modality, and is characterised by the presence of numerous symbols and metaphors representing the ambiguity resulting from the obliteration or suspension of the rules of the usual order. Its other features are equality, anonymity, and unselfishness (Turner 1969: 366). In sum, it is anti-structural communitas that is the most significant articulation of liminality. The literary critic and researcher who most strongly associated the notion of festival with carnival and carnivalisation is without a doubt Mikhail Bakhtin. In his somewhat misleadingly titled books—Rabelais and His World (Bakhtin 1968) and Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (Bakhtin 1984)—which draw on studies of the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, he painted an influential picture of carnival as an event subordinated to the principle of the reversal of the rules in force. “The ‘carnival sense of the world’ undermines”, wrote Bakhtin, “hierarchical differences and barriers”, leading to a situation in which “opposites come together, look at one another, are reflected in one another, know and understand one another” (Bakhtin 1984: 176). As a result, a carnivalised (or festivalised) community is created, characterised by the familiarity of relationships, the freedom and eccentricity of

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behaviour and costume, the disclosure of dimensions of identity hidden in everyday life, and profanities of various kinds. According to Bakhtin, the carnival—which replaces seriousness with joy, parody, clowning, and folk fun—can be seen as a model of unofficial culture. Bakhtin’s belief in the unique power and enduring appeal (Bakhtin 1984) of the carnival was well-timed, as translations of his works appeared at a time of countercultural turmoil: in the USA and Italy in 1968, in Germany in 1969, in France in 1970 (the German subtitle of Rabelais and His World was even “Volkskultur als Gegenkultur”, i.e. “Folk culture as counterculture”) (Bakhtin 1987). Thanks to later critical readings of Bakhtin’s work, however, we know that the “folk culture of laughter” he describes are examples of fun, pageantry, games, and entertainment, rather than an entire cultural system. A fundamental weakness of his theory is that it is mainly based on urban practices (“urban piazza culture”, Burke 2009), which makes one wonder whether it can legitimately be applied to peasant and rural culture. Moreover, Bakhtin’s category of “the people” is fundamentally homogeneous and ahistorical, constructed to the exclusion of regional, national, and social dissimilarities. Bakhtin’s myth-making endeavours concealed the fact that folk culture was also a culture of fear and phobia, that the carnival was at the centre of official culture since it was associated with the liturgical calendar of church festivals, and that its universality was limited by the division between performers and spectators, with the female half of the “people” excluded until the early eighteenth century. In essence, then, Bakhtin’s proposal amounts to a political utopia (Mrugalski and Pietrzak 2011: 120–125). In contrast, Alessandro Falassi’s conception of festivals was far from constructing a utopia. This Italian anthropologist and folklore researcher was the editor of the volume Time Out of Time: Essays on the Festival (1987). This is an anthology-like work consisting of 25 texts, invited the reader on a journey through festivals all over the world, and allowed Falassi to give voice to a variety of authors: on the one hand, writers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Carnival in Rome), Aldous Huxley (Palio di Siena), and Ernest Hemingway (bullfighting), and, on the other, scholars, including Arnold van Gennep (pilgrimages to Rabb), Victor Turner (the Rio Carnival), and Vladimir Propp (commemorative practices). Falassi himself argued that the “special reality” of the festival retains a “primary importance” in any culture, allowing for a “celebration of life” in the festival “time out of time” (Falassi 1987: 7). Falassi was aware that there are multiple definitional approaches to festivals, sometimes interpenetrating and sometimes excluding each other. Commenting on the sacred-profane opposition, he pointed out that “Religious festivals have evident secular implication” (Falassi 1987: 3), while events of a secular nature may, paradoxically, be conducive to solemnity and metaphysical experiences. Falassi noted that another controversial issue in the understanding of festivals is the rather different functions assigned to them: either challenging cultural rules or perpetuating them (and sometimes both at the same time). The key to reconciling these contradictions lies, according to Falassi, in the behaviour of festival-goers: “people do something they normally do not; they abstain from something they normally do; they carry to the extreme behaviours that are usually regulated by measure; they invert

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patterns of daily social life. Reversal, intensification, trespassing, and abstinence are the four cardinal points of festival behaviours” (Falassi 1987: 3). At this point, the doubts formulated by Falassi allow us to highlight the existence of a certain general, a priori assumption present in the concepts of all the thinkers and researchers cited above. It concerns the division between sacred and secular time, or the world of the mundane and the world of the festival. The logic of the analyses of Durkheim, Mauss, Eliade, Caillois, Bakhtin and Falassi leads to the emergence of an important opposition: voluntariness-dreaming-freedom versus compulsion-practice-structure. What is also significant is that the concepts analysed in this chapter strongly privilege the first side of this opposition. This entails that the festival derives from the stable, permanent, overdetermined reality that precedes it (Ehrmann et al. 1968: 33). The American anthropologist Marshall Sahlins (1985) also warned against a similar dichotomisation. He criticised the perspective that divides culture into that which is “prescriptive” and that which is “performative” (Sahlins 1985, 1987: x–xi). Prescriptive structures are—typically—repeatable projections of an existing cultural order. In contrast, performative structures are more open to novelty and difference, placing value on events that constitute deviations from the established order, such as festivals. “These oppositions are not only phenomenally misleading, but also analytically debilitating” (Sahlins 1985, 1987: xvii), Sahlins suggested. In his view, all cultures improvise successive forms and orders. As a result, it is impossible to prove the existence of a clear and distinct division between ordered everyday life and festivalised sacred time—a conclusion we would like to apply above all to the contemporary cultural situation. Judith Mair’s proposal can be considered a useful summary of the comments made so far on the definitional approaches to festivals. In an attempt to capture the phenomenon of this type of event in its entirety, this researcher enumerates its constituent elements in detail. Her characterisation of festivals emphasises that they are momentary and recurrent events; publicly accessible, as opposed to closed meetings or events for which special invitations are needed; the “celebratory” aspect is important, no matter how it is expressed (religious or secular, authentic or inauthentic); the “theme” of the festival refers to culture (traditional, “high”, popular); a festival is “place-based”, an event connected to a particular place and often celebrating its history, tradition, or culture; as a social phenomenon, it often puts the community—either connected to a place or united for other reasons—at the centre; its distinctive feature is the performative dimension, in the form of music, dance, singing, parades, etc.; the behaviour of participants indicates that the function of the festival is often entertainment and recreation, and consequently interaction and socialisation; while the affective dimension refers to a sense of belonging or sharing certain values (Mair 2019: 4–5). On the basis of these premises, Mair in effect presents her own definition of festivals, assuming that they are “short term, recurring, publicly accessible events that usually celebrate and/or perform particular elements of culture that are important to the place in which they are held or the communities which hold them; that provide opportunities for recreation and entertainment; and that give rise to feelings of belongings and sharing” (Mair 2019: 5).

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Mair’s reflection on the behaviour of festival attendees, and thus the recreational and entertainment functions of festivals, allows us to turn to another set of definitions of festivals—those developed in the field of event studies. This current emerged in the 1970s, with the first reports published in journals such as the Journal of Business, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Financial Economics (Khotari and Warner 2006: 7). However, much the scope and context of the research has changed, the priorities have remained almost unchanged: the study of economic efficiency, the estimation of the impact on customers/the audience (in terms of objectives), and the dominance of econometrics (in terms of methods). A comprehensive textbook on the “marketing of festivals” (Hoyle 2002), published in 2002, can be seen as a manifestation of event studies. In this work, Leonard H. Hoyle offered advice on how to promote and advertise festivals, how to create their programmes, and how to attract audiences effectively. He wrote: “Today’s festivals (. . .) are more varied and sophisticated than ever before. Marketing these unique types of events requires unique and innovative tactics. In other words, the success of an event may not depend on the type of event, the star attraction, or the cause of the event, but on how well a marketer takes advantage of certain factors of the event. These factors include location, competition, weather, cost, and entertainment” (Hoyle 2002: 151). One of the most influential scholars of the event studies field today is Donald Getz, who treats the festival as one of the oldest and most widespread cultural phenomena. In his book Event Management and Event Tourism, Getz offered a succinct definition of festivals—as “themed, public celebrations” (Getz 2005: 21). This definition was later quoted many times, also by researchers working outside the field of event studies. Another interesting strand of festival studies can be found in the discourse of transnational associations and organisations such as The European Festivals Association (EFA), the European Commission, and UNESCO. The EFA was founded in 1952 in Geneva, initially bringing together 15 diverse festival events (including Bayreuther Festspiele, Festival de Musique Bordeaux, Biennale di Venezia, International Festival of Contemporary Music). Today, the EFA is an organisation with a membership of more than 100 different festivals—music, theatre, interdisciplinary—as well as national associations of this type and international networks from 40 countries. In 2016, as part of the project “Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe”, the EFA organised an exhibition entitled “Festivals: the Heart of Europe”. It was not only the title that was telling—the content indicated that the cultural specificity and cohesiveness of post-war Europe was largely determined by festival projects. This was clearly stated by Bernard Foccroulle, director of Festival International d’Art Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, as quoted in the materials accompanying the exhibition: “Since the end of World War Two, festivals have spread across Europe just as monasteries and cathedrals did in the Middle Ages. Thousands of festivals now feature the most recent, marginal and cutting edge art forms (. . .). Their diversity is extraordinary—from the most classical to cutting-edge contemporary; from elitist to popular; from huge pop and rock gatherings to micro-festivals hosted in remote villages—at the heart of European identities” (Festivals: the Heart of Europe 2016). In 2021, Mariya Gabriel, EU Commissioner for Innovation,

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Research, Culture, Education and Youth, expressed her hopes for the role of festivals even more strongly: “Festivals are an important driver of local and regional development, contributing immensely to social cohesion across generations. Therefore, I cannot see a better way to get citizens involved in a wide-ranging debate on the European Green Deal, the European New Bauhaus, or the Conference on the Future of Europe than through festivals. In this particular time, we need festivals to reach citizens and engage with them on their wishes and ideas for European integration” (Arts festivals reconfirm. . . 2021). On the basis of these statements, it can be concluded that, in the case of activities initiated by European Union agencies, there is a top-down recognition of festivals as cultural, normative and value-shaping events, which are treated as an essential part of “European identities”. The positive, culture-forming role of festivals is not limited to events organised in Europe. It is worth recalling in this context that in April 1961, thousands of artists, musicians, performers, and writers representing Africa and its diaspora met in Dakar for the First World Festival of Negro Arts/Premier Festival Mondial des arts negres. Among them were such prominent figures as Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, Aimé Césaire, André Malraux, and Wole Soyinka (Nelson Mandela was also present). The festival was the first state-funded presentation of art by African and African diaspora artists to a global audience. The participants and commentators emphasised that the festival was a symbolically important milestone in the process of decolonisation and the struggle for the rights of African-Americans in the United States. Attention was also drawn to the strong impetus for the formation of a pan-African culture, which was particularly important to members of the diasporas (Murphy 2016). The global symbol of festivals that can be described as a cultural breakthrough and identity-building event is the Woodstock Festival of 1969. It has been repeatedly said that this festival defined an entire generation, that it allowed a new understanding of values such as freedom, multiculturalism, community, and art and culture in general (Spitz 2014). However, it is worth recalling here a lesser-known strand of festival history, concerning the so-called free festivals. Their tradition goes back to the Isle of Wight festival in 1970 and the first Glastonbury Festival in 1971, as well as the events organised in subsequent years in the green zones of London, New York, and San Francisco. The free festivals were organised outside the producer system and were offered for free to participants, in the form of multi-day gatherings with presentations of music, theatre, visual arts, environmental philosophy, psychoactive drugs, and alternative value systems to those upheld in the West. “Music was important, but also the ethic of peace and love. Festivals should represent freedom”, explains one of their creators, Nik Turner, a musician associated with the group Hawkwind (Abrahams and Wishart 2000: 15). Yet another strand of thinking about festivals is present—this time on a global level—in the activities undertaken by UNESCO. The Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage promoted by this organisation include more than a dozen events defined as festivals. It is worth mentioning here that these Lists. . . include a wide variety of contemporary cultural practices, divided into five categories: (1) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;

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(2) performing arts; (3) social practices, rituals, and festive events; (4) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; (5) traditional craftsmanship (Text of the Convention. . . 2003). Point three of the assumptions made in the official Text of the Convention. . . also mentions “festive events”. As a result, events such as The Traditional Naadam Festival in Mongolia, Ramman—a religious festival and ritual theatre in India, carnivals in Belgium and Colombia, the Sefrou Cherry Festival in Morocco, the Argungu International Fishing and Cultural Festival in Nigeria, and the Kırkpınar Oil Wrestling Festival in Turkey were included in the Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Consequently, events that adequately described the concepts of festivals in terms of sacrum, communitas and vertigo were placed together, alongside events that locate themselves in the field characterised by short-term, tourism-related thinking. Thus, also in the logic of UNESCO and through the idea of “intangible heritage”, the concept of festival has been further expanded, acquiring new meanings. In the overview of the definitions of festivals proposed here, we cannot omit the concept formulated in 1993 by Hartmut Häussermann and Walter Siebel. These researchers analysed phenomena such as the “festivalization of politics” and “politics through festivals” (Häussermann, Siebel 1993). They focused on major events: the Expo (Vancouver 1986, Seville 1992), the summer Olympic Games (Munich 1972, Barcelona 1992), the Universiade (Sheffield 1991), and the World Cup (Italy 1990). Häussermann and Siebel argued that all these cases had involved the instrumentalisation of urban politics, and the concept of “doing politics through festivals” was based on treating successive festivals as key actors to which other ideas and initiatives are subordinated, with their side effects being costly, often single-use, provisionally designed spaces (in legal, financial, infrastructural, moral terms) that were intended mainly for tourists: consumers, spectators, and festivalgoers. Large-scale sporting or commercial events—treated by Siebel and Häussermann as the contemporary embodiment of festivals—were in this way not signs of prosperity, but rather a form of spectacular “leverage”, intended as an impetus for the development of places and regions defined as backwards (e.g. Seville 1992, Vancouver 1986, Barcelona 1992). The concept of festivalisation became the basis for many analyses in the subsequent years, mainly focusing on festival–city relations and festival forms of consumption. In the conception of P. Louis van Elderen, festivalisation consists of “temporary transformation of a place into symbolic space in which the public domain is claimed for particular forms of consumption” (van Elderen 1997: 126). Festivalisation is often seen as a popular tool for the promotion of cities, which has resulted in the public life of many contemporary cities being dominated by festivals and events (Cudny 2016: 80). Another manifestation of festivals is the bringing together of different spheres that were previously separated from each other, such as food and shopping or education and recreation, resulting in hybrid practices of the “edu-tainment” or “shop-a-tainment” kind (Richards, Palmer 2010: 29–30). The focus on festivals as a form of consumption and a promotional tool consequently allows them to be viewed as falling under the paradigm of “McDonaldization”. As described by George Ritzer in 1993, the four key features of this process are

References

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calculability, efficiency, predictability, and control (through nonhuman technology—Ritzer 1993). The first three characteristics seem to relate directly to the logic of festivalisation: profit orientation and the formulaic, repetitive designs of contemporary festivals are increasingly common phenomena. There is no doubt that the processes collectively referred to as “festivalization” have taken over all areas of artistic creation, effectively and rapidly colonising areas such as education (historical reconstructions), museology (museum nights), science (science festivals), folklore, gastronomy, and shopping. At this point, one can venture to say that “Mcfestivals” are in fact highly standardised forms of leisure and consumption, whose organisers wish to satisfy the needs of large audiences by reaching for predictable tools (Kuligowski 2013). To conclude this chapter, we would like to formulate two sets of conclusions. Firstly, the number and variety of definitions of festivals clearly indicate that there is no single field of meaning for the term. Although anthropologists and representatives of event studies address the same topics—time, space, festival participants—they do so from different perspectives and from within frameworks of differently defined objectives. Figuratively speaking, the sacred cannot be reduced to a line-up, just as “festival management” can hardly be reconciled with disinterested communitas. Secondly, a significant analytical value in the study of contemporary festival-like events is still retained by the body of studies and analyses initiated as far back as Durkheim. Whether we are conducting research at the patriotic Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej (The Unbreakable and Independent Song Festival) in Krakow, the punk festival Rock na Bagnie (Rock on the Swamp) in north-eastern Poland, the nationalist-folklore Guča Trumpet festival in Serbia, the neo-hippie O.Z. O.R.A. Festival in Hungary; or at a science festival, a barbers’ festival (Festiwal Golibrodów) or a pâté makers’ festival, it is worth testing categories such as “sociaux effervescents”, collective vertigo, paroxysm, renewal, communitas, liminality, antistructure, spectacle, performativity, carnivalisation. Of course, these categories have their limitations, for example, due to the fact that most festivals are now secular in nature, which limits the effectiveness of the category of the sacred. It is important to see that, in the vocabularies we have analysed here, the festival still remains something unusual, above average, beyond the routine and the norm. This seems to be a feature that everyone can agree on.

References Abrahams, Ian, and Bridget Wishart. 2000. Festivalized. Music, Politics and Alternative Culture. London: Gonzo Multimedia. Arts festivals reconfirm their vital contribution to Europe with Mariya Gabriel, EU Commissioner. 2021. European Festivals Associations. https://www.efa-aef.eu/en/news/2027-arts-festivalsreconfirm-their-vital-contribution-for-europe-with-mariya-gabriel-eu-commissioner/. Accessed 24 March 2022. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1968. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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———. 1984. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 1987. Rabelais und seine Welt. Volkskultur als Gegenkultur, trans. Gabriele Leupold, and Renate Lachmann. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Biaett, Vernon. 2017. Festivity, Play, Well-Being. . . Historical and Rhetorical Relationships: Implications for Communities. In Handbook of Community Well-Being Research, ed. Rhonda Phillips and Cecilia Wong, 180–198. Dordrecht: Springer. Burke, Peter. 2009. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. Caillois, Roger. 2001a. Man, Play and Games, trans. Meyer Barash. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. ———. 2001b. Man and the Sacred, trans. Meyer Barash. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Chojnacka, Joanna. 2020. W Ciechanowie rusza sezon koncertowy. Miasto wymyśliło, jak je zorganizować. Antyradio. March 23. https://www.antyradio.pl/Muzyka/Rock-News/WCiechanowie-rusza-sezon-koncertowy-Miasto-wymyslilo-jak-je-zorganizowac-40814?fbclid= IwAR0-MhVu4t03EMitYeiZMxZqfI27ENM_tgr9ad-P1g824qHF2yJNjuKrNqA. Accessed 10 March 2022. Cudny, Waldemar. 2016. Festivalisation of Urban Spaces: Factors, Processes and Effects. Heidelberg: Springer. Durkheim, Emile. 1995. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Karen E. Fields. New York: The Free Press. Duvignaud, Jean. 1976. Festivals: A Sociological Approach. Cultures 3 (1): 13–25. Ehrmann, Jacques, Lewis Cathy, and Lewis Phil. 1968. Homo Ludens Revisited. Yale French Studies 41: 31–57. van Elderen, Louis P. 1997. Suddenly One Summer: A Sociological Portrait of the Joensuu Festival. Joensuu: Joensuu University Press. Eliade, Mircea. 1957. The Sacred and The Profane. The Nature of Religion. The Significance of religious myth, symbolism, and ritual within life and culture, trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: A Harvest Book. ———. 1963. Myth and Reality, trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Row. ———. 1967. Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, trans. Philip Mairet. New York: Harper & Row. ———. 1993. Sacrum, mit, historia. Wybór esejów, trans. Anna Tatarkiewicz, Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. Falassi, Alessandro. 1987. Festival: Definition and Morphology. In Time Out of Time: Essays on the Festival, ed. Alessandro Falassi, 1–10. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Festivals are dead! Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis claims boom in summer music events will be over in three years. 2011. Mail Online. July 9. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article2012880/Festivals-dead-Glastonbury-organiser-Michael-Eavis-claims-boom-summer-musicevents-years.html. Accessed 14 March 2022. Festivals: the Heart of Europe. An Exhibition of the EFFE – Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe Platform. 2016. https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/festivals-the-heart-of-europe/ pgJSMQK6A7LSLg. Accessed 24 March 2022. Getz, Donald. 2005. Event Management and Event Tourism. New York: Cognizant Communication Corporation. Häussermann, Hartmut, and Walter Siebel. 1993. Die Politik der Festivalisierung und die Festivalisierung der Politik. Leviathan 13: 7–31. Khotari S. P., and Warner Jerold B. 2006. Econometrics of Event Studies. Dartmouth: Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth: http://www.bu.edu/econ/files/2011/01/KothariWarner2.pdf. Hoyle, Leonard H. 2002. Event Marketing. How to successfully promote events, festivals, conventions, and expositions. New York: J. Wiley. Kuligowski, Waldemar. 2013. Ludzie, sztuka, pieniądze. Festiwalizacja w Polsce. Czas Kultury 4: 4–15.

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Mair, Judith. 2019. Introduction. In The Routledge Handbook on Festivals, ed. Judith Mair, 3–11. London and New York: Routledge. Mauss, Marcel. 1979. Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo: A Study in Social Morphology, trans. J. J. Fox. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Mrugalski, Michał, and Przemysław Pietrzak. 2011. Spory o Bachtinowską koncepcję karnawału. In Karnawał. Studia historyczno-antropologiczne, ed. Wojciech Dudzik, 107–148. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. Murphy, David. 2016. The Performance of Pan-Africanism: Staging the African Renaissance at the The First World Festival of Negro Arts. In: The First World Festival of Negro Arts, Dakar 1966: Contexts and Legacies, ed. David Murphy, 1–42. (Postcolonialism Across the Disciplines, no. 20). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Richards, Greg, and Robert Palmer. 2010. Eventful Cities. Cultural Management and Urban Revitalization. Oxford: Elsevier. Ritzer, George. 1993. The McDonaldization of Society. An Investigation Into the Changing Character of Contemporary Social Life. Newbury Park: Pine Forge Press. Ronström, Ove. 2011. Festivalisation: What a Festival Says – and Does. Reflections Over Festivals and Festivalisation. Sweden: Gotland University. https://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2: 461099/FULLTEXT01.pdf. Accessed 15 February 2022. Sahlins, Marshall. 1985. Islands of History. Chicago: The Universioty of Chicago Press. ———. 1987. Islands of History. Bristol: J. W. Aerowsmith Ltd. Singer, Milton. 1972. When a Great Tradition Modernizes: An Anthropological Approach to Indian Civilization. New York: Praeger Publishers. Spitz, Bob. 2014. Barefoot in Babylon: The Creation of the Woodstock Music Festival, 1969. New York: Plume. Steiner, George. 1996. ‘A Festival Overture’: The University Festival Lecture. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. Text of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. 2003. Intangible Cultural Heritage UNESCO, https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention. Accessed 24 March 2022. Time Out of Time: Essays on the Festival. 1987, ed. Alessandro Falassi. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Turner, Victor. 1957. Schism and Continuity in an African Society. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ———. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago: Aldine Publishing. ———. 1974. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ———. 1987. The Anthropology of Performance. New York: PAJ Publications.

Chapter 3

Values at Festivals: What and How to Research

Scene 1, Canada: “Be open and friendly with each other”, the organisers of the BreakOut West festival in Whitehorse in northern Canada urge, “the Wellness Room is waiting for you all the time”. On the first day of the festival, before all scheduled concerts and meetings, there is a voluntary half-hour meditation, and this will happen every day. Scene 2, Hungary: “This is a festival with a message”, repeats the Dutch DJ with whom we jump in the car on the bumpy, narrow South Hungarian road. “The most important thing is communication and freedom—that’s why they don’t really like us here”, he adds, pointing to another police check point when reaching the place where O.Z.O.R.A. Festival is taking place. Scene 3, Serbia: “Serbia, Serbia!” yells a boy with joy and pride—he is holding up three fingers and is wearing a T-shirt with the words “Kosovo is Serbia”. The words “This is Serbia!” blend with the loud music of the trumpets that dominate the soundscape of Guča, a town in central Serbia, where Europe’s largest festival of trumpet virtuosos takes place from early in the morning. These scenes were not chosen randomly. There is something that strongly connects a festival-goer in Canada, a DJ going to a Hungarian psytrance music festival, and a Serbian fan of the sound of trumpets. They express their attitude towards values through meditation, in pride and joy; values that they associate and even identify with a specific festival. In each of these cases, the musical genre is only a medium for emotions, whose source is specific values. Canada’s Whitehorse promoted thinking in terms of well-being, relaxation, and wellness. The Dutch DJ talked about the “message” that the post-hippie organisers of O.Z.O.R.A. treat as the main course in the rich festival menu. The young Serb, on the other hand, expressed his nationalistic dreams in a place that amplifies them and, thanks to music, turns them into an attractive feature. Donald Getz, one of the most influential scholars of the event studies current, has undertaken a systematic review of the literature on festivals and studies focused on them. As a result, he identified three main “discourses” (Getz 2010: 4). The first of them, focused on “the roles, meanings and impacts of festivals in society and culture” is the oldest and best developed, especially in cultural anthropology and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 W. Kuligowski, M. Poprawski, Festivals and Values, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39752-3_3

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sociology. The key notions of this discourse are: myth, ritual, symbolism, liminality, celebration, ceremony, pilgrimage, authenticity, and commodification. The second concerns festival tourism, dominated by terms such as commodification, consumer behaviour, festivalisation, and “event tourism”, whereby festivals are treated “as tools in tourism and economic development (. . .) and the selling of attractions and venues”. In the third, the youngest of the “discourses”, the key issue is the theme of “festival management” and consumer motivation and evaluation. It is dominated by generic management concepts and methods, presented in the literature for specialists who are practically involved in the organisation of this type of event (Getz 2010: 4–6). Getz does not devote attention to the issue of value, but in summarising his review of the literature he suggests that “the value or worth of festivals and other celebrations has to be conceptualized in terms other than those found in the event tourism discourse, with emphasis on personal, societal and cultural contributions” (2010: 20–21). The values and norms promoted and practised within music festivals are thus a neglected topic, remaining on the margins of research mostly devoted, as Getz suggests, to rituals, marketing, and festival tourism. From our perspective, this observation is significant and even surprising. After all, music is the type of medium that can be filled with almost any content—from the realm of ethics, history, tradition, politics—and can at the same time arouse enormously powerful emotions. Music is viewed as a form of expression that evokes vivid emotions; some researchers even claim that music is simply “about emotions”, that it creates a particular representation of “emotions, moods, mental tension, and resolutions” (Langer 1957: 100) Other scholars emphasise that music can integrate and disintegrate; induce activity as well as reflection, create “specific” places and spaces; establish social differences, political orders, and moral hierarchies (Lomax 1968; Feld 1990; Chapman 1997; Hudson et al. 2015). Denis-Constant Martin (2005), a researcher at the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales CERI in Paris, stresses that the symbolic meaning of music that “resonates” with social reality is directly linked to the places where it is performed. When indicating the places where the meanings produced by music can be studied, he lists the following: (1) the places where music is produced (studios, record labels, producers’ offices); (2) the places where music is directly performed (concert halls, clubs, festivals, raves, streets, metro stations); (3) the places where music is consumed (dance halls, discos, private apartments); (4) the virtual network used to transmit music (2005: 33). It is there, Martin argues, that the links between the world of music and the social world should be sought. Another example of “resonating” is provided by Malcolm Chapman (1997) in his analysis of the importance of music in the street parades held in Northern Ireland. During the largest and most important of these, held in Belfast on 12 July, there are numerous performances by musical groups. Their members primarily play flutes, pipes, and lambskin drums. The instruments are significant: the drums function as a symbol of British authority, while the ensemble is considered typically Protestant. The parade route usually leads through Catholic areas, where the loud drumming sounds like a triumphant celebration of Protestant domination. In this light, the

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differences between Irish and British music are an element of political tension, as important and real as bombings or bloody shootings. Music is thus a cultural element that functions on multiple levels; it is polysemantic, relies on emotions, and generates social practices. Research on the motives for attending music festivals, which are usually subsumed under marketing objectives, provides further support for the thesis that it has a significant role in generating norms and values within music festivals (Uysal et al. 1993; Rerek, Dłużewska 2016). This is not only confirmed by the ethnographic “scenes” from the three different festivals mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. A strong argument in support of the same thesis is also provided by statements that explicitly refer to the sphere of values. Here are some made by organisers of contemporary Polish music festivals: “Tolerance is the highest value. Other values are contact with nature, promotion of the region, and reference to festivals and music from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s”, declared Jacek Żędzian, organiser of the Rock na Bagnie (Rock on the Swamp) Festival, during an interview in 2020.1 The tolerance he indicated—in the context of punk rock dominating the festival—became a hotbed of online discussion the following year, full of emotion and conflicting values. Following the announcement that the event would only be open to vaccinated people, the festival’s official website was flooded with a wave of comments containing not only slogans about “segregation”, “sanitary apartheid”, and “exclusion”, but also criminal threats made against the organiser. “Here it is all about fostering patriotism”, declares Mateusz Prendota, organiser of the Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej im. Henryka Rasiewicza “Kima” (Henryk Rasiewicz “Kim” The Unbreakable and Independent Song Festival).2 The final auditions take place in autumn 2019 at the AK Museum in Kraków. The brick walls, the collections evoking the Second World War, as well as the military uniforms and red and white armbands worn by many participants, clearly create the “atmosphere” expected by the organisers. “For us the value is being close to nature”, states Agata Szakiel, associated with the Pannonica Festival. “Being in harmony with nature is the most important thing, because Pannonica is probably the cleanest festival I’ve been to, and I work with various cultural institutions and events, I also go on tour with artists”.3 “Ostróda Reggae Festival is a festival that conveys a message of respect, tolerance, love, mutual acceptance, smiling”, explains its organiser Piotr Kolaj. “People at our festival communicate with each other by smiling, hugging, exuding love and acceptance”.4 “Tradition comes first, although tradition is an ambiguous term” declares Piotr Kaplita, who has been involved in organising the Pieśń Naszych Korzeni (Song of

1

Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 02.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 16.11.2019. 3 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 4 Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. 2

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Our Roots Festival) for over 20 years. “We are not concerned with nurturing tradition as something to be preserved and passed on, but rather with the form of what is passed on. The second issue is liturgy”.5 The cited statements and events clearly indicate that contemporary music festivals are increasingly organised, conceived, and practised in the context of values. Their directors and organisational teams now care not only about an attractive line-up or an original location, but also about the axionormative image of festivals. Presentations, exhibitions, or discussions aimed at popularising various ideas, such as ecology, volunteering, meditation, yoga, healthy lifestyle, patriotism, Catholicism, Krishnaism, vegetarianism, etc., are now an almost permanent feature of the additional, non-musical programmes of festivals. It can probably be argued that “soft”—or even “banal” axionormativity in the sense proposed by Michael Billig (1995)—is today a permanent feature of all types of festivals. In this chapter, we would like to introduce and then employ the category of axionormativity (Parsons 1937; Znaniecki 1971; Dragićević Šešić and Dragojević 2004) in the analysis of festivals. Our ethnographic fieldwork convinces us that the tendency for a growing number of music festivals to define themselves through direct references to specific sets of norms and values is becoming increasingly clear. However, before going into detailed descriptions and analyses, it is necessary to go back to the sources and identify the meanings of this term, which is so important to us. The term axionormativity was coined by the Polish philosopher and sociologist, Florian Znaniecki. He was a co-founder of academic sociology in Poland, while in international science he is known primarily for his multi-volume work The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (Thomas and Znaniecki 1918–1920). Making a significant contribution to the development of sociological theory, Znaniecki introduced terms such as “humanistic coefficient” (Znaniecki 1927) and “culturalism” (Hałas 2010) into intellectual circulation. In studying culture, Znaniecki emphasised the importance and significance of what he termed the “axio-normative order” (1971: 511). His research and concepts influenced scholars such as Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schütz (Halas 2006). In order to correctly reconstruct his findings regarding the “axio-normative order”, it should be recalled that Znaniecki distinguished four classes of social systems: (1) social relations/interpersonal relations, (2) social roles, (3) social groups, and (4) societies, “as systems of diversified, functionally integrated social groups” (Znaniecki 1954: 521). All four social systems have a specific cultural base and can only function together through communicated and at least partially shared knowledge, norms, and values. Central to this arrangement, the cultural base includes the “axiological standards” that individuals and groups are expected to apply in judging each other and the system as a whole. “Insofar as they accept and conform with these standards and norms, the social system manifests a dynamic inner order which can be termed axio-normative” (Znaniecka-Lopata 1976: 205).

5

In-person interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 26.08.2020.

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Znaniecki noted that the very term axionormativity is somewhat “awkward”, as it combines words of Greek and Latin origin. However, the same is true of such established terms as “sociology” or “sociometry” (Znaniecki 1943: 225). The use of the term axionormativity, on the other hand, has the advantage of precisely indicating the “combination of standardized valuations and normatively regulated action which is an essential character of every cultural pattern” (Znaniecki 1943: 225). These axionormative “patterns” or “orders” are easily found at every level of culture: in the system of knowledge it is logic, while in the fields of religion, language, art, economics, or technology these “orders” are numerous and diverse, yet each includes specific standards of valuation and norms of action. It is worth noting that the concept of axionormativity, although formulated eight decades ago, still serves many analytical purposes. Ewa Budzyńska used it to analyse the “moral condition” of Polish society, which is in a state of conflict precisely because of different “orders” (Budzyńska 2012). Elżbieta Olzacka argued that when examining the conduct of wars, one should take into account not only the issue of technology and the socio-economic level of the warring parties, but also the values, norms, and beliefs that form the axionormative order accompanying the practice of war (Olzacka 2013). Zbigniew Krawczyk investigated the significance of the Olympic Games for European culture from this perspective, treating sport as an axionormative model of democratic order (Krawczyk 2004). The term proposed by Znaniecki has also been used in studies of precedent in contemporary legal culture (Biernat 2018), internet netiquette (Pręgowski 2010), and urban practices geared towards sustainability (Betlej and Kačerauskas 2021). These contemporary applications of Znaniecki’s concepts confirm the validity and relevance of the suggestions expressed in his 1954 Presidential Address at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Society. At that time, Znaniecki asked what evidence is invoked when researchers attempt to describe social systems according to their structures. This evidence, he argued, is derived from “the standards of valuation and the norms of active conduct which the combinations of social actions performed by interacting agents are expected to conform” (Znaniecki 1954: 521). Most of these standards and norms are expressed through two routes: orally, through traditions and customs; and in written form, in legal, political, ethical, and theological documents. It is these that form the “axionormative structures” that influence the actions and beliefs of individuals—even in contexts as disparate as politics, war, sport, legal systems, netiquette, or sustainable development. As Znaniecki pointed out elsewhere, “actions which really tend to conform with a given ideological model are similar and can be objectively subsumed under the same class, inasmuch as they manifest a common and distinctive inner order in their composition and organization. The main values which they include are selected and defined by the same standards, and their purposes are formed in accordance with the same norms” (Znaniecki 1963: 298). Using Znaniecki’s language, one can consequently formulate a thesis according to which festival “axionormative orders”—i.e. interrelated values, patterns, and norms—are both an important identifying factor of a music festival and a specific attractor for its participants. Of course, in the study of festival axionormative orders, the difference between the plane of

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ought (idealistic) and actual realisation must be taken into account (Parsons 1937: 91; Znaniecki 1971: 297). This is evident, for example, where the pro-environmental “mission” of the organisers is contradicted by actual practices: the lack of waste segregation or the sale of food and drinks in plastic packaging (an issue addressed in more detail in the next chapter). Previous research (Kuligowski 2004, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019; Poprawski et al. 2015) argues that axionormative festival orders are an international phenomenon. Axionormativity at music festivals is becoming more pronounced, however radically different its sources may be: from wellness and multiculturalism to nationalism. We will now consider this phenomenon using the example of the three festivals already cited at the beginning of this chapter. The Wellness Room at the BreakOut West festival was set up in a separate, large room in the main festival building near the reception area. Colourful mats were laid out there, and scarves with Hindu patterns and motifs hung on the walls. The annual conference, organised by the Western Canadian Music Alliance, features both showcase concerts and an industry conference. In Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon Territory, words of respect are repeatedly spoken to the first inhabitants of these lands—Gwichʼin, Hän, Kaska Dena—thanking them for the opportunity to be in their traditional territories. Part of the festival programme is a performance by a group showcasing indigenous musical traditions; one of the announcers is a First Nation person, speaking both the language of her people and English on stage. During the concert of Dena Zagi, a group which uses elements of the ancient culture of the Kaska Dena people, other representatives of indigenous communities appear in front of the stage: first they perform steps and gestures of traditional dances, imitating animals, then they dance in male–female pairs, as if they were in one of the typical American music clubs. A completely different face of axionormativity is presented by the Dragačevski Sabor Trubača (Guča Trumpet Festival). This is a festival that presents Balkan brass band music in a competitive formula. Held since 1961 in the town of Guča, Dragačevski Sabor Trubača has evolved from a local folklore event into an internationally renowned festival that serves today, especially since the break-up of Yugoslavia, as a tool to promote Serbia and its “great” culture. The festival is dominated by symbols directly referring to Serbia and Serbianness: flags, coats of arms, emblems, effigies of national heroes (often those prosecuted by the International Tribunal in The Hague), as well as a map of the “great” Serbia before the Yugoslav Federation period. The ideological basis of the event is local nationalism and the brass band genre, appropriated by Serbian discourse but considered quintessentially Serbian and celebrated by thousands of fans and state authorities eager to visit the festival (Kuligowski 2014). The statements of the festival participants expressed different—but closely related—elements of the axionormative order: “We have it all here: the trumpet is our national instrument and rakija is our national drink” (24-year-old female); “The festival promotes Serbian identity, particularly through music and fun, so characteristic of our tradition and stemming from it . . . The festival increases our prestige throughout Europe” (42-year-old male); “Guča is Serbia . . . This is the most important festival promoting Serbia, the symbol of fun and

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happiness . . . the festival brings people together and that is why there are visitors from all over the world” (24-year-old male); “This festival promotes Serbian culture because the brass bands play our national music. . . We can be proud of this festival, as it is the most famous festival in the whole Europe” (26-year-old male). In turn, Hungary’s O.Z.O.R.A. Festival draws on the globalised post-hippie idea and the transnational music genre of psytrance. Since 2004, the festival has been held on a former farm in the village of the same name (Ozora). It quickly became popular throughout Europe, attracting lovers not only of a particular musical genre, but also of yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, Capoeira, Pilates, and Aikido, which are regular features of the festival programme. Fans are welcomed by a large gate bearing the words “Welcome to Paradise”, while behind it stretches a territory full of fluorescent paintings, thatch sculptures, and fanciful buildings; in this post-hippie space, elements of nature (wood, thatch) and technology (laser lights, 24-hour music rhythm), the local (Hungarian folklore in the festival’s opening parade) and the global (costumes, tattoos, symbols) merge. Many participants mention the “psychedelic space” of festival: “This is amazing part of nature. Here music is always. And everything is lit up” (23-years-old female). Organisers refer directly to the tradition of New Age and (post)hippie ideology. They use slogans, such as “sound of universe” or “Goa state of mind”. The festival’s newspaper, The Ozorian Prophet, features a text entitled “Redefining the ancient tribal ritual for the twenty-first century” (Kuligowski 2017). As the festival site is privately owned and its participants and organisers express open criticism of Viktor Orbán’s government, access is controlled by the police. The official reason for this is to search for psychoactive drugs, which are banned in Hungary, while unofficially the common view is that this is how the authorities express their disapproval of the festival’s axionormative message. We started the project of studying axionormative orders at Polish music festivals in the late summer of 2019. The first stage—after we had formulated our research theses and were awarded funding from Poland’s main science grant provider, the National Science Centre—was to form a research team. We received dozens of applications in response to a public recruitment announcement, so selection was necessary. From the outset, we wanted to achieve a synergy effect through fusing the competences of people representing different but related disciplines. Another priority for us was to include in the team a person experienced in the artistic field, which would guarantee the correct implementation of art-based research techniques. In the end, all our recruitment goals were achieved: the seven-person team of researchers included people representing several academic centres (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, SWPS University in Warsaw), several disciplines (cultural anthropology, cultural studies, sociology), and an artist from Ukraine (who also holds a degree in cultural anthropology).6

6 The research, under the supervision of Waldemar Kuligowski, was conducted by a seven-person team of researchers: Lia Dostlieva, Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, Tala Nowińska-Antoniewicz,

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The selected team conducted ethnographic fieldwork at seven Polish festivals between 2019 and 2021. These were: Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej/ The Unbreakable and Independent Song Festival (Kraków, November 2019), Ostróda Reggae Festival (Ostróda, July 2020), Pieśń Naszych Korzeni/Songs of Our Roots (Jarosław, August 2020), Festiwal Muzyki Etnicznej “Korzenie Europy”/ Festival of Ethnic Music “Roots of Europe” (Warsaw, August 2020), Rock na Bagnie/Rock on the Swamp (Goniądz, July 2021), Pannonica (Barcice, September 2021), Jazz nad Odrą/Jazz on the Oder (Wrocław, September 2021). The systematic research was accompanied by two “reconnaissance” events that were conducted during the Soundedit festival (Łódź, October 2020) and the Pol’and’Rock Festival (Makowice-Płoty, July 2021). The selection of festivals was based on four key criteria. The first was axionormative diversity: Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej has a reputation as one of the key events for promoting the “new” patriotism; the Ethnic Music Festival “Korzenie Europy” has for years defined itself as an event promoting folklore as a source of regional and national identity; the Ostróda Reggae Festival is the largest festival of this genre in Poland; Pieśń Naszych Korzeni has for over 20 years presented ancient spirituality as an artistic project; Rock na Bagnie is regarded as Poland’s most important festival space for the so-called traditional punk rock; Pannonica brings together lovers of Balkan music and the “culture of New Europe”; Jazz nad Odrą presents itself as a star-studded event for sophisticated music lovers. The second criterion was geographical diversity: from metropolises such as Warsaw, Kraków, and Wrocław, through the medium-sized tourist town of Ostróda in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship and the slightly larger Jarosław in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship, to the municipal town of Goniądz in the Podlaskie Voivodeship, and Barcice, a holiday village in the Małopolskie Voivodeship. The third criterion concerned demographic diversity: Warsaw—almost one million 800 thousand inhabitants, Kraków—almost 800 thousand, Wrocław—less than 650 thousand, Jarosław—around 37 thousand, Ostróda around 33 thousand, Goniądz—almost 2 thousand, Barcice—under 1100. The last, fourth criterion was that the festivals included in the research should be stable events, with a history of at least a few years, and that they should last longer than one day. We also wanted to make sure that the selected festivals had not previously been the subject of systematic anthropological research (Pol’and’Rock is an exception, as several books have been published on its history: Owsiak and Skaradzinski 2010; Owsiak 2011). From previous experience, we were aware that ethnographic field research of music festivals entails several important consequences: (1) the research is conducted over only a few days; (2) the research is usually conducted in the presence of many people; (3) the context of the research involves many practices, such as listening to music, being in a group of friends, making music spontaneously, eating, drinking, relaxing. All these factors affect the research and the results obtained (e.g. it is not

Marcin Poprawski, Aleksy Szymkiewicz, and Anna Ważna (and during the most difficult time of the COVID-19 restrictions, also Martyna Nawrocka).

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possible to verify some information). On the other hand, the festival situation creates a specific type of interpersonal relationship, more spontaneous and open, which is a valuable value from the researcher’s point of view. Often one is dealing with the principle of cultural intimacy (Herzfeld 1997), which is concretised in the form of a temporary community—festival communitas. We should also mention the specific “autoethnographic flow” (O’Grady 2013), which presupposes a constant readiness to reinterpret one’s place and meaning in the festival crowd, in which the researcher is an “emotionally engaged” anthropologist rather than a “coolly dispassionate observer” (Tedlock 1992: xiii). For these reasons, investigating the axionormative dimensions of festivals requires a wide range of research methods and tools—both qualitative and quantitative. Therefore, the methodology of our project included: surveys, in-depth questionnaire interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and elements of art-based research. We treated the survey as a preliminary tool, the first to be used in the individual festival case studies. The use of surveys allowed us to collect quantitative data which would give us an insight into the scope and content of specific axionormative orders. The survey consisted of three parts, each focused on a specific scope. In the first part, we asked about the first time a person has been to a festival, why they chose this particular festival, whether they attend other festival events, what they like most and least about them, what attracts people to festivals, and whether there is a festival that is missing in Poland today. In the second part, we tried to find out whether as a result of attending festivals the person surveyed is more: tolerant/patriotic/open to others/ religious/open to charity/open to a variety of musical genres. We then asked whether the festival promotes the place or the region (and how it does so), we also asked for participants to formulate the festival’s message. In the third and most general part, we asked whether music festivals promote values (if so, which), what is most important in music, and whether a music artist (living or not) can be an authority figure (and for what reason). Each questionnaire ended with a metric, including data such as the name of the person surveyed, year of birth, gender, place of residence and life situation—student/student/employed/unemployed/retired/or other fitting term. We assumed from the outset that the questionnaires would enable us to select people with a high degree of axionormative awareness or long experience of participating in the festivals under study. As Hammersley and Atkinson (1989: 116) argue, such a selected group usually includes several characteristic types: outsider, novice, but also a group authority. These individuals were then invited for a “longer conversation”, conducted in an in-depth interview mode. All interviews were audio-recorded and then transcribed (in between the fieldwork). The in-depth questionnaire interviews were based on pre-prepared framing questions, combining structure and free form. As mentioned, the interviewees were people selected earlier during the survey research. In several cases, we also conducted interviews after the festival with the festival organiser. We would like to stress that we are aware we live in an “interview society”, in which the conversation/interview has become a self-evident part of our media-mediated popular culture. When correctly and flexibly conducted, however, the interview as a

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“negotiated text” (Denzin and Lincoln 2012) should provide insights into motivations and reveal what can be described as the “public” and “hidden transcripts” (Scott 1990), which can be described as axionormative. These terms, borrowed from James S. Scott, refer to two types of practices: overt, “onstage” practices that are in line with the dominant axionormative order, and covert practices performed “behind the scenes”, which are individual expressions of values and norms, often alternative or oppositional to the dominant ones. Another qualitative tool used was group interviews, in the Focus Group Interviews format and following the standards of this method (Morgan 1998; Finch and Lewis 2005; Liamputtong 2011), but in a version adapted to festival and axionormative themes. They were to be carried out in three different cities—Warsaw, Kraków, and Poznań—and their aim was to gather the opinions of people associated with music festivals (organisers, journalists, bloggers, cultural managers, heads of cultural organisations and associations). We planned the focus group interviews to take place as expert panels, in which we were to act as moderators of discussions on the issues raised by our research project (primarily in the field of organisational culture and festival management). We planned to carry out this task in 2020 and spring 2021—not imagining that a global cataclysm such as the COVID19 pandemic would stand in our way. The lack of opportunities for face-to-face meetings necessitated a change in the format of this part of the research. Faced with social-distancing measures, we conducted a series of remote interviews that did not, however, feel like multi-person discussions. In retrospect, however, we can say that the conversations with people involved in the cultural sector, conducted at a time when no festivals, concerts, performances, or other stage shows and exhibitions were taking place, were extremely valuable. From our perspective, they allowed us to gather very emotional statements about the condition of the sector in the context of the pandemic. For our interlocutors, in turn—as they themselves emphasised—it was an opportunity to talk and take a break from the problems, but also to try to think about possible scenarios for the future. Participant observation—one of the most paradoxical yet widespread types of observation in the social sciences (Burawoy 1998; DeWalt and DeWalt 2011)—was an extremely important component of our research. Even though Kathleen M. DeWalt and Billie DeWalt suggest (2011: ix–x) that “any discussion of ‘how to do it’ must necessarily be abstract. There is no way to anticipate more than a small proportion of the situations”, we nevertheless made some assumptions. The first was to try to identify in the observed situations—but also in the persons and behaviours—practices that fall within the field of axionormativity. Thus, we were interested in festival “rituals” and dominant styles of dress treated as specific expressions of norms and values. The visual side of festivals was also an important object of observation. As Gillian Rose (2007) argued, visuality has many meanings, but its most important feature is that it highlights difference. From our earlier studies of music festivals, it was clear that the visual aspect of festivals is strongly imbued with axionormative elements; festival visuality, for example, can evoke feelings of “topophilia” (Tuan 1990) among fans, which is a source of satisfaction, inspiration, and identification.

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This part of the research, in effect, consisted of a photographic record (exemplified Figs. 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10, 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, 10.14, 10.15, 10.16, 10.17, 10.18, 10.19, 10.20, 10.21, 10.22, 10.23, 10.24, 10.25, 10.26, 10.27, 10.28, 10.29 in Appendix) of festival visuals (advertising, banners, slogans, posters, announcements, etc.). It was also important to observe the “social life of images” (Pinney 1997), i.e. the attribution of meanings and functions to them by different festival participants. In addition to using the research methods outlined above, which are rather standard for ethnographic research, we decided to turn to alternative tools, namely the methods and techniques from the field of “arts-based research” (Finley 2008; Arts Based Research 2012; Leavy 2015). Following the positive experience of one of the team members, we found them to be cognitively valid and productive (Kuligowski 2022). In 2016, an interdisciplinary research team of cultural anthropologists and artists, including one of the present authors, carried out a research project in the Albanian city of Berat. The ENVER inscription located there,7 visible from many kilometres away, is one of the world’s greatest propaganda slogans. Created in 1968, the inscription became a symbol of the city, then a sign of the times, and finally the subject of an artistic intervention that turned the ENVER slogan into NEVER. In this context, we sought answers to a number of questions: what does it mean to live in the shadow of a gigantic object with a strong ideological message? What is said about it and how? What is remembered and what is forgotten? How to understand nostalgia for the past and désintéressement towards it? Here, the most important thing was the possibility to ask participants/collaborators to express ideas, perceptions, views, and experiences in ways and through channels that go beyond the privileged use of denotative language characteristic of most traditional methodologies of the discipline (Wilson and Flicker 2014). From the 1980s, cultural anthropology become more open to the presence of new ideas in fieldwork research, such as collaboration, polyphony, reflexive inquiry, and dialogue. Some anthropologists “blurred the boundary separating art from science” (Clifford 1986: 3) and, in consequence, more experimental ethnographies were developed. In the next decade, anthropology began experiments using artistic practices as additional research tools and a “new path” of anthropology emerged (Calzadilla and Marcus 2006; MacDougall 2006; Krstić 2011) known as art-based research. This umbrella term refers to the use of the various forms of arts as the basis for inquiry, intervention, or knowledge production. As a research method, it combines the conventions of “traditional” qualitative anthropology methodologies with methods used in art (Finley 2008). In the Albanian project, we used three formally diverse artistic experiments—performance, drawing, and workshops—which emphasised the relationship between sensory and emotional perception. This made it possible to activate a form of understanding that derives from “empathic experience” (Eisner 2008: 7), and it was possible to supplement discursive data with non-discursive data that was not articulated during ethnographic “conversations”. 7

Enver is the first name of Hoxha, the authoritarian leader of the Albanian state from 1946 to 1985.

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We justify the use of art-based research techniques in the festival project in two ways. Firstly, researchers using tools involving art practices point to their activating and communal significance (But is it art? 1995), which we found significant and helpful in our project. Involving a person with both artistic and anthropological competence in the research team was also intended to open up our field partners to “greater narrative freedom”, to a different kind of self-expression, enabling us in turn to capture meanings of an emotional and affective nature (Tierney 1999: 309–310). Secondly, the correct application of elements of art-based research would be ensured by specific workshop activities. After discussing this strand, we concluded that workshops in which participants visualised certain themes: e.g. images of themselves, their idols and their attributes, wrote down key phrases of songs or the most relevant slogans associated with their favourite festival would be feasible in a festival field research setting. Another workshop activity we designed was the preparation of an “advertising folder” of the festival from the perspective of its participants and the creation of an illustrated set of its rules. Moreover, we wanted to use the art-based research method in the process of disseminating the results of the research carried out. One of the forms of dissemination will be an exhibition presenting a variety of data obtained through art-based research (drawings, “advertising folders”, records, inscriptions, etc.). In this way, we wanted the dissemination of research results to take a multi-sensory form, to be more open and engaging than a standard scientific monograph. In total, we spent almost a month at music festivals. The collective tally of data collected during our research is as follows: over 400 questionnaires, 59 in-depth interviews (In-person and remote), 148 drawings produced during art-based research workshops (exemplified in Chap. 4 Appendix), thousands of photographs, dozens of video recordings and field recordings. An important addition to this corpus of data was our repeated searches/enquiries, both online and at local institutions. In the next chapter, we will make a first attempt to organise and interpret this diverse material.

References Arts Based Research. 2012. Ed. Eisner, Elliot W., and Barone, Tom. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington: Sage. Betlej, Alina, and Tomas Kačerauskas. 2021. Urban Creative Sustainability: The Case of Lublin. Sustainability 13 (7): 1–15. Biernat, Tadeusz. 2018. The Impact of the Judicial Precedents on the Normative Content of Human Rights. Studia Iuridica Lublinensia 27 (1): 45–55. Billig, Michael. 1995. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage. Budzyńska, Ewa. 2012. Rząd czy nierząd? Socjologiczna refleksja nad kondycją moralną społeczeństwa polskiego. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Sociologica 40: 11–31. Burawoy, Michael. 1998. The Extended Case Method. Sociological Theory 16 (1): 4–33. But is it art? The spirit of art activism. 1995. ed. Felshin, Nina. Seattle: Bay Press. Calzadilla, Fernando, and George E. Marcus. 2006. Artists in the Field. Between Art and Anthropology. In Contemporary Art and Anthropology, ed. Schneider Arnd and Wright Christopher, 95–115. Oxford, New York: Berg.

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Chapman, Malcolm. 1997. Thoughts on Celtic Music. In Ethnicity, Identity, and Music. The Musical Construction of Place, ed. Mark Stokes, 29–44. Oxford: Berg. Clifford, James. 1986. Introduction: Partial Truths In: Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, ed. James Clifford and George Marcus. 2–26. Berkeley: University of California Press. Denzin, Norman K., and Yvonna S. Lincoln. 2012. The Landscape of Qualitative Research. London: Sage. DeWalt, Kathleen M., and Billie DeWalt. 2011. Participant Observation: A Guide for Fieldworkers. Lanham: AltaMira Press. Dragićević Šešić, Milena, and Dragojević, Sanjin. 2004. Intercultural mediation in the Balkans. Sarajevo: OKO. Eisner, Elliot. 2008. Art and Knowledge. In Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues, ed. J. Gary Knowles and Ardra Cole, 3–12. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Feld, Steven. 1990. Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics and Song in Kaluli Expression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Finch, Helen, and Jane Lewis. 2005. Focus Groups. In Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers, ed. Ritchie Jane and Lewis Jane, 170–198. London: Sage. Finley, Susan. 2008. Art-Based Inquiry. Performing Revolutionary Pedagogy. In Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues, ed. Knowles Gary and Cole Ardra, 72–82. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Getz, David. 2010. The Nature and the Scope of Festival Studies. International Journal of Event Management Research 5 (1): 1–47. Hałas, Elżbieta. 2006. Classical Cultural Sociology: Florian Znaniecki’s Impact in a New Light. Journal of Classical Sociology 6/ (3): 257–282. ———. 2010. Towards the World Culture Society: Florian Znaniecki’s Culturalism. Bern: Peter Lang. Hammersley, Paul, and Martyn Atkinson. 1989. Ethnography: Principles in Practice. London: Routledge. Herzfeld, Michael. 1997. Cultural Intimacy. Social Poetics in the Nation-State. New York–London: Routledge. Hudson, Simon, S. Roth Martin, J. Madden Thomas, and Hudson Rupert. 2015. The Effects of Social Media on Emotions, Brand Relationship Quality, and Word of Mouth: An Empirical Study of Music Festival Attendees. Tourism Management 47: 68–76. Krawczyk, Zbigniew. 2004. Sport in a Changing Europe. European Journal for Sport and Society 1 (2): 89–101. Krstić, Marija. 2011. Mind the Gap: The Use of Artistic Methods in Anthropological Research. Etnološka Tribina 41: 69–85. Kuligowski, Waldemar. 2004. Miłość na Zachodzie. Historia antropologiczna. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM. ———. 2014. Nationalism and Ethnicization of History in a Serbian Festival. Anthropos. International Review of Anthropology and Linguistics 109 (1): 249–259. ———. 2015. Sentymentalizacja, topofilia i pokoleniowość. Jarocin re-study. Czas Kultury 4: 32–42. ———. 2016. Festivalizing Tradition. A Fieldworker’s Notes from the Guča Trumpet Festival (Serbia) and the Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain). Lithuanian Ethnology: Studies in Social Anthropology and Ethnology 16 (25): 35–54. ———. 2017. Collective vertigo. Roger Caillois “theorie de la fete” Toward Contemporary Music Festivals in Poland and Hungary. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica. An International Journal of Ethnography 62 (2): 35–52.

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———. 2019. “They Sold the Festival Out!”. Axionormativity as a Future of Festivals. In Popular Music in the Post-Digital Age. Politics, Economy, Culture and Technology, ed. Ewa Mazierska, Les Gillon, and Rigg Tony, 110. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. ———. 2022. When ENVER becomes NEVER: Memory Palimpsest in Berat, Albania. East European Politics and Societies 36 (2): 540–557. Langer, Susan. 1957. Philosophy is a New Key. A Study in a Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Leavy, Patricia. 2015. Method Meet Art. Arts-Based Research Practice. New York: The Guildford Press. Liamputtong, Pranee. 2011. Focus Group Methodology. Principles and Practice. London: Sage. Lomax, Alan. 1968. Folk Song Styles and Culture. Washington: American Association for Advancement of Sciences. MacDougall, David. 2006. The Corporeal Image. Film, Ethnography, and the Senses. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Martin, Denis C. 2005. Entendre les modernités: l’ethnomusicologie et les musiques ‘populaires’. In Musiques migrantes. De l’exile à la consécration, ed. L. Aubert, 15–50. Genève: Musée d’ethnographie. Morgan, David L. 1998. The Focus Group Guidebook. Thousand Oaks: Sage. O’Grady, Alice. 2013. Interrupting Flow: Researching Play, Performance and Immersion in Festival Scenes. Dancecult. Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 5 (1): 18–38. Olzacka, Elżbieta. 2013. Ład aksjonormatywny a sposoby prowadzenia wojen: kultura wojenna jako regulator wojennej praktyki. The Polish Journal of the Arts and Culture 8 (5): 157–176. Owsiak, Jurek. 2011. Róbta co chceta. Czyli z sercem jak na dłoni – 20 lat grania. Warszawa: Świat Książki. Owsiak, Jurek, and Jan Skaradziński. 2010. Przystanek Woodstock. Historia najpiękniejszego festiwalu świata. Warszawa: Świat Książki. Parsons, Talcott. 1937. The Structure of Social Action. New York: Free Press. Pinney, Christopher. 1997. Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs. London: Redaktion Books. Poprawski, Marcin, Jakubowska, Alicja, Firych, Piotr, Mękarski Michał, Brodniewicz, Magdalena, Landsberg, Piotr, Kieliszewski, Przemysław, Kędzierska, Roksana, Kłosiewicz, Ewa, Michalczuk, Joanna, Zielińska, Klaudia, Gorgoń, Justyna, Węglarska, Kamila, and Wróblewski, Filip. 2015. Oddziaływanie festiwali na polskie miasta. Poznań: Związek Miast Polskich. http:// rok.amu.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Oddzia%C5%82ywanie-Festiwali-na-PolskieMiasta-Raport-z-bada%C5%84-2014-15-ZMP-ROK-v2.2.pdf. Accessed 12 June 2022. Pręgowski, Piotr. 2010. Definiowanie porządku aksjonormatywnego w Internecie. Netykieta, prosumenci a potencjał naśladownictwa. Zeszyt Naukowy Wyższej Szkoły Zarządzania i Bankowości w Krakowie 4 (14): 22–40. Rerek, Martyna, and Anna Dłużewska. 2016. Czy muzyka ma znaczenie? Powody uczestnictwa w koncertach jednodniowych i festiwalach muzycznych. Geography and Tourism 4 (1): 43–56. Rose, Gillian. 2007. Visual Methodologies. An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. London: SAGE. Scott, James S. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance. Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press. Tedlock, Barbara. 1992. The Beautiful and the Dangerous: Dialogues with the Zuni Indians. New York: Viking. Thomas, William I., and Florian Znaniecki. 1918–1920. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. Vol. 5. Boston: Richard G. Badger. Tierney, William. 1999. Guest Editor’s Introduction. Writing Life’s History. Qualitative Inquiry 5: 307–312. Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1990. Topophilia. A Study of Environmental Perceptions, Attitudes, and Values. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Uysal, Muzaffer, Louis Gahan, Robert Martin, and S. 1993. An Examination of Event Motivations. A Case Study. Festival Management and Tourism 1 (1): 5–10. Wilson, Ciann, and Sarah Flicker. 2014. Arts-Based Action-Research. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research, ed. David Coghlan and Brydon-Miller Mary, 58–62. London: Sage. Znaniecka-Lopata, Helena. 1976. Florian Znaniecki: Creative Evolution of a Sociologist. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 12 (3): 203–215. Znaniecki, Florian. 1927. The Object-Matter of Sociology. American Journal of Sociology 32 (4): 529–584. ———. 1943. Sociometry and Sociology. Sociometry 6 (3): 225–233. ———. 1954. Basic Problems of Contemporary Sociology. American Sociological Review 19 (5): 519–524. ———. 1963. Cultural Sciences. Their Origin and Development. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ———. 1971. Nauki o kulturze. Narodziny i rozwój. Warszawa: PWN.

Chapter 4

Axionormativity as a Practice

In the previous chapter, we presented the main assumptions of our research, recalled Florian Znaniecki’s concept of axionormativity, and described the research methods and techniques we have selected. However, it is worth noting that the axionormative dimensions of music festivals that we sought were sometimes revealed without the need to reach for specialised tools. Sometimes it was enough simply to enter a festival site—in this case during the Pol’and’Rock festival—to hear “This is for you”. On saying this, a girl in trainers hands us a pocket-sized publication: the navy blue cover features a flowered heart and the title “Festival Bible”. It is a work produced by the international organisation Bible for the Nations, first published in 2001. It contains the text of the New Testament and many prayers, and alongside these, on the colourful pages, are statements by famous “converted” musicians, members of bands such as Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and Accept, as well as the “testimonies” of men and women who talk about experiencing God in their lives. When a demonstration of ten people, chanting about “free music” and a “festival without segregation”, passed through a Podlasie town on a sultry July afternoon in 2021, it was only greeted with amusement among attendees of the Rock na Bagnie festival. However, when the leader of the demonstration—who is also the leader of the anti-vaxx movement in Poland—tried to enter the festival town, she was arrested by the police and Internet forums were flooded with arguments about the legitimacy of the COVID-19 restrictions. A year earlier, fans of the Ostróda Reggae Festival had gathered at a lakeside restaurant to watch the announcement of the results of the second round of the presidential election on a huge television. When the name of the winner appeared on the screen,1 a profound silence fell over the room, which had previously been buzzing. Among the silent ones was DJ Xsiądz Maken, who two

1

This refers to the second round of the presidential elections on July 12, 2020, the date of which was postponed due to the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner was Andrzej Duda, who represented conservative values and was supported by the populist Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice) party.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 W. Kuligowski, M. Poprawski, Festivals and Values, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39752-3_4

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hours earlier, during his sound system, had argued that freedom was the most important thing and urged those who were still undecided to vote. We could cite numerous similar examples. However, in this chapter, we are keen to begin a systematic analysis of the axionormative dimensions of contemporary Polish music festivals. In the following pages, these dimensions will be analysed in a specific order. We will begin with the results of the surveys, with particular focus on questions and answers directly related to axionormativity. Next, we will present the statements of the organisers, collected during a series of interviews, and then turn to the content of festival websites, elements of the iconosphere, additional programmes (presentations, workshops, exhibitions, etc.), and finally describe the practices of festival participants, i.e. their statements and behaviour.

Surveys The first strikingly clear finding from the surveys is that participants associate festivals with values. An overwhelming majority—92%—agree that festivals promote certain specific values. As many as 80% of the respondents declare that festivals have made them more open to other people, while 71% indicate that festivals have made them more tolerant. More than 60% also perceive a growing openness to charitable activities in themselves, which they attribute to their attendance at festivals. Below is a summary of the suggested reasons for participating in the festivals we surveyed: – friendly atmosphere, people, vibe (Pannonica Festival), – atmosphere, friends, opportunity to meet (Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej/The Unbreakable and Independent Song Festival), – sacrum, contact with the liturgy, people, dancing (Festiwal Pieśń Naszych Korzeni/Song of Our Roots Festival), – meeting friends, freedom, tolerance (Rock na Bagnie/Rock on the Swamp), – people, atmosphere, relaxed (Ostróda Reggae Festival), – vibe, people, atmosphere (Festiwal Muzyki Etnicznej “Korzenie Europy”/Festival of Ethnic Music “Roots of Europe”), – music, repertoire, vibe, freedom (Jazz nad Odrą/Jazz on the Oder). A significant addition to these data is the opinion, very often voiced (during interviews), that the most important factor influencing the decision to attend a festival is the “atmosphere”/“vibe”. What is hidden under these general terms? To some extent, it is certainly a question of an attractive festival location and a convenient duration of the festival. However, these obligatory incantations from event marketing textbooks tend to give way to something much less tangible, as “atmosphere” is above all the feeling of being in a friendly environment, both social and natural. Festival-goers speak of “atmosphere” when describing the enjoyment of being among people who are similar to themselves, in terms of dress, appearance

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behaviour, and aesthetic and ethical preferences. Importantly, “vibe” is created across generations, as the anthropologist Wojciech J. Burszta, a long-time fan of the band Yes, aptly described it: “I am happy to recognise myself in these others when, before concerts, we change into new or (better) worn T-shirts from the group’s successive tours; when we wait for our favourite songs (. . .), the lyrics we have known for thirty years (. . .). We are united by a common tradition and competence, and moreover by what is most important—what Maffesoli calls ‘the affectual nebula’”2 (Burszta 2002: 17). “Atmosphere” and “vibe” are fundamental values that are associated with positive affects and a sense of belonging to a temporary festival community— unattainable outside this special space-time, but that can also be associated with “sociaux effervescents”, collective vertigo, paroxysm, renewal, communitas, liminality, anti-structure, spectacle, performativity, and carnivalisation. It can therefore be assumed that festival venues, their programmes, the stars invited, and other attractions such as interesting gastronomy, entertainment, education, etc., will continue to be important in the near future. However, we also believe that axionormativity is becoming one of the key elements in the design, duration, and success of music festivals. Festival attendees, as our research makes clear, seek strong identifications and affiliations with empathic communities (Rifkin 2009), based on shared values. Music festivals—thanks to the affectual nebula effect induced by the medium of music—can successfully integrate such communities.

Organisers It is significant that those involved in the Polish music festival sector are increasingly aware of their axionormative dimension. Of course, they do not use (as the majority are probably not familiar with) the term from Znaniecki’s lexicon, yet their observations fit into his field of meaning with surprising accuracy. Here are some characteristic opinions: “We really have a lot of festivals that try to familiarise people with important issues, such as those related to ecology, to healthy eating”, explains Maciej Pilarczyk of Chaos Management Group. “They themselves produce a lot of these ecological things—they introduce biodegradable cutlery and trays, they promote healthy food, and so on. And then there is the line-up, at such events the artists who are invited and perform there also identify with the idea that is promoted by the organisers or promoters of a particular festival”3; “Castle Party is trying to turn Bolków into a space where you can dress up in funny clothes, into a subcultural enclave. This is a clear message from the

2

See: Maffesoli, Michael. 1996. The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society, trans. Smith, Don, London; Sage Publications, p. 72. 3 Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 22.06.2020.

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organisers”, explains Michał Choiński, head of Iron Realm Productions. “It’s about having fun, not judging, that’s the message. Also Przystanek Woodstock has a purpose. The idea was to give thanks to the orchestra, but now it’s about creating a separate space”4; “Pol’and’Rock Festival is a festival that represents the values that Jurek Owsiak talks about. It gathers together several hundred thousand fans, so it is certainly the biggest music event that exists”, says Piotr Kolaj, quoted earlier. “There are also festivals that convey a message of respect, tolerance, love, mutual acceptance, a smile: Ostróda Reggae Festival is one of these, where de facto people communicate with each other by smiling, hugging and emanating love, acceptance”5; “Jewish cultural festivals in Poland are important, such as Simcha, which I work with, or the Festiwal Singera/Singer Festival”, adds Agata Szakiel, “They focus on minorities. As far as ecology is concerned, I can mention the Pannonica Festival, even though it is a festival of Balkan music and Pannonian music in general, the ecological aspect is very important there”6; “Kraków Unsound is a festival that is focused, we can say, on modernity in its broadest sense, on what the world is now and what it will be, where it is heading”, says Marek Waśko of the Alter Art promotional form. “We also have Pol’and’Rock, which is a festival of freedom, probably the most liberal festival, the most open to all, as intended by the creators. We have Open’er, which strongly emphasises its civic character and here, apart from the concerts themselves, Open’er’s civic project is also very important, as it serves to invite politicians, thinkers, writers and talk to them about democracy, politics, the future of Poland and the world. So it is also a festival that puts a lot of emphasis on the political, scientific and liberal side of things”.7 Two things emerge clearly from the above statements. Firstly, it is quite easy for festival organisers to point to those events whose status and significance is consciously built on references to specific “axionormative orders”. In this group, we have festivals with huge audiences of several hundred thousand people (Pol’and’Rock Festival, Open’er), as well as medium-sized or smaller ones (Ostróda Reggae Festival, Pannonica Festival). Secondly, those responsible for the creation of festivals and their programmes design them with explicit reference to a certain set of norms and values. Caring about the “mission” of a festival is, as we see here, becoming more and more common, and the shift from thinking in strictly marketing

4

Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 25.05.2020. Przystanek Woodstock (currently called Pol’and’Rock Festival) is one of Europe’s largest free music festivals. Organised since 1995 as the “Polish Woodstock”, it is the culmination of a yearlong national charity event coordinated by the non-governmental organisation Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy. In recent years, the festival has—mainly due to the pro-democratic statements of its organizer, Jurek Owsiak—come under attack from the government media, controlled by the right-wing parties’ politicians. 5 Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. 6 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 7 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 15.06.2020.

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terms towards social values is becoming increasingly pronounced. This transition sometimes takes the form of civic engagement: “Now is the time of social media and there are various social crises around us, and events often refer to them” explains Jędrzej Dondziło, co-organiser of Up To Date Festival. “For example, the situation when the LGBT+ topic was brought up in the presidential campaign and then all the parties, activists and promoters spoke up. For us, as a festival from Bialystok, such a biggest crisis was 2019 Marsz Równości (Equality Parade). It was a moment when almost the entire Polish electronic music scene reacted. Everyone felt obliged, and we were in the limelight because we are a festival from Białystok”.8

Websites Overt axionormative themes can also be found on the websites of the festivals we studied. Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej, Jazz nad Odrą and Pannonica Festival have “About the festival” tabs that are dedicated to explaining their “mission”. In the case of Rock na Bagnie it is the “History” page, on the Ostróda Reggae Festival website it is the “Info” section. An exception in this group is Pieść Naszych Korzeni—a festival with no official website or social profile, which thus forces one to search for its “mission” on related websites (e.g. liturgia.dominikanie.pl). There is a similar situation with the “Korzenie Europy” Ethnic Music Festival; its organiser is the Warsaw “Świt” House of Culture, but the “mission” of the festival had to be sought not on the institution’s website, but on municipal portals (warszawa. studentnews.pl; mik.waw.pl). Below are the key themes of each “mission”: – Pannonica Festival: “Pannonica is a place to meet and celebrate contact with the living culture of New Europe and nature. It is an authentic, multidisciplinary, non-commercial, pulsating melting pot of energy”9; – Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej: “The festival is an endeavour guided by two major objectives. Dissemination of knowledge about the Polish Underground State,10 the Home Army11 and the Cursed Soldiers12 through music 8

Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 30.06.2020. The author of this statement draws attention to the city of Białystok due to the city’s media reputation as a place of increased activity of nationalist extremists. 9 https://pannonica.pl/o-festiwalu/ (accessed: 11.07.2022). 10 The Polish Underground State (also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organisations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile in London during World War II. After the war, government propaganda portrayed the Home Army as an oppressive, reactionary, and anti-socialist force. 11 The Home Army was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. 12 The “cursed soldiers”—also known as “doomed soldiers”, “accursed soldiers”, or “damned soldiers”—is a term applied to a variety of anti-Soviet Polish resistance movements formed in the

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and the preservation from oblivion of songs (melodies and lyrics) sung by partisan units in the years 1939–1956 (. . .). This project is an excellent interactive tool to encourage young people to deepen their knowledge of Poland’s recent history. For the last living veterans—the witnesses of those days, it is a fulfilment and an excellent opportunity to pass on the testament of the Polish Underground State and the ethos of the Home Army to the younger generation”13; – Pieśń Naszych Korzeni: “Specially designed concert programmes are performed in the historic churches of the historic town of Jaroslaw in the south-eastern borderlands of Poland. Jaroslaw’s churches and monasteries bear witness to the city’s former splendour and historical importance, as well as to its multi-ethnicity, diversity of faiths and rites. The specific formula of the festival-holiday is based on a balance of the sacred and secular, spiritual and intellectual elements, the elements of practice and theory, concentration and fun, the professional and amateur element, academic and folk art (. . .). Each day of the festival is filled with a sequence of events: Gregorian matins, a seminar-meeting ‘Pieśń Naszych Korzeni’, workshops, rehearsals, communal meals, vespers, concerts and dancing feasts with folk musicians”14; – Rock na Bagnie: “Rock na Bagnie is a festival which, due to its atmosphere, is reminiscent of the good old festivals of the 1980s, such as Jarocin or Róbrege.15 The idea for the festival was born in 2009 and its initiators were the then mayor of the Zawady municipality—Paweł Pogorzelski,—and Piotr Znaniecki, an environmental ‘załogant’,16 who, while looking for someone brave enough to organise a large festival in Podlasie, came across Jacek Żędzian, who had been organising underground concerts in Mońki for years”17; – Ostróda Reggae Festival: “With its 20-year history, Ostróda Reggae Festival is a leading Polish event celebrating music and culture originating from Jamaica. The success of the festival is proof of the attractiveness and universality of the message conveyed by reggae. The festival has become a global brand, valued by fans and artists in many parts of the world, and attracts an international audience of young people and families with children (. . .). ORF invariably enjoys the reputation of a culture-creating event—not only does it provide an opportunity to see the main stars of the genre, but it also discovers artists still unknown in Poland, promotes new phenomena, and educates. For years, the festival has attracted a full cross-section of audiences focused on peaceful coexistence and later stages of World War II. In the current historical policy of the Polish government, they have become heroes, despite their participation in pogroms against civilians (Jewish, Belorussian, but also Polish); this is an extremely controversial issue, both among historians and in public debates. 13 https://piosenkaniezlomna.pl/o-festiwalu (accessed: 11.07.2022). 14 https://liturgia.dominikanie.pl/ludzie/festiwal-piesn-naszych-korzeni/ (accessed: 11.07.2022). 15 These are the names of two legendary and anti-system festivals that took place in Poland in the 1980s. Contrary to the name of the latter, punk music was an important aesthetic element of both festivals. 16 A colloquial term for a person involved in the creation of the local alternative music scene. 17 https://rocknabagnie.pl/historia/ (accessed: 11.07.2022).

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social awareness, from young people to families with young children, making it a true family festival of music”18; – Festiwal Muzyki Etnicznej “Korzenie Europy”: “The organisers will popularise scholarship and historical education and spread knowledge about the culture of the Mazovia region. There will be an opportunity to have fun regardless of age. The event (. . .) will serve to integrate the various circles of Central and Eastern Europe, by drawing on traditions and common roots, building new social ties and promoting traditional folk art and the use of its sources in contemporary culture. Warsaw, as the capital of Poland, will become a link between East and West. The festival will be a nod to folklore being part of our national legacy and the identity of modern Poles”19; – Jazz nad Odrą: “Organised since 1964, Jazz nad Odrą presents the most interesting artists from all over the world every spring—over the years the festival has hosted real stars of European and world jazz (. . .). An inseparable part of the festival and its hallmark is the Jazz Individual Competition—one of the oldest and most prestigious jazz competitions in Poland. Over the years, its winners have included some of the greatest musicians in Polish jazz, such as Włodzimierz Nahorny, Zbigniew Seifert, Ewa Bem, Krzesimir Dębski, Janusz Strobel, Henryk Miśkiewicz, Tomasz Szukalski czy Andrzej Zaucha”.20 These “missions”, using several different lexicons, indicate the desired and declared “axionormative orders”. For the Pannonica Festival it is “New European culture”, as well as nature, rejection of commercialism, live contact, authenticity, and energy. The key norms and values of Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej are tied up with saving partisan songs from oblivion, promoting knowledge of Polish history, and passing on the patriotic ethos to the next generation. Pieśń Naszych Korzeni refers to the sphere of the sacrum and to the genius loci of the interiors of old churches; it also emphasises the importance of folklore, community, and conviviality. Rock na Bagnie, on the other hand, defines itself as the heir to old rock festivals, also emphasising the importance of ecology and social action. Ostróda Reggae Festival positions itself most strongly as part of the global phenomenon that is reggae, and declares its family spirit, peaceful attitude, and cultural ambitions. On the other hand, the “Korzenie Europy” Ethnic Music Festival emphasises its educational role, focused on the traditions of Mazovia and Central and Eastern Europe, and its community role, consisting in building “new ties”. In comparison, Jazz nad Odrą appears to be the festival least saturated with axionormativity, or rather, its axionormativity is constructed according to a different logic. For the key value of the event is its self-definition, constructed through reference to its long history and its ability to create a star-studded line-up, evoked by a long list of artist names (only partially listed above). 18

https://www.ostrodareggae.com/info (accessed: 11.07.2022). https://warszawa.studentnews.pl/s/7/53020-Warszawa-imprezy-koncerty-informacje/4060685FESTIWAL-MUZYKI-ETNICZNEJ-KORZENIE-EUROPY-2015.htm (accessed: 11.07. 2022). 20 https://jazznadodra.pl/o-festiwalu/idea/ (accessed: 11.07.2022). 19

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Iconosphere In attempting to delineate the semantic field of the iconosphere of the festivals we studied, we will not limit ourselves to what is referred to in contemporary marketing as the “visual identification” (of an event, company, or institution). This is because the findings of the Polish art critic Mieczyslaw Porębski remain relevant—he identified places and phenomena as diverse as “the illustrated magazine, the poster, the shop window, the exhibition, the interior, the film, the television, the play, the formal organisation of the course of everyday phenomena of life” (Porębski 1986: 74), which make up “organised visualism”. The counterpart is “unorganised visualism”, which can be identified with “the tenement wall or fence, the street gallery, the stadium, or even the dance floor of a nightclub” (Porębski 1986: 75–76). The vehicles of axionormativity in this context are not only official posters, logos, and banners, but also ad hoc and ephemeral elements created and displayed by fans and participants. The very location of certain events can also be symbolically exploited: the edge of a national park, the Home Army Museum, the interior of a seventeenth-century abbey, a pier on a Masurian lake, or a meadow on the Poprad River. In the process of recording and analysing the iconosphere, it is therefore necessary to be sensitive to its multifunctionality (persuasion, instruction, aesthetics) and semiotic syncretism, consisting in the free combination of disparate codes and areas of meaning (Robotycki 1992: 77–78). Below are the distinctive features of the visualism we observe at festivals—both “organised” and “unorganised”: – Pannonica Festival: mountain meadows in the Poprad river valley, in the village of Barcice, within the Poprad Landscape Park; on the main stage, colourful images of trumpets and a radiant sun (Fig. 10.19 in Appendix), as well as references to folk design in the form of highlander pins; in the festival town; two colourful tepees and several sizable wooden sculptures in the form of men’s heads; a place for a large bonfire; hay bales forming a “playground” for children (Fig. 10.14 in Appendix) and a resting place for adults; large and colourful “dreamcatchers” stretched over the trade stands (Fig. 10.13 in Appendix); flags of Balkan countries in the camping area; – Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej: the Home Army Museum of General Emil Fieldorf “Nil”21 (a brick building of the former Kraków Stronghold); a bloody bird taking flight as a logo (all red on the diplomas of participation); above the stage the national emblem and flags, and a stylised symbol of Polska Walcząca (Fighting Poland)22 (which was the logo of the Home Army August Emil Fieldorf, alias “Nil”, was a Polish general and legendary commander of the diversionary units of the Home Army. In 1953, he was sentenced to death in a political trial for allegedly fighting “Soviet partisans” during World War II. Many streets and squares in Poland are now named after him. 22 An anchor-shaped symbol, where the P-shaped element symbolises Poland, and the W-shaped arms—“walka”—a fight or struggle. Widely used during World War II. 21

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Foundation in London); the name and logo of the Institute of National Remembrance23; a souvenir for the participants was a “Bulletin” published by this Institute with cover material under the title “Młodzież wyklęta” (Cursed Youth) placed in a white and red bag with the slogan “Moja Niepodległa” (My Independent); Pieśń Naszych Korzeni: historic interiors in the Subcarpathian town of Jarosław: churches, Renaissance townhouses and their courtyards; on the poster a fragment of a mediaeval miniature with musicians, a stylised stave, a dove of peace and bees—a symbol of the organisers’ mission; in the festival programme black images of doctors in “bird” masks from ancient times and a skull with crossed tibias; on the only stall CDs (classical music, Gregorian chants, folk music) and books (hagiographies, prayers, fairy tales for children); Rock na Bagnie: beach and meadow on the Biebrza River, in the Podlasie town of Goniądz, within the Biebrzański National Park; on the poster a stylised elk head; in front of the stage a banner with the likenesses of Robert Brylewski and Paweł Rozwadowski, musicians from “classic” punk bands such as Armia, Israel, and Deuter, together with the quote “I am a soul on the move and a dreamer”; next to it, a banner with an image of Skandal, lead singer of the legendary anti-system band Dezerter, and the quotation “You let yourselves be divided like mixed-breed cattle”; next to it, a tent with the logo of Radio Bunt and a “Podlaskie” regional government banner with the colourful outline of a bison—the symbolic animal of the region; in the area with stalls, a banner of the anti-discrimination campaign “Music Against Racism”24; Ostróda Reggae Festival: a modern, covered amphitheatre, park, and wooden pier on Lake Drwęckie in Ostróda; on the poster, a hand holding a microphone, the upper part of which is stylised as the popular image of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, placed in a crossed-out box; on the stage, a banner with a green-yellow-red Rasta flag; on the pier, the banners “Music Against Racism”, “Jah Love Soundsystem”, “Open Cages. Animal Rights Now”, Amnesty International, “Warsaw Reggae”, and “Rebel Against Extinction. Extinction Rebellion” (Fig. 10.7 in Appendix); at the stands, commemorative magnets with Bob Marley’s likeness and the slogan “Peace, love, reggae, Ostróda”; Festiwal Muzyki Etnicznej “Korzenie Europy”: the downtown park in front of the “Świt” Culture House in the Targówek district, located in the eastern part of Warsaw; on a placard, figures of musicians in different colours playing guitar, banjo, violin, conga-type drum, and cello—in the background, bifurcating roots; in front of the stage, wooden boxes with live plants; wooden sculpture of bears (made from an oak tree previously that had been growing in front of the Cultural Centre); bales of straw as decoration and part of the playground;

A government institution dealing with Poland’s recent history; now strongly ideologised, it is actively involved in, among other things, promoting the heroism of the Cursed Soldiers. 24 It is the name of a social campaign run since the 1990s by the anti-racist “Never Again” Association, inspired by Rock Against Racism-style campaigns.

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– Jazz nad Odrą: the Polish Theatre in Wrocław and the nineteenth-century Impart cultural centre building with its green park; a saxophone on the placard; a minimalist festival logo on the stage; in the festival town, a quadrangular stand with the event programme and deckchairs with various advertising prints; at one of the stands, a golden disco ball and colourful plastic flamingos; in front of Impart, the long-standing home of the festival, was a bronze miniature statue of a pianist in a dwarf’s hat (a clear reference to Leszek Możdżer, a pianist and composer who conducts workshops at the festival).

Additional Programmes Because much of the research was conducted during the period of COVID-19 restrictions, the festivals’ additional programmes were either completely cancelled or significantly curtailed. The descriptions presented below therefore capture to an exceptional situation, albeit a real one: – Pannonica Festival: in addition to performances on stage, the organisers invited festival-goers to workshops on yoga, dance, playing traditional instruments, jewellery making, lectures given by travellers, and on the idea of “zero waste” (Figs. 10.16 and 10.18 in Appendix); – Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej: the final auditions and the laureates’ concert at the Kijów cinema in Kraków were not accompanied by other events; earlier preliminaries for the final took place in a dozen cities: Gdańsk, Olsztyn, Białystok, Poznań, Trzcińsko-Zdrój, Warsaw, Łódź, Kielce, Krakow, Rzeszów, Kosice, Grodno, Vilnius25; – Pieśń Naszych Korzeni: no official additional programme: special liturgical events (Matins, Vespers) on the programme available to the public; – Rock na Bagnie: in the Goniądz Cultural Centre, an exhibition of artworks by Grzegorz Wróblewski “Deuter-Kelner”, about one of the leaders of the alternative punk scene; on the Goniądz market square, a fair of local products, mainly food— pierogi, kartacze (potato dumplings), home-made cakes, liqueurs; next door, on the “small stage”, a free concert by the bands Inhalators and Cela nr 3; – Ostróda Reggae Festival: free DJ and sound system performances on the pier (with a 150 people limit): Roots Trippin Sound System, Urban Shamans Sound System, Bass Invaders, Infinity SoundSystem, Jah Love Soundsystem & 27Pablo, MALIK/SingleDread, MAKEN/Joint Venture Sound System. The stalls offer clothing, jewellery, and cosmetics from India and Nepal;

25 The last two cities belong to Belarus and Ukraine today, and are inhabited by the Polish minority. As part of Polish national cultural studies, they belong to Kresy, the eastern lands of the former Polish Republic, and by many right-wing politicians they are perceived as native Polish, just like Transylvania for Hungarians or the Highland Tatra Mountains for Slovakia (Kürti 2001: 15).

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– Festiwal Muzyki Etnicznej “Korzenie Europy”: animation for children with the Słuchaj Uchem Theatre; musical performance “Słuchaj Uchem”; open-air area for playing with bottle tops caps26 and “resoraki”27—under the motto “It’s going to be folky!”; – Jazz nad Odrą: night jam sessions at Impart; exhibition of the international poster competition “We Want Jazz” on the theme “Bronisław Kaper, Henryk Wars, Victor Young. Contribution of Polish composers to the history of world jazz”, Wroclavia Shopping Centre; exhibition of jazz photography at Impart—the finale of the Marek Karewicz competition.

Fan Practices Some festivals and festival-goers have developed specific rituals—such as attending nightly dances or pogo, walks or visiting specific venues—that contribute to their aura, becoming both an attractive marker of identification with the event and a catalyst for sentimentalisation processes (Kuligowski 2015). This category includes the behaviour, costumes, and attributes (and sometimes characteristic expressions) of festival participants: – Pannonica Festival: the dominant style is ethnic, expressed by tattoos (“tribal”), hairstyles (dreadlocks), colourful woven bags, trousers and shirts, belt bags (“kidneys”), jewellery made of natural stones, wood, felt, or beads, as well as t-shirts with prints referring to elements of Balkan culture; another variant is tourist style: trekking boots, softshell jackets, bandanas, water bottles, backpacks; garlands on women’s heads (natural and artificial, which can be bought at stalls) and single flowers placed in the hair are popular (Fig. 10.5 in Appendix); a large number of dogs; many people dance during performances; – Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej: white and red armbands are popular (on the head, arm, wrists), as are cotillions and ribbons in girls’ hair; uniforms— real (e.g. fourth Warmia and Mazury Territorial Defence Brigade) and stylised ones; “insurgent” and military berets; festive clothes (shirts, skirts, white blouses, jackets, ties, bow ties); military, “moro” style clothing (Fig. 10.10 in Appendix); members of bands from Belarus in folk outfits; a 9-year-old in the uniform of Józef Piłsudski, the charismatic marshal and leader of the Polish state in the years after the First World War (home-made outfit) with a glued-on moustache (“a bit

A game of finger snapping metal bottle caps; usually in the form of a bottle cap race on a track made of sand. On the upper part of the cap, covered with rubber, it was possible to write the name of the player, the name of the club, or draw the flag of the country. A very popular game in the era of socialism. 27 A common name for miniature car models, equipped with “springs”, thanks to which metal cars could perform acrobatics. Another memory from the socialist era. 26

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of a hindrance to singing”); many young performers put on fashionable outfits of well-known brands after their performance; Pieśń Naszych Korzeni: touristic and “folk” style prevails (linen skirts, sandals, colourful scarves); no subcultural features, tattoos, or logos of global companies; an atmosphere of familiarity and initiation prevails; “Promotion is weak. And that’s how it’s supposed to be! Because everyone knows each other here”, declares a long-time participant; “Who cares today?”, asks a vendor at a stall rhetorically, when asked about traditional music; a well-liked “ritual” is the latenight dances (in a Benedictine abbey or a Renaissance townhouse of the Orsetti family), information about them is passed from mouth to mouth, live music is performed by changing people (fiddle, accordion, frame drum), dancing in pairs, traditional style, beer and cider are drunk; Rock na Bagnie: fan or subculture T-shirts dominate; some people wear combat boots, leather jackets, Mohawk hairstyles, safety pins, tattoos; swimming in the Biebrza River and spending time on its banks are popular; many people spend a lot of time at the local market, tasting local food and drinks; flags (e.g. black “pirate” flags) occasionally appear; after the last concert, volunteers hurriedly start dismantling the metal gates, a “ritual” end to their work; Ostróda Reggae Festival: popular costumes with elements of the three colours (Fig. 10.12 in Appendix) of Rasta (sweatshirts, T-shirts, scarves, armbands, bandanas); dreadlocks on men and women; wide trousers, hip bags, light footwear; at the concert, Rasta flags with the lion of Judah, Jamaica and a rainbow, as well as a fan banner with a portrait of Bob Marley; during the sound systems, many participants dance; individuals stand in close proximity to the speakers and experience a “phase” (trance dance); a young man runs between the dancers, “dousing” them with marijuana smoke; Festiwal Muzyki Etnicznej “Korzenie Europy”: casual, sporty attire dominates (rucksacks, bags with long straps, canvas bags, T-shirts); lots of bicycles, both for children and adults; some participants are families, often in grandparentsgrandchildren combinations; picnic blankets, deckchairs, folding chairs; the flag and balloons of the Świt Cultural Centre; a joint processional dance by artists and participants; Jazz nad Odrą: during the competition auditions, the auditorium was mainly filled with other musicians and friends of the performers; during the concerts, the audience was community-based and “urban”, many dressed in black, mostly middle-aged and above; at the jam sessions, many young people (Fig. 10.17 in Appendix); at the only sales stand in the theatre, vinyl records with jazz music and festival T-shirts received little attention.

Art-Based Research This section describes and analyses the drawings obtained at the festivals (exemplified by 10 figures in Appendix). Constraints caused by the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic did not allow us to conduct an art-based research experiment at the

Art-Based Research

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“Korzenie Europy” Ethnic Music Festival. The number of drawings obtained from each festival varied, as this depended on the number of audience members and people willing to take part in our experiment. It should also be noted that at each of the festivals these activities met with different responses: the participants of the Ostróda Reggae Festival were the least cooperative, while we received the most favourable response at Rock na Bagnie. The respondents’ attitudes to the very idea of drawing also varied according to age. Children were most often very willing and open, while adults tended to create in groups. For them, the drawing time was a time of collective activity and conversation: during the drawing process they discussed their festival experiences and recalled various funny situations recalled from previous editions. At each festival there was a person or a group of people who created very elaborate drawings, full of detail, and the creative process itself lasted up to several hours, a kind of meditation. – Pannonica Festival: elements referring to music and dance predominate—dancing people, musical notes, musical instruments, the stage and people playing musical instruments. The second statistically dominant motif was “nature”: the sun, the moon, trees, river, small plants, and flowers. One work featured both exotic palm trees and local birch trees: according to the authors (the work was created in a group), this symbolises diversity and multiculturalism. The multicultural theme is more clearly present in the form of food and drinks from different countries: “Georgian wine” and Hungarian “langosz”. Ethnic elements in the clothing of the dancers are also evident: large sombrero-type hats, and “Slavic” garlands. The name “Pannonica” appears in 6 drawings, the festival symbol in 3, the official slogan “fire not music” also in 3. Festival-goers also made works criticising the organisation of the festival, which was not repeated elsewhere. One work criticises the excessively high deposit for a re-usable beer cup; another condemns the organisers’ introduction of a segregated zone accessible to a limited number of people (the first to purchase a pass, who had access to the area just in front of the stage)—the “exclusive” zone is black and white, while beyond it there are colours and happy people dancing. This work is accompanied by a travesty of the festival’s official slogan: “Division not music”; – Festiwal Piosenki Niezłomnej i Niepodległej: the most common motif is the Polish national colours. The white and red flag appears in 28 drawings, and as many as 32 times in total. Also frequent are symbols referring to patriotic values: the anchor (i.e. the “Fighting Poland” symbol, widely—although illegally—used during World War II by the Polish resistance movement), the map of Poland and the crowned eagle (Poland’s emblem). The drawings also often featured words and slogans: most often “Poland”, in addition to “my”, “Fatherland”, “Kraków” (the former capital and festival venue), “Niepodległa”, “independence”, “pride”, “history”, “freedom”, “home”, “mother”, “father”, and individually also terms such as “national”, “unbroken”, “unbowed”, “memory”, “hope”, “love”, “faith”, and “justice”. Also present is the theme of the national anthem: its title, the “Dąbrowski Mazurka”, the word “anthem” itself, as well as its most famous fragment “Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła, kiedy my żyjemy”. The theme of struggle,

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sacrifice, and death appears several times, expressed through drawn chains and shackles, as well as episodes from the Second World War and the date 11.11.1918 (the date Poland regained its independence), together with an anime-style bloodied body. Isolated historical figures appear: Roman Dmowski (politician and ideologue of the Polish national movement of the first half of the twentieth century), Major Łupaszko (iconic leader of the armed anti-communist underground), and Marshal Józef Piłsudski (including once on horseback and with a flag). References to music are rare in this context: the name of the festival appears 3 times, and once the stage, a microphone, sheet music, musical instruments, and a singer; – Pieśń Naszych Korzeni: while a strictly musical motif appears only once—in the form of a stave—references to spirituality are prevalent. In the case of this festival, there are numerous textual messages. One drawing, made with gold pencil on a black background, literally consists of written words that spiral around a point in the centre of the drawing. The slogans are, in sequence: “identity, tradition, faith, community, God, vulnerability, openness, friendship, encounter, emotion, enrichment, awakening the senses, tapping into the human source, liturgy, self-searching, entering spirituality, development, self-expression, creativity, inspiration, passion, discovery, dance, singing, love, hope, fullness of life, still longing”. As can be seen, there are many terms that refer to issues of identity, spirituality, emotion, or creativity, while only the “dance” and “singing” mentioned at the very end refer to the musical element. Other works feature catchphrases such as “the tranquillity of the Podkarpacie region, relaxation, friendship”, “freedom revealing itself in dance”, “seeing new perspectives, horizons”. There are also longer statements: “For me, the Pieśń Naszych Korzeni Festival is music that has revealed to me the beauty, depth and mystery of the liturgy . . . I think that people who are sensitive to music can find their way to God in it”. A work that comes close to abstraction shows a red dot on a white background and the words “the rest is silence”. Another drawing shows the interior of a room with a fireplace, an armchair, and a rug on the floor. A music stand and a cello can also be seen, with the caption “HOME” at the bottom, as an implicit metonymy for the festival; – Rock na Bagnie: in this case, two main themes can be identified: a person with the Mohawk and the name of the festival (Fig. 4.7 in Appendix). The iconic image of the punk music fan usually functioned as a portrait of friends, bearing nicknames such as “Korek”, “Pluto”, “Siekiera (Axe)”, or “Biała gorączka (White fever)”. Sometimes people from one group would sit on the grass and draw people from another group. It is noteworthy that this situation of mutual portrayal was not repeated at other festivals. Thus, while the artworks produced in art-based research are a medium of communication between the researcher and the researched (Bochner and Rigs 2014), at this festival the drawings also became a medium of communication between the researched. Sometimes, instead of drawing people, workshop participants created patterns of connections: in one drawing, the word “music” is in the centre, from which arrows emerge, pointing to the names of friends (at the bottom, additionally, there is the inscription “I missed

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it!”). Musical motifs—in the form of a stage, sheet music, musical instruments, sound equipment, or dancing people—appear less frequently. The name of the festival is repeated in many of the drawings, the slogan “punk’s not dead” is visible a few times; other slogans, such as “the swamp sucks you in” (this is almost the official festival slogan, present on the website and on locally sold souvenirs) and “music nature people free time” appear once. The rarest, despite the proximity to a national park, is the theme of nature. One drawing depicts boats on the Biebrza River, marshes and people bathing in the river, while another shows a church block glimpsed through the treetops. More often, certain elements of nature, usually in the form of trees, appear as a background to the scene; – Ostróda Reggae Festival: the dominant musical theme is accompanied by natural elements. In one of the drawings there is only the word “music”, in others there is a landscape, a lake, a stage, a dancing audience, loudspeakers. The Rastafarian flag recurs several times, and the three colours (green, yellow, red) associated with the Rasta movement are often used. The list of slogans—often in English, although the audience during the pandemic was only from Poland—present in the works includes: “Ostróda”, “reggae”, “one love”, “one home”, “one life”, “zapraszamy do Ostródy (welcome to Ostróda)”, “muzyka łączy ludzi (music brings people together)”, “pozdrowienia dla pozytywnych świrów (greetings to positive nutters)”, “good vibes”, “music is love” (Fig. 4.3 in Appendix), “#szacunek (respect)”, “#miłość (love)”, “#przyjaźń (friendship)”, “zapraszamy co roku (we invite you every year)”, “tu się toczy życie (life goes on here)”, “tu muzyka płynie nad jeziorem (here music flows on the lake)”, “niepowtarzalny klimat (unique atmosphere)”. The official sticker with the logo of this edition of the festival also appeared twice; – Jazz nad Odrą: references to music are present in all the works: musical notes, the name of the festival, musical instruments (Figs. 4.2, 4.8, and 4.10 in Appendix). Jazz nad Odrą is the only festival where attempts were made to draw music itself: not only as an experience of listening (2 drawings) or playing (2 drawings), but also as a kind of element, a force that flows and exists independently of people. One work of this type was created in a very distinctive way: the young man drawing moved as if playing, commenting “This is jazz, improvisation, I drew jazz”. It is significant that the completed drawing itself hardly reveals its improvisational nature, for what was important in this event was the process, not the result (Fig. 4.11 in Appendix). This brings to mind the approach of John Berger (Berger and Savage 2007), who treated drawing as a process of looking, in which the gesture is more important than the end result.

Conclusions In the conclusion of this chapter, we would like to show one of the effects of combining the standard methods of field ethnography with elements of art-based research. The case study is the Pannonica festival—an event where, unlike at other

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festivals, the concept of “atmosphere” was applied not to the social environment, but to the natural one. This is significant because the organisers of this event emphasise the importance of “contact with nature” in their “mission statement”, and are also signatories of the “Code of Responsible Festivals”, one of the pillars of which is “care for the environment”. Since 2013, the Pannonica festival has been held in Barcice, a mountain village located in the Poprad Landscape Park, in the valley of the Poprad River, in southeastern Poland. We can note that on the website the organisers write about the place “in the bush, in the middle of nowhere”, and further on “During the festival, the ideas of Slow Food and Slow Life and respect for nature are also promoted”.28 In the tab under the title “getting there”, the organisers further declare that “as an environmentally friendly festival, we have a problem with the use of cars by individuals. This is why we will be promoting public transport first and then private cars with a full complement of passengers. On the other hand, we discourage the ‘one car–one festival-goer’ model”.29 During the interviews, the organisers emphasised the deliberate choice of the festival venue. The proximity of the Poprad River, the stage set in a meadow, the panorama of the Jaworzyna peak, and the neighbourhood of the Poprad Landscape Park are supposed to evoke one of the model values of the axionormative order of Pannonica. Another expression of affirmation and care for nature are the solutions applied in the festival town. Part of the campsite is a “quiet zone”, a large pile of hay functions as a children’s playground. As we heard, the infrastructure is reduced to the bare minimum and is limited: garlands with lights over the “shopping avenue” are additionally covered by huge “dream catchers”. As we mentioned earlier, the organisers of Pannonica festival were among the signatories of a document called the Responsible Festival Code, adopted in February 2020. One of the initiators of the action explains: “Among us (the initiators of the code), the organisers of events on the borderline of folk, traditional culture and ecology are predominant, mainly living in the east of Poland: these are events which often take place in small towns, changing their daily rhythm of life, and so clearly influencing their surroundings. The organisers of such events are particularly sensitive to care for the environment and relations with local residents and their needs”.30 The Code reads: “We are festival and event organisers committed to building and promoting responsible relationships with the environment, the festival community and neighbours. Our aim is to encourage respect for nature and each other”. The message of the entire document can be summarised in four points: (1) the first is the relationship with local residents. It emphasises the awareness of the impact of events/ festivals on the local community and the need to support it, as well as the promotion of local culture and traditions; (2) the second is about caring for the environment.

28

https://pannonica.pl/o-festiwalu/ (accessed: 11.07.2022). https://pannonica.pl/o-festiwalu/dojazd-zakwaterowanie/ (accessed: 11.07.2022). 30 https://publicystyka.ngo.pl/festiwale-beda-bardziej-odpowiedzialne-wobec-przyrody-i-otoczenia (accessed: 10.07.2022). 29

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Attention is given here to waste segregation, reduction of water consumption, shared journeys, and environmental education; (3) the third relates to relations with participants. The importance of clear communication of festival rules and involving participants in the responsible co-creation of events is emphasised; (4) the last point indicates the value of cooperation between festivals. This involves the exchange of resources, solutions, and experiences. The “mission” of the organisers and the principles of the Code are reflected in the festival-goers’ behaviour. Floral garlands or single flowers placed above the ear are a very common element of women’s costumes. Attention is drawn, as we wrote earlier, to the ethnic style: tattoos (“tribal”), hairstyles (dreadlocks), colourful fabric bags, trousers and shirts, belt bags (“kidneys”), jewellery made from natural stones, wood, felt, or beads. The picture is completed by the large number of dogs, to which the festival community has a positive attitude. When asked about the “message of the festival”, participants tended to answer: “ecology”, “nature”, “connecting with nature”, but also “the Carpathians”, “Dunajec River”, “herb shampoos”. Visitors to the event recall trips to the nearby mountains organised years ago, as well as collective bathing in the waters of the Poprad River. Confirmation of the importance of nature31 could therefore perhaps sum up the reconstruction of Pannonica’s axionormative order, expressed both in the mission and statements of the organiser, as well as in the visual sphere and the practices of the fans. However, our research does not allow for such hasty generalisations. It is surprising, for example, that the widespread statements that the festival successfully promotes the region are at the same time accompanied by an almost equally widespread lack of familiarity with it. Our interviewees were usually unable to identify the surrounding places or correctly name the mountains they are looking at. The exception here is the Poprad River, which should therefore be regarded as an effectively promoted brand. As Natalia from Warsaw explains: “this festival is at the end of the world (. . .) You feel like you are on a trip (. . .). There is nothing here but the festival. You are in the here and now”.32 She continues: “here we have a closeness to nature, but it’s very primordial, not so systemic and hipster-like. Because, you know—bio-packaging, segregating rubbish—it’s so hipstersystemic”. An interesting feature of the above statement is the dismissive distancing from the “hipster” axionormative order—although, according to Michael Scott (2017: 63) “‘hipster’ and ‘hipsterism’ are notoriously difficult to define”. This is, perhaps, due to its association with a metropolitan, commodified world (Dolores and Carrión 2021: 234), which is also, implicitly, “artificial’ and external to nature. Something else, however, is even more significant: here, at a festival programmatically focused on nature, rubbish is not segregated—as our observations indicate. In some of the

Here we understand nature differently from that employed in the framework of “environmental anthropology”, thus primarily as the organic world surrounding humans, together with the landscape. 32 In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.09.2021. 31

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stalls, drinks and food are sold in plastic, disposable packaging. “Floral” garlands can be bought at market stalls. The noise generated day and night by the PA equipment is unlikely to facilitate contemplation of the country park. It certainly has a negative impact on the livestock on nearby farms. As a result, horses, fallow deer, and llamas in the festival grounds experience permanent stress. This is caused by the noise from the stage, the onlookers wanting to see and touch the animals, as well as the noise from the camping area. A very significant insight into the Pannonica participants’ perception of nature is revealed by works created using art-based research methods ( Figs. 4.1 and 4.9 in Appendix). Most of them contain explicit references to nature: trees, the sun, clouds, flowers, a flowing river; sometimes there are mountains, the image of a mushroom, a bird, fish, or an insect. This creates a fairly broad yet conventional spectrum. We consider this conventionality not in relation to the formal layer of the drawings, but to their axionormative order. The logic of this order subordinates nature and its constituent parts to the requirements of the festival—a noisy and social event. The tree thus becomes a natural umbrella for the beer table, the meadow functions as a grassy dance floor, the hillsides take the form of armchairs for the revellers, and a disco ball hovers over the entire valley. The slogan on one of the drawings (Fig. 4.9 in Appendix), “najsplejs” (i.e. nice place) is telling in this situation—for nature is essentially reduced to being an attractive decoration, a colourful space filler, a purely utilitarian “najsplejs”. According to Elliot Eisner, “the arts in research promote a form of understanding that is derived or evoked through empathic experience” (Eisner 2008: 7), meaning that the drawings analysed offer us deep insights into what the Pannonica audience experiences. And when we further assume, following Clifford Geertz, that these graphic narratives are not so much a e (Geertz 1993: 120), they can be treated as specific statements: attesting to and derived from experience. We find a helpful interpretive clue in Roland Barthes, and incidentally, he shares with Geertz, quoted above, the conviction that in examining myth, just as in examining various art forms, we are in fact concerned with “mode of signification” and “social usage” (Barthes 1972: 239–240). As is well known, Barthes’ interpretative work falls into three main stages (127): (1) “focus on an empty signifier”—this presents us with a literal meaning, prompted by the myth-maker: Pannonica is, in this context, a pro-environmental festival, and the attitude of protection and affirmation of nature is shared by all its participants; (2) “focus on full signifier”—enables us to see the distortions that undermine the meaning of the myth, allowing us to question the official message, to consider it as a smokescreen or, simply, as a fraud; and (3) “focus on the mythical signifier”—results in ambiguity, and the combination of semiology and ideology reveals to us “the very presence” of the contemporary experience of nature (in festival settings). This experience, it would be fair to conclude, transforms abstract values into multi-sensory event-attractions. Nature as an attraction becomes both its “mode of signification” and its “social usage”. A second interpretative path may lead through the expanding semantic field of the term festivalisation, which we addressed in Chap. 3. Let us recall that Hartmut Häussermann and Walter Siebel’s (1993) term has often been creatively applied to

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the processes of transforming cities and other places into spaces dedicated to cultural consumption. The result is an “eventful city” (Richards and Palmer 2010: 29–30), but also a “centre of attractions” or “the culmination of spectacle” (Bayrakdar and Akçali 2010: 175). Employing the above idiomatics, it can be said that the Pannonica festival (“taking place in the bushes”) organised on the Poprad River is an example of the festivalisation of nature. This process consists in subordinating nature to the requirements of a large outdoor event, in exploiting its content and form as an eventattractor, and in transforming an assemblage of meadows, forest, and river into a space reduced to consumption and entertainment functions. As a consequence, nature becomes a “najsplejs”—as the festival audience assesses it, and “the centre of attractions” and “the culmination of spectacle”—as researchers might add. Without the simultaneous application of the methods of field ethnography and art-based research, we would not have been able to formulate such a conclusion. Thanks to the combined use of these methods, we were also able to identify the difference between the idealistic and the actual level of a concrete axionormative order. Finally, let us return to Znaniecki once more. His culturological programme assumes that everything available in culture is already “someone’s own”, which means that it has undergone a process of assimilation and meaning-making. In this context, “active experience” is crucial (Znaniecki 1934: 37), since it is based on both praxis and consciousness, which together create or reproduce certain values. The manifestations of praxis and consciousness outlined above—“missions”, declarations, incentives, persuasions, behaviour, decorations, costumes, attributes—are acts of “active experience”. An organiser talking about ecology and responsibility, launching a project dedicated to disseminating the “ethos of the Home Army”, organising a Matins or a several-day fair of local products, female fans buying floral garlands and parents dressing up their child in a marshal’s uniform, people waving flags on telescopic poles and hastily putting on a t-shirt with the logo and name of the festival—they are all agents of “active experience”, which has its fundamental source in the world of values. The data presented above, sometimes in great detail, convinces us that the values commonly referred to as “atmosphere” and “climate” are developed—though using different techniques and tools—by both festival organisers and participants. This work is probably at the heart of contemporary festival axionormativity in Poland (Figs. 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 in Appendix).

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Appendix: Festivals and Values: Drawings Art-based research material

Fig. 4.1 Festival-goer drawing entitled “Either music or nothing”, Pannonica Festival, art-based research, curated by Lia Dostlieva, Barcice, 2–5.9.2021, ©Festivalization of Values Research Project Archive

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Fig. 4.2 Festival-goer drawing “Untitled”, Jazz nad Odrą Festival, art-based research, curated by Lia Dostlieva, Wrocław, 17–20.9.2021, ©Festivalization of Values Research Project Archive

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Fig. 4.3 Festival-goer drawing, authored “Maken”, entitled “Music is Love”, Ostróda Reggae Festival, art-based research, curated by Lia Dostlieva, Ostróda, 9–13.7.2020, ©Festivalization of Values Research Project Archive

Fig. 4.4 Festival-goer drawing, “Untitled”, Rock on the Swamp Festival, art-based research, curated by Lia Dostlieva, Goniądz, 1–4.7.2021, ©Festivalization of Values Research Project Archive

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Fig. 4.5 Festival-goer drawing, “Untitled”, Festival Song of our Roots, art-based research, curated by Lia Dostlieva, Jarosław, 24–31.08.2020, ©Festivalization of Values Research Project Archive Fig. 4.6 Festival-goer drawing, entitled in Ukrainian “I love Poland— and you?”, The Unbreakable and Independent Song Festival, art-based research, curated by Lia Dostlieva, Kraków, 14–18.11.2019, ©Festivalization of Values Research Project Archive

66 Fig. 4.7 Festival-goer drawing, entitled “Pluto”, Rock on the Swamp Festival, art-based research curated by Lia Dostlieva, Goniądz, 1–4.7.2021, ©Festivalization of Values Research Project Archive

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Fig. 4.8 Festival-goer drawing “Untitled”, Jazz nad Odrą Festival, art-based research, curated by Lia Dostlieva, Wrocław, 17–20.9.2021, ©Festivalization of Values Research Project Archive

Fig. 4.9 Festival-goer drawing authored “Karolcia”, entitled “Najsplejs”, Pannonica Festival, art-based research, curated by Lia Dostlieva, Barcice, 2–5.9.2021, ©Festivalization of Values Research Project Archive

68 Fig. 4.10 Festival-goer drawing authored “Adi and Adi” entitled “Jazz nad Odrą”, Jazz nad Odra Festival, art-based research, curated by Lia Dostlieva, Wrocław, 17–20.9.2021, ©Festivalization of Values Research Project Archive

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References

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Fig. 4.11 Festival-goer drawing, entitled in conversation as “Jazz (improvisation)”, Jazz nad Odrą Festival, art-based research, curated by Lia Dostlieva, Wrocław, 17–20.9.2021, ©Festivalization of Values Research Project Archive

References Barthes, Roland. 1972. Mythologies, trans. Lavers, Annette. New York: The Noonday Press. Bayrakdar, Deniz, and Elif Akçali. 2010. A Magic Carpet Ride Through Genres. In Istanbul: Orienting Istanbul – Cultural Capital of Europe? ed. Göktürk Deniz, Soysal Levent, and Tureli Ipek, 165–177. New York: Routledge. Berger, John, and Jim Savage. 2007. Berger on Drawing. Aghabillogne: Occasional Press. Bochner, Arthur P., and Nicholas A. Rigs. 2014. Practicing Narrative Inquiry. In The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research, ed. Patricia Leavy, 195–222. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burszta, Wojciech J. 2002. Kultura popularna jako wspólnota uczuciowa. Kultura Popularna 0: 11–18. Dolores, Maria, and Narbona Carrión. 2021. The Hipster Subculture and Its Representation in Lena Dunham’s TV Series “Girls”. Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos 25: 227–258. Eisner, Elliot. 2008. Art and Knowledge In: Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues, ed. J. Gary Knowles and Ardra L. Cole. 3–12. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications. Geertz, Clifford. 1993. Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. Basic Books. Häussermann, Hartmut, and Walter Siebel. 1993. Die Politik der Festivalisierung und die Festivalisierung der Politik. Leviathan 13: 7–31. Kuligowski, Waldemar. 2015. Sentymentalizacja, topofilia i pokoleniowość. Jarocin re-study. Czas Kultury 4: 32–42. Kürti, László. 2001. The Remote Borderland: Transylvania in the Hungarian Imagination. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Maffesoli, Michael. 1996. The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society, trans. Smith, Don. London: Sage. Porębski, Mieczysław. 1986. Sztuka a informacja. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. Richards, Greg and Robert Palmer. 2010. Eventful Cities. Cultural management and urban revitalization. Oxford: Elsevier. Rifkin, Jeremy. 2009. The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. London: Jeremy P. Tarcher. Robotycki, Czesław. 1992. Etnografia wobec kultury współczesnej. Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński. Scott, Michael. 2017. ‘Hipster Capitalism’ in the Age of Austerity? Polanyi Meets Bourdieu’s New Petite Bourgeoisie. Cultural Sociology 11/I: 60–76. Znaniecki, Florian. 1934. The Method of Sociology. New York: Farrar and Rinehart.

Chapter 5

From Imitation to Creation: About a Certain Case of a Community-based Festival

“30 years ago I certainly wouldn’t have filled out any questionnaire, because such things just didn’t interest me at all then”, declared one long-time attendee of the Jarocin Rock Music Festival.1 Another veteran of the same festival remarked: “The atmosphere here is very good. Even the fact that you walk around with this questionnaire is also part of the atmosphere, because we have the opportunity to exchange opinions thanks to this. And that’s part of the atmosphere too”. Before we could hear the above declarations—so nice for researchers to hear— first some important news had to appear in our mailbox. It was November 2014, and Robert Kaźmierczak, a local government official from the aforementioned Jarocin, was involved in the preparation of the local museum Spichlerz Polskiego Rocka (The Granary of Polish Rock), the opening of which was just being prepared. In the course of a search for sources, a peculiar document had been found, namely the blank pages of sociological questionnaires. They had an interesting history, as they had been used as a research tool for studying the audience of the Jarocin Festival in 1983 and 1984. Kaźmierczak asked in an email what to do: whether to treat these old questionnaires as a kind of relic or to make some other use of them. We chose the latter option. Between 1983 and 1984, a group of sociologists led by Jerzy WertensteinŻuławski conducted survey-based research, collecting over 500 questionnaires in the process (Wertenstein-Żuławski 1991: 223). This research was significant for at least three reasons: (1) its pioneering nature—no similar projects had previously

1

During the six decades of its existence, the festival changed its name several times: 1970–1979— Wielkopolskie Rytmy Młodych (Wielkopolska Rhythms of Youth), 1980–1982—Ogólnopolski Festiwal Muzyki Młodej Generacji (All-Poland Festival of Young Generation Music), 1983— Festiwal Muzyków Rockowych (Festival of Rock Musicians), 1994—Festival of Rock Music, 2005—Jarocin PRL Festival (it was a one-off idea, connected with the reactivation of the festival: PRL is a reference to the official name of the Polish state under socialism: Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa), and since 2006—Jarocin Festival. Hereafter we will use the name Jarocin Festival (JF) or just “Jarocin” when quoting other people’s statements.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 W. Kuligowski, M. Poprawski, Festivals and Values, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39752-3_5

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been carried out at music festivals in Poland; (2) the purpose—to reach out to the “spontaneous” and “authentic” values and norms of young people; and (3) their subject—a nationwide research sample, representing different environments and regions. The thematic scope of the questionnaires was also very interesting. The questions dealt with professed values, authorities, respected norms, desires, attitudes to reality, the country, politics, religion and, naturally, views on music. Hence the attempt to reactivate the research from 30 years ago seemed both exciting and substantive. This decision was supported by the following arguments: (1) the existence of well-developed primary research results, providing an excellent reference point for the research undertaken now; (2) the availability of original research tools from 1983 to 1984, which, in an updated form, could be used once again; (3) the reactivation of the Jarocin Festival, once again attracting audiences of many thousands, representing—as in the 1980s—a wide social, economic, and spatial cross-section of Polish society; and (4) the recognition that re-study is one of the most innovative and fruitful techniques for studying social and cultural change. According to Charlotte Aull Davies and Nickie Charles (2002: 106): “Although re-studies are relatively rare in sociological research, they can be very valuable resources for understanding social change”. An emblematic example of the use of this technique is the re-study of American Middletown (Lynd and Lynd 1929, 1937). Helen Merrell Lynd and Robert S. Lynd found a typical middle American community (behind the enigmatic name is the town of Muncie, Indiana), subjecting it to research as early as the 1920s and then repeating it during the Great Depression. Subsequent researchers, mainly sociologists, also worked there in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In the early twenty-first century, a team of anthropologists also came to Middletown and adopted the perspective of African-American residents, revealing previously undescribed dimensions of the town (Lassiter et al. 2004). Through this re-study, it became apparent that a city and community that was considered comprehensively analysed nevertheless contained “places” and themes that had previously been overlooked or ignored. Other examples of re-studies include the immigrant community (Landis 1941), family life (Charles et al. 2008), the economic situation (Willmott and Young 1960) and even the system of tribal society (Weiner 1988).2

2

We can mention that the re-study method has been used relatively rarely in Poland. However, re-studies carried out in this format resonated, bringing not only new data but also refreshing certain topics. Examples include returns to Zaborów, a rural community identified in 1938 by Kazimiera Zawistowicz - Adamska (the outbreak of war prevented the publication of the collected materials, which did not appear until 1948), and four decades later researched by Maria Wieruszewska, and multiple returns to Żmiąca, known thanks to Franciszek Bujak’s pioneering study of 1903 (Zbigniew Wierzbicki in the 1960s and Michał Łuczewski in the second decade of the twentyfirst century). Significantly, these re-studies almost exclusively concerned rural communities. See Zawistowicz-Adamska (1948), Wieruszewska-Adamczyk (1978), Bujak (1903), Wierzbicki (1963), Łuczewski (2012).

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The studies referred to above fall within the semantic field of the term “ethnographic revisits” (Burawoy 2003). Although they varied in scope, scale, and ambition, in virtually all cases the researchers had to grapple with the same problem: the scarcity of complete, exhaustive, and confirmable knowledge about the course of the primary research. In this context, the possibility of repeating, during the Jarocin Festival, the research conducted 30 years ago—using the same tools—appeared to be unique: we had the original survey instruments and studies of the results of the original research (Wybrane zagadnienia spontanicznej kultury młodzieżowej w Polsce 1986; Spontaniczna kultura młodzieżowa 1991; Wertenstein-Żuławski 1993), and a participant in the 1983 and 1984 research became a member of the research team, thanks to whom it was possible to reconstruct their assumptions and course. Research from 2015 is of particular importance in the context of our 2019–2021 project. On the one hand, it dealt with very similar issues of values and norms, while on the other hand it took place during one of the oldest and most mythologised music festivals in Poland. What is more, the legend of this festival led to the creation of another festival—in a completely different region of Poland, where we ended up with our research team in 2021. Drawing on the results of two research projects carried out at two festivals with such close yet ambivalent relations will ultimately allow us to reveal yet another strand of axionormative orders. However, we must begin with a retrospective narrative. The origins of the festival in Jarocin—a small, quiet town in the west of Poland— date back to 1970 and the local competition Wielkopolskie Rytmy Młodych (Wielkopolska Rhythms of the Young), which was organised there for the entire following decade. WRM was dedicated to amateur bands from the region. The event was local in character, and various music genres related to rock were played. When Walter Chełstowski, a young journalist, sociologist, and music populariser, became the event’s organiser in the early 1980s, the WRM formula experienced a revolution. Fond of punk music, Chełstowski opened up the event to this new genre—new, that is, in the conditions of socialist Poland—and turned a local competition into a nationwide festival. Jarocin Festival quickly became the biggest festival of independent music—including punk—in the Eastern Bloc in the 1980s. JF is also one of the oldest music events in Poland (Patton 2018: 92–93; Kuligowski 2019). As the largest rock festival, it was a major cultural sensation that was of interest to Polish filmmakers (Piotr Łazarkiewicz’s documentary Fala, 1985), as well as foreign filmmakers (the BBC documentary My blood, your blood, 1986). It is worth noting that the Jarocin Festival also became the backdrop in several prose works. Here are characteristic quotations from three novels, Dziewięćdziesiąte by Sławomir Shuty, Pokalanie by Piotr Czerwiński, and Mocne Uderzenie by Ryszard Ćwirlej, respectively: “I arrive in the capital of punk rock on the last day of the festival (. . .). Clusters of real załogants are camped out on the pavements. Drainpipes, imported combat boots, leathers on their backs, patches, badges, Mohawks on their skulls—in a word, the London look (. . .). In front of the stage there is a pogo whirl (. . .), we kick each other on the calves, push with our shoulders, spit, there is no soft play, but if you fall over, a brotherly hand will immediately pull

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you up” (Shuty 2013: 14–15); “In the town of Jarocin there is the quintessential fashion of believing that there simply will not be a future. This is what makes the town of Jarocin so wonderful and very popular” (Czerwiński 2005: 80); “He glided slowly around the campsite and looked at the weirdos who had come here from all over Poland (. . .) He could not shake off his astonishment—how is it possible that the higher powers, i.e. the authorities, tolerate all this? (. . .) Howling long-haired singers, growling guitars, thumping drums and a hysterical crowd in front of the stage” (Ćwirlej 2011: 20–21). The festival attracted several thousand to tens of thousands of people each year, who were able to demonstrate their subcultural values, dress, and behaviour there. The festival was held with the consent of the socialist authorities, who did not fully understand its liberating potential. Under the noses of the police, anti-government slogans were raised, illegal leaflets were distributed, and anti-socialist slogans were painted. As a result, the name of the town of Jarocin quickly became a symbol of freedom and attitudes which constituted an alternative to the dominant ideology. Already in the 1980s, the name underwent autonomisation: whoever said “Jarocin” thought “festival”. This linguistic usage has remained alive to this day. Almost exclusively Polish bands performed at the festival. There were stars on the big stage and bands making their debuts on the small stage. Although the bands represented many musical genres, such as blues, reggae, ska, punk, heavy metal, in common knowledge and in the memory of many participants the festival functioned as a great punk event (Kuligowski 2015). There were several reasons for this identification. Firstly, the message of punk bands was the most radical, as even their very names expressed: Moskwa (Moscow), Dezerter, Siekiera (Axe), or Nocne Szczury (Night Rats). Secondly, the lyrics were also radical: sometimes in a political sense, sometimes alluding to the aesthetics of Dadaism or Surrealism. Punk bands openly criticised the dominant political system, the so-called socialist morality and propaganda clichés claiming that Poland was a free, safe, and rich country. Thirdly, the punk subculture was most “visible” at the festival thanks to its specific attributes: military boots, studs, and mohawks on their heads. No other subculture displayed anything as spectacular as the punk pogo. The decade of the 1980s—with martial law, economic crisis, a sense of stagnation, and increasingly visible symptoms of the collapse of the system that dominated the Eastern Bloc—shaped the countercultural legend of Jarocin Festival. It was then known as the “Mecca of subcultures” and an “oasis of freedom”. It was during this time that the previously mentioned sociologists surveyed the audience at Jarocin. According to their reports, they observed a “spontaneous youth culture” expressing an “alternative worldview”, while they assessed the festival itself as an exceptional example of a “carnival of ordinary people” (Wertenstein-Żuławski and Pęczak 1991). Besides the countercultural and political dimension, the social dimension of the festival was also extremely important. Although for some of Jarocin’s residents the “invasion” of music fans became a reason to complain about the “noise”, “filth”, and “wild youth”, others opened their homes to them. The memoir volumes Grunt to bunt: rozmowy o Jarocinie (Rebellion above all: conversations about Jarocin)

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(Witkowski 2011a, b, 2013, 2015), prepared in oral history format, show that festival participants could count on free accommodation and meals, private gardens were made available for their tents, and water was provided on hot days. Integrative, inclusive, and open-minded behaviour had great significance because in the mid-1980s, Polish society was experiencing a sharp decline in social optimism. A research report at the time commented: these results “were the worst in the entire history of research to date, conducted since the second half of the 1950s” (Szumiło 2015: 72). Other studies, on the other hand, indicated that the “the most common experiences in society” were frustration and malaise (Marody 1995: 54). Bottom-up, spontaneous initiatives stood in stark contrast to the inefficiency of the state system and social frustration: “the people from Jarocin made sandwiches and lunches for the visitors, offered them tea, put water in front of their houses, offered them a roof over their heads or the possibility to pitch a tent in the garden. The community stood in solidarity with the guests and demanded appropriate actions from each other, as worthy hosts of the party” (Wechterowicz 2015: 50). At the level of dominant, community-wide experiences, the Jarocin Festival thus created a different, festive reality. After 1989 and the transformation of the political system, the festival also underwent significant change. Its organisers wanted to fit in with the logic of the free market and economic liberalism, so from 1991 the performances were broadcast on public television and private sponsors also appeared. A symbol of the festival’s commercialisation appeared in 1994, when Marlboro became its main sponsor. It was then that street riots and violent brawls between fans and the police and security company occurred. The festival, which was unprofitable and deterred sponsors due to its reputation as a high-risk event, stopped being organised. The break in its history lasted until 2005. After 11 years, Jarocin once again filled up with fans, but the reality was radically different. In the meantime, many new festivals had appeared in Poland, offering music associated with the former editions Jarocin, i.e. rock, reggae, punk, or metal. These include: Przystanek Woodstock (since 1995), Castle Party (since 1994), Ostróda Reggae Festival (since 2001), One Love Sound Festival (since 2004), Hunter Fest (2004–2009), Rock Piknic (since 2003), or Open’er (since 2002). Summer concert tours organised by TV and radio stations were a novelty, and free concerts as attractions of events, such as city days or provincial festivals became more widespread. While it is true that former punk stars brought the old audiences to Jarocin, and that concerts by Bad Brains, Bad Religion, Anti-Flag, Jello Biafra, Marky Ramone, and Polish bands continued to pogo, the loss of the festival’s former “aura” was noticeable. The organisers focused on trying to return to the legendary past and reactivate the countercultural legend. The result was fan tours of former festival venues, commemorative photographs, and memories of the “good old edays”, i.e. grassroots and spontaneous sentimentalisation (Kuligowski 2015). Here sentimentalisation is taken to mean revisiting emotions and feelings, sometimes mediated by re-experiencing one’s presence in a specific, once significant place: “I spent a lot of time in that park. We knew the locals. One had a nice dog and he joined us. Listen to how he started telling us: where the first festival was, where the second

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festival was. . . As a youngster he used to come here and remember everything. And now?” (woman, approx. 45 years old); “The whole area by the pond was full of people. And everyone was offering something: a beer, a cigarette. . . At the festival everyone was equal, there was none of this I have 50 zlotys and someone has 100 zlotys and immediately exalts himself” (man, approx. 40 years old). Sentimentalisation is expressed by nostalgic sighs of “in my/our time. . .”. The semantic field of this concept includes terms such as “romanticization”, “glorification”, “idealization”; sometimes “the politics of nostalgia” is also referred to in this connection (Bonnett 2010). Sentimentalisation deforms the past, to which there is no return, and this is usually the past associated with childhood and adolescence. The sentimentalised past has an advantage over the present, which appears shallow, dull, and devoid of values: “At the festival, people were simply allowed to look the way they wanted. Obviously at that time long hair was forbidden in secondary schools, but here everyone came and showed themselves without any restrictions. In outfits, in hairstyles and in listening to music. And now it’s more of a family picnic, isn’t it?” (Wioletta, 49 years old). Of course, all of the above statements contain many elements of idealisation, evoking the past as a naïve cliché through which values such as community, bravado, ingenuity, self-expression are conveyed. However, sentimentalising returns to the “old Jarocin” also take a conscious form: “I went to the amphitheatre, where there was a small stage, to see what it looks like today. And then to the railway station to remind myself how we used to travel” (Marek, 43 years old). The historical time-space of Jarocin—encompassing the former small stage, the railway station building, the footbridge over the tracks, the park and the pond, the church at the market square, the town hall with its arcades—becomes a mythical time-space in these stories and practices (Mencwel 2006: 167). It is in relation to this time-space that participants in past festivals express a local variant of topophilia (Tuan 1974). The spontaneous policy of nostalgia was reinforced by the official decisions of the city authorities. In 2011, a more than two-metre-high Combat Boot Monument, a symbolic attribute of the punk subculture, was unveiled in a downtown square. In a disused granary, a museum of Polish Rock was opened in 2014, telling the story of the festival and its performers. Murals alluding to the festival’s past have appeared in many places in Jarocin, which are also part of urban politics. Even at the entrance to the Regional Museum stood two large wicker combat boots, made by a local artist. In this way, the town authorities are part of the trend of using the festival brand as a marketing tool to help create and promote a “distinctive city” (Johansson and Kociatkiewicz 2011). However, sentimentality was accompanied by disappointment: “You certainly used to feel the breath of freedom here. You could do a lot of things that you couldn’t do in other cities. This history is important, because today this festival does not surprise with anything new, quite the opposite, it disappoints” (Grześ, 45 years old); “Everything has become commercialised now. It used to be that only music was important. None of these fucking stalls and attractions just to extract money and make a profit from people. Back then there was an idea. Just the music and the people. Well that was freedom, right?” (male, 48 years old). The disillusionment

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mentioned therefore related to two aspects of the festival: its commercialisation (at odds with the former hospitality and openness of the locals) and its politicisation (associated with attitudes and parties that are anti-freedom). For many, the entertainment infrastructure—in the form of merry-go-rounds, slides, bungee jumps, bouncy castles, or candyfloss stalls—conflicted with the imagined image of a punk or counterculture festival. There were widespread complaints about the high prices and the need to pay for virtually everything (including entry to the children’s zone). Others felt that the festival had become a tool in the local political struggles for control of the city authorities. This is why in subsequent years, the Institute of National Remembrance was invited to the festival, “patriotic” picnics were organised, and symbolic “souvenirs” of the past, such as a bloody soldier’s button with a crowned eagle on it, were given away for free in Jarocin’s market square. Commercialisation and politicisation have been criticised on the grounds that the axionormative order associated with this festival has been violated (Jełowicki 2015). When asked in a survey whether the festival promotes any values, 78.9% answered in the affirmative. When asked to clarify what values are promoted, the most common response was “openness”, usually with the definitions: “to people”, “to humanity”, “to community”, “to music”, and “to subcultures”. Among other responses, values such as freedom, equality, tolerance, friendship, love, peace and even the triad “love, friendship, music” were frequently mentioned. The festival participants we surveyed declared that they were “open to different views” (72.9%), “open to new styles of music” (81.4%), and “open to charity” (66.6%). However, when we asked “Why is it your favourite festival?” the most frequently indicated were “atmosphere”—covered extensively in an earlier chapter, “emotions” and “music”, followed by “friends”, “sentiment”, “historic event”, “tradition”, “legend”, “it’s our Wielkopolska Woodstock”, “I used to go myself, I wanted to show my daughter”. Disillusioned with the current state of the “legend”, in response attendees of the Jarocin festival practised various forms of sentimentalisation and criticised the progressive commercialisation and politicisation. After 2015, shouts of “They sold the festival!” could regularly be heard in front of the stage. The Rock na Bagnie festival, organised for the first time in 2010, can be seen as a very specific and creative reaction to the devaluation of a “legend”. Its organisers— in the quote already cited in an earlier chapter—openly declared: “Rock na Bagnie is a festival which, with its atmosphere, resembles the good old festivals of the 1980s, such as Jarocin”.3 There is a clear opinion articulated in this sentence: Jarocin Festival is a reference point, but only in terms of the periods of its legendary, countercultural past. This attitude was subsequently expressed many times by Jacek Żędzian, the artistic director of Rock na Bagnie.4 In 2013, in an interview with the local branch of public television, Żędzian said: “We want to put on this

3

https://rocknabagnie.pl/historia/ (accessed: 20.07.2022). It is worth adding that Żędzian is a punk rock musician who has been organising concerts in his town (Mońki in Podlasie) for many years, has published a zine and works as a civil servant as his day job.

4

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festival in a similar way to the Jarocin festival in the 1980s. Then punk rock reigned there too, but there were also other genres. We are doing something similar here”.5 Three years later, in an interview with the warszawa.pl web portal, he explained: “We refer to the tradition of ‘old Jarocin’ (. . .). I want to emphasise that we care about continuing those ideals. Thanks to them our punk culture has survived to this day and is growing. And Rock na Bagnie, like the festivals of the past, is becoming a place, a real place to be”.6 This ideological and aesthetic genealogy quickly exceeded the organiser’s ambitions. Tales of the “new Jarocin”7 began to be retold by punk rock fans in Poland. Journalists of the local press saw it similarly, declaring: “Rock na Bagnie is obviously appreciated by fans of independent rock, who call it the ‘new Jarocin’”. Furthermore, we also heard an identical opinion—uttered with a mixture of regret and envy—from people connected with the Granary of Polish Rock museum in Jarocin, which is very telling. Since 2010, performers associated with the Jarocin Festival have been invited to Rock na Bagnie. Sometimes they celebrate their anniversaries there, sometimes former Jarocin bands reform in order to perform at Jacek Żędzian’s festival. The iconosphere of Rock na Bagnie during successive editions is reminiscent of the musicians who came to fame in the 1980s at Jarocin. In 2019, part of the additional programme was a photographic exhibition depicting the “Jarocin-Swamp Rock World”,8 i.e. performers common to both festivals. The Rock na Bagnie festival takes place in the nearly town with almost 2000 inhabitants of Goniądz in Podlasie, in eastern Poland, an hour’s drive from the border with Belarus. Podlasie is a region with a long and rich history of multiculturalism, where Polish, Belorussian, Lithuanian, Jewish, Tatar, and Roma cultures coexisted. There is a historic Catholic church in Goniądz, and before World War II there was also a synagogue and a relatively large Jewish population. The geographic location of the town, however, is not just associated with interesting historical symbolic contexts. Today, Podlasie is stereotypically perceived as the quintessential Polish East or “Poland B”. Its opposite is the Polish West—or “Poland A”— represented by Wielkopolska, where Jarocin is located (the limes of both these oppositional territories are the Vistula River). This opposition was persisted through the period of political transformation and reproduced orientalising mechanisms, situating them in the context of capitalism and great systemic change (Buchowski 2006, 2017). The inhabitants of Poland B were attributed many negative characteristics within this discourse, such as infantilism, low labour productivity, incompetence, hostility to change, and elites (Sztompka 1993, 1996). People of this kind were believed to be blocking the socio-economic transformation, failing to

5

https://bialystok.tvp.pl/11681615/Goniądz-rozbrzmiewa-rockiem (accessed: 20.07.2022). https://www.warszawa.pl/jacek-zedzian-czyli-rock-na-bagnie/ (accessed: 20.07.2022). 7 https://naszemiasto.pl/rock-na-bagnie-vi-1-2072016-Goniądz/ar/c13-4536292 (accessed: 20.07.2022). 8 https://rocknabagnie.pl/wystawa-jarocin-rock-na-bagnie-Goniądz/ (accessed: 20.07.2022). 6

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appreciate its nature or necessity, and thus resemble a “leprosy on the body” of a rapidly changing Poland. Within this discourse, Poland B was the antithesis of Poland A, which meticulously followed the transitional script. Another symbolic context is the treatment of Podlasie as the cradle of disco polo, a musical genre combining influences from Italian and German eurodisco and Belarusian, Ukrainian and Balkan folk melodies, with kitsch lyrics mainly about (heterosexual) love (Socha 2020). Disco polo was extremely popular in the 1990s, after which it was displaced by pop and rock. After 2015, however, it made a triumphant comeback, as it is heavily promoted by the public media which are subordinated to Jarosław Kaczyński’s populist party. Disco polo accompanies official state holidays, is played during Catholic pilgrimages, and disco polo performers fill the line-up of the New Year’s Eve concerts broadcast by public television. The genre is presented as music for “normal” Poles; those who question its artistic qualities are accused of “elitism”. It is difficult to imagine two musical idioms—in terms of aesthetic and ideological messages—as radically different as punk and disco polo (Kuligowski 2022). The aforementioned tensions have not gone unnoticed in the history of the festival. The first two editions of the festival in 2010–2011 took place in the village of Strękowa Góra, at the confluence of the Narew and Biebrza rivers, at the very gates of the Biebrza National Park. Funded by the European Union, the festival then put on performers from Poland and Lithuania. In total, there were almost 100 performers and admission to the festival was free. After two years, however, the local authorities ended their cooperation with the organisers. The new mayor of the municipality declared in an emotional speech “I will not allow this to happen again”.9 The festival was considered “morally reprehensible” and the promotion of the region through this event was deemed to be unnecessary. The search for a new location and the lack of EU funding meant that the festival did not take place in 2012. In the meantime, Żędzian established cooperation with a non-governmental organisation, the Foundation for the Development of the Mońki County. Together they decided to continue organising the festival, choosing the Goniądz beach on the Biebrza River as its new venue. Since 2013, Rock na Bagnie has been held in this Podlasie town. In the context of symbolic tensions, the support that Rock na Bagnie started to receive from the local authorities after the change of location may seem surprising. In 2014, Rock na Bagnie was honoured by the Podlaskie Voivodeship in the prestigious competition for the Social Initiative of the Year in the category “best initiative for culture and national heritage”.10 From the point of view of relations with the local community, even more important was the special thanks that the festival organisers received from the Town Council, the mayor (the visualised

https://bialystok.wyborcza.pl › bialystok › 735,241,992 (accessed 20.07.2022). In the following years, the festival continued to receive awards: in 2015, Rock na Bagnie was recognised as the Best Tourist Product of the Podlaskie Voivodeship, in 2020 it was awarded the Podlasie Brand Award in the “Event” category. 9

10

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example of that is Fig. 10.9 in Appendix) and representatives of the citizens of Goniądz, who appreciated the fact that the festival had become part of the cultural space of their town (also in 2014). We regard this event as very significant: here was a new festival, promoting music perceived as alien, attracting strange-looking people to a small Podlasie town, being recognised and appreciated by the community of this town. From that moment on, the history of Rock na Bagnie entered a new phase. It became less important to imitate the past (with references to the Jarocin Festival) and more important to create the present. In 2015, the local community organised a fair during the festival to promote folk artists, craftsmen, and the cuisine of Podlasie region. Representatives of the local Circle of Rural Housewives were involved—a grassroots, self-governing women’s organisation that has been active in Poland since the late nineteenth century. As a result, food and drinks prepared by local producers can be purchased all day long in the square in front of the community centre and in the nearby park. These are very popular with festival-goers, who value them for their freshness, taste, and ecological qualities, as well as their price (in contrast, the offer in the catering area close to the stage, which is rather expensive, not very varied and not related to the locality). In addition to the food stalls, local craftspeople also sell artefacts such as wood-carved souvenirs of the festival, wicker baskets, and homemade liqueurs. In this way, the town centre has become a “contact zone” (Pratt 1992: 6–7) and a place for spontaneous encounters between two communities: local and external (Fig. 10.8 in Appendix). It was not necessary to wait long for the results. Many of Goniądz’s residents rent rooms in their homes to festival-goers or provide places to pitch a tent in their gardens. They often also prepare meals for them in their homes. The contact established in this way means that some festival-goers later return to Goniądz as tourists. The inhabitants of Goniądz and the surrounding area are able to see and appreciate these changes. This is how the village mayor assesses them: “We are happy as local hosts. We have our regional dishes. Everyone is happy that there are these festivals. Everyone looks forward to them. Once a year, on occasion, a few pennies come in. We are happy that other people visit, from other towns—and from abroad, because there are some. They are happy and they are full of praise. And they are just waiting to try our home-cooked food. They come and reminisce, because they are the same guests. They recognise us: ‘Oh you’ve got the best potato pancakes!’. And it’s fun. We are very happy”.11 An employee of one of the local food stalls takes a similar view: “The atmosphere is really nice, the people are wonderful because they don’t make a mess. Because sometimes, when there’s a match, visitors can go like a hurricane and destroy everything around them. But these people don’t. These people are so calm and so friendly (. . .). Although the first time they came, I was terrified of these Mohawks because I had no exposure to them. Just because. I was scared—but no, there is nothing to be scared of”.12

11 12

In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.07.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.07.2021.

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However, the meeting of the two communities was not immediately smooth. Anna, one of the festival organisers, remembers it well: “My first festival was awful. The locals were very hostile, they were afraid. This completely changed when they saw how easy it was to make money. Goniądz has two thousand people. If four or five thousand people come here, and even if not all of them buy tickets, they all have to eat somewhere and sleep somewhere. Goniądz comes alive then. Have you been to the square in Goniądz? Have you seen what goes on there? The Circle of Rural Housewives and so on? It’s great!”.13 The appearance of a large event in a small town aroused the distrust of its inhabitants, as—based on Żędzian’s recollections—a local journalist writes: “During the preparations, the anxiety of the inhabitants was noticeable, who feared the course and consequences of such a large event. However, the organisers assured that there would be no problems. The festival took place on 5–6 July 2013 (. . .). Residents were unanimous and surprised to find that they were positively captivated by the attitude of the audience” (Skutnik 2022: 7). The category of “well-being” (Falassi 1987) is central to the success of the festival. At both the symbolic and social level a festival should lead to a temporary, but recurrent, renewal of the life stream of a local community, as well as its institutions, adding value to the local community. We have no doubt that Goniądz comes alive and renews itself during the festival, and that being a resident becomes a source of pride. Ros Derrett (2003) argues that local communities can mobilise under such conditions, affirming their local values in order to present them in a positive light to visitors. Festival-goers are also aware of the phenomenon. This is what Marta (born 1973) says about it: “For them it’s certainly like it was in Jarocin in the ‘80 s. We are freaks for the local community, a bit like space aliens, but they come to watch us, listen to us out of curiosity. Even in the interactions we have when staying overnight or shopping in a grocery store or at the market, I see them smiling and peeping. Will they listen to this kind of music? I don’t think so, but maybe their world view will broaden in some way. – So the local community is becoming more open and tolerant thanks to the festival? – Of course. That’s how I feel”.14 In a similar vein, Anna (managing director, born 1973) and Beata (accountant, born 1967) shared their experience with us: “The town really welcomes us. I think they are happy. They like us. Just today the lady said that she will wait for us until next year. She is renting us accommodation and a kind of mini camping site. The locals are looking forward to the festival”.15 Some participants’ stories are somewhat more dramatic, like Filip’s: “I came to Goniądz for the first festival in 2012. The event was over and I have the soul of a traveller, so I decided I would explore the

13

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.07.2021. 15 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.07.2021. 14

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area. I stayed for two days. The lady I was staying with lent me a bicycle. I rode to Osowiec and then went to the only kebab bar. We’re watching volleyball on TV. And there are two guys sitting behind me, talking: ‘The filth have arrived, the punks. . .’. And I’m like, ‘what dirty people?’ It was aggressive, but after a while we got along. I explained to them what our music was about, why this festival was needed. And they explained to me why dirty people. . . I was a bit drunk, wearing a black t-shirt, but I was cheering for Poland, just like them. After half an hour in the park we had a beer together and I was already their friend. Since then, the acquaintance has become such that when I come by train to Bialystok, they come by car to pick me up. The following year I came with my wife. Someone calls out: ‘Filip, Filip!’, but I didn’t turn around. I didn’t recognise them at first. ‘Is that you?’, they ask. Even then I knew they were my buddies from the kebab bar. We’ve become best buddies, we exchange photos, we go to each other’s houses. I’m here, every year, we sleep in their flat, without paying rent”.16 Of course, it could be said that the positive perception of the festival by the people of Goniądz is linked to the fact that it stimulates the local economy. In view of the fact that no event of comparable size takes place in Goniądz, this is an important factor. However, the above statements make it clear that stimulating the economy is only one element, for the festival organisers, contrary to what some researchers suggest (Goldblatt 2002; Getz 1997; Hall 1992), do not focus solely on the economic impact. Indeed, Rock na Bagnie leads to interaction, intimacy and even friendship. This is fostered by the action of the organisers, who have opened up the festival to local residents: photography exhibitions, discussions, and film screenings are available for free to local audiences. More and more locals also follow the concerts on stage, as this is possible, even without buying a ticket, from the high, sandy embankment above the Biebrza River. The festival engages the locals, forcing them to leave their homes and their comfort zones. Anthropologically speaking, punk rock in Goniądz is a paradigmatic stranger. This strangeness is expressed in aesthetics, music, behaviour, and values. Of course, this is a two-way process: for many of the festival’s participants, Goniądz, its history, cultural peculiarities, and inhabitants are also foreign. However, the impossible turned out to be possible: the small local community accepted the annual presence of the punk subculture not only in the public space, but also in their gardens and homes. Relationships and friendships were established. As was mentioned, some festival participants return to Goniądz and Podlasie privately, spending their holidays there. Of key importance is the fact that the local community was able to experience real support from the festival community in April 2020, just before the festival, when catastrophic fires raged in the nearby National Park. Festival fans raised more than 100,000 zlotys (approximately €23,000) in a few days of online fundraising to help the local fire brigade. Żędzian commented on the involvement of the festival’s fans in the local media: “In this way you have shown that our festival is not just another event you come to once a year to have fun, but that you are emotionally connected to

16

In-person interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 02.07.2021.

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it and that you are not indifferent to the fate of the Biebrza National Park or Goniądz. And that is the most beautiful thing about it all, that we can count on you not only during the beautiful festival days, but also in difficult situations” (Żmijewska 2020). The punk rock festival in Goniądz has become the agent of a very interesting process. Our research indicates that Rock na Bagnie has ceased to be something bizarre, coming from outside, immersed in a strange axionormative order, and has become a familiar and anticipated event that stimulates the local economy and is a source of pride. A festival that was meant to be an imitation has become a revelation; one that can be described as a community-based festival (Kuligowski 2022). It is assumed that a community-based festival should be organised with the involvement of the local community, in cooperation with local authorities, preferably with NGOs, with the effect of promoting or developing the place/community (Setting the Stage 2016). Rock na Bagnie, in its current form, fulfils all of these assumptions. Such a change would not have been possible without the creative input and involvement of the local community, without opening up the festival to local people, without creating a meeting place for members of the two communities: hosts and guests. Rock na Bagnie is increasingly becoming a local community festival prepared by the local community, who are included and involved in its organisation and running (Derrett 2003; Getz 1991; Jeong and Santos 2004; Lade and Jackson 2004). For many years, we travelled to Jarocin as a “mecca of the subculture”, rich in many historical references and steeped in the legend of the fight for freedom. What we remember most from our last visit to JF are the infantile tunes played by the carousels, the hairdressing salon where you could get a quick Mohawk, and the fans shouting that their festival had sold out. We associate completely different memories with Goniądz. We remember a visit to one of the locals, who spontaneously invited a group of strangers to his house. He was there to prepare a meal—freshly caught fish, which he grilled—chatting to us all in a friendly manner. We remember cordial conversations with the women who were selling their produce in the square next to the local community centre: soups, dumplings, alcoholic liqueurs. We also remember a very long conversation with an elderly man who watched the festival from a bridge over the Biebrza River. He talked about his childhood and youth, about ferrying a herd of cows across the river, about hard work, about how much he used to like rock’n’roll. Therefore, we believe the words of Andrzej Talewicz, associate festival organiser: “Jarocin ended precisely because there was no such rootedness there. And here, well maybe not stones will fight for us, but people will for sure (. . .). I have this inner conviction that this festival has started to become a part of Podlasie culture”.17

17

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021.

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Chapter 6

Festivals and Local Cultural Ecosystems: The Comparative Perspectives of Audiences and Organisers

Festivals have become one of the most significant and expansive elements in the popular expression of cultural practices, as well as being applied instruments of cultural policy. Festival formats are called the “Swiss Army Knife” of the cultural sector—as they respond to a wide array of issues (Négrier et al. 2013; Kuligowski 2018), including: cultural democratisation, the legitimisation of local powers, the transformation of artistic genres, cultural diversity, and other concerns. This chapter addresses the relation between festivals and local urban communities, and secondly, festivals as natural environments of cross-sectorial partnerships or synergies. These were the key research questions explored in the research project “Festivals impacting Polish cities” conducted by a team from the AMU University of Poznan Culture Observatory in cooperation with the Association of Polish Cities (Poprawski et al. 2015). The research, which was coordinated by one of the present authors, was carried out in 16 regions of Poland, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, including e-surveys with festivals organisers of 116 festivals from 70 urban communities in Poland, (n = 248), PAPI surveys with over 550 festival attendants, 50 IDI individual interviews with festival leaders, social media discourse analysis of festival communication channels, and finally fieldwork on 50 festivals in 47 towns. The outcomes of the conducted research support the thesis that festivals dominate cultural life in the social sphere today, including the entire local ecosystems—with public institutions, local administration, NGOs, and private entities as their natural inhabitants. Most cities and towns see festivals as a tool for boosting the promotional image and a way of intensifying the cultural opportunities on offer to residents and integrating local communities. The popularisation of festivals as quantitatively dominant forms of cultural activity has triggered both positive and negative processes which had previously been absent in the local cultural “ecosystems” (Holden 2015; Duffy and Mair 2018). The scholarly literature in this field (Klaic 2009; Autissier 2008; Jordan 2016) and the presented research conducted in Poland indicate that festivals have become a unique space for cooperation between entities from the public, civic, and private sectors, on a scale absent in any other form of activity. Festivals are often a source of mutual inspiration or for the free transfer of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 W. Kuligowski, M. Poprawski, Festivals and Values, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39752-3_6

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ideas and methods. Furthermore, well-designed festivals are irreplaceable zones of integration (Kuligowski 2018, Robinson 2015). The presented inquiry identifies the core processes related to the rooting of art festivals in local communities—seen as cultural ecosystems (Holden 2015; Poprawski et al. 2015), but furthermore, the study also provides a basis for more complex discussion on the diversity of festivals’ organisational models. Some audience engagement trends regarding the integrative roles of festivals can be identified from the findings of the collected data. Finally, the outcome of the study initiated in 2014–2015 provides some insights on the spectrum of festival missions and the axionormative (Znaniecki 1954) dimensions of art festivals (Kuligowski 2018). The topic of festival values and identities was continued in the subsequent study from 2019—the nationwide project called “Festivalization of Values. The axionormative dimensions of music festivals in Poland”. The research hypothesis of the later research project suggests that grounding festivals in specific values and norms is becoming an increasingly important element of festivals’ strategies and forms a key part of the entire local or regional cultural policies in Poland. Festival organisers consciously present various axionormative orders, and their participants identify with them, in a variety of ways. Thus, a new, festivalised map of values emerges, which then shapes—at local, regional, and national levels—cultural and historical policies, promotional strategies, and social and political discourses. From this perspective, it is worth noting that while some of the value-oriented festivals are primarily spaces for integrating people who hold a given set of beliefs energised by shared content that reinforces their views, other festivals—a minority, it would seem—take the form of an exploratory space, unpredictable meetings, dialogue, a meeting of values (Dragićević Šešić and Dragojević 2010; Kuligowski 2018). The relations between festivals and local communities are bilateral and multidimensional. This phenomenon is evident when the summaries and parallel data collected from both festival audiences and festival organisers are studied (Poprawski et al. 2015). An important voice in the discussion about the impact of festivals on the city in which it is organised is the opinion of the festival audiences themselves. After all, it is mainly for them (residents, tourists) that the festivals are organised. Thanks to the survey addressed to both audiences and managers of the fifty surveyed festivals, from all over Poland, we can compare the ways of thinking of both groups in this regard. Therefore, we included exactly the same request in both questionnaires: To what extent do festivals affect the individual aspects related to the inhabitants and the city in which they are organised? The respondents assessed this perspective on a scale from “1”—very slightly to “5”—very much). They were asked to enter “0” if they “don’t know”. Then we proposed 8 theses that were assessed. The analysis of the survey participants’ assessment of the above theses shows interesting similarities and differences. They can be most clearly observed by taking the average indications of both groups—the audience and the organisers. In both, the same two opinions received the highest average, and thus the highest degree of support, and the same two received the lowest. Both the participants and the

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organisers agreed to the greatest extent that the city gains on its promotion with the help of festivals—first place: on average 4.26 for audiences and 4.67 for organisers. We have a similar agreement in the case of the opinion on increasing access to a valuable cultural offer, which is possible thanks to the festivals appearing in a given city—second place: on average 4.08—audiences and 4.55—organisers. Moreover, both festival audiences and festival organisers were the least inclined to agree with the opinions about the negative aspects of the festival–city relationship. In both cases, the thesis related to festivalisation, namely that festivals divert the attention of residents from the year-round, regular activity of cultural institutions— eighth position: average of 2.10—participants and 1.98—organisers, obtained the lowest averages. It is worth noting that both groups also disagree with the view that festivals limit or take away municipal funds—seventh place: average of 2.28— participants, 1.99—organisers. The differences between the two groups are manifested in the assessment of the degree of impact of the other four categories of theses. Participants of festival events ranked the festival’s impact on the increased tourist traffic—3.92 on average, in third position, while the organisers, with an average of 3.77, in fifth place. In the opinion of the organisers, there is a stronger impact of the festival on the city in the case of building a sense of pride among residents caused by the organisation of a qualitatively good and well-known festival. This category took third place and exceeded the average level of 4.0–4.11 in the case of the organisers, as it was lower among the audiences: 3.88, in fourth place. What is very interesting is that festival organisers are more sceptical than audiences when it comes to the impact of festivals in terms of economic and financial benefits, including: revenues from tickets, services, jobs, attracting investors. Average responses ranked this thesis in fifth place in the case of audiences— average 3.62, but only sixth for organisers—average 3.33. It is also characteristic that the organisers relatively highly—in fourth position—assessed the impact of the festival on the city in terms of cross-sectoral cooperation in culture—average 3.79. However, the audience, with an average of 3.60, placed this category of relations in sixth place. The last outcome should not be a surprise, as audiences usually have less orientation regarding the peculiarities of partnership and the organisational “constellations” of entities involved in festivals production. What’s more—as many as 15% of the audiences of the surveyed festivals marked the option “0”—I have no opinion/knowledge, openly indicating that they cannot assess this element. This may prove that the residents who participate in the festival are not aware of who the organiser of the event is. There seem to be two main reasons for this. Firstly, they are not interested in knowing who the organiser is—it is just important that the festival meets their expectations. Secondly, they may have difficulty recognising the organiser, which is the result of the formula of many festivals, which often use different partnerships and different spaces. For example, an NGO that organises a festival, but does not have its own premises and infrastructure (which is not uncommon), must necessarily enter partnership relations with entities that have these spaces. The participant may be unaware that a festival concert within the walls of a municipal cultural centre does not always have to be organised

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by the cultural institution that hosts the festival in its venue. They may also not know that an outdoor event is a joint project of entities belonging to different sectors. The analysis of detailed assessments of both groups shows how large the scale of support from the organisers is in the case of the festival–city relationship, in terms of promotion and access to a good cultural offer. It is clearly shown by numerous indications of “5” among the organisers in the areas of impact mentioned: as much as 74.6%—compared to 53.2% of audiences. It is also interesting that almost 10% fewer organisers than audiences’ respondents—17.5% to 27.2%—gave the highest grade to the thesis about the impact of the festival on the city in the economic area. In this aspect, the inhabitants—and, importantly: tourists—are more optimistic. The organisers seem to be more sceptical or, perhaps, a more appropriate term, pragmatists. It seems that the organisers do not see the importance of this aspect, because they do not look at it from the perspective of the participants and their money (accommodation, meals, tickets, transport services, souvenirs, etc.). This thesis is confirmed by even more detailed results of the analysis showing the average responses of this category, broken down by the place of residence of the participants. Among the respondents living in the place where the festival was held, the average assessment of the festival’s impact on the city in terms of increasing the economic situation was 3.54, while among non-residents it was 3.73. In some cases, the festival becomes so strongly connected with a given city that a kind of symbiosis occurs. The inhabitants, in the opinion of some directors of the studied festivals, cannot imagine that “their” festival would not take place, that it would disappear from the city’s cultural offer. Of course, this is related to both the quality and duration of the festival in each place, which increases the impact on the city. In this context, an open question remains: what to do with such forms that have ceased to work, have “burned out” and continue because it is a pity for the organisers and city authorities to close a project with a rich tradition? Redefine the topic? Use other forms? Change organisers? Let people with different perspectives in? There are no universal recipes and factors that guarantee the success of the festival, but in the case of most of the surveyed festivals, an important common element has been observed: a successful festival is based on the locality and identity of a given place. This involves the skillful and good use of local resources. Attempts to create festivals completely detached from the specificity of a given city and its cultural ecosystem are considered by many of our interlocutors as doomed to failure.

The Festival as a Model of Cross-Sector Synergy in Culture The findings of the survey on the impact of cities on festivals and festivals on cities show that one of the elements creating this relationship was the building of broad, intra, and intersectoral partnerships—mainly, but not exclusively, local. Creating cross-sector synergy is related to the unique nature of festivals as extensive events— in terms of the number of places, spaces, forms, artists, etc. It is precisely this often

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interdisciplinary nature of festivals that “forces” the involvement of many people working in various positions and in various sectors. To put it simply: from organisers, sponsors, through volunteers, technical workers, to officials and city authorities. From people dealing with the technical and equipment aspects of organising festivals or the management, through people preparing meals for performers, providing them with transport or accommodation, to people who decide to change the organisation of traffic in a part of the city for the duration of the festival. However, is the aspect of cooperation between the three sectors during the organisation of festivals important for their organisers? It turns out that it is. We asked the organisers of 116 festivals (Poprawski et al. 2015) in towns of various sizes in Poland, with the help of another survey and Internet questionnaire, about the most useful features of festival organisers. It is significant that the ability to cooperate between various sectors and environments is indicated as an important and useful feature when organising festival events by all three groups of surveyed organisers. A detailed analysis of this question, broken down into functions performed by a given person during the organisation of the festival, showed that the main director/manager of the festival—36.8%, the artistic or programme director—36.5%, and the director, coordinator, or a manager of promotion and media relations or marketing—36.1%, all recognise the ability to cooperate as one of the key aspects of organising festival events. In the case of opinions on other features, this compatibility was not so clear. The opinions of people organising festivals, regardless of the functions performed in them, clearly indicate the skills of broad cooperation as desirable features. But how is this aspect assessed and according to what values? Are the organisers satisfied with its actual implementation? We can find the answer in the next question posed to the organisers of festival events. The respondents were asked to express their opinions, using a scale from “1”—unsatisfactory to “5”—very good, to thirteen different elements related to the implementation of festivals. In order to get a more realistic picture of the ratings, the research team also decided to add the option of selecting “0”, which meant “I have no knowledge”. Three of the categories in particular seem to be strongly related to cross-sectoral cooperation. The first and most obvious category is the cooperation of cultural institutions with non-governmental organisations and the private sector in organising festivals in your city. Others are cooperation of the municipality with entities involved in the organisation of the festivals, as well as the patronage and willingness of sponsors— who are mainly the private sector—to engage financial resources in festivals. All these categories were rated low. When the average scores are compared, it transpires that they were rated lowest: cooperation of cultural institutions with other sectors— average 3.31—ninth place, cooperation of the local government with various entities organising the festival—average 3.26—tenth place, financial support and involvement of sponsors—average 2.43—12th place. This cooperation was rated higher by the organisers operating in the public sector—average 3.35, than in the civil sector: non-governmental organisations— average 3.09. One can also notice differences in the assessment of this category when we consider the size of the city in which the respondent organises the festival.

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The cooperation of cultural institutions with other sectors was assessed best by the respondents operating in cities with up to 30,000 inhabitants—average 3.44 and in the largest metropolises of over 200,000—average 3.33. It is also interesting that the evaluation of patronage and willingness to provide financial support was rated highest among the organisers of festivals in small towns with up to 30,000 inhabitants while it was 2.76 and the lowest in cities with over 200,000 inhabitants— average 2.29. Perhaps this is due to the involvement of the private sector in support of “local” initiatives and the fact that in the case of small towns there are fewer festivals than in larger metropolises. Entities from smaller cities may find it a bit easier to get sponsors’ support, as they do not have such a large group of entities “competing” with each other on the cultural “market”. It is also worth noting that the best evaluation of the cooperation of the city council with entities involved in the organisation of festivals was given by organisers working in the promotion—the communication area, with an average of. 3.40, while a slightly lower assessment was provided by artistic directors—average 3.25, and the most critical were the main directors—average 3.13. To summarise the numerous data presented thus far, it can be stated that the organisers are aware of the importance of the features related to cooperation as a value that is a desirable and even indispensable element in organising festivals. Unfortunately, their expectations do not match the reality, hence the low ratings for cooperation at the three examined levels: cultural institutions, local government, and the private sector.

Festival-Friendly Organisational Models? The research team (Poprawski et al. 2015), to obtain extended knowledge on which entities are the easiest and the most difficult to organise festivals in Poland, asked the main organisers and directors of 50 festivals to comment through the medium of the IDI interview. The key topic in the conversation about cross-sectorial cooperation focused on the particular question: For which type of organisational entity—public, private, or civic—is the production of the festival easiest, and for which the hardest? It is worth noting that the respondents, similarly to the research team, understood there are no simple and clear indications when answering these questions, as each of these sectors has its own possibilities and difficulties. This is especially visible when we bear in mind the multitude of factors that influence the organisation of festival events. Nevertheless, most of those surveyed believe that it is easiest for public entities to organise a festival. Several elements speak for this. Firstly, the certainty of financial resources makes it possible to plan some activities long in advance. Having an annual budget provides the basis for securing the very fact of the festival’s existence. Moreover, this financial “basis” is an important element of own contribution when applying for additional funds in grant competitions. It also ensures the “survival” of the festival when the organisers do not obtain external funds or in the event of an emergency, like a pandemic. Secondly, infrastructure is a key element:

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the premises, place, building, office, and equipment needed to organise cultural events. The third element is the employees: the full-time staff involved in the organisation of the festival. A team of permanent staff is necessary for long-term thinking. Very often, the respondents mentioned the non-governmental sector as an example of a hindrance, since it lacks “permanent” financial resources, infrastructure, and stable employment. It should be emphasised that opinions about the advantage of public institutions over the third sector, especially in terms of the above three elements, are expressed by people implementing the festival as part of a civic and public entity. In addition, some of the surveyed directors emphasised one more important aspect facilitating the organisation of the festival for the public sector—a strong connection with the city or local public administration. Thanks to this, these institutions can count on support from other municipal, county, or regional entities, which facilitates a faster solution of problems. In addition, institutions have an advantage in the form of greater “credibility” than other entities, due to the fact that they are established in the public structure. However, our interlocutors also identify aspects that make it difficult for the public sector to organise festivals. On the one hand, they are manifested in the financial sphere. The certainty of funds is one positive aspect, but spending public money is associated with a numerous legal regulations and restrictions that may cause low efficiency and increase costs—both financial and labour—due to the unavoidable bureaucracy. Sometimes institutional habits, reluctance to change at different levels, and a certain “inviolable” structure may also be a hindrance. Such ossification may result in a lack of willingness and motivation to work, commitment, and staff development. Changes in the management of a given cultural institution— which are unfortunately too often associated with changes in local authorities, political strategy and their policies’ priorities—create more difficult conditions for organising festivals. Especially when the festival is planned a few years ahead, when its mission and goal are clearly defined and are consistently pursued. Another group of surveyed directors indicated that the civic sector is best able to organise a festival, due to the wide possibilities and many ways of drawing on external means. NGOs can take part in most of the organised grant competitions connected to organising cultural activities. Some organisers emphasised that while maybe this sector does not have the “simplest” task when organising festivals in Poland, it is best “adapted” to it. This becomes evident with the need to obtain funds to translate plans into actions and make organisers from the third sector become more involved. This effort, along with passion, very often energises the atmosphere during the festival itself. After all, we value and care more about the things that came to us with difficulty than those that did not require any effort on our part. The advantage of NGOs is their diversity, flexibility, creativity, and greater propensity to experiment and take risks. These are extremely useful features when organising such extensive events as festivals. Moreover, according to some respondents, NGOs have the power to involve members of the organisation and attract new people, especially young people. In addition, this sector, like few others, has developed an atmosphere and a way of engaging an extremely important element of almost every festival— volunteers (Fig. 10.29 in Appendix).

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Some directors were of the opinion that the private sector had the easiest task when it comes to organising the festival, under certain conditions. The work is done by professionals with appropriate experience, contacts, and market position. Then it is easier for them to negotiate lower rates, and they are not subject to several regulations and restrictions. The sector’s independence and the ability to take risks and introduce innovative solutions are also appreciated. Some respondents expressed the view that there is no point in attempting to generalise and identify entities that have an easier or difficult task when organising festivals, because a good organisation depends primarily on the people who are involved in it—a point which is difficult to disagree with—and the issue of which of the three sectors the organisation falls under is of secondary importance. The competences and commitment of the staff and volunteers are essential (Fig. 10.28 in Appendix). Without them, even in the “easiest” sector organising the festival will be difficult. In this context, the figure of the leader is also emphasised: the director of the festival builds the image of the festival with her or his person and actions. A large number of responses expressed the opinion that mixed forms linking institutions and organisations from different sectors are a good solution. Thanks to this approach, the organisers can take the advantages of each of them. Therefore, this formula is often used in a more or less formalised way during the organisation of many festival events. Constant cross-sectoral cooperation or involving entities from other sectors may lead to the creation of an ideal hybrid. This results from a balance between the permanent structure, the “base” of the festival, and the spontaneity and flexibility related to its implementation. The transformation of the festival organisational model is well expressed by one of the Finnish festivals’ experts (Iso-Aho 2022), when he recalls the four modes of existence and ownership status of festivals in history, from early tribal and agrarian celebrations to modern festivals: “(1) By the community for the community ownership: family, tribe, village; (2) By the public authorities for the community ownership: state town, church; (3a) By the NGOs individuals for the community customers ownership: NGO members local individuals or family businesses; (3b) By the private international companies, entertainment conglomerates for the customers ownership: stakeholders”. Interestingly, another Finnish author, Kai Amberla, the head of the Finland Festivals Association translates the reality of the festivals scene into another four categories. He claims that from the organisational point of view “festivals can be divided as: not-for-profit associations, cultural foundations, festivals organised by municipalities, and private companies” (Amberla 2013: 197). Two comments by that author bring an interesting example of the international differences of festivals’ organisational contexts. The first is that, in Finland “the overall majority of festivals are run and owned by not-for-profit associations. . . [who are] required to reinvest [the profit] in the following season of the festival”. What is more unusual when compared to other countries’ festivals existence realities is that in Finland—“a large number of festivals are run directly by cities (. . .) an arrangement that is (. . .) more common in Spain, for example. In practice it means that civil servants employed by the city are responsible for the day-to-day activities of the festival. Economically, this structure guarantees a fairly stable cash flow for the

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festival”. This is correlated with the final clue of the author’s report on the structural peculiarities of Finnish festival scene, when he highlights the priority of the accessibility function of festivals and he states that “the geographical distribution of festivals in Finland is very wide, that making the festival sector the most democratic way of providing access to art in the country” (Amberla 2013: 197–198).

The Relations Between Festivals and Policy Makers in Their Local Contexts The city or town in Poland, treated as an area of power exercised at the local level by various people and institutions related to local government has an important impact on festivals too. To put it simply: city authorities make several decisions that are crucial for the functioning of festivals in a given city; they conduct—explicitly or implicitly (Ahearne 2009)—cultural policies, and decide on the size, distribution, and division of funds for culture. The analysis of these relationships, emerging from conversations with directors, allows for the creation of three types of relationships characterised as positive, neutral, and negative. The main manifestation of good relations with the local government are situations in which local government authorities help and support the activities of the independent organisers. Undoubtedly the most important aspect of this partnership is financial. On the other hand, it also provides support that cannot be measured in numbers. Sometimes this is just as important: it builds a good atmosphere and fosters mutual trust, which makes festival directors feel independent and able to shape the festival according to their vision and experience. The consistent actions of local government officials are extremely important for the directors, as they allow them to think about the festival in the longer perspective. The participation of representatives of local authorities and councillors in festival events are perceived as an expression of personal appreciation of the organisation’s efforts. The characteristics described above contribute to comfortable relationship models for the organisers. However, positive relationships are not given once and for all and can be changeable. As with any relationship, it should be nurtured. It is important to be aware that good relations are the result of the work of both parties and depend on competence and empathy to a great extent. We can clearly see that cooperation with the local authorities is not always easy. A second possible characteristic of the relationship between the local government and the festival organisers is the state of passive acceptance, a kind of neutrality: basically no contacts, relationships, help, or support. Sometimes it is a state desired by the organisers themselves. Sometimes, however, the lack of interest is disturbing. Finally, the third type of relationship between local government and festival is the least desirable: a negative relationship. It can manifest itself on various levels. One of them is the lack of financial support—caused by various factors, from those more understandable, related to the fact that a given institution is financed from the

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regional budget, although it operates in the city, to those completely irrational, related to conflict and personal animosity. The second level is the lack of trust and the burdensome monitoring of their activities, and basically constant control and the situation of exerting pressure, the “deciding vote” and situations in which the organiser is forced to submit to the decisions of local authorities. Not surprisingly, the directors emphasise their autonomy and believe that the less interference from people not directly related to the festival, the better. The problem of lack of understanding, in the opinion of some directors, results from the lack of knowledge, commitment, and empathy, which is often associated with the fact that decision-makers or officials do not participate in the festival events that they make decisions about. Unfortunately, they often make decisions in isolation from reality and real needs. There is also insufficient awareness of the role of culture as an important element for the development of the city and its inhabitants. The forms of pressure and promises of help in exchange for political commitment are also deeply ingrained. There is also a problem with political ambitions unrelated to the needs of the inhabitants, which sometimes translate into the creation of festivals which, due to their genesis and detachment from the inhabitants’ needs, have no chance to develop, despite generous injections from public funds.

The Festival as a Space for Integrating Various Groups of the Audience What we have learned from the survey, the social media discourse analysis, and the field research at 50 festivals (Poprawski et al. 2015) is that integrating the festival audience is a multifaceted process. At certain levels, it happens naturally. It is the result of basic human needs, such as the need for acceptance and to belong to a group, to a community. They are closely related to the notion of values and the concept of identity, a certain awareness of myself, of what moves and fascinates me, and what I run away from. Through participation in artistic events, a person defines identity, shapes aesthetic sensitivity, discovers passions, and fulfils the need to meet and be close to other people. Integration, understood as a value, can also be the fruit of consciously and deliberately initiated activities. Some festivals contribute to the integration of local communities, to joint action and fun. Integrating the audience can also be some measure of the festival’s success. It becomes a positive message for the audiences, testifies to a good, unique atmosphere, and encourages participation. While researching Polish festivals (Poprawski et al. 2015), we wanted to investigate various integration processes, both natural and those shaped or supported by the planned activities of the organisers. The responses given to the researchers were categorised into the several topics described below. Among the observed festivals, there were those where the audience seemed to be quite homogeneous, both in terms of external elements like the dress code, which could be identified with a given convention, the presence of visible festival

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attributes, such as T-shirts, caps, etc., facilitating the identification of festival-goers, as well as the audience members’ mutual recognition and a sense of belonging to a given group. The unwritten code to be adhered to at some festivals was also a very interesting phenomenon, which will be discussed more precisely in other chapter of this book. An example could be one of the festivals in southern Poland, during which a specific segmentation of the audience could be observed. People came to the afternoon concerts in corduroys and jeans, but to the evening concerts in suits and evening dresses. It was a sign of the presence of a steady, loyal audience that upholds the custom and, in a sense, induces the rest of the festival’s participants to observance. In a group, a person adjusts his or her behaviour to that of other people. He or she observes what they do and what they look like in order to behave and look the same or similar. In this way, people express their belonging to the group. Belonging to a group is one thing, building a community is another. It is a much more inwardlooking process, based on interpersonal relationships. The community in the context of the festival audience can be formed on many different levels, which sometimes overlap and sometimes seem completely independent. By analysing social networking sites related to individual festivals, we found traces of ties formed between participants. Internet users—fans, festival-goers at particular festivals, thank each other for the time spent together, arrange further meetings, exchange information on a common area of interest (Poprawski et al. 2015). People want to be among audiences that are similar to them in terms of their profile of interest and status. They want to meet those they already know (from previous editions) or meet new ones who think in a similar way, who are attracted by the same genre of art, the same artists, or the same values and lifestyles markers. The created community is also evidenced by the similar, humorous language they use, as well as the perceptible friendliness in their comments. Visiting the fan pages of some festivals on their social networking sites, one can get the impression that the fans expressing their opinions create a specific subculture around a given set of values. It also seems that some administrators intentionally post reports on the integration of participants on festival websites or social media profiles. The information on this subject is very positive, it testifies well to the atmosphere at the festival, it is supposed to influence the good reception of the festival and its organisers, and to attract future festival-goers. It is also worth mentioning here the festivals that gather representatives of similar circles. For them, the festival, apart from artistic experiences, also provides an opportunity to meet and exchange experiences, to reunite. At the festivals we observed that these meetings took very different forms, such as: lectures given by experts in their field—which constitute an important element of the festival-related events, banquets solemnly closing the festival, as well as very casual meetings, discussions, and talks. There are special social dimensions of integration where the initiative belongs mainly to the festival organisers. This concerns planned activities, the aim or effect of which is the integration of local communities. Such activities include, for example, workshops for children and youth, taking place as part of one of the festivals in Western Poland, that were intended to create an attractive form of spending their holidays in the city. As the researcher that observed this wrote, the festival is treated

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as a prophylaxis—drawing children and teenagers away from drugs and alcohol. The result of such action is not only the integration of the workshop participants themselves, but also the real cooperation of organisers and artists for the benefit of their local community. The involvement of young people in the festival-related workshops and the relationships that developed between them in the group, but also with the artists and organisers—the feeling of community, the sense that together they create something unique and want to present it to the residents during the final performance—this is an unquestionable benefit of the festival for the community and signals that the festival people care about local citizens. Some of the festivals studied provided examples of another kind of audience integration: a kind of community of roots. This is a community that goes beyond the boundaries of the local community. Festivals whose programme refers to the culture, tradition, and history of various ethnic groups often gather an international audience. The axis of integration is belonging to a given ethnic group or fascination with its culture. In fact, this integration is often one of the most important festival events. The organisers of the festivals we observed initiated very different activities supporting the integration of the audience, like assigning a separate area for storytelling, sharing narrations, referring to festivals’ roots, returning to festival’s origins, passing on traditions, customs, myths. It took many different forms, such as fairytales told in a special way for this purpose, Gypsy caravans, historical reconstructions, workshops, and lectures. Several cases studied demonstrated that people are drawn to a festival by a charismatic personality that leads it, or who is the living or dead icon or founder, leader, or patron. It happens that it is the festival organiser or its patron who gathers and connects people around him or her. During one of the festivals in southern Poland, its artistic director celebrated his jubilee, which was one of the most important festival events: the artistic director’s birthday celebrations began with a play directed by him. The performance was followed by a reminiscent part, referring both to the history of the festival and. . . the life of the jubilarian. It is also worth noting the consistent building of a narrative around the patron of one of the festivals in north-western Poland—not only during the festival itself, but also throughout the year. Both on the festival’s website and on Facebook there is information reminding about the date of his birth and death, and about the progress in making a film devoted to him. One gets the impression that cultivating the memory of the patron is both one of the important elements of the festival’s mission. The values and lifestyle attributed to the patron are integrated into the identities of the audiences that attend every edition of the festival and actively follow the social media related to the events of the festival.

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Festival Missions Explicitly Expressed: A Threshold to the Axionormative Dimension of Festivals as Organisations Strategic thinking is very clearly connected to festival missions, and the value system shared by their organisers and—it can be assumed—by audiences who fully identify with the festival brand and programme. This is good threshold for discussing the axionormative, value focused dimension of festival organisational practice. Most of the organisers focus their activities round a specific mission. It sets the main direction of thinking and designing individual activities. As the director of one of the festivals stated: the festival must have a message, a topic, something that distinguishes it from others. The content obtained from the opinions of over 250 people surveyed (Poprawski et al. 2015), who were involved in festivals programming and organisation can be ranked according to the frequency of appearance of similar terms. On the other hand, they can be grouped into some superordinate groups of meanings. The first list indicates the 8 most common areas of notions related to the mission of the festival: (a) cultural education—70 responses; (b) promotion of creativity, talents, city, organisation—63 responses; (c) promotion of specific fields of art, genre, or style—52 responses; (d) openness and discovering new cultural options, talents, novelties, surprises, experiments, improvisation, exploration, alternative, searching for new forms—45 responses; (e) diversity and multiculturalism including interdisciplinarity, various styles, multithreading, combining genres, intercultural encounters, tolerance—36 responses; (f) integration of generations or the local community—34 responses; (g) accessibility, access to culture, facilitating access, generosity, openness, and participation—32 responses; (h) fun, good quality, smart entertainment—31 responses. In the statements of the executives of festivals, there are also other semantic fields that were chosen a little less frequently, about 20 responses for each area, such as: (i) professionalism, quality, high level, form, experience; (j) tradition, cultural heritage, city history, memory; (k) city space, local identity, city brand. In the ranking of several frequently formulated meanings related to the mission of festivals, six other key semantic areas were ascribed: (l) broadening the horizons of the audience or shaping tastes, sensitivity, promoting attitudes; (m) creativity or curating the need for it; (n) inspiration for development, crossing, self-fulfilment; (o) dialogue and reflection, discussion, confrontation of opinions, exchange of experiences; (p) activation, commitment, energy, enthusiasm, interaction; (r) meeting community, getting to know other people, making new friends. Multithreading and reciprocal—these are the main features of the relationship between festivals and the cities/towns/communities in which they take place. The impact is not only on the festival–city axis, where the festival events change cities/ towns (in the spatial, material, infrastructural, image, and reputational spheres) and its inhabitants. This complex relationship also runs in the opposite direction: city/ town–festival, when the character of a given city/town, or the values with which its inhabitants identify, affect the shape (theme, forms, spaces) of the festival. Thus, while a festival may influence the activity and involvement of residents, aspects of

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the festival may be inspired by the characteristics of a city/town and its inhabitants. Cities/towns very often become the subject of the festival. Festivals help not only to promote a given city/town outside (create or support its brand), but also build a specific image of a given city/town among its inhabitants (sometimes even trying to change its negative image or one-sided, stereotypical perception). Festivals often use local resources to build a sense of pride and identification with a given place. At other times, they are a good excuse to discover forgotten stories, characters, or places. Thanks to open and strong interference with the urban or town space, they not only increase access to the cultural offer, but also change this space, giving it new meanings and contexts. The aim of a few next chapters of the book is to explore the music festivals as organisations in greater detail. It is particularly important to investigate festival organisations as spaces that allow the study of social processes. We can observe individuals forming the teams that become the causal agents of festivals. The meaning of their existence emerges through the choices and actions taken within festivals as organisations. One another conceptual tool, except for axionormativity, will provide the key theoretical framework for structuring the material presented in few next sections of this book. It is the organisational symbolism (Strati 1998, 1999). Festival is an organisational format and object of planning, where “planning” can be treated as applied example of the organisational symbolism. The recent pandemic crisis gave “planning” the status of an even more symbolically relevant activity. At the same time, however, the sensation of being in permanent crisis mode during the organisation of a musical event or any other performing arts live activity, is a key part of the perceived identity of the live music event manager, regardless of external obstacles.

References Ahearne, Jeremy. 2009. Cultural Policy Implicit and Explicit: A Distinction and Some Uses. International Journal of Cultural Policy 15 (2): 141–153. Amberla, Kai. 2013. Festivals in Finland. In Music Festivals: A Changing World, ed. Emmanuel Negrier, Lluis Bonet, and Michel Guerin, 193–198. Paris: Editions Michel de Maule. Autissier, Anne-Marie. 2008. Festivals in Europe, Crossing Approaches from Edinburgh to Zagreb. Paris–Touluse: Les Editions de l’Attribut. Dragićević Šešić, Milena, and Dragojević, Sanjin. 2010/2004. Intercultural Mediation in the Balkans. Sarajevo: OKO. Duffy, Michelle, and Judith Mair. 2018. Festival Encounters: Theoretical Perspectives on Festival Events. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Holden, John. 2015. Ecology of Culture. London: AHRC. Iso-Aho, Juha. 2022. Festivals and Social Sustainability (Unpublished Material). In COSM 2 Cultural Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Management Course Materials, MA in Cultural Management, ed. Marcin Poprawski. Helsinki: Humak University of Applied Sciences. Jordan, Jennie. 2016. Festivalisation of Cultural Production: Experimentation, Spectacularisation and Immersion. ENCATC Journal of Cultural Management & Policy 6 (1): 44–55. Klaić Dragan. 2009. The Economy of Arts Festivals: An Elusive, Untransparent Dimension. Economia della Cultura 19 (3): 317–324.

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Kuligowski, Waldemar. 2018. “They Sold the Festival Out!”. Axionormativity as a Future of Festivals. In Popular Music in the Post-Digital Age. Politics, Economy, Culture and Technology, ed. Ewa Mazierska, Les Gillon, and Rigg Tony, 110. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Négrier, Emmanuel, Lluís Bonet, and Michel Guérin, eds. 2013. Music Festivals: A Changing World. Paris: Editions Michel de Maule. Poprawski, Marcin, Alicja Jakubowska, Piotr Firych, Mękarski Michał, Magdalena Brodniewicz, Piotr Landsberg, Przemysław Kieliszewski, Roksana Kędzierska, Ewa Kłosiewicz, Joanna Michalczuk, Klaudia Zielińska, Justyna Gorgoń, Kamila Węglarska, and Filip Wróblewski. 2015. Oddziaływanie festiwali na polskie miasta. Poznań: Związek Miast Polskich. https:// www.miasta.pl/uploads/document/content_file/370/Oddzia_ywanie_Festiwali_na_Polskie_ Miasta_-_Raport_z_badan__2014-15_ZMP_ROK_v2.2.pdf. Accessed 12 June 2022. Robinson, Roxy. 2015. No Spectators! The Art of Participation, from Burning Man to Boutique Festivals in Britain. In The Pop Festival: History, Music, Media, Culture, ed. George McKay. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Strati, Antonio. 1998. Organizational Symbolism as a Social Construction: A Perspective from the Sociology of Knowledge. Human Relations 51 (11): 1379-1402. ———. 1999. Organization and Aesthetics. London: Sage. Znaniecki, Florian. 1954. Basic Problems of Contemporary Sociology. American Sociological Review 19 (5): 519–552.

Chapter 7

Organisational Symbolism and Festival Planning Practices

The aim of the next two chapters of this book is to consider music festivals and their axionormative dimensions (Znaniecki 1943: 225) from the perspective of the humanities of organisation. There is not a great deal of scholarly literature focused on the values and norms of entire festival organisations, or on the narratives and symbols associated with their activities. Previous scholarly publications on music festivals have tended to devote their attention to audiences and artists, or to their locations, rather than to festivals as organisations. If the organisational dimension of festivals is given some consideration, the focus tends to be on cultural policy (Klaić 2014; Robinson 2016; Delanty et al. 2011), cultural economics (Négrier et al. 2013; Klaić 2009), cultural tourism and cultural planning (Maughan and Bianchini 2004; Luonila and Johansson 2015), or on the practical aspects of festival management (Jordan 2016; Anderton 2015; Autissier 2008; Iso-Aho 2011). The material collected during the research phase of the project “The Festivalization of Values. Axionormative dimensions of music festivals in Poland” allows us to see that festivals are organisations with significant axionormative resources. In this section of our study, in order to shed light on the essence of this thematic scope, we will refer to the data collected from individual in-depth interviews conducted with two groups of respondents. The first group consisted of the organisers and participants of 7 music festivals held in different regions of Poland from November 2019 to September 2021. The second group comprised experts, journalists, and observers of the Polish festival scene, as well as experienced managers from the music business. For the analysis of the empirical material presented in this chapter, the key terminological and theoretical concepts are provided by two elements taken from the fields of organisational sociology and anthropology, organisational aesthetics, and the management of cultural organisations, namely: organisational culture (Martin 2002; Schein 1985) and organisational symbolism (Strati 1998, 1999). These conceptual tools provide the theoretical framework for structuring the material presented in this section of the book. This chapter essentially concerns the festival as an organisational format and object of planning, where the thinking and acting described as “planning” can be © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 W. Kuligowski, M. Poprawski, Festivals and Values, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39752-3_7

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treated as a clear example of organisational symbolism. Of additional significance here are the circumstances of the COVID-19 crisis, which gave “planning” the status of an even more complex and symbolically relevant activity. The next section explores the concept of organisational culture, and this provides the basis for analysing the organisational dimensions of music festivals, including those presented in the following chapter. The empirical material chiefly concerns the “planning” of festivals and serves to illustrate this concept from the field of organisational symbolism. Organisational culture is a concept from the field of organisational science that is applied to the attitudes, experiences, beliefs, norms, and values associated with an organisation, which are shared by its members or groups. It is often seen as a set of preconditions that tacitly control or interfere with all the relationships of organisation members, both inside and outside the organisation (Martin 2002). The purpose of the next section is to provide an overview of this subject area, to identify concepts that can lay the ground for empirical research, and to help understand the significance and complexity of music festivals’ organisational cultures—their internal patterns of interpersonal relationships, and their impact on the local and industry ecosystem as a whole. Interpreting a phenomenon such as a festival requires identifying the organisational contexts that influence the activities of artists and audiences, and especially the culture or subcultures, bearing in mind that music festivals are complex social entities. It is particularly important to investigate festival organisations as spaces that allow the study of social processes. We can observe individuals forming the teams that become the causal agents of festivals. The meaning of their existence emerges through the choices and actions taken within festivals as organisations. The theoretical foundations of this approach have already been laid by researchers who have studied organisations from the perspective of their complex professional backgrounds. They were proposed by investigators who have adapted cultural anthropology, philosophy, aesthetics, psychology, and cultural studies, as well as other fields, to the analysis of organisations. The most open fields of organisational theory are those that represent the approach critically and aesthetically, liberated from the pseudo-rational props of managerial ideologies oriented solely towards efficiency and profit.

Organisational Culture and Festivals as Organisations In order to provide a straightforward overview of the practical aspect of analysing organisational culture, we can use the basic model of Edgar Schein’s (1985) pyramid. The author identifies three layers of organisational culture in organisational practice. First, we encounter the attributes of the organisation that can be seen, felt, and heard by the uninitiated observer. These include the facilities, the spaces in which people work, the visible rewards and expressions of appreciation, the way

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members of the organisation dress, the way each person interacts visibly with other members and with those outside the organisation. The second layer is the culture shared by the members of the organisation: slogans, mission statements, and other beliefs expressed as rules of interaction and daily collaboration that apply to all, which are often openly articulated by the team. The third level is the deepest, being the area of the organisation’s tacit assumptions: the elements of culture that are invisible, taken for granted and not cognitively recognised in the daily interactions between the members of the organisation. Here we search for elements of culture that are often taboo, the “unspoken rules” that exist without the conscious knowledge of the members of the organisation, or without them needing to verbalise them. Schein (1985) points out that the members with the experience necessary for understanding this deepest level of organisational culture usually become acclimatised to its attributes over time, thereby reinforcing the continued invisibility of their existence. Other researchers do not hesitate to single out, list, and define dozens of minor components of organisational cultures, such as the aesthetic categories of an organisation’s appearance, style and reputation, or the complex metaphors of myths, rewards, heroes, rituals, and ceremonies, and even issues associated with members’ eating habits (Harris and Moran [1987] 2000). There is no doubt that if they had to create unique organisational culture profiles, all arts organisations would have a great deal of such data to input. In some studies, the analysis of organisational culture is deeply immersed in the terminology of “cultural dimensions”, a concept central to the attempt to compare how people’s behaviour is conditioned by their national cultures. However, in the complex debate over their importance, these cultural dimensions have many critics (e.g. McSweeney 2002, Magala 2005). The phenomenon of cultural dimensions emerged from the social sciences and the science of communication, and was introduced by management psychologists and pioneers of comparative, cross-cultural management research—people such as Geert Hofstede (2001), Fons Trompenaars, and Charles Hampden-Turner (1997)—and tested on international organisations, primarily corporations. Among several intensely debated cultural dimensions there are some that may have relevance for the study of arts organisations, including festivals, and their crosscultural organisational environments. The first dimension—which can be applied to the organisational cultures of culturally diverse festivals—is “time orientation: past, present, future”. Another explicitly expressed dimension is the avoidance of uncertainty: whether one structures or does not structure (i.e. one improvises) the essence of what one does and communicates this in the organisation. Another important dimension that can be considered with regard to arts and festival organisations is the balance between professional life and private life, or the relationship between work and leisure time for festival team members, which is a “specific” or “diffuse” relationship. In this dimension, a characteristic question arises: does being a professionally committed member of an organisation and, at the same time, a passionate admirer of the music performed at the festival, allow the team member, as a co-creator of the festival, to separate work life from private life, duty from pleasure? Is such a separation advisable? Is it even possible in the field of festival production and organisation?

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When considering the various dimensions of cultural organisation, it is worth noting that organisational cultures are most realistically seen not as homogeneous wholes or random clusters of organisational subcultures, but as mixtures of cultural manifestations—of different levels and types. This also applies to seemingly homogeneous and stable festival organisations operating on a solid long-term basis and incorporating local needs, as well as those festival phenomena cyclically co-financed by public entities and local governments.

Organisational Symbolism and Festival Format Organisational culture can thus have a wide range of meaning, but it also becomes a less cognitively satisfying concept if we require a precise and unambiguous description of a phenomenon or situation in an organisation. The increasingly widespread use of this term in business consultancy, consulting, and training leads to misleading interpretations and reactions, and ultimately results in blurred areas of practice. Therefore, the concept of organisational culture may prove to be an insufficient descriptive tool when applied to festival organisations. A better strategy seems to be to incorporate elements of organisational culture into the far more theoretically promising concept of organisational symbolism. The roots and applicability of this concept were explored by Antonio Strati (Strati 1998), who essentially completed the work initiated by the author of a previously published book, a collection of articles on organisational symbolism (Turner 1990). This work was further developed through dialogue in the regular meetings of the Standing Conference on Organisational Symbolism—SCOS. Organisational symbolism provides a userfriendly alternative for those researchers of organisations who seek a more precise, detailed, and appropriately contextualised understanding of organisational culture issues. This can be highly relevant and give a greater sense of credibility in the study of organisations with substantial aesthetic, ethical and social values, and knowledge resources. Music festivals are just such organisations. To convey the idea of the phenomenon of the festival as an original format distinct from other organisational forms, it is important to note that the festival format is an excellent example of specific cognitive processes that are realised through action and that, in the course of the action itself, produce a further mode of action (Gherardi 2021). It is a type of organisation that is characterised by a creative process also in the sense of organisational solutions, where the point is to ensure the design process remains in “a liquid state”, avoiding a crystallised one that “closes design inquiry” (Bolland and Collopy 2004: 17). The focus is on testing, experimenting, and managing knowledge and experience under conditions of constant uncertainty. Juha Iso-Aho called that type of music festivals’ organisers’ reality “the Nobody Knows Principle” (Iso-Aho 2011: 109): “demand is inherently uncertain. Consumer reactions to a product can neither be known beforehand nor easily understood afterwards”. For this reason, the resilience of festivals as organisations is

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not obvious, but fascinating and worth careful observation. An approach rooted in organisational symbolism seems to offer a useful set of analytical tools in this regard. As the paradigm of reflection and method for studying organisational cultures, the organisational symbolism proposed by Antonio Strati seems to be very applicable to the investigation of arts organisations, including music festivals, since it respects and explores their complexity. At the core of organisational symbolism are the concepts of symbol and myth. In his proposal for the use of the symbolic approach, Strati (1998) directs our attention to four different areas of organisations: the negotiation process, emotions and feelings, beliefs and ideologies, and the power of language. These all relate to the everyday life of organisations and highlight the limitations of cognitivist and rationalist research. At the same time, however, from the macro level of his narrative it is evident that Strati is well aware of the weakness of organisational symbolism as an academic social construction, highlighting its limitations and elements that need to be treated with caution. He cites Weick (1989), who presented the disciplined imagination as a theoretical construct in organisation studies, where discipline emerges through the consistent application of criteria by trial and error. Strati does not dispute that organisational symbolism has always been fragmented, heterogeneous and riven by controversy, as have the concepts of symbol and myth. Organisational analysis guided by this approach explores the most delicate aspects of the social construction of organisational life. The symbolic approach to organisational cultures is characterised by particular attention being paid to organisational processes and the intentions and values of the participants in organisational life, and thus contributes to the topic of axionormativity. It emphasises emancipatory dynamics in the organisational sphere and engages in a polemic against positivism. Organisational symbolism is one of the few concepts employed in organisational research that has its origins in academia rather than in business or institutional consulting. The symbolic approach is based on theoretical premises and formulates hypotheses that are not subordinated to profit or efficiency imperatives. However, this does not contradict the fact that the approach draws on organisational life and aims to have practical application in this sphere, providing knowledge to individuals and actors involved in activities within—and in relation to—organisations. Strati emphasises the fundamental importance of symbols, since their construction is a constitutive act for groups and organisations. Through the symbol, what is fragmentary becomes whole. There is no symbolism that does not relate to some organisational practice; a practice, moreover, that is not closed in on itself but relates, because of its symbolic function, to other organisational practices. As yet, the approach of organisational symbolism has seldom been applied to the realities of research on music festivals, or any other types and forms of performing arts organisations. Luigi Maria Sicca adopted this perspective to explore issues of organisational inclusion in the experiential fields of opera theatres, festivals, and orchestras, among others (Sicca 1997, 2000; Sicca and Zan 2005; Sicca et al. 2013). In his view, these fields of organisational studies make visible—as if under a microscope—modes of organisational action whose traditions date back millennia, although they are also present in more recent organisations. In this sense, these

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modes also pertain to the organisational activities that fuel festival activities, and did so from their historical beginnings.

Festival Planning from the Perspective of Organisational Symbolism One of the examples analysed in the symbolic approach to organisational culture is the planning process. Here, plans are treated as symbolic artefacts. We will devote more space to the symbolic artefacts that are particularly relevant for organisations such as festivals in the next chapter. In this section of the book, we wish to devote our attention to the first of these—planning. As Strati points out, “The first and most apparent aspect of planning is what actually exists on paper: the plan itself, with its schedule, objectives, the sequence of activities foreseen, the list of the organisation’s members affected, the extent to which they may be so affected, an so on” (Strati 1998: 1383). For analysis conducted on this basis, the plan itself is already a symbolic artefact. Treating the plan as a symbolic object prompts a series of inquiries into the meaning and value of planning for the actors involved in the creation and implementation of the plan. It generates questions about “the intuitive processes underlying its creation (. . .) How attached are the subjects to the plan and what sense of ownership do they express in its regard?”. The symbolism of the plan is also examined in terms of “the meanings for the subjects concerned, the beliefs that it expresses, the mythical thought that lies at its basis the organisational heroism that it delineates, its ritual significance for organizational actors” (Strati 1998: 1383). According to Strati, planning manifests itself in organisational symbolism in at least six dimensions. Firstly, through the very existence of a real plan, most often in written form: as a note in a calendar, a list of goals or components, a diagram, a chart, or a list of people involved in the plan. Secondly, the plan is a mental attempt at organisational fantasising, imagining something that does not exist. Thirdly, planning has the character of auto-communication, in the sense that the plan for the practical implementation of a festival sometimes turns into a mantra, with the manager believing that he or she is a planner (when in reality his or her plan probably has little chance of being fully implemented). Fourthly, there is planning that symbolises the possession of information: organisational actors assign value to information that may be worthless and accumulate masses of information that they do not use, and at the same time they often act before they possess the necessary information. The possession and use of information symbolises the commitment and dedication of organisational actors and provides ostensible evidence of their rational behaviour. Information is notoriously collected on the basis of the values and beliefs both of the actors who provide it and of those who collect it. Such gathering activity celebrates the organisational value of rationality and competence. According to Strati, the fifth dimension of planning is the ambiguity of the category of time in the perception of the various actors involved. Here there is an imaginary process:

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individuals, groups, and organisations have their own distinct “times”, and they use them in parallel to plan the activities of a single event, such as a festival. A final, sixth symbolic dimension of planning is access to—and purported control over—the plan, as evidence of organisational skill: organisational actors establish their superiority over others based on their possession of symbolic power over the plan and the ability to plan other people’s time. In the empirical research on music festivals, we did not find ideal examples of the highlighted dimensions of planning as a symbolic activity. Nevertheless, the theme of festival planning emerged in many statements provided by organisers and experts, as well as by audience representatives. These statements definitely reveal the potential for analysis conducted within the framework of an approach characterised by organisational symbolism. They also provide a great deal of information about the axionormative dimensions of festival organisers’ activities.

Festivals and Consensual Planning: Examples of Empathetic Integration of Work and Leisure Time Among the statements made by the organisers of the festivals surveyed, there are several that indicate a conscious freeing of the organiser from the need to “own” the festival through planning, to have “ownership” or full control of the plan. This does not imply a lack of responsibility or a threat to the safety of the activities, but simply illustrates an attitude on the part of the organiser suggesting they do not strive to “own” the plan. Justyna Liszkowska, one of the festival organisers with volunteers under her supervision, gives a detailed description of the process of conducting activities according to a pre-prepared plan which is a very open concept. In this case, the planning method contains elements that do not have to be controlled by the manager. In the description there is a clear and conscious lack of stress and restrictions, an openness to improvisation and continuous adaptation of the planned activities, showing empathy for those affected by the plan. An extended fragment from her description will help convey this: “There are five [staff] and thirty-five volunteers and we decide for ourselves in the evening which people will have which function, (. . .) here the main problem is the rubbish after the night (. . .) in the morning only four people get up very early so that the rest can sleep. By midday, nothing like that happens anymore, it’s already functioning, and we don’t stand at the gates until around ten o’clock. So in order not to have gaps we always arrange who will carry the rubbish to the container (. . .). Then it’s shower time, that moment when there are no queues, and the volunteers can go into the showers faster. We [the workers] do our briefings at ten o’clock. We analyse the screw-ups from the day before and think about how to avoid them the next day, some ideas to fix things (. . .) Some people are backstage, some are here [in the festival village] so we exchange info on different events, what to look out for. And then, in the meantime [there is] food and so on. We split [into groups of volunteers] even

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before the festival starts, for jobs like being at the gates, putting on wristbands, checking tickets, looking after such general order, cars, driving. And I really don’t interfere at all [in these groups], they decide for themselves who is on the gates, they take over from each other, they clock off themselves”.1 This scenario outlined by the manager contains many interesting elements, revealing the typical cycle of activities in which a music festival producer is involved. At the same time, one can see how much attention the author of this story pays to the moments when the volunteers make their own decisions, in a process of non-hierarchical, consensual, and dialogical planning. Importance is assigned to allowing volunteers time to socialise with their friends, to take part in the festival as members of the audience: “Also, everyone has time to have fun or to sit around a bit with their friends who are at the festival. In the evening they decide who will be on the gates the next day and who can go and have fun in front of the stage, this is the moment when we practically have only a few spots to fill and there’s no need for thirty-five people, so everyone goes in front of the stage and dances. And then we sit together in the evening, they have a great time with each other, they sit here, they dance, they do something, and people stick together, and often there’s a small afterparty, and the next day it’s practically the same again. During the day all sorts of things come up. Someone’s lost something here, something needs to be transported there, there’s mud somewhere, so maybe you need to deal with such small things, but that’s why we sit here, so that when something happens, the people who sit here are the first ones who want to deal with it”.2 This treatment of the plan can be described as consensual (Banai et al. 2000),3 as it is based on ongoing agreement, continually updated in dialogue by team members who are in constant interaction, not only in terms of artistic work, but also in the process of managing a co-created organisation oriented towards specific realisations and tasks.

Possession and Ownership of the Plan: The Festival Organiser’s Attachment to and Control over the Programme of Festival Events For some organisers, the process of planning festival activities is an activity that is completely and organically integrated into their own needs and way of functioning. As David Listos of the Pannonica Festival puts it: “it’s not programmed, it’s willed, it’s not controlled, for us it’s something natural, that simply translates into the

1

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. 3 Consensual leadership is discussed in terms of musical organisations with the example of the so-called Orpheus Process—orchestral leadership activities used by the New York based Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, one of the first orchestras to use rotational leadership, also known as consensual leadership (Banai et al. 2000; Seifter 2001; Hackman 2002). 2

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festival, when putting on this festival we can’t do something that is not in harmony with us”.4 Festival plans are a kind of belonging and the organisers pay attention to this, wanting to protect the ownership of the plan so that it is not used against the organisers’ intentions, so that it is not associated with people and entities that are not related to the festival. For example, Jacek Żędzian states: “the concert at the market is our initiative. Yesterday, I saw that the anti-Covid crowd claimed the event for themselves in some report, but it is all our initiative. This is Andrzej Talewicz’s business, and he takes care of it because of us—he is the one who organised this fair and the stage at the market”.5 The belonging of the festival programme to specific people, a sense of connection, also stems from the phenomenon of festivals being organised by people who are close to each other, as friends or family, a process of planning in such a group. Tomasz Pochoryłko explains: “mostly it’s done on by throwing around ideas, bands that could be cool, or that have recently released a cool album, or that we think would fit in with our festival. Of course, a key issue is our finances—we have to see who we can afford. This selection of artists is mostly done together, so everyone has something to contribute, and we create the line-up of the whole festival on this basis. Taking into account the idea of the festival, as well as the values presented by the artists in question (. . .) This is on the basis of a very social, shared idea. And this is the whole secret (. . .) We’ve never done rankings, polls with the audience, which are popular on Facebook, because such rankings can be manipulated”.6 Festival programmes are also created through a trial-and-error method, with organisers testing solutions and learning from those that did not work, as Sławomir Wierzcholski, among others, admits in an interview, citing specific errors in the festival’s line-up, types of bands wrongly located in particular spaces, or mistakes in the concert schedule: “these are very technical things, but I had to learn them, understand how it works, and find out that not all my concepts match reality. In this respect, the festival is evolving”.7 There are also organisers who entertain the idea of completely freeing themselves from the need to create a plan, as a result of the pandemic experience, which revealed the fragility of planning efforts. Piotr Kaplita considers such a scenario: “maybe it will always be like this, creating a festival without a programme and waiting to see who comes. We have rehearsed this. In a way it’s a return to the roots, because it used to be the case that there was a programme, but apart from that there were unofficial concert arrangements—let’s meet at 6 pm and sing together. If the pandemic continues, we’ll put on a festival without an official concert programme! People will come and find out where to go from day to day”.8 One interviewee, also based on the experience of the pandemic, pointed to yet another mode of festival

4

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 9.07.2021. 6 Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 18.06.2020. 7 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 26.06.2020. 8 In-person interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 26.08.2020. 5

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planning that relieves undue tension and frustration—one that introduces thinking through the method of options, sets of solutions ready to be activated, depending on the type of circumstances that do not depend on the organiser: “we are left trying to plan for contingencies. If it’s like this, we’ll do this, and if reality is like that, we’ll do that. That is the only thing that is realistic and responsible for organisers to do at the moment”.9

The Dreams, Fantasies, and Aspirations of Festival Organisers Located in Their Planning In the interviews with festival organisers, the researchers asked about their plans and dreams for the future of their festival in the next 10 years. Many specific needs and desires came up in response, which can be arranged into several groups. First, they indicated the desire to expand into new areas and locations, reaching bigger or new audiences with the specific genre of music promoted by the festival. For example, this was mentioned by Wojciech Siwek: “I would like jazz to be everywhere for five to six festival days, even in shopping malls. So that everyone knows that there is an abundance of jazz. That’s the dream”.10 New formats and festival locations are also desirable, as Tomasz Pochoryłko points out: “every year we try to realise a new dream, the dream was to organise a festival in an open space, next it is to continue this festival in its current form, possibly expanding it with a larger workshop zone, more bands and more days, so that every year we manage to invite more and more stars, to expand, to enlarge, to involve more and more new institutions (. . .) to expand the festival so that newer additional options appear and add some variety”.11 Of particular importance to some of the organisers in their plans is developing to the point where they have international reach, as Sławomir Wierzcholski indicates: “I also want it to be an international festival—there are always Poles, but if we are to reach a high level, there must be people from all over the world”.12 The second type of aspiration which dominates in the statements concerns financial stability, as Piotr Kolaj states: “I would like the next 10 years to be such a time for the festival that I don’t have to worry about the future. Unfortunately, despite 20 years of working on this festival in this city, I have no guarantee that it will take place the following year. It is what it is, I have to be honest—I have no financial security”.13 Jacek Żędzian expressed similar existential desires: “for the festival to survive another 10 years. This is the only dream”.14 There are also dreams 9

Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 22.05.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 25.06.2020. 11 Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 18.06.2020. 12 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 26.06.2020. 13 Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 4.06.2020. 14 Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 2.06.2020. 10

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related to personnel, leadership, organisational succession, as is evident from Anna Porębska’s statement: “my dream is to train up a successor who will continue to lead after me”.15 Finally, very inspiring example of an organiser’s attitude towards plans and aspirations is to abandon the ambition of continuous development, to stabilise and consolidate achievements, which is expressed by Andrzej Maszewski, whose answer is worth quoting in full: “I had in my mind first an unconscious and then conscious [conviction] to avoid this pressure of constant development. The world doesn’t have to constantly evolve, it can’t keep getting better, more (. . .) although I admit that in the beginning there were such dreams of power, a huge response and audience growth, almost exponential, of course. So if there is anything to dream about it is stability of scale (. . .) We are concerned simply to maintain, first of all, the quality, secondly the atmosphere, and thirdly the satisfaction of our audiences, the longevity of this community that we have managed to build”.16

Festival Crisis Mode Planning and Organisational Heroism The organisational heroism that theorists of organisational symbolism include as an example of the symbolic dimension of planning is explicitly present in the descriptions of the organisers’ struggles with the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, however, the sensation of being in permanent crisis mode, of constantly putting out fires during the organisation of a musical event, is a key part of the perceived identity of the concert event manager, regardless of external circumstances and obstacles. There is no unambiguous definition of the organisational heroism mentioned by researchers of organisational symbolism, and it is not entirely clear how it can be applied to a music festival, but our linguistic intuition hints at meanings related to behaving heroically by bringing a musical event to a happy end, of saving the organised venture from adversities of multiple types. Each of the interviewed organisers has to deal with these circumstances and roles, in full awareness of the risky environment in which he or she works every day when bringing the festival to reality. The often-unpredictable behaviour of the participants adds to the stress and concerns about the possible consequences of an unwanted turn of events. Anna Porębska, among others, mentions these factors: “the most important thing is that nothing happens. There’s a lot of alcohol here and these different kinds of accidents play on my mind and raise my blood pressure. (. . .) People have no idea how much paperwork and documentation has to be sorted out. Four nights without sleep”.17

15

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.07.2021. Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 22.05.2020. 17 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.07.2021. 16

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At the same time, our research shows that festival-goers are very aware of the organisers’ workload and the complexity of their work, as one Pannonica Festival participant points out: “They’ve been here for a month already, they’re exhausted, but for these four days all this energy flows mysteriously back to them, and it never happened that there was no response (. . .), it attracts people”.18 Organisers also sees themselves as rescuers in situations that are not related to the festival-goers, but rather to the planning and handling of artists. In an interview with a researcher, Łukasz Słotwiński recalls that random, last-minute accidents that result in artists being unable to come to the festival are like nightmares, because then the organiser has to suddenly come up with a working alternative.19

Planning in Terms of the Perception of Time and the Rhythm of Action There are several conceptual categories that can be identified in the statements collected in the survey on festivals in Poland. These include continuity, the cyclical nature of the festival and, as some of the respondents like to think, its inevitability. The festival requires thinking in terms of a cycle, the disruption of which is a particularly acute example of interference in the lives of people and organisations. As one festival-goer points out: “it is important to maintain the continuity of the festival. A person at a certain point falls out of rhythm and stops treating the festival like their own child, it just starts to be something distant. This is important for the organisers and for the participants”.20 As Mirosław Pęczak points out, “all that has happened is that the pace has been lost and so on. But I also see that the industry has very strong determination. I can’t imagine everything stagnating like this in the pandemic and nothing changing again in the future. This is a serious business from the financial perspective too, so I think they won’t fold”.21 Both the organisers and the festival-goers get accustomed to the time of a given cyclical event, they get used to the date, the time of year when the festival takes place, hence the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown was particularly acute for these annual events. As Maciej Szajkowski points out: “it was an extremely difficult year, we had to postpone and we didn’t know the date until the last minute, just imagine, one and a half, two months before the festival the date was still fluid, it was still being changed. It was held every year in May, and we managed to attract more and more people every year, these people got used to it being in May and suddenly it was moved to September”. The disruption to the festival cycle concerns not only the dates themselves, but also the timing of specific preparation processes, as Łukasz Słotwiński 18

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 25.08.2020. 20 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 4.09.2021. 21 Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 8.06.2020. 19

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pointed out: “I usually deal with contacting foreign artists. The first problem was that it was actually impossible to start talks with artists when we usually start them, so in December-January. From March to May there was almost complete silence, so we already knew that this was going to be a special year”.22 The impulse to continue preparations despite adversity usually came from the festival’s loyal audience, who exerted effective pressure on the organiser, as Łukasz Słotwiński explains: “We thought about taking a break. But the willingness from all sides won out, we had a lot of signals from the crowd—emails and phone calls—that they wanted to meet up. And it didn’t matter if it was a week or three days—they wanted to come. Every edition of the festival has a slogan, this year it’s ‘meeting’. People are not necessarily waiting for a list of artists, they just want to meet. They wait all year to meet each other and listen to music. We rely on a steady base of people who have been coming here, sometimes for 20 years. Many of them say they can’t imagine spending the last week of August any other way”.23 Lastly, with regard to the perception and symbolism of time when organising a festival, there is the conviction that a festival requires many years of rehearsal and practice to become a truly cyclical event; one that is financially stable, with loyal attendees. Maciej Pilarczyk reminds us of this: “festivals are a lot of work, no one ever succeeds with the first edition, it’s more or less, as far as I know, that the so-called break-even point is reached around the fifth edition. After the fifth edition, the festival starts to even out and make money, so it’s something that just requires a long process and a long time. You simply have to get used to the fact that this festival is on the calendar every year, that you have to come every year, because the festival will also take place next year, that the festival, which has such and such an offer, will expand its offer every year to make it even more attractive than the previous year, so as to attract the audience that has already been there and persuade new ones. And it’s all about building the brand and the community you want to attract, so it’s a very long-term process”.24

Total Management, the Tendency of Wanting to Control Everything. Cloud Distractors An observed phenomenon in the environment is the ambition of organisers to completely control the entirety of festival-related phenomena, which can be colloquially referred to as “total management”, a certain maximalism at the limit of the organiser’s time and personnel capabilities or beyond them, based on good intentions. Festival managers often succumb to the temptation to exert complete control over the process of festival organisation, including in those spheres that belong to 22

In-person interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 25.08.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 25.08.2020. 24 Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 22.06.2020. 23

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artists or audience independence and concern their private needs. In some organisations it is customary to prepare a full-service package, as Piotr Kaplita, one of the organisers of the festival tell us: “we prepare accommodation and food for the participants. To make it easier. This year for the first time we’re not doing that, it’s very difficult logistically, more people to work with. We did it for the convenience of the participants”.25 It is often hard to draw the line between private and professional matters, as can be heard in the statements of the organisation leaders regarding their unique initiation as managers, as Michal Wiraszko recalls: “suddenly I was responsible for a couple of million zlotys and a few dozen people. It was as if someone had given me an electric shock! (. . .) I was very fulfilled! It’s a tough job though, because in terms of numbers there are 3 festivals to put on: the number of concerts, the number of stages, the logistical agility needed to imagine the movement between stages. It can be hard and nerve-wracking at times. But it’s also an almost biblical, purifying experience—an unseen enemy brought down our fully prepared festival. All we had to do was sell tickets and have a little fun with promotion. Then a month before . . . [the pandemic and the ban on mass events] . . . a lesson in humility”.26 Among the narratives clearly close to the theme of organisational symbolism in the context of planning are those that concern the organisers’ struggles with the weather. The hope that the weather will not spoil the plan is the mantra of every festival organiser who puts on at least some of their events outside, without cover from the elements. There is the common theme of the organiser’s helplessness and humility towards the weather conditions. Dawid Listos comments on this: “these are outdoor events that cannot be predicted (. . .) such a festival is a living organism (. . .) I don’t have a very peaceful day, because this is not a performance in a theatre, which is prepared for a given hour, the audience comes and the show goes on, lights go out, curtain and applause. We have surprises all the time, of all kinds, with so many people, if the weather takes a turn for the worse, I have a really hard time”.27 This struggle with the weather is also recognised by attendees, as Dorota recalls: “At our first meeting with Wojtek, the organiser, he had a smile on his face, despite such huge problems in the organisation and the fact that it poured down. Moving the stage across the bridge and the strange miracles they had to perform for us. The strategy was prepared, but it had to be changed on the fly, and it worked out perfectly”.28

25

In-person interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 26.08.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 05.06.2020. 27 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. 28 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. 26

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Festival Planning in Times of Plague and Sanitary Restrictions In the accounts of many festival organisers, we encounter the basic themes of the compromises and sacrifices that resulted from the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions imposed on their activities. Michał Choiński mentions the financial losses, but is also aware of his responsibility for the health of festivalgoers: “I had to cancel 12 concerts, 4000 tickets. These are massive losses. Everything is postponed by a year and a half or even 2 years. . . These are massive, frozen funds. (. . .)—The lockdown prevented us from operating, completely and utterly. (. . .) but when I think that I could have created a health risk for these people, it’s terrible!”.29 Planning became an endeavour so complex, based on so many external factors, that it was virtually impossible, beyond the control of the planners themselves. Maciej Pilarczyk stated that “festivals simply don’t exist. They just not happening, they are postponed until next year, so time will tell how it will all turn out”.30 Michał Choiński complemented this description of the situation by adding a dimension related to the relationship between organisers and artists: “all the plans from this year are postponed until next year, but next year is also uncertain. It is very difficult to talk to bands and bookers”.31 An obstacle to planning the possible return of festivals was the government’s ambiguity and inconsistency regarding the details of the Covid measures and sanitary restrictions. This is a typical comment from an organiser: “we don’t know what the restrictions will be, whether there will be a temperature check with a laser sensor at the entrance, whether everyone will have to wear masks, whether the bars will be closed, whether there will be a distance of two metres. . . There are a lot of unknowns! We are all waiting”.32 Justyna Liszkowska clearly recalls the chaotic situation into which the government plunged those planning the festival activities: “the regulations were constantly changing, a new announcement was made, for example, two days before the festival, and it all costs a lot. We didn’t want to risk having to return the money again. After cancelling, when we had to refund the tickets, we lost a lot. So, we were closed, we couldn’t do anything. And we’ve actually been preparing since March for this year’s edition. (. . .) we’ve had a great motivation this year, because we got the permits in July (. . .) there was supposed to be some kind of division, with the vaccinated in one area, but we actually don’t even have the right or the tools to verify this. Well, it’s kind of bizarre . . . (. . .) we were more expecting logical thinking and a healthy approach to life”.33 Additionally frustrating for festival organisers was the unequal treatment of different areas of activity in terms of public events: “all these

29

Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 25.05.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 22.06.2020. 31 Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 25.05.2020. 32 Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 25.05.2020. 33 In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińską-Antoniewicz, 3.09.2021. 30

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announcements are paradoxical, they don’t make any sense. From what I observe, some are treated equally, and others 'more equally' (. . .) a stadium can be 25% full [with sports fans attending a sports event], which means that depending on the size of the stadium this could be between 1000 and 10,000 people. If we wanted to put on a concert of an artist in the same stadium, it is no longer possible for 25% to enter, only 150 people, so it’s nonsense all round, really”.34 Tomasz Pochoryłko also draws attention to the harmful effects of decisionmakers on organisers of musical events: “I personally look at how many people are already gathering in various places, at political rallies or sporting events, how many people will be able to gather, well, to put it crudely and colloquially, I feel like someone spat in my face to be honest. I’m not talking about indoor festivals for fifteen thousand people, but I don’t understand these restrictions at the moment, and I have no idea why they’re there and what they’re aimed at, but looking at it logically, you can see that concerts—people, mainly the whole music industry, a lot of things related to music, sound companies, festivals, concert, clubs—are completely ignored and completely put on the back burner”.35 The feeling of being subjected to unfair treatment by the government prompted a group of organisers of music events, including festivals, to set up the Izba Gospodarcza Menadżerów Artystów Polskich (Business Chamber of Managers of Polish Artists), an organisation that began by trying to influence politicians through visual campaigns and petitions. The intentions of this group of organisers are indicated in one of the interviews: “We are focused on one thing—for everyone to be treated equally. At the time, when we were all sitting at home and there was a pandemic, it was understandable—we all had the same restrictions, so we were equal. But when the restrictions were loosened, the authorities showed that not everyone is treated in the same way (. . .) musicians, it’s not just the musician, it’s the huge staff behind him, people involved in setting up, lights, sound production, drivers, so it’s about these people. (. . .) When this whole team loses their jobs, they lose their jobs on a given day. They don’t have any other sources of income, they don’t have any other means of livelihood other than what they make for the work they do”.36 In the first year of the pandemic, some festival organisers opted for alternative, previously untested formats, such as festivals delivered as online events. Planning took on a completely different form, required completely new competences, and organisers had to enter into other relationships. Jacek Żędzian recalls the circumstances: “when we postponed the festival to the following year, I thought I wouldn’t be doing anything, but because friends pushed me, I began organizing the online edition, although I was full of misgivings because no one had organised anything like this before in Poland. There was no one to watch and no one to take inspiration from. However, it was quickly organised with the agreement of several recording

34

Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 22.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 18.06.2020. 36 Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 22.06.2020. 35

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studios and a company that took care of the broadcast. The concerts were held in several locations. We, the organisers, arranged everything and announced the concerts. In total, this event was seen by around 10,000 people”.37 A recurring theme in the statements about the pandemic is that of organisational heroism, as previously mentioned. Now the people engaged in heroic activities came to include those who made it possible to transfer festivals to online versions. They are referred to as the “invisible heroes”: “at typical live events, these people were getting paid for what you could see had been done, the system was set up, these people arrived early, everything was sorted. But when you put something on the Internet, (. . .) even though you put work into it, and it’s nice that you did it, I don’t see the contribution of that work, because you don’t have that arriving many hours earlier and leaving many hours later, you don’t walk up to the stage and say ‘Wow! It’s big, it’s colourful, it’s shiny, it’s huge!’, and in this case you don’t see the work put in”.38 Decisions to cancel festivals or postpone them to the following year did not discourage some festival-goers from gathering for unofficial events outside the plan envisaged by the festival organisation. This is a new phenomenon that changes the status of the organiser as the person previously in control of festival planning. On the one hand, the arrival of festival-goers at the festival’s venue, despite the absence of live musicians, is a unique demonstration of loyal attachment, but on the other it is also a potential problem for those in charge of the festival and responsible for compliance with sanitary restrictions. It was a challenge for those on the festival team who were used to controlling the situation. Jacek Żędzian describes his feelings about the unexpected arrival of 200 people at a place that had not been prepared in advance for audience participation: “there were concerns about what would happen if these people came to the festival—whether we would have unpleasantness (. . .) but these people did not want to harm us in any way. They agreed to make smaller groups and meet this way, so as not to be so concentrated in big numbers. That put me at ease”.39 However, the organisers also had legitimate anxieties, although not so much from festival fans. The whole pandemic period, with its attendant sanitary restrictions, was a time of dilemmas, frustration, and the stress of having to make decisions: “there were only two options—to hold the festival with all the Covid measures or to cancel the events. Cancellation was out of the question (. . .) Doubts only increased after discussions with Sanepid [sanitary control institution in Poland] or the police as to whether we would be able to jump through all the hoops, since the regulations were constantly changing and becoming difficult to comply with”.40 From the perspective of organisational symbolism, it is possible to return once again to the metaphor of heroism to describe the situation when the organising team actually defended the festival site against the intrusion of people protesting against

37

Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 9.07.2021. Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 25.06.2020. 39 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 9.07.2021. 40 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 9.07.2021. 38

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the COVID-19 restrictions. Aside from safety concerns, these actions were also intended to protect the festival from administrative consequences, such as cancellation, and to ensure the continued participation of festival-goers who were following the rules. Jacek Żędzian describes the edition of the festival that took place in the first days of July 2021, shortly after the festivals were allowed to take place, in compliance with the regulations that barred attendance to unvaccinated persons: “It was difficult to prepare, because the regulations were constantly changing. And during the festival, (. . .) all the time there was this situation that you didn’t know what these counter demonstrators were going to do, so all the time we were ready for anything. We know that they tried to break in from the river and in other ways. They made threats. A leader of this anti-Covid movement was also at the festival. He told our security that he would do anything to get on stage. And he’s known to do that, my head of security told me he’s done it a couple of times before, so we didn’t take it lightly, we were very tense. We had to have eyes in the back of our heads. There was a moment when this guy, disguised in a sombrero and dark glasses, was on a boat on the river and filming everything. We noticed this and came to the conclusion that he was filming in order to find any weak points with which he could get in. But I guess after what happened with Ms. Socha [the respondent refers to the arrest by the police of the leader of the protest against the restrictions, who forcibly entered the festival grounds—authors’ note], he gave up”.41 These unexpected circumstances had an impact on the already rather fragile plans: “we had to put more restrictions in place, draw up new plans for the event, because we were afraid of these people invading the festival grounds”.42 The organisers faced dilemmas, including ethical ones, which they had never had to resolve before and for which they had not been prepared in their profession: “from the organiser’s perspective we are really very tired of this time of such stagnation. On the other hand, are we creating a threat or helping combat the threat? I don’t know, I can’t answer”.43 Some festival organisers considered and had viable options to move their events beyond the Polish border, to nearby Slovakia, where the regulations were more amenable for organising festivals, before the regulations in Poland changed so that it became possible to organise the festival on the previously planned date. As Agata Szakiel recalls: “it’s 14 km to the border with Slovakia. Other conditions. Simply by considering various scenarios for the development of the festival, we thought about a foreign edition”.44 Most music festivals, due to the rather culturally universal scope of their programmes, have the potential for foreign locations in a crisis situation, but the organisers must have sufficient competences and partnerships to bring about such a change. In the survey we received signals from festival-goers mostly expressing acceptance and understanding of the complexities in which organisers are forced to plan

41

Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 9.07.2021. Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 9.07.2021. 43 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. 44 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 8.06.2020. 42

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their activities; this heroic struggle for the survival of the event was greatly appreciated by the survey respondents, who were aware that someone was struggling against the elements so that other people could enjoy the music and the festival experience: “after rainfall like here, if the stage was in a meadow, we would be up to our knees in water. It’s dangerous. The stage would tilt. Two years ago there were record numbers, there were thousands, and there was a storm. (. . .) That’s how they risked it. I felt sorry for the festival management. They must have been wetting themselves because that storm took something down in the area, roofs flew off. The stage is powered by a generator, and if a transformer is hit, you’re toast”.45 An interesting observation about the future of the festival ecosystem arose in the interview with Tomasz Waśko. He mentions the possible permanence of sanitary restrictions and their impact on the existing regulations for festival events. There was a concern among organisers that some of the changes and tightening of regulations would remain in place after the pandemic is over, which could unjustifiably limit organisers’ ability to make independent decisions and planning: “I would like this community to remain, so that there are no very big new restrictions related to the safety of events and the sanitary regime, because I already think that so far these restrictions, in terms of safety [before the pandemic], they were very good, and the fact that at festivals in Poland you basically don’t hear about any cases of violence or some worse things indicates that the conditions we had previously were sufficient. Unfortunately, I fear that what is happening may result in many, many more restrictions. Which, as a result, may lead to the fact that at some point the fun will be lost, that there will somehow be so many (. . .) new security procedures which will make you so tired by the time you get to this festival that basically all you will be dreaming about is getting out of it, that the whole screening procedure will be even more complicated than when you get to an airport, which of course I don’t wish for us, because that would be bad, but unfortunately such a post-pandemic risk exists”.46 Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis, some also see new opportunities and possibilities for organisers to change their ways, to break trends that have become routine, habitual, contributing to the festival status quo. A lesson in humility for those who treat planning privilege as a symbol of power. Michał Wiraszko sees an opportunity to balance activities, to heal what has gone beyond the bounds of decency: “The industry will change for sure, let’s hope for the better: less excessive, more modest and more thoughtful. Because liberalism was blind: a third sponsor, the fifth contract, the seventh album, the tenth compilation, the twelfth show closed. . . [The pandemic] is like a demo version of war, a great memento from fate. [The festival] next year might change for the better, because people might appreciate what they have lost more”.47 This, however, will again require a heroic effort on the part of those in charge of the festivals: “you will just have to reinvent the whole thing. To try to organise anew. To look for budgets anew, because the deals that are still out

45

In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 3.09.2021. Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 15.06.2020. 47 Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 05.06.2020. 46

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there somewhere [are] not going to last”.48 Jakub Knera also sees some positive changes that may follow the experience of the pandemic, concerning the opening up of new spaces that existed as temporary solutions during the pandemic, and that have, in due course, created space for previously undervalued locations for live music, which are potentially interesting for festivals, but also allow for freer manoeuvring of space in the event of future mandatory restrictions on the number of attendees at concerts.49 Music festivals are organisational cultures with a significant symbolic component; hence the concepts of organisational culture and organisational symbolism were used to describe the results of the research conducted in the “The Festivalization of Values” in terms of the organisational dimension. It should be emphasised that the topic of festival planning considered in symbolic terms in this chapter is only one selected example of phenomena in the field of subjects that are of interest for the humanistic study of the organisational practices of music festivals. The next chapter will develop these possibilities towards two further areas concerning the organisational symbolism of festivals—other organisational artefacts and organisational rituals (Gagliardi 1990; Strati 1998). The latter scope also opens up other areas in the organisational humanities, falling within the issues associated with organisational symbolism, that allow for a better understanding of the professional identities (Paquette 2012; Dubois 2016) of the individuals and teams involved in the organisation of festivals, and of the values held by the co-creators of festivals.

References Anderton, Chris. 2015. Branding, Sponsorship, and the Music Festival. In The Pop Festival: History, Music, Media, Culture, ed. McKay, 199–212. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Autissier, Anne-Marie. 2008. Festivals in Europe, Crossing Approaches from Edinburgh to Zagreb. Paris–Touluse: Les Editions de l’Attribut. Banai, Moshe, John Nirenberg, and Moshe Menachem. 2000. Leadership in Self-Managing Organizations: Orpheus and a Date Plantation. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies 7 (3): 3–17. Bolland, Richard J., and Fred Collopy, eds. 2004. Managing as Designing. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Delanty, Gerard, Liana Giorgi, and Monica Sassatelli. 2011. Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere. Oxford: Routledge. Dubois, Vincent. 2016. Culture as a Vocation: Sociology of Career Choices in Cultural Management, Abingdon/New York: Routledge. Gagliardi, Pasquale, ed. 1990. Symbols and Artifacts: Views of the Corporate Landscape. Berlin: de Gruyter. Gherardi, Silvia. 2021. Cultural Organisations & Sustainability: Festivals’ Resilience, COSM Talks 2. https://cosm.humak.fi/21-05-2021/. Accessed 10.04.2022.

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Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 27.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 9.06.2020.

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Hackman, Robert J. 2002. Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. Harris, Philip, and Moran, Robert T. 2000(1987). Managing Cultural Differences, 5th ed. Houston: Gulf Publishing. Hofstede, Geert. 2001. Culture's consequences. Comparing values, bevaviors, institutions and organizations across nations. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Iso-Aho, Juha. 2011. An Introduction to Festival Management: Old Ways, New Directions. In The Arts Management Handbook: New Directions for Students and Practitioners, ed. Teoksessa Brindle Meg and DeVereaux Constance. New York: M.E. Sharpe Inc. Jordan, Jennie. 2016. Festivalisation of Cultural Production: Experimentation, Spectacularisation and Immersion. ENCATC Journal of Cultural Management & Policy 6 (1): 44–55. Klaić, Dragan. 2009. The Economy of Arts Festivals: An Elusive, Untransparent Dimension. Economia della Cultura 19 (3): 317–324. ———. 2014. Focus on Festivals. Budapest: Central European University Press. Luonila, Mervi, and Tanja Johansson. 2015. The Role of Events and Festivals in the Regional Development of Cities. Event Management 19 (2): 211–226. Magala, Slawomir. 2005. Cross-cultural Competence. London: Routledge. Martin, Joanne. 2002. Organizational Culture. Mapping the Terrain. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Maughan, Christopher, and Bianchini, Franco. 2004. The Economic and Social Impact of Cultural Festivals in the East Midlands of England. Final Report. Part 1, Leicester: De Montfort University. http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/documents/publications/phpvY0hNv.pdf. Accessed 10.04.2022. McSweeney, Brandon. 2002. Hofstede’s Model of National Cultural Differences and Their Consequences: a Triumph of Faith – a Failure of Analysis. Human Relations 55 (1): 89–118. Négrier, Emmanuel, Lluís Bonet, and Michel Guérin. 2013. Music Festivals: A Changing World. Paris: Editions Michel de Maule. Paquette, Jonathan, ed. 2012. Cultural Policy, Work and Identity: The Creation, Renewal and Negotiation of Professional Subjectivities. Oxford: Routledge. Robinson, Roxy. 2016. Music Festivals and the Politics of Participation. London: Routledge. Schein, Edgar. 1985. Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Seifter, Harvey. 2001. Leadership Ensemble: Lessons in Collaborative Management from the World’s only Conductorless Orchestra. New York: Times Books. Sicca de, Luigi M. 1997. The Management of Opera Houses: The Italian Experience of the Enti Autonomi. International Journal of Cultural Policy 1 (2): 201–223. ———. 2000. Chamber Music and Organization Theory: Some Typical Organizational Phenomena Seen Under the Microscope. Studies in Cultures, Organisations and Societies, 2000/6: 145–168. Sicca, de Luigi M., and Luca Zan. 2005. Much Ado About Management. Managerial Rhetoric in the Transformation of Italian Opera Houses. International Journal of Arts Management 7 (3): 46–64. Sicca, de Luigi M., Calcagno, Monica, and Cardullo Costanza. 2013. Writing and Reading Innovative Organizations. An Empirical Research on Vertical Dance. Working Paper n. 22/ 2013. Department of Management, Universita Ca’Foscari, Venezia. Strati, Antonio. 1998. Organizational Symbolism as a Social Construction: A Perspective from the Sociology of Knowledge. Human Relations 51 (11): 1379–1402. ———. 1999. Organization and Aesthetics. London: Sage. Trompenaars, Fons, and Hampden-Turner, Charles. 1997. Riding the Waves of Culture. Understanding Diversity in Global Business. New York: McGraw Hill. Turner, Barry A. 1990. Organizational Symbolism. Berlin: de Gruyter. Weick, Karl. 1989. Theory Construction as Disciplined Imagination. Academy of Management Review 14 (4): 516–531. Znaniecki, Florian. 1943. Sociometry and Sociology. Sociometry 5 (3): 225–233.

Chapter 8

The Organisational Artefacts and Organisational Rituals of Festivals

The aim of this chapter is to explore the topic of music festivals as organisations in greater detail, with insights drawn from the perspective of organisational symbolism. While the previous chapter highlighted the phenomenon of festival planning and its axionormative potential, here we turn our attention to two other issues that arise when organisations are analysed from the perspective of organisational symbolism. These are the organisational artefact (Gagliardi 1990; Strati 1998; Royer 2020) and the organisational ritual (Strati 1998). We want to take this opportunity to emphasise that thinking in terms of the organisational artefacts associated with festivals does not only focus on objects, on movable or immovable entities, but is also linked to their location and therefore to the management of space within the festival as a symbolic and axiologically characterised area. The organisational rituals in which festival co-creators participate that differ in meaning from ritual in purely anthropological sense, as well as the artefacts that symbolically designate their space of professional action, directly touch upon the issue of the professional identity of festival organisers (Paquette 2012; Dubois 2016). This sequence of themes emerges from the gathered empirical material—from organisational artefacts to issues connected with festival space, through examples of organisational rituals, to issues of festival organisers’ identity—will be preserved in the structure of this and next chapters. The examples are provided by the research conducted as part of the “Festivalization of Values” project. The festival is a fascinating laboratory of human relations, and it tends to attract researchers interested in shedding light on the social dimension of organising artistic work. However, most often the discussion in this field focuses on the role of communication and hierarchy, or leadership authority, which are quite often identified as the main sources of conflict and difficulties in organisations. By examining the interdependent influences of social structure and artistic style, we can learn a great deal about the more general issue of how the organisation of social life affects the values and meanings that individuals and groups assign to life and the artefacts that embody them.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 W. Kuligowski, M. Poprawski, Festivals and Values, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39752-3_8

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A festival associated with the arts is always multidimensional organisation. It is a workplace for artists and others who provide the circumstances necessary for the “production”, exploitation, or interpretation of artistic works. The festival is an important source of professional identity for certain individuals, a space of engaged community, and often also a place of financial investment. This type of organisation can be both a problem and a solution, a symbol or a manifesto (Strati 1998), a project and a tool for change, an area of being and human development, a refuge and a space for intercultural communication, or a place of thwarted aspirations, stress, and frustration. Professionals from the cultural sphere—including musicians, artists who are employees of public institutions, private or grassroots organisations, associations and foundations, as well as informal groups of creatives who are involved in festival organisation—are clearly influenced by the processes highlighted in management and organisational science. They also witness or co-create the narratives and stories (Sims 2015) that convey the values and priorities relevant to the festival organisation. There are elements of the organisation that can be easily perceived and interpreted by an external observer, such as the festival audience. However, at another level, there are processes that are only understood by staff and members of the organisation, by musicians, technicians, and the administration. There is another, deeper layer in organisational cultures that preserves the knowledge and rationale behind certain facts, the behaviour, decisions, and circumstances, in such a way that they are only accessible to a few people at the highest level of management—the executive manager, artistic director, curator, festival event programme developer, financial director, association leader, or business organisation. Finally, the last level is the level of processes accessible only to the eyes and ears of professional or amateur organisational anthropologists, the outsiders who are intentionally or accidentally admitted to the deepest levels of human relations taking place in a single arts organisation. This is a field in which the attention of the researcher—whether an anthropologist, cultural studies scholar, cultural policy researcher or an organisational sociologist; or a non-professional, insightful observer of the organisation—should be directed towards the “dichotomies and contradictions, the ‘rebel voices’, ‘other sides of the story’, and ironic twists of the plot”. Above all, it is an effort to detect or address “the instability, complexity, processes, and heterogeneity below the surface of ‘official’ communications that try to create an impression of stability, hierarchical order, well-structured, functional coherence” (Magala 2005: 154–64).

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Organisational Symbolism and the Identities of Festivals Co-creators Why does the theory of organisational symbolism seem more attractive to researchers in the humanities and social studies of organisations than that of organisational culture? Organisational symbolism is intellectually inspiring because it has its roots, among other things, in anthropological cultural studies, with its study of symbol and myth, which originated in ancient Greek philosophy and mythology but was subsequently influenced by theories in the field of sociology, including the sociology of everyday life, and eventually cultural anthropology. Implicit in the previously overused notion of organisational culture, which developed under the influence of managers, is the tacit assumption that there is some managerial “culturemaking” taking place within the organisation. In reality, the essence is not creation or management, but the discovery of cultures within organisations. There are numerous cultures within and outside the organisation itself, and these are interesting in terms of the way they interact, conflict, or are negotiated. The concept of the organisation as a hypertext is generally not accepted within the conventional managerial meanings of organisational culture, whereas organisational symbolism is a field that readily adopts these and other fundamentally humanist concepts. Without disregarding the natural characteristics of the typical organisational environment of continuity, formality, and the bureaucracy that accompanies the maintenance of these values, the alternative theory of organisation is more concerned with the novelty, instinct, and lived experience that gives meaning and dynamism to the actions of people in the organisation. The power of culture becomes clear when we realise the difference between thinking of organisational culture as an asset within the organisation, on the one hand, and treating the organisation integrally as an organisational culture, on the other. Furthermore, it is the power of the beauty of the organisation as a symbol (Strati 1999: 175–177) that gives members of the organisation the motivation to keep going. The aesthetic experience is an extreme, radical way to describe and understand organisational symbolism. This is evident when we talk about the organisational symbolism of a kingdom, a university, a school, a prison, a hospital, a church, or an army and arguably also of a festival. Beautiful and ugly organisations are categories that on the surface seem too trivial from a scholarly perspective, but they are nonetheless close to our real perception of the world co-created by humans. We often think according to the categories of beauty and ugliness, although, as in the case of taste, judgment, and other categories from the dictionary of aesthetic terms, we treat them perhaps too hastily, as subjective or secondary. We create things in organisations through various capacities that rely on our senses and come into being due to our bodies. Symbolic order and aesthetics are involved when we use language to communicate in organisations and to distinguish specific organisations from other, similar ones. Furthermore, less semantically stable elements, such as metaphors, have a strong impact on organisations, especially those associated with a vibrant

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artistic culture that seeks a way to express the different values and meanings behind symbols. A basis for understanding organisational symbolism can be found in one particular text written by an Italian organisational sociologist, Antonio Strati, who describes it as constructing organisational reality through the negotiation of symbolic universals, and through “the notions of mythical thought which evades the positivist truth/falsehood dilemma” (Strati 1998: 1380). It builds on the changes introduced into the definition of organisation by the theory of organisational culture: it is a concept that “sheds new light on organizational phenomena (. . .) the essential features of symbolic analysis, namely, its emphasis on negotiating processes, on emotional dimension, on beliefs and ideology, and on language” (Strati 1998: 1380). Organisational culture is no longer understood as one of the characteristics or subsystems of an organisation: the symbolic approach does not treat culture as one of the constitutive components of an organisation, but rather sees it as constitutive of the organisation itself (Smircich 1983: 347). When viewed through the optics of symbolism, the organisation primarily becomes a continuous process of social construction—through symbols, values, and beliefs, as well as the patterns of purposeful action that people in organisations learn, produce, and reproduce. An organisation is simultaneously immaterial and material, ephemeral and permanent. As an object of study, it is observable but also suggestive. Strati calls the organisation an open text, thus referring to the intellectual legacy of Barthes and Eco. It is constituted by a nexus of personal cultures, professional and occupational cultures, corporate cultures, the dominant cultures of the productive or service sectors to which the organisation belongs, the cultures of the communities of practice to which individuals feel they belong, and the cultures of agencies and institutions operating in society, at local, national, and international levels (Strati 1998: 1381). The symbolic approach treats organisational culture as a polymorphous and ambiguous concept. It is entangled in ambiguity, conflict, and paradoxical meanings. An organisational culture is characterised as one which: (a) is simultaneously subjective and objective; (b) has fuzzy boundaries; (c) is an “object of desire”; and (d) does not isolate or privilege the objects of study—almost any organisational phenomenon can be studied in order to understand symbols and cultures in organisations. Here, the main aim of symbolism studies is to create knowledge about organisations. This approach is seen as incompatible with the paradigms of those concepts from organisational theory that rely exclusively on a rational, positivist, structuralist, or functionalist framework for the study of organisational functioning (Strati 1998). The material obtained in the research carried out as part of the “Festivalization of Values” project facilitates the analysis of festival activities from the perspective of organisational symbolism, and the consideration of issues associated with the values and the professional identity of festival organisers. This is particularly relevant in view of the impact that the last few years had on the experience and practice of festival organisers: people who found themselves in unprecedented and dramatic circumstances, being responsible for decisions that no one wanted to make, planning in a vacuum, making promises, experiencing helplessness and frustration, and taking risks and living with the hope of a happy ending.

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Organisational Artefacts as the Object of Organisational Studies The “organisational artefacts” identifiable within a festival are of particular interest in the study of festivals and the logic of their symbols and values. The examples discussed in this chapter cover a variety of objects of a more or less material nature. They constitute important artefacts for festival organisers because, for instance, they allow them to control the situation during concerts. This is exemplified by a wristband that identifies a person as being entitled to enter the festival grounds. However, this marking of the wrist of a festival participant also has other, symbolic meanings for the person wearing it. An organisational artefact of a different kind, although from the same group, is the steel barrier, also called a “concert barrier” or barrier fence, that separates the audience from the stage, artists, and organisers, or that separates the audience within the festival site from the area outside the festival. Sometimes a barrier is erected by the organisers to separate different audience groups in front of the stage. This type of fence can also separate the festival area from the space not under the care of the organisers of the event, so that the boundaries of the space controlled and secured by the organiser are clear. In the case of paid participation, barriers can also serve the purpose of preventing people without a ticket from getting inside. The power of the barrier’s symbolic impact, as with the wristband, goes well beyond its purely functional dimension (Figs. 10.26 and 10.27 in Appendix). There are examples of other kinds of objects that fall within the definition of an organisational artefact. These include the festival logo, created by the organisers and exploited in many ways, which combines the material, graphic, and immaterial senses hidden within the sign as a carrier of content communicated by its visual form. Organisational artefacts also include, on the one hand, a handwritten and illustrated festival chronicle (Fig. 10.25 in Appendix), or talismans belonging to festival managers, but on the other hand portable toilets. The quantity and condition of the latter often arouse emotions among the audience and also influence the perception of the quality of the organisers’ work. The organisational artefacts that are central to the values symbolised within festivals are of a more or less material nature, hence we can also consider the following as artefacts: the festival names used by the organisers, the set (dictionary) of key terms and slogans, the content and the way in which participants communicate that is specific to the festival, and also, following these elements of organisational symbolism, the festival-specific use of social media. According to Pasquale Gagliardi (1990) organisational or cultural-organisational artefacts embody deeper cultural phenomena. Artefacts affect organisational life from two different points of view. Firstly, in material terms, they enable, facilitate, or hinder organisational activities. On the other hand, more generally, artefacts influence our perception of reality, to the extent that they subtly shape cultural beliefs, norms, and values (Gagliardi 1996: 568). An artefact is the result of a human action, but it exists independently of the authors of that action. It is

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“perceived by the senses, in that it is endowed with its own corporality or physicality” (Gagliardi 1990: 3). By means of artefacts, as well as the organisational rituals referred to later on, organisational cultures exercise control over their members and shape their perceptual capacities—that is, “the sense of taste, of smell, of touch, of hearing, as well as of sight” (Gagliardi 1996: 573). We could also recall other, recent contributions to the state of the arts in studying organisational artefacts (Rafaeli and Vilnai-Yavetz 2004; Pratt and Rafaeli 2006; Vilnai-Yavetz and Rafaeli 2006; Bechky 2008; D’Adderio 2008; Carlile et al. 2013; Yanow 2006; Royer and Daniel 2019). They all supplemented Gagliardi’s definitions and delivered some new humanities and aesthetics derived methods and views on a potential for deeper understanding of the social processes inside organisations. An artefact is a deliberate product of human action, something made (factum) to solve a problem or satisfy a need. It is also important to bear in mind that not all artefacts have the same degree of concreteness, because not all artefacts are able to affect all our senses at the same time. For example, the logo of an organisation may directly affect our sight, but perhaps also our sense of smell, indirectly, if it is printed on paper correspondence from that organisation or on the packaging of one of its products. Architecture, including that in which the festival is located, can interact not only with our sight and smell, but also with our sense of touch and even with our sense of hearing (through the acoustic responsiveness of the place). What is important, as Gagliardi (1996: 565) writes, is that applying the concept of the organisational artefact enables us to see the organisation as a “tangible reality”, a “place”. Artefacts are the truest reflection of an organisation’s cultural identity, its material culture, its symbolic landscape, its forms of control. Artefacts, therefore, transform the organisation into a tangible reality; they are also the “things” that restore identity to the people belonging to the organisation, because it is in the objects of everyday organisational life—the chair, the worktable, the tools used at work—that people find their “identity”, as Gagliardi observes (Gagliardi 1996: 569), quoting a remark by Hannah Arendt (1958: 137). Artefacts also make organisational control perceptible through the senses, as they are “perceptual premises” that determine “the effective course of events” (Gagliardi 1996: 575) in organisational life. They therefore constitute another level of organisational control. This is due to their specific qualities, through which they are experienced holistically and directly, as Gagliardi argues, drawing on the written statements of the philosopher Susan Langer (1953, 1967). In other words, artefacts constitute a level of organisational control through language that allows us to talk about several things at once, even if they contradict each other. This is a characteristic feature of “knowledge by acquaintance” (Gagliardi 1996: 574), which is a form of knowledge quite different from knowledge by description—that is, discursive language that allows us to say only one thing at a time, rather than “more—even contradictory—things simultaneously and without the filter of abstraction”. Analysing the festival from the perspective of organisational aesthetics therefore draws attention to the perceptual capacities, as well as the work routines, that influence people operating in organisations, at the level of individual sensitivity.

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Since an artefact is a human-made object that conveys information about the culture of its creator and users, it can change over time in terms of what it represents, what it looks like, and how and why it is used, simply because the culture changes over time. Considering an organisational artefact in a broad sense reveals specific characteristics of the organisation. The aesthetic materiality of an object, such as a chair, can speak volumes about the characteristics of the organisational life in which it is used. The objects cited earlier in this chapter, such as the festival barrier and wristband, are organisational artefacts that shed light on how deeply organisational aesthetics have penetrated the everyday life of our contemporary societies. In fact, it is very difficult to describe our everyday professional and non-professional lives without reference to the multiplicity of organisations that also interact through organisational aesthetics. The latter anchors the study of organisational artefacts and other components categorised from organisational symbolism in the strands of thought of more than a dozen authors representing various philosophical currents, including hermeneutics (Berg and Kreiner 1990), which recognise the aesthetic dimension as an integral part of the symbolic construction of organisations as cultures, and which has provided the first theorisation of the study of organisational aesthetics through its images and artefacts (Dragon, the Journal of SCOS 1987; Gagliardi 1990). By adopting this approach to the study of organisations, the researcher assumes the role of an archaeologist or social art historian who studies aesthetics in order to capture organisational cultures and symbols. Within the various theoretical approaches to organisational symbolism, there is also one that focuses on the aesthetic and precognitive impact of organisational artefacts, identified as forms of organisational control (Gagliardi 1990). Another tradition of thought related to organisational symbolism, embedded more firmly in the phenomenological stream (Strati 2019), explores forms of the social negotiation of aesthetics in everyday organisational practices and is characterised by the following key dimensions: sensory cognition, aesthetic judgment, and poetic performance. This approach proposes a shift from the study of organisational aesthetics to an aesthetic understanding of organisational life (Academy of Management Review 1992; Strati 1999). There is also an artistic approach to the exploration of organisational symbolism where a philosophical performative sensibility is treated as fundamental to the study of creativity, play and organisational performance in the experiential stream of organisational management (Guillet de Monthoux 2004). This approach explores the artistic experience to gain insights into the management of organisational processes within and beyond the art world (Strati 2019). This cognitive practice has enriched the academic study of organisations with theoretical reflections from arts professionals (Barry and Hansen 2008; “Organization Studies” 2018; Taylor and Ladkin 2009). It was Isabelle Royer who reminded of another dimension of studying organisational artefacts, integrated under the umbrella of the so-called material turn in organisation studies that aimed to reintroduce physical and spatial dimensions of organisations (Royer 2020; Boxenbaum et al. 2018). In all the aforementioned strands of approaches to several components of organisational symbolism, the overarching aim is to explore how people experience their working lives aesthetically, through an aesthetic exploration of what animates organisational

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interactions that are not merely mental, logical, and rational, but which are rooted in corporeality, in sensory knowledge, and in the materiality of organisational life. This theoretical framework provides a context for specific examples of organisational artefacts relevant to festival organisations that our empirical research has highlighted.

The Symbolic Power of Festival Names, Logos, and Slogans as Organisational Artefacts Respondents to the survey on festivals and values indicated the names, logos, and slogans identifying specific music festivals as being among the most important and strongest manifestations related to the axionormative sphere. Without their existence, it is difficult to imagine any communication activities or efforts to establish the festival’s position in the market of cultural events offered to the public. As one respondent points out: “It actually starts with the name of the festival (. . .) this declaration is so strong that it is perhaps less important what then follows it, it is, for example, Przystanek Woodstock (. . .) OFF Festival, of course, communicating the off-ness of its nature, that is, the fact that some music scenes condemn themselves to being secondary or not mainstream in advance, and are happy to be in opposition to something”.1 Another example of a festival name as a carrier of the meaning of an event is the Cieszanów Rock Festival, which after ten years of activity changed its name to “CieszFanów”—moving the meaning of the name into a completely different semantic area—focusing on the needs of the audience, making music fans happy (since the phrase combines the Polish verb “cieszyć”—to please, and the noun “fans”). In addition, as observed by one of the respondents, the name was developed into a slogan linking the name of the town Cieszanów, where the festival is located, with a declaration of a particular attitude towards the participants of the event: “They use the slogan ‘I respect you’—at the same time this is a manifesto of this tolerance, which is important for different world-view attitudes and probably above all for the organisers”.2 The use of an English word in the festival name when the festival is located in Poland also directs attention to its international reach or the ambitions of the organisers, an example of this being the Unsound Festival, one of whose founders was an Australian living in Poland. The Pannonica festival conveys associations of the sensory experience of warmth and light with its slogan, which rhymes in Polish: “Pannonica—Ogień nie muzyka” (Pannonica—Fire not music). It is a slogan used by the organisers, also repeated in Polish by foreign artists from the stage, and passed on in everyday conversations by the audience: “A slogan that our festival-goers repeat, they even make themselves bands with this slogan. I think

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Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.09.2021. Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 27.06.2020.

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that’s one of the two things recognisable about our festival that didn’t come from us [the organisers], but are kind of iconic things that crop up”.3 The Rock na Bagnie (Rock on the Swamp) festival draws extensively on its name, which primarily results from its location in the immediate vicinity of the Biebrza National Park, famous for its wetlands. One of the co-organisers of the event, Andrzej Talewicz, points to a semantic meaning attached to the value of this festival, close to the older punk rock audience who participated in the events of the dynamic music scene associated with this trend in the 1980s and 1990s: “There are people from the swamps here, (. . .) this is the swamp current, (. . .) we are drowning in the swamps, (. . .) sucked in by the swamps, (. . .) there is a swamp stage and a swamp fair”.4 The swamp metaphor indirectly describes an alternative identity to the cultural mainstream for the participants of the event. This phenomenon is reinforced by the organisers in their official communication, including by naming festivalrelated artefacts: a festival souvenir e-shop is called a “szop na bagnie” [swamp shed—swamp shop/store], a t-shirt with festival graphics is called a swamp t-shirt. The names and slogans used by festival organisers and participants coexist with festival-specific language practices. In the list of key words given by the organiserrespondents of the survey, on the one hand, we have words such as organisation, order, discipline, while on the other, ease, fulfilment, meeting.5 The Village Head from one of the local communities where music events are organised, typified how representatives of local communities view festivals, when she stated that: “The visitors walk differently, they have their own nicknames, names”.6 The organisers of one festival used the very expressive linguistic practice of one of the artists from their line-up to promote the entire event. Key words very characteristic of the alternative music current present at the event were used both by the artist and by people invited to participate in the promotional videos. These people included older residents of the town where the festival took place, who were not connected to the festival but who were asked to record prepared statements with words that did not fit the image of the language used by older people, but which perfectly resonated with the needs of the younger audience of a given musical trend. The whole exercise had the effect, on the one hand, of spreading certain slogans and concepts among the festival audience and, consequently, prompting the festival producers to materialise these phrases on souvenir products sold to the public. This situation is described in detail by Jędrzej Dondziło, one of the co-creators of the event: “I’ll tell you about the language, the texts of Cinek [the hero of the promotional videos] are used by our audience every day. Or the text of Grandma Eugenia, which was in our first viral video ‘a little village festival, a little bit of breakcore’—such texts have somehow become incorporated into the language of our audience”. Certain verbal phrases have become iconic in the circles of event

3

Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 8.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. 5 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. 6 In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.07.2021. 4

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participants: “The slogan ‘pozdro techno’ (hello techno) grew into something we hadn’t anticipated, so we started making a collection of clothing [as part of the festival merchandise] with the words ‘hello techno sound system’ like that”.7 Other specific linguistic practices adopted by festival audiences include shouts containing hidden meanings, often repeated by successive participants without them understanding the meaning that has been encoded. One of the respondents, Tomasz Waśko, points this out: “There was a certain code at the festival, indecipherable for us, whether in the camping area or at the festival itself—shouts using some name. Suddenly, a few thousand people were shouting “Jarek”, because someone thought up a way to communicate. It has nothing to do with politics [presumably the respondent has in mind the name of Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the rightwing party in Poland, from the context of the statement it can be deduced that the people shouting are not his supporters], but suddenly everyone accepts it. As organisers, we find out a bit second-hand that something like this is happening. And it happens at all festivals, the people who go there create their own language, their own cultural codes”.8 Such activity is an example of a form of expression and audience bonding and of the passive role of the organiser. There are various sorts of spaces arranged by festival staff that encourage people to express their beliefs in words. An example of this is the socially engaging visual art initiative cited by one respondent and implemented at the Open’er Festival. The organisers invited Paweł Althamer to create a place, specifically an immobile vehicle, a bus, completely painted white, which was given the name Antek,9 and people were encouraged to draw, make inscriptions, so that the bus became a canvas or board on which participants could freely express their needs, thoughts, evaluations, and messages. As the survey respondent points out: “People wrote all sorts of things on this Antek: memories, wishes, (. . .) in this way, completely bottom-up, some groups of people are formed who communicate with each other in a certain way”.10

Festival Logos and Graphic Design as Organisational Artefacts The festival logo is an organisational artefact that combines words and images and communicates values, and it forms an integral part of the event’s visual aspects. The reach of a festival logo covers many areas of a festival’s presence in the public space, both on the Internet and on paper. The stability of the logo and its power was

7

Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 30.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 15.06.2020. 9 Information about Antek at Open’er, video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQEKVn9h2w accessed: 10.11.2022. 10 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 15.06.2020. 8

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mentioned by Wojciech Siwek of the Jazz nad Odrą Festival: “We have a permanent symbol of the festival—this logo has been a permanent feature for almost 50 years, it functions and catches the eye. It is meant to be found in all media”.11 The logo is identified as a basic sign that helps shape the identity of the festival organisers and participants, as well as the non-music-related values that accompany a music festival. The director of Rock na Bagnie stated: “Our festival logo, which features a moose, is a symbol of the Biebrza marshes where the festival takes place. It is also a reference to the local area—an encouragement to visit it and enjoy nature”.12 There are also signs whose meaning is left to the free interpretation of the viewer. This is the case of the Pannonica Festival, whose co-organiser tries to describe the situation: “The Pannonica logo itself, this trumpet, is very recognisable, but according to the creators of the festival it doesn’t mean anything, it just came into being, it’s so ethnic, strange, like a primordial symbol of some ancient people, if you said it’s the sun, it means you interpreted something into it, and someone might see some other circle and someone an ancient calendar or a vortex”13 (Fig. 10.19 in Appendix). The logo is an artefact, a manifestation of the festival’s organisational symbolism, and a way of signalling values that cannot be fully expressed in the festival’s verbally formulated mission. The logo is transposed onto all communication media as part of the preparation made by the festival organisers: website, smartphone app, posters, badge lanyards, tickets, wristbands, stickers. The logo is very often a polysemous space, open to different interpretations. This openness guarantees the possibility of including different values that align with the identities of all festival participants. The audience evidently recognises the qualities of organisational artefacts, such as the logo. As Dorota, one of the respondents, notes: “It’s a symbol of good energy (. . .) everything relates incredibly, it’s non-aggressive, coherent and warm (. . .) the symbol is round, I can hardly see it from a distance, and I look for the sunshine first. It means that even if it rains all August, the sun will come out at the end of August. We brought the sun here yesterday and it matched perfectly with the first logos we saw (. . .) it’s also looking at all sides of the world and this openness, we feel good here with this sunshine”.14 According to Mikołaj, one of the volunteers who worked during the festival, the logo is “distinctive and easy to draw, so everyone can scribble it, there is also something that connects the logo and the decorations hanging above the square, the dream catchers, this eclecticism is the idea behind the design, in this sense it is a principle that we stick to”.15 Piotr Kaplita, one of the co-organisers of another festival, draws attention to the wealth of meanings behind the logo: “The bee and the tree are the oldest signs of the festival. The tree has a root, a trunk, leaves, it symbolises the whole culture, together with tradition, something that is the core of that tradition and something that grows

11

Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 25.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 02.06.2020. 13 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 14 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 15 In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 12

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out of it. The bees are the people who fly around this big tree. The volunteers and the organisers identify with these bees”.16 For another respondent, the black colours in the logo of another festival illustrate those elements of the festival experience that are associated with the strongest memories: “A lot of black, for me this is a night spent in reggae rhythms”.17 With some festivals, the colour scheme, including black, is imposed by its conventional use in a particular musical genre: “It’s well known that black dominates at heavy metal festivals, it’s obvious, only [the stage lights] don’t shine black”. Sometimes some signs make use of pictograms, in different versions depending on the content of the message the festival organisers want to express, Jędrzej Dondziło explained that: “Pictograms are carriers of certain ideas (. . .) for several years now, the smiley has been indispensable for us, as it’s the symbol of rave culture, and, as you know, rave culture is peace, love, unity, respect. Simple. It’s like there’s no more efficient way to refer to this culture than with the smiley. It’s been covered in a million different ways. But we also used the reverse of the smiley, a sad face. We made stickers like that, just to poke a stick in the anthill, so that people would start to wonder why the festival is being promoted with a sad face. And it’s such an aspect to make people think, what are we doing, that we’re being subversive, that we’re approaching things a little differently (. . .) there’s also a symbol of a globe combined with a smiley, which is supposed to symbolise openness and diversity”.18 The simple, universal graphic sign, which is also part of the logo design, is sometime transferred by the public to surfaces of varying durability and less obvious media. As one of the Pannonica festival’s managers, Justyna Liszkowska notes: “This solar stamp and these trumpets are our currency and, on top of that, these patterns from Carpathian countries, so it’s a bit mixed up. The craftsmen also make ceramic things with our logo. They sell out so quickly! Kids draw it on their hands”.19 The logo also has a life of its own as a symbol on stickers, which continue to communicate after the festival has finished, in places far away from the location of the events. As one respondent mentions: “I travel a lot in Poland and our stickers appear all over the place—you’re riding on the metro in Warsaw and there’s a Pannonica sticker by the seat. Whole sheets were lying around somewhere, and people took them, and our logo appears in various places. Apart from that, our logo is one that we paint ourselves, as do kids and everyone else with a marker, because it’s a very simple solar symbol, these circles, rays and dots”.20 The motif of stickers as carriers of graphic symbols illustrating the festival and organically popularising it is repeated in many statements made by research respondents, like Piotr Kolaj: “With every ticket a festival participant gets a sticker, so driving around the area, around Poland, I’ve come across cars that go and have ‘Ostróda Reggae Festival’ on 16

In-person interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 26.08.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 12.07.2020. 18 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 30.06.2020. 19 In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińską-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 20 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 17

The Festival Poster as an Expression of Values

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the back, so that’s crucial”.21 Artefacts that contain the logo, placed on various items that can be worn, for example on a backpack, on a jacket, around the neck, on the hand or as a key ring,22 are called “festival insignia” by some respondents involved in the organisation of the festival.23 This phrase corresponds perfectly with the concept of organisational symbolism, which draws attention to material organisational artefacts as elements of identification that refer to the identity of the bearers of signs in visible places, which can be grasped through sensory perception.

The Festival Poster as an Expression of Values As a resource for organisational symbolism, graphic identification applies not only to logos, but also to content carriers containing a combination of visual material and text. An example of such a medium is the poster, which is also often the starting point for adapting the graphic motif to subsequent types of media: layouts for social media, smartphone applications, billboards, various printed materials, but also stage backdrops and participant integration zones, and finally graphic motifs reproduced on t-shirts and other festival merchandise (merch). The poster for a cultural event such as a festival has to fulfil a double purpose: on the one hand, it is supposed to differentiate one edition of the same festival from previous editions; on the other hand, it is supposed to contain elements that allow the festival to be identified as the same festival, a logical sequence of individual editions of the event. The organisers employ various strategies here, such as entrusting the responsibility for preparing the main graphic motif symbolising the festival to one person through successive editions or inviting a new artist to each edition. This former solution is indicated by an organiser of one of the traditional music festivals: “For the last 12–13 years it has been Marianna Oklejak, a graphic designer. She sits down every year with the organisational staff or the artistic director and tries to bring out the key idea of the new edition. The Bee has been with us from the beginning. She represents us and our guests. We fly around the trunk, the root, and try to get inside, into that hive, take a bite of something and talk about tradition. It’s our symbol”.24 A similar constancy is favoured by the organisers of Rock na Bagnie: “The visual setting. It’s beautiful, it’s different every year, every year the poster is linked to something, refers to something. Kordian Michalski has had fantastic visions of his own from the very start, including the band and the moose with guitars, it’s his artistic vision and we believe in him”.25 The poster is also a large enough medium to be able to show, in a more elaborate way, certain elements that enhance the axionormative impact, for example

21

Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. 23 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 24 In-person interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 16.11.2019. 25 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. 22

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by attempting to illustrate the profile of the festival audience, people who are perceived by the organiser as typical festival-goers. This aspect of the graphic design is recognised by festival-goers, with one interviewee stating: “There are people on the posters that we don’t meet every day. They are not the typical people we see on the street, they look different, but they are the same people as us”.26 In many cases, the poster is the starting point for other artefacts with artistic qualities. One organiser of a jazz festival points directly to its source: “The whole setting is built on the festival poster”.27 The poster is such an important conveyor of the idea of the festival that a competition with a jury is organised, or collaboration with an art college is established. An organisational artefact of this kind generates the activity of many people, both inside and outside the entity responsible for the festival: “The academy [the university that is a partner of the festival] makes the first selection, because they get [as part of the competition] a few dozen works and from that they choose a dozen or twenty. And we get and select with the participation of a [university] representative. For us, it is important that it looks good on a t-shirt, on a post, on gadgets, that it carries weight, that it says something”. The festival’s ownership of the poster as the work of a graphic artist is also a pretext for organising events that accompany the music festival, such as an exhibition. The poster, as a carrier of aesthetically expressed values associated with the festival, is another way of creating a bond between the organiser and the audience, a potential mentioned by Wojciech Siwek, the head of a festival with several decades of tradition behind it: “I have a collection of all the posters of Jazz nad Odrą—sometimes we even exhibit these posters. I was able to write a story for each poster, either related to the poster or the story depicted on the poster, and each poster can be interpreted in this way. Each one has a story, and I have a story for every poster”.28

The Festival Wristband as an Artefact of Access and Identity The festival wristbands worn by festival-goers are usually made of stiff paper or plastic with a disposable adhesive part, or of fabric29 complete with a disposable plastic clip. It resembles a type of bracelet and nearly always has the name, logo, or other graphic motif of the festival printed on it. It is a key organisational artefact: issued by the festival creators and worn by the audience. The wristband is put on the wrist of festival participants after it is confirmed they have a valid admission ticket. The wristband may also be given to participants for them put on by themselves, but only in such a way that it cannot be lent or given to another person. If the wristband is removed, its purpose is destroyed or cannot be put on again. Such wristbands have at

26

In-person interview, conducted by Martyna Nawrocka, 12.07.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 25.06.2020. 28 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 25.06.2020. 29 Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. 27

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least two functions, which are activated as soon as they are put on. The first is connected to regulations—a person with a wristband has the right to enter the festival area and participate in the organised event. Access to a specific offer or specific zones and areas of the festival site, for example the VIP area or the camping area, can be indicated by a different kind of wristband, such as one of a different colour. The first, very practical function is that by putting on and wearing the wristband festival-goers gain access to the festival and can leave and return freely without having to show their ticket again.30 The wristband does not so much replace the ticket as become a simplified ID whose possession is verified by the security services employed by the festival organisers. It is a kind of door key, a password, or an access card to a given space. The second function of the wristband is more symbolic and is connected with the longer duration of festival events—it singles out the person wearing the wristband as a festival-goer; it identifies membership in the circle of events participants. Some audiences and organisers only use the first function, which sufficiently situates the festival wristband as one of the most frequently used and characteristic organisational artefacts of festivals. However, there are a large number of participants and organisers who are also aware of and draw on the other purpose of the wristbands—the identity and symbolic function. There are some people who find it difficult to part with their wristband even after the festival is over, so they wear their wristband longer than is necessary. Being part of an audience community or fans of a particular festival, or representing a certain value or set of values associated with a festival, is so important that there is a need to express this by continuing to wear a wristband with the festival’s logo, name, or graphic motif on the wrist. This is pointed out by many festival organisers, like Piotr Kolaj: “After a number of years, people come to the festival and put on 15 wristbands from 15 years back and you can see that this is some form of identification with the festival”31; or Agata Szakiel: “there is a participant who has wristbands from all the festivals on her wrist and we always try to catch her with the camera from the crowd. There are some people like that”.32 Having a wristband as a souvenir has a collector’s value, especially if the organiser makes an effort to have an original and aesthetically or artistically valuable wristband design, festival participants point out: “I think I’ll keep it. I’ll cut it off and keep it. Yes, I like it. I noticed the woven ones, that they seem to be so crocheted, those decorations on the stages— those trumpets, that they seem to be so intertwined with the folk climate”.33 One of the festival organisers clearly acknowledged that wristbands are crucial for conveying the symbolic dimensions of the festival related to values and lifestyle: “There is something I do not fully understand, and I have never done this, but many people do not take their festival wristbands off after festivals and then they function

30

Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 18.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. 32 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 33 In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.09.2021. 31

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normally with these festival wristbands for months or years. (. . .) If we see someone with the same wristband in a completely random situation, completely unrelated to the festival, (. . .) at work, we instantly notice a completely different kind of contact with this person. (. . .) This indicates some kind of commonality of tastes and beliefs at these festivals, and is certainly something that, for researchers, may be the most interesting aspect of festivals”.34 Wristbands can also provoke negative reactions from audiences, as Cezary, one punk festival attendee, mentions: “One thing I don’t like about festivals is the wristbands”.35 If people at the festival do not have a wristband, this can also be a cause of stress for the organisers, as there is a need to take unpleasant actions: “There are always some stray elements in the audience at a festival. We try our best, but we generally manage to catch a few people without a wristband”.36

Festival T-shirts and Clothing Elements as Signs of Festival Identity The T-shirts worn by participants at festival events are also festival artefacts of a symbolic nature. Observations made during festivals indicate at least three types of T-shirts worn by the audience and organisers with prints representing content relevant to the sphere of values. The former are those sold by festival organisers, original products that they had made and then put on sale as festival merchandise. They most often depict visuals characteristic of a particular festival edition, particularly the festival’s logo and name, often with an indication of the date, year, or edition number. Their importance is emphasised by one of the organisers, Tomasz Pochoryłko: “We used to make T-shirts, they were sold at the festival, with our logo, with the number, which edition it was, as well as the names of the bands (. . .) For me as a person who went to festivals, a T-shirt was such a nice souvenir of the festival, I could say I was at this festival, I have a T-shirt, I have a souvenir, I was here, these were the groups who played. If a band didn’t make it, you had to cross the name out with a marker”.37 The second group is made up of T-shirts of a particular festival from official sales during previous editions of the festival. Their content includes information not related to the current edition, but commemorating the events of past years. The owners of such T-shirts express their long-standing association with the festival by wearing them, their attachment to the brand, the event, and the values it transmits, like Aneta said: “I wear suit jackets to work, but sometimes over this T-shirt”.38 34

Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 15.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.07.2021. 36 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 09.07.2021. 37 Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 18.06.2020. 38 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz, 03.07.2021. 35

Festival T-shirts and Clothing Elements as Signs of Festival Identity

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T-shirts from exceptional editions of festivals planned or organised in the pandemicdominated years have particularly emotional associations, as we learn from the audience: “That year we bought T-shirts, we came when there was no festival. (. . .) we supported the locals. (. . .). I showed up in a beautiful T-shirt from that year”.39 With these two types of T-shirts, festival organisers play an important role—by providing the audience with a visual form in which they can express their aesthetic and ideological preferences, as well as their identity related to the music, the artists, and the festival itself. However, this falls within the narrative, style, and visuals proposed by the organiser. In addition to T-shirts with an official print from the festival, the audience identifies with the artistic genre, aesthetics and styles of a particular art current, or subculture that is related to the festival programme independently of the organisers, through clothing, including other T-shirts from different sources. There are vendor stalls at the festival that offer, for example, T-shirts with prints related to subcultures, artists, other festivals of a particular genre, and themes relevant to the audience attending the festival (Fig. 10.11 in Appendix). The organisational framework of a particular festival is a space where people wearing different T-shirts join in—the festival provides a stage for the presentation of styles and values through the content visualised on the garments worn. The festival is a pretext for expressing one’s aesthetic preferences, conveying information about one’s favourite artists, bands, other genre-related festivals, etc. T-shirts have a special meaning after a festival, in other places unrelated to participation in cultural events, where wearing a T-shirt is an expression of connection to the festival and the values associated with it. As one of the organisers, Justyna Liszkowska recalls: “I once met people at the seaside—I was wearing a T-shirt as I left my tent in the morning and they said ‘Hey! We’ve heard about this festival! Where is it?’”.40 The T-shirt is one element of the festival-goer’s overall dress style, which often differs significantly from the clothing they wear on any other day, outside the festival. A good illustration of the transformation that participants make through their clothes after entering the festival area is provided by one of the organisers: “People like to wear suits all year round, but here they like to go barefoot and in loose trousers and stretched jumpers (. . .) once a guy came here after midnight, we were already closed, and he said he wanted to get in because he was late and he had a 3-day pass. I thought the guy wanted to check us or something, because the suit, the leather shoes, the shiny car—I thought he was definitely going to check us. And he says ‘Because I wanted to come straight from work, I didn’t even drive home, I just set off already packed’ and then he comes in these loose pants and says ‘Well, I’m finally ready’”.41 The attire of the festival participant is one of the most frequently indicated carriers of value. It is supposed to be completely different to the attire associated with work, and is characteristic of festival time and leisure. One of the

39

In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz, 03.07.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińską-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 41 In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińską-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 40

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organisers stresses this point: “The clothes I most readily associate with values are the ones people would never wear to work, loose trousers—knee-length, colourful, sewn-on or recycled, the kind of clothes they don’t wear in the city every day, but do wear on holiday and at festivals. It always gives me a feeling of when I see someone walking around the city in such clothes, and that’s when I think, well, they must be one of ours”.42 Another item of clothing that can be assigned to the group of festival artefacts is a particular type of footwear. The choice results from the weather conditions and the characteristic terrain of festivals familiar to participants like Dorota—wellingtons are an example of this: “Here, it’s as if everyone has agreed that they would all wear wellingtons, especially the women (. . .) I had no idea that so many types of wellingtons existed in the world”.43

The Symbolic Significance of the Festival Gate and Barriers: The Organisers’ Perspective The gate—or entrance gate—and the barrier are two material artefacts of organisational significance and at the same time a symbolic power, without which it is difficult to imagine any major festival. The gate, and particularly the entrance gate, is a place that, especially when considered within the theme of festival organisation, can signify: control, stress, confrontational situations, mistrust, security rules, restrictions, prohibitions, regulations, and strictures. It is a place where security personnel and officers have the right to control and interfere, to invade the privacy and, to some extent, the intimacy of the event participants, and to investigate the contents of a bag or backpack. A gate is an element of infrastructure, a material place, an object, but at the same time a certain idea of a passage, a crossing, a welcoming of one thing and a farewell to something else, a vestibule, an opening and an entrance to a place where one celebrates, rests and perhaps also suspends certain rules before one passes through the gate (Figs. 10.26 and 10.27 in Appendix). This idea of the gate is present in the minds of many festival organisers, such as Jarek Szubrycht, who refers precisely to the symbolic role and significance of the gate in the audience’s first contact with the festival. For such organisers, the idea of a gate blends much better with the festival experience than other possible ideas: “Those [organisers] who have some cultural awareness play with the idea of the gate very well (. . .) the very formula of the festival, stemming from its ancient name and roots, as a momentary holiday from everyday life, from routine, from work, from school (. . .), that we are in a completely different space, we leave our responsibilities and worries behind (. . .). It’s not about checking backpacks, it’s just that this gateway often has a wonderful visual form, because it is simply a passage. There’s nothing better at the Sziget festival than 42 43

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021.

The Symbolic Significance of the Festival Gate and Barriers:. . .

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crossing the Danube by bridge, well, because the festival takes place on an island in the Danube. And it’s like this, you get off at the tram stop (. . .) it’s ugly, because it’s almost a suburb of Budapest, there’s some petrol station, a ferry and so on. But you go on this bridge, which is decorated with garlands, ribbons and greetings in probably forty languages of the world, and you leave the world of the ordinary, the everyday, and enter the world of magic. This element of transition is important because later on, at this festival, ideas related to freedom, openness and liberal values come across much better and are more credible than ideas that are only implemented due to ministerial programmes and are related, for example, to the promotion of patriotism”.44 It is worth noting that in another moment of experience, after a festival event or when the edition has ended, the gate is also a place of exit, of leaving, of temporary parting, of saying goodbye. One of the most frequently used, most practical, and most symbolically meaningful artefacts of an organisational nature are the barriers, or more precisely the system of barriers, used to separate groups of people, limit access, demarcate areas of space, and to create borders or corridors within festivals. The first association concerns barriers used to separate the audience from the stage, to keep the crowd or the main group of participants away from the area intended only for artists and technical staff, security services, and organisers. In a situation where the festival site is not permanently fenced off, a system of barriers is also an essential tool for separating the festival site from the surroundings which are not connected with the festival. Such a system is also used to demarcate zones and spaces within the area designated for festival activities, those in which the audience itself is present. The demarcation of sectors is sometimes intended to clarify the divisions in the area, the distribution of tickets, the proportional distribution of participants, and sometimes to control of the number of people or the crowd density in the space shared by the audience—in which case the purpose is connected with safety. On the other hand, there are well-known cases of tragic fatalities and injuries sustained at festival events, where the barrier system was an obstacle to evacuating and freeing the audience from the crush of the advancing crowd. Barriers are also a way of allowing better visibility and closer proximity to the stage, or providing richer range of services to participants with more expensive tickets or those who were invited by the organisers to a special zone. In this respect, the barriers are an organisational artefact that satisfies part of the audience, most often a privileged few, but also irritates festival-goers, who are excluded from such zones, or those who identify with the egalitarian, democratic, equalitarian image of the festival. The latter feelings can be expressed by people on both sides of the barriers. For example, a member of the audience points out how the zone separated by barriers (called “the net”) activates the organisational artefact of the gate: “What I don’t like very much and it’s totally against the idea of this festival, is the fact that there is this horrible gate, [significantly, the respondent herself was in a privileged, separated zone] half of my team are on the outside. The first day I was so frustrated and so torn. Of course, 44

Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 26.06.2020.

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we found a way to meet up later on. But these divisions are uncool. Well, and the fact that there is an area fenced off with this netting, (. . .) it does create a barrier”.45 In this case, the partitioning of an area with barriers to reward audience members who had financially supported the festival after the crisis with extra money was called “segregation” by the audience in front of the stage. Practical problems resulting from participants wanting to attend the festival together with people who did not get into the “better” zone were pointed out: “We are a whole team, a group of people, and because of that we have to stand outside because one person doesn’t have a wristband [for the VIP zone] or we have to find a way around it”.46 Thus, on the one hand, the barrier is an obvious organisational artefact, characteristic of the organisation of concert events, i.e. a basic form of activity within the majority of festivals. On the other hand, the festival is seen as one of the most inclusive forms of social activity, a celebration of being together and celebrating togetherness. This paradox regarding the fencing of festivals and the use of barriers is recognised by those in the audience: “Zones, barriers. The festival promotes openness, but this year I have a big problem with the VIP zone in front of the stage. It is such a negative aspect of the festival”.47 As an organisational artefact, barriers are a real subject of discussion among festival organisers. They can also be viewed from the perspective of the values upheld and communicated by the organisers and the missions of specific festivals. There are festival organisers who are fully aware of the contradiction in the use of barriers. This is where the self-control and self-organisation of participants comes in—an issue explicitly mentioned by respondents in the festival surveys. The wellknown social activist and icon of festival organisers, Jurek Owsiak, is seen as an opponent of the misuse of barriers when organising festivals and an advocate of removing obstacles in order to gain the audience’s trust. This is pointed out by one of the respondents in our research on festivals and values, Bartosz Chaciński, who describes this co-founder of the Polish Woodstock (Pol’and’Rock) as a person faithful to the ideals of the festival as a community, who adheres to “the same values that guided Woodstock at the beginning, i.e. a free gathering of free people to control themselves (. . . .), non-interference of the outside world in all of this, that is, building a community where people are supposed to help each other if some dangerous situations occur, when someone wants to hurt someone (. . .) Owsiak and Woodstock, Pol’and’Rock are against these barriers, crowd-breakers, they believe that the crowd has its own wisdom which it will follow (. . .) This is very deeply rooted in what Owsiak has been doing from the very beginning”.48 This example seems ideologically consistent with the roots of the festival as a time of communal celebration without imposed control.

45

In-person interview conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.09.2021. In-person interview conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.09.2021. 47 In-person interview conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.09.2021. 48 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 10.06.2020. 46

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This line of thinking was seriously challenged by the example of the tragic Roskilde Festival in 2000, mentioned elsewhere in the study. Thereafter festivals followed a trend towards tightening security and preventing life-threatening emergencies for festival-goers, such as crushes, and people being trampled in a crowd. This means more barriers, more control, which audiences have agreed to submit to for safety reasons, especially in European countries. The idea of Jurek Owsiak as an organiser who embodies two contradictions—on the one hand, control of the festival space, and on the other liberal values of freedom of individuals as festival participants, is also noted by another respondent. Mirosław Pęczak notes that Owsiak “has developed such a modus operandi that (. . .) he doesn’t seem to impose anything, but at the same time everyone listens to him. Nobody does anything inappropriate or threatening. It is not the case at the Polish Woodstock that everything is allowed, there [is] actually quite an advanced system of control, but it is not felt as some kind of discomfort”.49 He also notes that the festival’s audience took very badly to the exceptional situations of fencing off the stage, such as those required before The Prodigy’s concert.50

Festival Organisers’ Talismans When asked about symbolic elements in their daily work, festival organisers sometimes mention objects that they regard as talismans or souvenirs, material symbols of their work during successive festival editions. For example, the manager’s earrings and backpack, which bring good luck, came up in the research. Importantly, the respondent’s statements suggest that their wearing is not only about luck in the life and work of the person wearing these items themselves, but their presence “magically” translates into the success of the festival as an entire organisation involved in the realisation of a particular festival edition. These objects are supposed to symbolically ward off bad luck for the events planned during the festival in a given year. Anna Porębska, the manager of a punk rock festival, describes objects as follows: “Look at my ears. I wear these guitars [earrings] exclusively for this week, a bit of a talisman. I still have a backpack with a patch on it [from the first edition of the festival]. See? I sewed it on myself, it’s a regular backpack, but it’s lucky. Everyone knows that when I show up with my backpack it’s no joke (. . .) I like order, and my head is responsible for everything. (. . .) Last year [2020], we had already started to prepare everything and then the pandemic happened and so on. (...) Listen, in March I lost this backpack. I don’t know where it went, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Then before this edition [2021, the first opening of the festivals after the pandemic] it was found”.51

49

Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 08.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 08.06.2020. 51 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. 50

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Every year, Justyna Liszkowska, the manager of another festival buys a mug to commemorate a particular edition from the artisans who make and sell crockery in the village on the folk festival grounds. In this way, one unique mug kept at home in the years to come will commemorate a particular edition and bring back the memories associated with the organisation of the year’s work: “the first time I bought [a mug] was at the festival and it’s just a tradition that every year I buy one for myself, and it’s handmade, so they aren’t the same (. . .) I have a whole cupboard full of these mugs”.52 This type of artefact is a good illustration of the phenomenon of transferring the professional realities of organising a festival into the private lives of the staff, and their year-round bond with the seasonal event.

Festival Chronicles and Other Forms of Recording as Carriers of Organisational Memory A completely different, more formal record of the sequence of editions of a particular festival than the collection of mugs in the organiser’s cupboard highlighted in the previous section is the festival chronicle—a handwritten book used to record the events and people that participated in the festival. The chronicle is the memory medium of the organisation, a tool to record the participation of specific people, bands, musicians, organisers, guests, and the audience members befriended by the festival organisers. It is a place where opinions and expressions of sympathy can be found. The organiser decides whether the chronicle will be accessible to everyone or only to insiders. This access regulates the possibility of adding a record within a given edition or event (Figs. 10.25 and 10.9 in Appendix). The festival chronicle is an artefact from the pre-digital age. Many festival entities now collect records of given editions through other media. There are also individuals who, out of passion or professional commitment, record the events that occurred during a given festival edition in order to capture them in the form of film footage, for example. This can be either strategic or spontaneous: “There is one [participant], Kret, who runs around with a tablet and constantly records everything he can and is a kind of archivist of the festival, so everyone jokes that he has been hired by us to make an archive”.53 Today, the most common format for archiving and capturing festivals—one with virtually unlimited access—is the comments, visuals, photos, and videos posted on social media profiles and channels. The way in which the festival manages its social media, both during and outside the festival period, exceeds the purely informational function, as Jarek Szubrycht points out: “For many festivals [social media] have a much broader function—to create, to stimulate the community, which needs the bond with the festival to be maintained in this way . . . . So, I think that social media at the moment are a very 52 53

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 18.06.2020.

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important part of the discussion about values”.54 Another organisational artefact provided by the organisers—a wall with the festival’s graphic motif and name, an object used by the audience and artists as a special backdrop for photographic selfportraits—is also linked to this mode of communication. The backdrop with the festival’s name is also used by the organisers to integrate artists and audiences. As one organiser mentions: “An integral part of LuxFest is the LuxFoto studio, where we always invite the band before or after the concert, depending on the situation, where the band can come to take a photo with the fans (. . .), the musicians feel at home, as if they were among their family”.55 Some festivals use other objects for such a purpose, such as a totem pole, positioned by the organisers as an important symbolic reference point. Survey respondents point out: “Open’er has such a totem erected, a colourful one, it stands in the same place every year and it’s a kind of ritual that everyone who is there has to have their photo taken next to it”.56

Festival Sanitary Facilities A characteristic organisational artefact attributed to the festival by participants are the portable toilets and the places serving as bathrooms for the audience. The thinking that goes into the organisation of the toilets also influences how the events planned in the festival programme are received, while the effort that the organisers invest in their condition is a significant factor influencing how the festival representatives are assessed, in terms of their concern for the audience. The audience members clearly indicate the importance of the quality and accessibility of the toilets and bathrooms for their well-being during the festival, as Tamara, one of the festival participants, states: “The worst thing at festivals is the sanitation issue. Here [at Pannonica] there is a very high standard, in my opinion, for field conditions. Maybe at a certain time you wait longer, but you stand in a pleasant atmosphere. Compared to Woodstock, it’s not like waiting two hours for a shower. At that point you’re wasting festival time. This is important”.57 Similar opinions are repeated at many other festival venues. Quite a few people mention it, especially women, as the most difficult experience. As Hanna says “The worst part? The loos! That is always a source of stress for me. I’m glad I discovered the brick ones, because I don’t have to go to the Portaloos. This is a great relief”.58 In this chapter on the specific dimensions of the organisational symbolism associated with festivals, we have introduced a dozen examples of tangible and intangible objects as organisational artefacts. These illustrate the relevance of the

54

Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 26.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 18.06.2020. 56 Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 22.06.2020. 57 In-person interview conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.09.2021. 58 In-person interview conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.09.2021. 55

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theme of values for understanding the complexity of festivals as organisational phenomena. In the next, final section of the chapter, examples of organisational rituals (Strati 1998) identified through observations of the activities of organisers and festival-goers will be the subject of reflection based on the results of empirical research.

Festivals and Organisational Rituals in Practice The focus of particular attention in this section of the book is not only the tangible and intangible objects with the characteristics of organisational artefacts, but also the behaviour of the people behind the festival organisation in relation to these artefacts and their identity as individuals and teams, viewed from the perspective of organisational symbolism. A characteristic element of the study of organisational culture is paying attention to “organisational rituals”, as defined in organisational science separately to the notion of ritual in religion studies or cultural anthropology. This concept draws on the theory of organisational symbolism previously presented in an earlier chapter of this book. Among the examples of such “ritual” elements in which the organising team participates and which have an influence on their identity, one can refer to: the final briefing of the festival organising team and volunteers before the start of the festival, the opening of the festival gates, the final concert, and the final dismantling of the barriers separating the artists from the audience. Organisational rituals are elements of festivals that can be considered in terms of organisational symbolism. They convey numerous meanings and have a range of consequences. Organisational rituals can be viewed as occupying at least two planes of meaning. On the one hand, they are simply activities which, for the external observer, have their own ritual setting, linked to the celebration of certain situations, such as the beginning or end of a festival, the declaration of thanks, introducing artists to the audience, and then the initiation into the festival community. On the other hand, there are other planned or spontaneous activities that are explicitly treated as special, festive situations, which follow an appropriate course, and are perceived by the audience and the organisers as moments that are unique and different from the rest of the time organised during the festival. To the rituals seen in this way, we can also add those whose initiators and participants are primarily festival audiences—for example, the audience dancing in the mud in front of the stage, which is especially characteristic of punk and rock festivals, dancing in the “foam”, or the parades that are spontaneously organised within the festival. These activities do not always directly involve the organisers themselves, but it is indicated that they are repeated every year, and as such can be classed as ritualistic elements of the unofficial festival programme. Such rituals are also important for the identity of the festival and thus, indirectly, also for its co-creators. However, there is another and more intellectually sophisticated way of perceiving organisational rituals. Antonio Strati, quoted earlier, starts from this deeper sense of the concept, situating the notion of ritual—in the light of critical organisational

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studies—as a tool for exercising control within organisations. He cites Golding and Geertz, who direct our attention to “the construction of a mesh of secrecy rituals” (Strati 1998: 1389). For the symbolic approach, organisational rituals are mythologising acts. According to Strati, the concept of myth in organisational life explains everything that is unverifiable in organisational reality, that cannot exist: “myth is illusion, it is the lie and the assertion that renders organisational life bearable (Strati 1998: 1389)”. Here, Strati focuses those subtle and elusive meanings, the understanding of which cannot be based on analyses of organisational behaviour. They cannot be identified either in the attitudes of organisational workers or in the language of justification used by organisational actors: “myth does not deny organisational reality; it immunizes it, deprives it of history, eliminates its complexity and, in this way”, notes Strati, citing Barthes, “[it] gives clarity, gives essence” (Strati 1998: 1389). Referring to the eighteenth-century philosopher Gianbattista Vico, Strati reminds us that people use myth and mythical thinking to identify themselves with the things they do, transforming or translating themselves into those things. The selected examples presented below of organisational activities undertaken during the festivals studied in our “Festivalization of Values” project are closest to the first sense of organisational ritual identified above, although some of them take us to the second level, moving towards the senses articulated by Strati, i.e. in critical reflection on the tools of control employed within organisational activities.

Organisational Rituals at the Start and End of the Festival Among the most interesting festival rituals, and those most precisely described by the organisers, are the activities associated with the start of the festival. On the one hand, the opening concert obviously has a special character, but it can also be a collective countdown to the start. Other events of a ritualistic nature are the briefing of staff and volunteers before the event begins and the more audience-oriented action of opening the festival gates. The welcomes and farewells, which take varied forms during festivals, as well as the final event of the festival, also have their own symbolic power. Many of these activities are linked to the work of volunteers. Some organisers do not treat the festival’s opening concert as a premiere event with the participation of invited VIPs, but instead treat it as a kind of “run-up” for participants, the team involved in the organisation, and the community of those most devoted to the festival. The event is also an integration evening for the team that will work together until the end of the festival edition. This kind of festival start is arranged by Andrzej Maszewski, director of one of the ethnic music festivals celebrating the multiplicity and dialogue of cultures: “It is no coincidence that every year the festival begins with an opening concert in the Great Hall, which is a different, serious kind of concert in a seated hall, with a limited audience—it is supposed to be an official celebration of the opening. On the other hand, the second

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element of the same day is the knees-up at the afterparty, where the whole group loves to party to the rhythm of the music”.59 Another way of celebrating the beginning is to have a collective countdown to the opening, i.e., when among the assembled audience and the organisers count down aloud together.60 For the organisers, one signal of the opening is the final briefing of the festival team and the volunteers, which is often in practice the start of work for the volunteers who will join the core of the festival organising team. As one of the organisers, Anna Porębska, reports: “at eight o’clock we start checking the list and then there is a health and safety training session, and then a team-building meeting, and this is the time when [the volunteers] can sit down, reminisce, be with each other. Usually, the barriers arrive on Thursday morning, and from then it’s hard physical work. After all, this is a beach area, so everything has to be fenced off, all the escape routes have to be marked out, all the information boards have to be put up, tents have to be put up. At the same time, the sound system is set up, you have to organise the catering, after all these people can’t go hungry (. . .). Well, the ritual is Wednesday at 6 p.m., when I see those smiling faces, that they really want to be involved, they will have to put so much work into it, but they’re coming anywhere, that they’re with me again. . . Earlier, on Sunday at 12 p.m., I had the diploma ceremony and so on”.61 For the organisers, one example of festival ritual is the collective fun of meeting the team earlier to reinforce the motivation to work hard together and intensively: “It is a ritual to meet the day before. Those few hours of having fun together, strengthening relationships, it’s internal, the organisers, a day and a half before, that’s really a ritual, because after that the organisers are just done in”.62 Another phenomenon associated with the start of the festival—which is pararitualistic in nature—is when participants are let into the festival grounds. The exact moment when the gate is to be opened is closely watched by the most committed festival-goers, due to the need to ritually cross the festival gate in a special, spectacular way, as stated by Jakub Knera: “A couple of times at Open’er I’ve seen people arrive long before the gate opens and there’s just a wild crowd waiting for the opening, and then people run in”.63 Finally, among the elements described as ritualistic, the organisers include the farewell and expressions of thanks arranged and repeated at each edition, especially those dedicated to the volunteers who worked at the festival (Figs. 10.28 and 10.29 in Appendix). As Dariusz Maciborek points out: “A magical moment is when I wanted to introduce them [the volunteers] to the audience and this crowd of 300 people, dirty after 3 days of the festival, came on stage and received a huge ovation and applause from the audience”.64

59

Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 22.05.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 02.07.2020. 61 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.07.2021. 62 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.07.2021. 63 Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 9.06.2020. 64 Remote interview conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 02.07.2020. 60

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Another example of an annually recurring quasi-ritual ending, the final concert, is when musicians “play together”,65 sometimes with audience participation, in an activity reminiscent of a jam session. One of the increasingly popular examples of a rather unusual festival ending is the joint cleaning of the festival grounds by the organisers and the audience, which is even part of the festival programme; examples of these activities, which integrate all participants, can be seen in Finland, for example.66 Another example of a symbolic ending of a festival, repeated every edition, comes from one of the surveyed festivals and involves the removal of barriers, which we mentioned earlier in the chapter as an example of an organisational artefact: “There’s this cool moment, when the last band plays the volunteers put on these thick gloves and dismantle the barriers—the band finishes playing, the audience turns around—and there are no barriers. There’s just an empty square and the crowd are shocked. The party is coming to an end. For all intents and purposes, we’re the ones who mostly pick up the barriers during the last gig, and something magical has been created from that”.67 In addition to the organisational rituals controlled by the professional festival management team, there are symbolic rituals that give expression to the sphere of values associated with a particular festival.

Audience-initiated Organisational Rituals Festival-goers’ behaviours that are rather standard sequences of actions only partially included in organisational realities, were called by one Finnish festival scholar the elements of “festivals as modern rituals” (Iso-Aho 2011). He recalls here a sequence of rites’ categories of separation, transition, and incorporation proposed by Victor Turner and Arnold van Gennep, who did that in the theatre studies context. Iso-Aho adapts that into festivals as modern rituals, where “the rite of separation would include: the decision to go to a certain festival, reserving the tickets, organizing travel and accommodation, thinking and talking about the plans, trying to find a companion for the trip, starting the trip with the chosen mean of travel” (Iso-Aho 2011: 101–102). As for the rite of transition (or as he called it alternatively—“in the liminal stage”) he selects next sequence of actions: “a person arrives at the destination, joins the temporary community formed by the participants of the festival, enjoys the program and general atmosphere of the festival, has feelings of belonging (sometimes of not belonging), deliberately release himself or herself from the everyday restraint of life”. The author reminds that in the case of the last activity festivals organisers can offer the festival-goer a different rhythm of the day: “compared with normal life the sense of time and place is changed, the behaviour may be

65

Remote interview conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 26.06.2020. This practice is present, for example, at the Tikkurila Festival in Finland. 67 In-person interview conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. 66

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more relaxed or even wild (especially at rock festivals)”. As for the last category of rites—the incorporational, according to Iso-Aho: “the person returns to his or her normal environment and community, notes a change (to lesser or greater degree) as a result of the experience, reflects upon the meaning of the experience” (Iso-Aho 2011, 102). In our interviews with festival organisers, we also sought to identify examples of rituals that are important to the identity of festival-goers, and which are recognised by organisers as indispensable elements of each edition of the cyclical cultural event they put on. One festival manager recalls the audience dancing or bathing in 2-metrehigh foam: “We have been doing this for a dozen years or so (. . .) there is loads of foam spreading over an area of two or three acres, and you can’t really see most of the festival-goers who go into it. It’s total madness (. . .) you can see it in our photos, videos. I think this is very much identified with the festival (. . .) it’s a ritual that people really appreciate”.68 The obligatory bathing in the river, in the vicinity of which the stage and the festival village are situated, is an example of the ritual of another festival: “Such bathing is something that everyone must pass through”.69 A ritual element of one festival, identified by both the organisers and the general public, is a fixed element of each edition of the event, one that binds the public and the artists, the so-called gučodisco70—or barn disco, which is simply turbointegrative (. . .) a big influence on what happens at this event is exerted by the community that turns up and sometimes takes over the role of the DJ and starts making music themselves. It’s not a strict formula somehow. Traditional dances appear between these contemporary rhythms (. . .) participants come with their instruments, so somewhere there is also a spontaneous jam (. . .) these Balkan bands that arrive, leave the stage and for them an hour or a ninety-minute concert is not enough. Nor for the audience, so the bands go into the audience and make music together. They go to ‘Gučodisco’ with our audience, they mix into this crowd of festival-goers and it is very natural. Often, these parties with musicians go on until the morning”.71 This element of the festival, where the organisers allow the audience and musicians to integrate together, is an expected and characteristic element of a particular festival. “The bands that come here integrate with us, that is, with the audience. There hasn’t been a festival that I can remember where a band hasn’t come down to us and been in the crowd”. “Tonight is going to be the most beautiful evening, the gučodisco, we are all looking forward to it. After the concert we are going to come back with the last band and the previous ones that can be persuaded, just over this bridge across the Barcice here and we are going to go wild. (. . .) It’s not

68

Remote interview conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 70 The name refers to the Serbian festival Sabor Trubača, which takes place every year in Guča. The festival features Balkan Roma music, the most popular type of Balkan folk music outside the Balkans. 71 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 69

References

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like you need any security or anything. Here we really respect these musicians and want them to be closer to us”.72 Another festival organiser, at the same time an artist who performs at a great many festivals every year, recalls many experiences that can be identified as repetitive and characteristic of audience behaviour; he calls these his “own” audience rituals, although he himself participates in some of them: “Catching guitar picks, catching the set list, reaching the barriers, such festival survival skills. There have been a few times when I’ve taken the plectrums that are left on stage and thrown them to the audience, although this is usually done by technical people. It brings enormous joy to the crowd. Or I have a few plectrums and I see that there is someone in a Paradise Lost T-shirt in front of the stage and I give them a plectrum with Paradise Lost written on it and I see that person walk away grinning from ear to ear”.73 An example of unusual behaviour at one festival is the audience sending cards to their grandmother, this example is given to the researchers by one of the interviewees, a festival organiser: “People stand in this queue to send a postcard to their grandmother, and the queue is even longer than for the shop. It’s been a ritual for the last three years. And it’s something that’s certainly distinctive, something you definitely won’t find anywhere else. It also ties in with values—200 people are queuing and there’s a concert nearby that they want to go to, but they’re in a queue”.74 Another of the selected examples is the well-known audience mud dance or mud games in front of the stage. One expert points out that this ritual has to do with promoting the idea of non-aggression: “Ritual mud games, it’s a place where everyone is careful not to accidentally harm someone while having fun”. Lastly, another type of activity that can be characterised as ritualistic is, as Mirosław Pęczak puts it, “ritualistic complaining about security, especially about the gate”.75 The organisational rituals in which festival co-creators participate, as well as the artefacts that symbolically mark their space of professional action, also directly touch upon the issue of the professional identity of festival organisers. This will be addressed in the next chapter of our book.

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Barry, Daved, and Hans Hansen, eds. 2008. The Sage Handbook of New Approaches in Management and Organization. London: Sage. Bechky, Beth A. 2008. Analyzing Artifacts: Material Methods for Understanding Identity, Status, and Knowledge in Organizational Life. In The SAGE Handbook of New Approaches in Management and Organization, ed. D. Barry and H. Hansen, 98–109. London: Sage. Berg, Per Olof, and Kristian Kreiner. 1990. Corporate Architecture: Turning Physical Settings into Symbolic Resources. In Symbols and Artifacts: Views of the Corporate Landscape, ed. P. Gagliardi. Berlin: de Gruyter. Boxenbaum, Eva, Candace Jones, Renate E. Meyer, and Silviya Svejenova. 2018. Towards an Articulation of the Material and Visual Turn in Organization Studies. Organization Studies 39 (5–6): 597–616. Carlile, Paul R., Davide Nicolini, Ann Langley, and Haridimos Tsoukas. 2013. How Matter Matters: Objects, Artifacts, and Materiality in Organization Studies. Vol. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. D’Adderio, Luciana. 2008. The Performativity of Routines: Theorising the Influence of Artefacts and Distributed Agencies on Routines Dynamics. Research Policy 37 (5): 769–789. Dragon, the Journal of SCOS. 1987. Special issue on Art and organization, n. 2/4 (1987), ed. by P.-J. Benghozi. Dubois, Vincent. 2016. Culture as a Vocation: Sociology of Career Choices in Cultural Management. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. Gagliardi, Pasquale. 1990. Artifacts as Pathways and Remains of Organizational Life. In Symbols and Artifacts: Views of the Corporate Landscape, ed. P. Gagliardi. Berlin: de Gruyter. ———. 1996. Exploring the Aesthetic Side of Organizational Life. In The Sage Handbook of Organization Studies, ed. S.R. Clegg, C. Hardy, T.B. Lawrence, and W.R. Nord. London: Sage. Guillet de Monthoux, Pierre. 2004. The Art Firm: Aesthetic Management and Metaphysical Marketing from Wagner to Wilson. Stanford: Stanford Business Books. Iso-Aho, Juha. 2011. An Introduction to Festival Management: Old Ways, New Directions. In The Arts Management Handbook, ed. M. Brindle, and C. DeVereaux. Oxton: Routledge. Langer, Susan. 1953. Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art. New York: Scribner. ———. 1967. Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Magala, Sławomir. 2005. Cross-cultural Competence. London: Routledge. Organization Studies. 2018. Special issue on Organizational creativity, play and entrepreneurship, n. 39/2–3 (2018), ed. by D. Hjorth, A. Strati, S. Drakopoulou Dodd, E. Weik. Paquette, Jonathan, ed. 2012. Cultural Policy, Work and Identity: The Creation, Renewal and Negotiation of Professional Subjectivities. Oxford: Routledge. Pratt, Michael G., and Anat Rafaeli. 2006. Artifacts and Organizations: Understanding Our “Objective” Reality. In Artifacts and Organizations. Beyond Mere Symbolism, ed. A. Rafaeli and M.G. Pratt, 279–288. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Rafaeli, Anat, and Iris Vilnai-Yavetz. 2004. Emotion as a Connection of Physical Artifacts and Organizations. Organization Science 15 (6): 671–686. Royer, Isabelle. 2020. Observing Materiality in Organizations. M@n@gement 2020/3 (Vol. 23): 9–27. Royer, Isabelle, and Alexandre Daniel. 2019. Organizational Routines and Institutional Maintenance: The Influence of Legal Artifacts. Journal of Management Inquiry 28 (2): 204–224. Sims, David. 2015. Organization and Storytelling. In Organising Music. Theory, Practice, Performance, ed. N. Beech and Ch. Gilmore, 39–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smircich, Linda. 1983. Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly 28 (3): 339–358. Strati, Antonio. 1998. Organizational Symbolism as a Social Construction: A Perspective from the Sociology of Knowledge. Human Relations 51 (11): 1379–1402. ———. 1999. Organization and Aesthetics, London: Sage. ———. 2019. The Riddle and the Chair: Aesthetics, Art and Design in Organizational Life. Studi di estetica, anno XLVII, IV serie 3 (2019): 77–100.

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Chapter 9

Festival People. The Professional Identities of Festival Organisers

Occupational identity is a complex phenomenon that involves the tensions between many forces; it is the result of individual and collective processes, as well as subjective and objective conditions, and is determined by biographical and structural factors that shape individuals and organisations. The careers of festival organisers develop along complex paths of learning and experimentation, go through a series of ups and downs, are characterised by involvement in numerous projects, as well as complex interactions with audiences, artists, sponsors, partners, and officials. This is why the festivals organisations’ Life Cycle concept proposed by a British festival scholar Chris Maughan (2013) with the complex phases of growing and ageing of the festivals is a good metaphor here. And worth noting that the names of particular stages in these phase (Courtship, Infancy, Adolescence, Prime, Stable; Aristocracy, Early bureaucracy, Bureaucracy and Death, and several others, that are all notions borrowed from the corporate life cycle model by Ichak Adizes) give several semantic options for reflection or application in festival organisations. In cultural policy and the management of cultural activities, the professional identities analysed in case studies are treated as the pursuit of professionalism, or as stories of individual or group development. This gives rise to the following question: how do the professional identities of individual cultural workers connect with the organisational values of their workplaces, such as a festival? Do they go together, or work in parallel, or do they perhaps not quite fit together? When it is an aspect of the organisation of an artistic event that is accessible to local communities, is professionalism perceived in the same way as in other public services, such as healthcare or education, where the main organisational values are customer service oriented, and the quality of performance is manifested in a purely pragmatic staff–client or staff–product or service– user relationship? Even in the public-sector cultural institutions which are community- and audience-oriented, professional identities seem to involve more than just providing public services: yes, they are provided, but they also result from a complex social and political process. Professional identities are also the subject of narration (Paquette 2012: 12) and in this respect it seems very useful to be able to adapt the narratological approach to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 W. Kuligowski, M. Poprawski, Festivals and Values, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39752-3_9

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professional identities in organisations dealing with performing arts, especially those that put on music festivals. Occupational identity is an “oscillation on the fine line that acts as a boundary between fiction and reality” (Paquette 2012: 13). This is reminiscent of Ricoeur’s narrative identity: in an organised framework like a festival, individuals use storytelling in an ethical project to reconstruct or define themselves, through their ethical will and aspirations to live in society with others. The axis of the individual and the organisation is recalled in the proviso that the narratives mentioned here should not be confused with discourses. The latter are a subtle product of institutions, organisations, and various social and ideological mechanisms. They are recognised representations that circulate in the social sphere. As Jonathan Paquette points out, unlike discourses, narratives are stories and as such are intrinsically linked to temporality, where the subject tries to construct or reconstruct himself through the act of telling (Paquette 2012: 13). Unfortunately, elements of Ricoeur’s biographical turn, which flourished in several branches of the social sciences, have not been used to study professional identity in the field of artistic and cultural organisations in the same way that they have been applied in the case of social work, education, or health care institutions. The impact of Ricoeur’s concepts on studies of arts and cultural organisations such as festivals has been marginal with the exception of a book edited by Paquette (2012), which discusses several case studies from this perspective, although it is mainly concerned with cultural heritage institutions. The professional identity of creative people has been discussed in a general way in another book (Hesmondhalgh and Baker 2011). Then the identity and core values of cultural managers have been examined by several authors, including Vincent Dubois, who focused on the notion of “vocation” among cultural professionals, answering several questions about how vocation develops and perpetuates as part of an emerging profession (Dubois 2016). Professional identity located in the sphere of “vocation” is understood in this study as the pursuit of moral values, or common goods with high cultural capital, along with the expectation of non-monetary rewards. The professionalisation of festival organiser can be also seen as a relatively recent phenomenon, and its roots are definitely located far from professionalism per se. It is pointed by one of the Finnish festivals scholars: “In the past (. . .) festivals were in the hands of idealistic artists and amateur-oriented nonprofit organizations. This fact has partly contributed to the far-reaching involvement of collegiate and local communities in efforts towards making a good event; friends helping friends, neighbors lending a hand, flutist A playing for free at pianist B’s festival and vice versa. No written contracts needed. A man’s or woman’s word was good enough. Professionalism has brought change to cultural events. . . [but] the best of them still manage to preserve original ideas of peace and love—or whatever ideal they choose to hail—and can lean on their contacts within the local community’s youth” (Iso-Aho 2011: 116). Following Goffman’s thought, it can be seen that organisations are places with a generalised conception of the worker and human being, and are therefore places that “generate identities”. The organisation is an amalgamation of reflexive understandings and encounters that tell us a great deal about the role and location of people within the constraints of their choices and careers (Manning 2008). In effect, an

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organisation labels a person in social terms. Here we return to a fundamental debate about the nature of organisations, which are much more dramatic entities than we are accustomed to think. According to authors who have carefully studied the legacy of Goffman’s work, organisations are almost by definition stratified by role, gender, and race, into informal segments, small rituals and associated ceremonies (Manning 2008). Within the cultural perspective of occupational identities, we can distinguish different approaches to identity in organisational theory: on the one hand, the perspective of the whole organisation (and its organisational culture); and on the other, the perspective of a group or individual within an organisation. If we look from yet another perspective, there is also a focus on organisational identity (or organisational culture) which prefers to deal with the multiple organisational identities that constitute the cultural fabric of each organisation, or the construction of organisational identities through institutional change. It is worth mentioning that, from this perspective, professional identity is conceptualised as, on the one hand, the outcome of the collective processes of the organisation and, on the other, the result of the individual’s negotiation with organisational contingencies. There are symbols, rituals, and worldviews that are important collective frameworks for the (re)construction of professional identities. Professional identities are linked to and understood as products of organisational cultures and subcultures (Paquette 2012: 14–15). The analysis of the material collected in the in-depth interviews carried out as part of the “Festivalization of Values” project may yield conclusions that concern both the founders of the festival and iconic figures who are crucial for the image of the festival as a whole organisation. Above all, however, it is worth focusing on the perceptions of the team of people who actually organise the festival, including the volunteers and those involved in activities that are associated with safety—festival security. In addition, in many statements of both the audience and the festival staff, the festival takes on the characteristics of a living organism: as both an organisation and a symbol it is the object of personification. This is an excellent example of how metaphors can shed light on the interface between the professional identity of festival organisers and the issue of values.

The Founder, Originators, Leaders, and Heroes of the Festival In narratives concerning the professional identity of those involved in festivals, some space is devoted to the leaders, initiators, and founders of festivals, although the role of the whole team tends to be more often emphasised. The discussion on the role of the festival director oscillates between two poles: autocrat vs. democrat, enforcer of his or her own vision vs. consensual guardian of the team. The first perspective of the festival founder is indicated by one of the interviewees, Tomasz Lipiński: a very

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experienced music manager: “The festival producer is second only to God, he is the most important, because he creates the festival by what kind of people he selects to work with him, how he communicates, who he attracts. (. . .) And it’s up to him what values go into the story, for one director it’s important to have music, for another it’s important to build something in society, to create a common denominator, [to connect those] who share these ideas”.1 The second type of narrative about a good leader or festival leader, mentioned by another expert, Agata Szakiel suggests that this person does not necessarily appear on stage and receive public recognition, but is the one who is able to maintain the unity of the team, whose role is more to inspire people working at the festival with their passion and quality of commitment.2 Of course, there are many festivals that also derive their power to influence and attract audiences from the iconic figure of the founder or artistic director. Such a person is a guarantor of a certain quality associated with her or his work, also in other areas of cultural or social life. As one expert, Jakub Knera points: “You invite such a person to do a festival, she has been doing [radio] programs for fifteen or twenty years, so she automatically attracts people, and it works excellently in this case”.3 An event branded with the name of an authority in a particular field of artistic or media activity, a person with whom the audience associates “some idea or some lifestyle, will bring together people who have a similar lifestyle”.4 There are also specific individuals, managers with an artistic track record in a particular musical genre, who are now less active on stage but who run festivals and, through their long experience of functioning in a network of relationships between artists, shape an authorial programme. These are people “whose taste festival-goers trust, (. . .) they don’t know what these [music] bands are, but they go to the concert a bit blind, because they trust that, if he has chosen it, it means that these are good things, good concerts. It works like that”.5 Anna Porębska describes the style of the festival’s artistic director by pointing to his experience in arranging the programme of events, his orientation in networking with artists. At the same time, she points to him as a leader who listens to the audience: “You see Jacek’s position there and it’s why people come, they thank us for the great atmosphere, for this, for that. Sometimes they suggest that we could do this or that next year. We listen to these things. Waldek, standing on the gate at security, also suggests a lot, the guys from the stage team, the volunteers, generally we listen to the people”.6 On the other hand, in the interviews conducted during the research, there are some respondents who play down the practical significance of the founders for the organisation of the festival: “Founders are mentioned if there are occasions like

1

Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 24.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 3 Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 09.06.2020. 4 Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 09.06.2020. 5 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 15.06.2020. 6 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. 2

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anniversaries”.7 The paradox is that, in actual fact, knowledge of the person organising the festival is in many cases limited to a narrow circle of people functioning in a particular festival speciality. As one interviewee, a festival organiser, observed: “The industry knows who does which festival, but the wider public don’t pay attention”.8

The Strength of the Festival Organising Team Festivals today can mainly be identified with groups of people. Hugo de Greef, the former head of the European Festivals Association,9 had no doubts that great managerial personalities were a thing of the past in the festival sector around the world. Now, teams of people are most important. Festivals that create organisational cultures stimulating a good climate for stable, effective work of teams, in an atmosphere of openness, trust, and shared responsibility have a chance for faster development and greater durability. The tendency expressed in the Flemish expert’s statement points to the need for the leaders to build a group of people whom they will be able to trust more and demonstrate the merit of the entire team. Another fundamental reason for the organisational models of festivals to shift towards ensembles, without an omnipotent, charismatic leader, is the fact that festivals have become very complex, international, multi-disciplinary projects, a kind of cultural “department store” that one person cannot control and be competent in all the sections involved. Festival professionals are less and less accepting of the situation where the festivals leaders combine many functions and roles: when they are simultaneously managers and artists, or animators, educators who are performing during the festival they organise. The counter-productiveness of such situations is noticed, as well as the conflict of interest (Poprawski et al. 2015). This relates to the problem of dovetailing one’s creative or business interests and aesthetic preferences. One of the most important features desired by festival leaders is the multifaceted competence on the borderline of building trust and communicating ideas and values promoted by the festival organiser. The problem of lack of trust is a common issue both between representatives of particular sectors in culture, as well as between competing entities within a given sector: non-governmental organisations, cultural institutions, network of private entities collaborating in festival productions (Poprawski et al. 2015). It also means that there is an understanding amongst leaders of festival organisations to share responsibilities and to consolidate effort to provide festivals that are adjusted properly to needs, potentials, and deficits of local communities’ members. There is a place for cultural policy in this regard, when we

7

Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 25.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 24.06.2020. 9 Unpublished material, the interview conducted by Marcin Poprawski and Piotr Firych, Poznań, 28.10.2014. 8

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discuss some structural conditions and incentives on the local, regional, and national levels to motivate festival organisers to share and act more effectively in a consortium manner for the audiences’ sake. Festival organising teams are co-created on the basis of different criteria and in heterogeneous circumstances. Piotr Kolaj talks about the experience and identity of the staff running the festival as a mix of professionals and non-professionals involved in the production of artistic events: “In the organising staff itself we also have people who are firmly rooted in reggae music, I’m an amateur musician who plays a little bit, I create something here and there, but the people I work with are, for example, a radio presenter, a DJ and a man for whom Jamaica has no secrets, he’s been there a dozen times, he’s well established, he knows what he’s talking about. And then there are the rest of the people who work with us to build this festival. We don’t have so-called professionals, people who are strictly involved in organising festivals. We are not doing ten festivals, we are doing one festival from an inner need, from a desire to do it, and that’s why this festival is the way it is”.10 This type of model for selecting festival staff is characteristic of the activities of communities independent of the structures of cultural institutions, and more akin to the ways in which non-governmental organisations, and grassroots, less formal and less bureaucratic initiatives operate. In such structures, the selection of a team is usually based on a fixed core of a few people. The dynamics of this process and the essential criteria for creating a team working on a festival as a grassroots passionate initiative were indicated by one manager. In the first instance, purely managerial qualities are not necessarily indicated: “The team has been selected so that we feel comfortable when organising the festival (. . .) the team sometimes grows, sometimes drifts apart. People are just people. We have to say farewell to some people, while others are welcomed, because that’s how things go. Of course, the person’s personality is very important for whether or not they can work with us (. . .) above all, we have to like each other, and that is very important, because without mutual—I’ll call it—love, there is no good cooperation”.11 An important element in the identity of a person working on a festival is the ability to cooperate and a way of acting and communicating that inspires trust in the team. As one of the creators of festivals reminds us: “We have to have complete trust in each other and show professionalism in every situation. Even though we don’t do this as a full-time job, we have to do it in the right way”.12 Also important is “the person’s approach to the world—it can’t be a person who has a demanding approach to everything”.13 One festival leader sums up his criteria for selecting collaborators in three or four terms: “The most important thing is passion and a desire to do something unique. Any political agitation or alcohol abuse is unacceptable in our

10

In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. 12 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. 13 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. 11

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team”.14 To complete the characteristics of the person hired to organise festival events, it is necessary to identify the qualities relevant to the management of various processes and activities: “Brilliance and decision-making skills (. . .) it has to be a person who is brilliant in the sense of problem-solving. Because you know that during the festival and even before the festival during the production there are a lot of problems that have to be solved right away”.15 There are also more formal institutions among festival organisers, who rely on existing, formal institutional structures within the framework of an organisation run by the local, municipal, communal, or regional government: “The group holding everything together consists of between 5 and 7 people, most of whom are employees of the Cultural Centre. (. . .) the team that makes up the festival is quite small. There isn’t a huge staff, it tends to be permanent, it doesn’t really change over the years”.16 In this model, one institution usually does not devote all its attention to one festival, but is responsible for more events during the year, sometimes running more than one festival: “With us it is very simple, because for a dozen years the festival has been organized by a professional city institution, and this crew puts on not only Jazz nad Odrą, but dozens of other events. This is a professional, full-time staff. They are generally professionals in their craft. Of course, there are better and worse staff members, and sometimes the fact that Jazz nad Odrą is just one element of their work is a bit of a bad thing, because maybe they should be more concerned with Jazz nad Odrą, but they also have other events to look after”.17 It is worth noting that the history of many festivals has followed a path from independent events created from scratch by a small group of enthusiasts of a particular artistic genre to a more stable, institutional framework growing from edition to edition—which sometimes ends up incorporating a grassroots community initiative into a subsidised public cultural institution. This change can also be seen in the way the team is selected, as Wojciech Siwek, one of the founders of the festival now run by a municipal institution recalled: “When I was a single-minded decisionmaker in my student days, I selected people from among acquaintances and friends. Now I don’t have to worry about that, because it’s taken care of by the institution. Of course, a professional institution means that some situations are a ball and chain, because there are such and such regulations. Sometimes you would like to do something quickly and here you have to put it up for tender and so on”.18 However, the specific nature of working within the festival format, the atmosphere associated with the festival mode of work, makes even very formal relations more relaxed, like those of NGOs or community organisations. As one respondent points out in a colourful description of her festival team—everyday colleagues at the headquarters of a cultural institution in a small town: “You know there’s the director, 14

Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 02.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. 16 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 17 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 25.06.2020. 18 Remote interview conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 25.06.2020. 15

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but there’s also Ryszard, our sound engineer and lighting engineer, and he’s also qualified as an electrician so he’s on duty all the time (. . .) he publicizes events during the day, like films, small concerts or workshops. Ewelina and Marcin run the tourist information center, they sell tickets and are at the box office, the big stage and the main entrance to the village. We have David, he collects registrations for workshops. There’s Katarzyna, she runs the secretary office, but she’s also in charge of the backstage, they had contracts right away, contact with the artists, she’s got a room right there backstage, she’s such a host of the place and by the way if we need any documents. . . . And I’m responsible for building, developing and looking after the village so that it functions for those three days, I’m the village leader”19 (her headquarter is illustrated in Appendix Fig. 10.23). Thanks to their involvement in the festival, small institutions can become more agile entities, acquiring new competences, letting themselves be known from a less formal side, in a holiday, open-air version—so to speak; in closer, direct contact with the inhabitants of the community and the municipality. This is the merging of two identities: an employee of the institution and a part of the team producing the festival: “When we are here [at the festival] the center is closed, we have written that if they want to or must come here, that we are at the festival, you can always call us, the center actually moves here for these few days”.20

The Many-Headed Dragon and the Organisational Heroism When respondents were asked about the hero of the festival, the answer was invariably that the hero is the entire organising team, which works collectively and intensively for a long period of time, for many months before and weeks after the festival events. The audience often indicates the organiser in the plural form, when asked about the atmosphere at the festival, the organisation, they employ the categories of the team: “They are five hundred, a million per cent committed, I admire the fact that they practically put on the festival without any support, because they want to. Even this year with such a negative circumstances”.21 The work of the team is described in terms of family values, a warm atmosphere that cannot be planned, but that originates from the initiators of the event.22 Looking for a metaphor to express the way the organisers work, one respondent used a term taken from the world of legends and fairy tales: “It’s the many-headed dragon that rules here, who organises it all (. . .) we also have many events and we also work in the cultural field,

19

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 21 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.07.2021. 22 In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.09.2021. 20

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but I haven’t met such committed people before. They just live the festival and live for it, and we respect that a lot”.23

Festival Volunteers A very characteristic type of person involved with the organising team at festivals is the volunteer. “We are who we are because of the volunteers. During the festival, the number of volunteers increases to about 30,000”24 is what we read when entering the webpage on volunteering at the Roskilde Festival located in Denmark. Co-authors of the study on Human Resources and Festivals (Négrier et al. 2013: 134–145) claim that statistically and globally, “out of an average of 180 staff members [of music festivals] 121 are volunteers, 25 are salaried, 19 are either contracted or lent from external organisations, 13 are free-lance professionals and 2 are interns (. . .) these figures vary considerably from country to country. While Spanish festivals have an average of 19 volunteers (21% of the total number of staff members) Flemish festivals have on average 377 volunteers (97% of the total)”. Some festival leaders questioned in Poland are very aware of the value of the presence and impact of volunteers on the team and the audience: “The volunteer is such a festival hero to me”.25 These people are involved in, among other things, cleaning, security, directing the audience flow at the festival gates, providing information, helping to organise the stage and working with artists, catering, accreditations, office work, transport. Dariusz Maciborek, a festival manager, mentions 400 volunteers at events during one edition of the festival he coordinates: “In every area of festival life there is room for a dedicated festival-goer and a hard-working volunteer”.26 Another festival organiser informs the researchers of less responsible work done by about 70 volunteers from his team, mostly people in their mid-20 s, which does not involve contact with the public. This involves “[. . .] preparing the site for the festival, putting up fences, carrying equipment for the bands, carrying catering stuff”.27 In the organising teams of many festivals there is a person in charge of recruiting people, supervising them, and assigning tasks during the festival.28 As one of the main managers of one festival, Justyna Liszkowska admits: “I take care of a bit of everything, but mainly logistical matters and organising the work of the volunteers.

23

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. Roskilde Festival, https://www.roskilde-festival.dk/en/about/volunteering/ 18.04.2023) 25 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 02.07.2020. 26 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 02.07.2020. 27 Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. 28 Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 02.06.2020. 24

(accessed

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We’re here the longest, because we arrive a week before and stay a week after, so that’s the heart of this festival—us with the volunteers”.29 Festivals that pay more attention to the quality of the volunteers’ work, the satisfaction they derive from being part of the team, their integration, and the appreciation of their contribution, can count on people coming back to them in the following years (Figs. 10.28 and 10.29 in Appendix). One example pointed out in the research is the group of about 30 Pannonica volunteers who have been working in the team for up to 8–9 years. They represent a wide variety of professions, interests, and backgrounds: “Nobody here asks who you are by profession or where you come from, because it doesn’t matter. Here everyone is having fun”.30 There are various ideas for symbolically rewarding the work of volunteers, in addition to free participation in the concerts and events at the festival, accommodation, food, reimbursement of travel costs, team-building activities, or the opportunity to meet famous artists backstage. One idea was to provide free fresh bread for volunteers, and the way the festival manager, Anna Porębska talks about this suggests it has the characteristics of an organisational ritual31: “Volunteers get fresh bread rolls in the morning on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, well on Sunday they don’t bake. But fresh bread, rolls, it all arrives. We pay for it, of course. Fresh bread for the volunteers!”32 Volunteers usually receive a contract, insurance, and training.33 They are often high school students in their final year, university students, apprentices during their studies, also local residents for whom participation in the festival meets their needs; it is often also an extension of their value system or aesthetic preferences, although the reasons why a volunteer finds the time and strength for unpaid work are not always clear to their festival supervisors themselves: “I don’t know what the motivation is, four nights without sleep, hard work, but this is a crew that has been formed over the years. The core of this team is made up of the guys from the stage team, those who stand in front of the stage, the line-up there doesn’t change much (. . .) there are also people who want to come to the free concert, but unfortunately you have to manage five days”.34 Volunteers are also an important element of the festival’s entire organisational culture—from the perspective of the audience, whose representative, Dorota put it in a way that deserves to be quoted: “There is [at the festival] also something called volunteerism, that is, these grey mice who make sure that things are clear, that we have an answer to every question we have, that we don’t get lost, no matter what time we return to the tents (. . .) This is a permanent team (. . .). They have been working for a week. What does this give the volunteers? Everything, that you can get together

29

In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 31 We addressed the issue of organisational rituals or quasi-rituals in organisations in the previous chapter of the book. 32 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. 33 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 34 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 30

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after two years, a cool atmosphere and cool people. Despite the fatigue, despite the fact that they have been here for a week in rubber boots in these swamps, they still have the energy to sit with us, we have kept in touch [with them] outside of Pannonica for six years”.35 The festival manager enthusiastically recounts the relationships that form between the festival volunteers: “They’re just so close-knit because they’re active at Pannonica, they meet once a year because they’ve been away studying, they’ve gone somewhere, and now they come together from different places and at Pannonica they just see each other. There are six people who take time off from work to work with us, to be in our accommodation, and in fact it is not us who choose the majority of them, they just choose themselves”.36The festival’s natural way of attracting volunteers was also mentioned by another organiser, Dawid Listos: “They form friendships here, and some people pull others in, it’s the classic way. Someone pulls in a colleague, a colleague pulls in a colleague, and that’s just how it works”.37 One volunteer, Mikołaj, who was a respondent to the festival survey explicitly recalls the specific experience of being part of the festival organising team: “You don’t have that routine of getting up in the morning, brushing your teeth, knowing what time you’re going to go to bed, what time you’re going to get up. All the people are positive, cool. It’s also tough, because we’ve been here for a week, sleeping in tents, in the mud with snails”.38 Volunteers are most often not assigned a single function: “We do whatever there is to do (. . .) some people, if they have a forklift license, drive a forklift. Whoever can do something best does it, that’s what they do, I, for example, know foreign languages”.39 One rock festival organiser also points out the bonds that form among this group of festival organisers: “Some are fans of the music, and some are people who have come to love this festival and feel like family, and every year they long to come and work with their friends. And it’s very nice for us that people want to come here to work their asses off for four days, not get enough sleep”.40 Many festivals make an annual call for volunteers and recruit new people all the time, but the result is that the volunteers, as one ethnic music festival manager, Andrzej Maszewski notes, “split in half—some have already participated in previous festivals and half are new, which I think is a nice ratio—some learn from others”.41 There are festivals that are put on by people linked by a common system of values, where the importance of trust is emphasised, so the volunteers are people known to the organisers, members of their families, acquaintances, friends, people from a circle of previous meetings together: “In the case, for example, where there are 35

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski 03.09.2021. 37 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 38 In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 39 In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 40 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 09.07.2021. 41 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 22.05.2020. 36

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people needed to help with the dressing rooms these are usually people who are known to us, who are on a volunteer basis, well, because you know that backstage there must be people who are trusted, then, you know, they are coordinated by the person who is responsible for the accommodation, for the dinners and so on”.42 Another festival manager, Michał Wiraszko, on the other hand, emphasises the importance of professional training for volunteers, the standards that are required for complex music productions: “The selection and training of these people is crucial. I believe in the fairy tale path from shoeshine to millionaire, from sweeper to CEO. The key is to explain the role to these inexperienced people, to train them before they take on any responsibility. This only applies to young people, not those in their thirties. Important qualities are a willingness to work beyond extra hours, an understanding of the nature of festivals, a receptiveness to music, passion that draws them to the stage”.43

Security Guards: The Iconic Representative of the Festival Organiser For people who rarely attend festivals, the festival organising staff can be visualised in the person of the “security guard”. When evoking this symbolic figure, they tend to refer to bad experiences or associations: prohibition, order, control, oppression, discomfort. Apart from the artist and possibly the director, the head of the festival, it is the “ruthless bouncer” that is the imagined figure that is unfortunately and often unjustifiably perpetuated in the memory of audiences, especially those that attend large music events. In research on festivals and values, we encountered two different narratives regarding the professional identity—or, more simply, the image—of the guard who secures the festival site and protects the event’s participants, artists, or all involved. The first image of these guards is that of communication problems, rigour, rules, and overzealous responses to audience behaviour. A festival-goer sensitive to issues of freedom, who cherishes their rights and privacy, may experience strong emotions already in the liminal space that is the festival gate. This is where the first contact and exchange with security guards takes place. Many people think along the same lines as a respondent who said that the thing he dislikes most at a festival is having his backpack checked at the entrance.44 Some of the biggest festivals even demonstratively emphasise the rules and the omnipresence of their security, as pointed out by one manager and expert participant in the survey: “[The festival], apart from an excellent programme, introduces some rules that are unacceptable for me. People in the industry call it oppressive, or even militant. Its excessive emphasis on security, various unpleasant procedures, i.e. searches, checking, remembering 42

Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 18.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 05.06.2020. 44 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.07.2021. 43

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that you can’t have cameras above a certain pixel count—because [the device] will be confiscated”.45 Another organiser is also straightforward about the poor image of the festival’s security staff: “Where the crowd is very dense it is unfortunately also the place where the security personnel are aggressive towards the festival participants, who also behave reprehensibly (. . .) As you know, there is the so-called crowdsurfing, carrying someone towards the stage, above the heads crowd—the security personnel often behave aggressively towards such people, towards people having fun, and it is also known that pogoing is a kind of specific form of fun”.46 The symbolic figure of the evil security guard correlates in imagery and image with another stereotype—that of the “dangerous festival” dominated by aggression, vulgarity, drunkenness, drugs, violence, and crime. This is particularly true of rock, punk, metal, and other music festivals associated with specific music subcultures. One respondent to the survey, Rafał, a representative of the audience, explains the paradoxical nature of such a generalisation: “It’s a pure stereotype, people who look different are seen as people who might be bad, violent. Nobody who has not been inside at such a festival can be convinced otherwise”.47 The second version of the narrative, which is much more common, is the one that gives examples of exemplary cooperation between the organiser and security for the benefit of the audience and their comfort when using the festival space. The organiser of one event shares a good experience: “We have been working with the same security company since the beginning and it is always one hundred per cent a revelation, there has never been a single problem from security, we have never even had a single complaint about security, which, with such a long and large festival, is a very big achievement, but I know from my professional experience that such things do happen”. Those in the audience also recognise the impact of the security presence on the real safety of attending the festival, Tamara adds that: “The fact that people feel safe here is due to the fact that security responds quickly. We take care of each other in front of the stage. If someone gets knocked over pogoing, everyone reacts immediately. I’ve never felt threatened at this festival. I’m not worried about losing my material possessions either”.48 A factor that increases the risk is the abuse of alcohol by festival-goers, “who under its influence are not always peaceful”. As one organiser recalls, the head of the security company when he was first invited to work with them “grabbed his head and said ‘Oh God! A festival!’ Today he says he’d rather come to a festival than go and work at a village party”.49 A test of the festival’s image as a safe place is the presence of families with young children at the festival. This is also pointed out by one interviewee, Krzystof, who stated that “[. . .] this year because there is a much smaller audience, there are a lot of people with children. There was a whole section with children. You could see these children having a great

45

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 14.09.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 18.06.2020. 47 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.07.2021. 48 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.09.2021. 49 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. 46

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time. You can see that these are the children of parents for whom openness to the world, respect are important elements”.50 This brings us back to the sphere of values.

The Festival as a Human Being: An Exercise in Festival Personification The organisers identify not only with their own festival, but also find axionormative relations with other festivals, due to the similarities they find in their working methods, themes, or shared values. An interesting observation was made in the statement of one of the managers of the Pannonica festival, Justyna Liszkowska, who pointed out the coexistence of festivals in a network of references, where one festival was metaphorically described as a “interconnecting room” to another festival: “At Folkowisko I feel like it’s the other room of this festival, so you go from room to room, because there’s this atmosphere there too”.51 To this homely metaphor one can add the notion of familiarity often indicated in interviews, of being in a familiar place, close to the audience: here [there is] “familiarly, like at home”52; “with the atmosphere, I feel a little bit at home here”.53 Some see the festival as a living object: “The festival has a life of its own. It’s like it’s a sentient organism that needs our presence at the moment, and we need it to feel really free”.54 When we asked a festival participant or organiser to exercise their imagination and say what qualities a festival would have if it were a human being, we heard a lot of answers related to both values and symbolic dimensions. Depending on the specific festival, but also on the perspective of the person sharing the personification, a festival can be a very different type of human being, but all answers, although different, contain some common elements and only point to human goodness. For some, a festival is a person “who is attentive to people and to his surroundings (. . .) the kind of person who is not uptight, relaxed in his surroundings and with a smile. And I think even such that is nice in touch [!], this festival, it’s like the kind of person who if he sees you in another city, he’s sure to say hello to you”.55 In this way, the conversation about personification sometimes turns into a discussion about real people, who are also connected by the festival after the event, as one manager notes: “We get to know each other’s faces and sometimes in different cities in Poland—some people when they hug you it’s so machinic, so tick-tock—but with these people [met at the festival] who you’ve seen here for a few years it’s always

50

Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. 52 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 3.07.2021. 53 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 4.09.2021. 54 In-person interview, conducted by Anna Ważna, 25.08.2020. 55 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 51

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like, I don’t know, a family you’ve met and it’s also so cool”.56 For another person, a festival person is one who “dances rather close together, in a group”. The same person, thinking of a particular festival, said that it is a “travelling man”.57 Some people, like Dawid, when indicating a festival as a person, referred to the colour of the clothes and the outward appearance, often the phrases “colorful”, “dressed colorfully and loosely” are used.58 There are also mythical, historical, and costume associations in the set of answers given by the organisers: “It’s a barefoot Proto-Slavic woman wearing a garland, of course in a long linen shirt, smiling nicely, dancing. And he would certainly have a red beard, not too thick, linen sleeves just below the knee, he would be slightly overweight and cheerful and smiling. And he might even be a bit coarse”. In many cases of ethnic and folk festivals, the festival person is a character who “wants to be close to nature, close to other people, a person who loves folklore, who likes raw sounds, a positive person, dancing and friendly towards other people”.59 A punk rock festival person is, in the eyes of respondents who are local people, a person who wears black and has “nice clothes, spikes. Hair put up like that or dressed as a baby or some lass[!]”.60 Iconic festival participants or just “festival people” who are indicated as distinctive in the eyes of the organisers are also people who are symbolically associated by the festival team and the most loyal audience as iconic figures, for example, specific residents of the local town where the festival takes place are indicated, or people with a distinctive appearance who feature “in every promotional or festival summary film”, there are also people who dress in a very distinctive way on the occasion of the festival: “There is one participant who usually has a disguise of some kind, last year it was a costume—pajamas: cow disguise”.61 Such people are later seen in a lot of footage recorded during the festival; they attract attention. Another character mentioned in the responses is a modest German pensioner who comes to one of the Polish festivals every year. The event organiser recalls: “He knows everyone. I once offered to arrange for him to sleep in a hotel, but he refused because he prefers to sleep in a student dorm because he feels comfortable there—he likes it that way. He always comes, he always has chocolate for my wife. He is such a fixed point [of the festival]”.62 The festival people, understood this time as the festival audience, are the ones who, according to another respondent, “Are not done up too much. Well they’re in tune with nature, the wellies this year. A lot of people also turn on this kind of cut-off mode—we’re from different backgrounds, but these backgrounds are not visible on this festival [side] of us. . . . This is not Open’er, here everyone is very consistent. . . . 56

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.09.2021. 58 In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 10.07.2020. 59 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 60 In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.07.2021. 61 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 62 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 26.06.2020. 57

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Everyone here gets into such a big ‘chill’ that you don’t need much. You go to the deckchairs, from the deckchairs you go to listen to the music. It’s not a festival with an agenda. There are no headliners. (. . .) These are people from the city who would like to be closer to nature at times and so outside the system, but on a daily basis they are not at all. It’s such a springboard. Some of them would probably go all-inclusive, but there is that moment of the year. And there is the music, you have to like the music”.63 Furthermore, the values of the festival person can be characterised as: “Being yourself. Not looking up to others. I am myself, I show what I really am. And if someone doesn’t like it, that’s their problem”.64 The stories about the festival person, prompted by festival-goers, are definitely permeated by the axionormative and worldview sphere rooted in the event and its programme. Kamil, a respondent from a festival promoting patriotic and conservative values characterises the festival he attends: it is a young person who, as a school student, arrives “prepared by some headmaster or (. . .) by a parent who wanted their wards—a child, a son, a daughter—to participate in something like this. So that they could represent our patriotic faith”.65 For other respondents, treating the task of personification more concretely, to be a person of a particular festival is to “come here regularly and take this as the benchmark of your year”.66 In this perspective, the festival person is loyal, permanent, books a date in advance and only finds out on the day what the programme of the event is—“These are people for whom music is something special. For many, it is its active performance that counts. They are musical people”.67 Several people pointed out that the festival person in times of a pandemic, for example, is one who “makes a difficult decision to come to a festival precisely at a time when the festival is not doing well. When you realise what difficulties you are facing, it is a kind of friendship with the festival, as such an organism, due to the fact that it is made up of people”.68

References Dubois, Vincent. 2016. Culture as a Vocation: Sociology of Career Choices in Cultural Management. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. Hesmondhalgh, David, and Sarah Baker. 2011. Creative Labour: Media Work in Three Cultural Industries. London: Routledge. Iso-Aho, Juha. 2011. An Introduction to Festival Management: Old Ways, New Directions. In The Arts Management Handbook. ed. M. Brindle, and C. DeVereaux. Abingdon, Oxton: Routledge.

63

In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.07.2021. 65 In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 17.11.2019. 66 In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 67 Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 25.08.2020. 68 In-person interview, conducted by Anna Ważna, 03.09.2021. 64

References

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Manning, Peter K. 2008. Goffman on Organizations. Organization Studies 29 (5): 677–699. Maughan, Christopher. 2013. Festivals, a Journey from Here to Where. A British Perspective. In Music Festivals: A Changing World, ed. Emmanuel Négrier, Lluís Bonet, and Michel Guérin, 262–277. Paris: Editions Michel de Maule. Négrier, Emmanuel, Lluís Bonet, and Michel Guérin, eds. 2013. Music Festivals: A Changing World. Paris: Editions Michel de Maule. Paquette, Jonathan, ed. 2012. Cultural Policy, Work and Identity: The Creation, Renewal and Negotiation of Professional Subjectivities. Oxford: Routledge. Poprawski, Marcin, Jakubowska, Alicja, Firych, Piotr, Mękarski Michał, Brodniewicz, Magdalena, Landsberg, Piotr, Kieliszewski, Przemysław, Kędzierska, Roksana, Kłosiewicz, Ewa, Michalczuk, Joanna, Zielińska, Klaudia, Gorgoń, Justyna, Węglarska, Kamila, and Wróblewski, Filip. 2015. Oddziaływanie festiwali na polskie miasta. Poznań: Związek Miast Polskich. https://www.miasta.pl/uploads/document/content_file/370/Oddzia_ywanie_Festiwali_na_ Polskie_Miasta_-_Raport_z_badan__2014-15_ZMP_ROK_v2.2.pdf. Accessed 12 June 2022.

Chapter 10

Festivals, Space, and Values

A festival perceived according to categories derived from humanistic research on organisations is also a festival as an organisation of space. That approach turns in a slightly different direction than the geographic and economic discourses on festivals impacts on the urban space (Cudny 2016). The statements of the respondents who participated in the study “Festivalisation of Values” provide us with a great deal of information about the zones, terrain, and venues of the festival as areas subjected to organisational processes that, among other things, serve to integrate the audience and other values important to the festivals’ managers. Senses and values were revealed in narratives focused on the festival as a territory. It is made up of different zones and is shaped by organisational artefacts with different scales of symbolic impact, including: the appearance of the festival stages, the layout and location of villages, festival towns, the organisation of the space of the catering area and the campsites, the existence and significance of festival clubs, and childcare areas or places for parents with children. In these areas, the festival is a very real place, concretely located, but also a symbolic and intangible place “at the end of the world”, a place far removed from the everyday spaces used by festival visitors. For many, it is an entry into another reality, as we hear in one festival participant’s statement: “the music transports me to a different realm from where I am at any given time, it’s a disconnect from where I am in the here and now, it allows me to feel some other emotion, to experience something. That’s the most important thing for me”.1 This chapter of the book is devoted to the subject of the festival space in several significant dimensions: including as an organised symbolic area, and as a place of integration of the audience and organisers around specific values, especially ecological values.

1

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 W. Kuligowski, M. Poprawski, Festivals and Values, Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39752-3_10

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The Festival as a Compact and Intensive Organisational Format. Attempts to Define the Festival and the Meaning of Space The organisational sociologist Silvia Gherardi (2021) calls the festival a texture for intensive organisational practice, and an organisation without walls, which is temporarily but concretely located in a given area. Many of the respondents to the study carried out by our research team (Festivalisation of Values, 2019–2021) attempted— like the author of the above observation—to characterise what a festival and its space is, either explicitly or when answering other questions from the interview scenario. Only a few of these attempts were strictly definitional, with the majority of opinions drawing attention to one or more of the key characteristics of festivals that distinguish this type of organised activity from another type of activity. The distinctiveness of a festival was contained in the practices located in a specific space or infrastructure organised for the needs of the audience, artists, and festival managers, as well as for the residents and visitors of the venues with which the festival site is adjacent. When asked about the characteristics of the phenomenon of festivals, the experts interviewed in the course of the study also began by attempting to define the festival itself as a particular organisational phenomenon, drawing on forces and resources to accumulate cultural activity in a given place, in a single, cyclical event.2 Again, some see the festival as something very organic, describing it with the metaphor of a living being that has its own separate life.3 We have already drawn attention to this personifying approach in the previous chapter. Quite often in the characterisations of the festival format made by the survey respondents, its compactness and intensity are emphasised. For many organisers, contemporary festivals involve advanced processes of coordinating activities in a given space: where the sequence of activities—“slots”, fractions of available timeframes shared by many people—is crucial: “to rehearse, to pin, to perform”.4 Statements by experts pointing to the different types of festival spaces direct us towards attempts at a typology of festivals, as Tomek Waśko points out: “these are both very small events aimed at a very specialised group and festivals for everyone—ones attended by several hundred thousand spectators, a formula of several days taking place either outdoors or indoors, or a mixed form. Music is only one element at music festivals, there are also discussion panels, or film screenings, or a range of other activities”5. According to Jarek Szubrycht, the American Woodstock and the Polish Jarocin are considered exemplary festivals in Poland. Some festivals “want to repeat that experience in some way, others want to

2

Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 08.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Anna Ważna, 25.08.2020. 4 Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 05.06.2020. 5 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 15.06.2020. 3

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contradict it, that is, do something completely different (. . .) the ideas that were present there, that is, freedom, love, tolerance, are easily able to function naturally at festivals, because the organisers and artists, the audience, simply feel that this is the place for these kinds of ideas”.6 In Maciej Szajkowski’s statement, which we consider very apt and particularly significant comment from the perspective of values that can be located on the border between ecology and social values, there is a call for more intimate festivals and respect for the subjectivity of the audience as people: “I am looking forward to an event where there is a certain intimacy, where the audience are treated as people, where there is a kind of community, even if people come from outside to certain musical undertakings they are simply treated as a potential, and later on simply as people with whom some artistic phenomena can be created, because after all, all these artists without an audience would be horribly mutilated, who would listen to them? Well, the audience is fundamental, so where a certain community is created and where you think of the audience as people without whom no event could take place”.7

The Festival as a Place at the End of the World A festival is often described with the metaphor of a holiday, or is viewed as a real element of a holiday located at the right time and in the right place—giving the opportunity for such an association: “the festival is at the end of the world (. . .) you feel like you’re on a trip. It’s not like you’re popping in and out. Just really a trip. There is nothing here but the festival. You are here and now”8. As we hear in another statement, “it’s a kind of holiday because you don’t have life’s worries. You don’t have to worry about eating, sleeping (. . .) you get away from normal life”.9 Furthermore, the festival is, for many participants, a quite real and relevant part of their lifestyle, a piece of an actually planned holiday: “a lot of people treat [the festival] like a holiday outing, mixing participation in culture with leisure” (. . .) “whoever is playing there, it is, with all due respect to the organisers and participants, a bit derivative, because it’s just become so part of the summer calendar for a lot of people”.10 Tomasz Pochoryłko, a festival organiser, interestingly points out the difference in attitudes between audiences and artists in this regard, where the former take the internal commitment to be present at their favourite festival much more seriously, with determination: “fans do everything to come to the festival, they postpone their private plans, they write to me: I’m planning my holidays when the

6

Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 27.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 14.09.2020. 8 In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.09.2021. 9 In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 10 Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 09.06.2020. 7

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festival is on, because I have to include it in my plans—it’s very encouraging to see someone planning their private time for a festival (. . .) As far as artists are concerned, I don’t think there are many such figures anymore”.11 Loyal festival audiences and fans of specific artists who perform at festivals engage in advance holiday planning to match the dates of a festival edition in a given year and to reach specific, even quite distant destinations (Figs. 10.21 and 10.3 in Appendix). Paradoxically, contrary to the remarks signalled in the previous chapters about the transience and instability of the festival as a format for organising cultural activity, for many respondents the essential value of festivals is their constancy, being an unchanging, essential point of reference for years to come, a fixed point in the year’s programme, and a place fixed on the mental map of travel. It is something that should not change, something to return to, something that is not subject to evolution, thus ensuring predictability of place and time, as one respondent reports: “Evolution of the festival? No. I come back and it’s the same. It works for me. That’s because I like it from beginning to end. If there were some changes, then maybe I would feel uncomfortable with it. (. . .) In Jarocin someone was looking for changes, there was no permanent organiser, every new one invented something and it was uncool. I like the predictability of a place and time”.12

A Festival Without a Festival The public’s attachment to the festival became particularly apparent during the sanitary restrictions in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, when groups of admirers of a particular festival tried to spontaneously re-establish its presence despite the ban on cultural events. One festival leader tells our researchers: “It was complete spontaneity on the part of the festival fans. They even tried to keep it a secret from us, the organisers. Because, on the one hand, there was a ban on gatherings at the time, and on the other hand, people wanted to get together but not expose us to any trouble, they kept it a secret until the end. It was a big surprise for us. (. . .) These people had booked accommodation for themselves in various places. A few people pitched their tents in our field, which we had no influence on, because we were not renting the place at the time. One guy wanted to organise his solo concert, so we lent him our sound system and access to electricity. It turned out to be a spontaneous, very interesting concert on a campsite adjacent to the beach”.13 It is worth recalling—with reference to the content in one of the previous chapters of our book—that thinking in terms of organisational artefacts of festivals and rituals does not focus only on objects, movable or immovable objects, but is further linked to their location and therefore also to the management of space within the festival

11

Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 18.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 2.07.2021. 13 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 09.07.2021. 12

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perceived in relation to organisational values and symbolism (Figs. 10.2, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10, 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, 10.14, 10.15, 10.16, 10.17, 10.18, 10.19 in Appendix).

Circular Space and Its Role in Audience Integration One of the most important elements for integrating the audience is the space, its shape, the atmosphere it physically delineates, and the imagined territory that marks it. The border of the world that you have to get to in order to participate in the event. It is not about the formal delineation by local authorities of a place where a given organiser can set up a stage and invite artists and the audience. It is rather a symbol, a kind of a sign for the participant that something extraordinary is happening behind that gate. Sometimes this border is formed by the walls of a building: theatre, cinema, philharmonic hall, or by the natural terrain: an island, a riverbank, or a specific spatial structure of a city or town. An interesting example of delineating an “extraordinary” space was the lining of the castle courtyard, located in the very centre of a large city in north-western Poland, with lush green grass. Its colour and softness contrasted with the colour, texture, and temperature of the pavement heated by the sun. This contrast attracted and evoked associations with a garden, relaxation. Some people took off their shoes with obvious satisfaction on their faces. It was good to be barefoot as a member of the festival audience (Figs. 10.22, 10.23, 10.25, 10.26, 10.27, 10.28, 10.29 in Appendix). Another interesting example of demarcating the boundaries of space was provided by a music festival in southern Poland (Poprawski et al. 2015). There were more of these “worlds”, several circles of space. It can be said that it grew to include the town and its inhabitants, like in a circular wave. The heart of the pianists’ concerts was the hall where the audience holding tickets respected formal concert etiquette. Another circular space was a roofed cafe in front of the entrance to the building, where you could listen to the same music from the sound system, in a comfortable armchair, or an old-fashioned sofa, then another circle was the concert hall windows overlooking the square, where you could stop walking along the path and watch the artist through the windows, with the sound coming from the speakers outside. A further space with the same music was a tent with screens, where the audience, without paying for a ticket, could sit on the benches and watch and listen to the live TV broadcast of the concert. There, they could also be accompanied by children sleeping in strollers and pets. The last circle included the park, where the music from the concerts was heard through loudspeakers placed on the lawn, in different places of the area, where you could consciously or accidentally become a classical music listener on a bench or during a walk, regardless of age, beliefs, economic status, or musical education. Such circles of spatial integration occur strategically or spontaneously at many festivals, especially those held in summer. As one interviewee notes: “the festival itself, i.e. the fenced area, with the gate, the

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stages, is the nucleus, the heart of this festival, but the festival spills over to the whole city, to the forests, to the meadows, to the lakes, to everything”.14

The Multiplicity and Simultaneity of Music Scenes The definition of the festival is followed by a characterisation of its stage infrastructure. The uniqueness of the festival format from the perspective of the organisers of a large proportion of larger festivals is also due to the need to spread artistic activities over several stages simultaneously. This is the conclusion of one person in charge of an ethnic music festival: “the division into stages is very important, because it creates the possibility of tailoring the space to a particular musician, artists—diversifying that. And also hygiene for the audience, who by moving to a different space are ready to receive something new. If they had concert after concert in the same place, there could be an overlap of emotions, sounds somewhere”.15 Festivals are often a multiplicity and simultaneity of musical stages, working within parallel dimensions of space. From the perspective of an artist performing at a festival, adapting to the festival’s formula usually means developing a special programme in consideration of time and place: “apart from the biggest stars, artists have to give up some technical rider issues, related to sound or lighting, that is, simply to perform in the conditions as they are”.16 Whereas in the conditions of their own concerts, they can simply adapt the stage to present it as they wish. Participation in a festival is a compromise for the invited artist compared to the operating conditions at concerts that the artist organises on his or her own initiative in a venue of their own choosing. This is the price artists pay for the opportunity to open up to a new audience that awaits them at the venue of a particular festival.

Festival Stages and Their Appearance, Practicality, and Symbolic Dimension The attention of audiences and organisers is often primarily focused on the appearance of the festival stage. In many cases, this is an attempt to influence with images and light, the presence of screens or multimedia projectors, smoke machines and complex lighting systems, the result of the work of stage designers, the involvement of VJs who are asked to prepare materials, artefacts, and visuals tailored to the genre and style of music or a particular musical performer (Fig. 10.1 in Appendix). At the 14

In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 10.07.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 22.05.2020. 16 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 27.06.2020. 15

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same time, the organisers care about the effect of novelty, of surprising the audience, as one interviewee, Piotr Kolaj emphasises—“every year the look of the stage, the lighting is completely different (. . .) the visual element is very important”.17 For artists, the functionality of the stage and its practical usability as a safe and relatively comfortable place to work is also important. On the one hand, festival organisers hold standards for such a solution and subordinate the safety of artists and participants to the location of the stage, even if this involves a complicated logistical operation: “this year—because of the precipitation—the technical people were concerned about the sinuosity of the area, the police commented that it would be dangerous and they had [the main stage] moved to the other side of the Poprad [the river where the festival is organised], where there is a playground, where it is safer”.18 On the other hand, the decision to choose a space may be dictated by arguments other than artistic ones, in which case the artist’s working conditions are subordinated to other values. Here again, motivations concerning the symbolic qualities of the chosen space are revealed: “the place and the decoration of the stage fit nicely into the atmosphere (. . .) but there was no place, neither where to practice nor even (. . .) where to sit, it was just uncomfortable”.19 From another source we learn that this inconvenient venue for one of the festivals promoting patriotic music was chosen due to other values being prioritised above the comfort of the participants and practical considerations. What matters here is more the choice of the venue as a symbolic message and its fit with the dominant values and content of the festival: as one festival participant notes, “The museum (. . .) is a very special place, (. . .) it raises the profile of this festival. It’s not some ordinary stage, it’s a museum that tells a story (. . .) Everything that goes behind this festival fits with it— the character of the songs performed (. . .), and just the whole decor of the hall”.20 Equally inconvenient and even more spectacular venues, expressing priorities other than artistic ones—the effect of surprise, of intriguing the audience—rooftops and urban transport have become the space of some festivals, especially those that are designed to take place in urban spaces: “the summer festival lasts for a month, every day there are concerts in some places that we don’t always associate with concerts: train stations, an old bus, a city beach, and then it’s noticeable”.21 We can add many places to this list, also mines, ruins of castles, and other sites.

17

Remote interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 04.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 19 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 17.11.2019. 20 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 16.11.2019. 21 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 17.09.2021. 18

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The Scale of the Event, the Space, Its Limits and Conditions The organisation of festivals during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking into account the pandemic regulations on social distancing, allowed the “capacity” limits of the festival space to be tested: “we can put on a bigger event. Today I already know this, because this year I recalculated the area, we can easily let up to six thousand people in here. So, it is possible to do more, it’s just that more infrastructure is needed here”.22 In many opinions, an important issue associated with balanced, sustainable participation in festivals is their scale and size—which should be proportional to the venue and its conditions. There is a demand, as indicated by some respondents, for access to more niche festivals on a very small scale, for three or four hundred people, but in a very good location. One interesting festival of this scale is the “Festival of Breaths (Tchnienia)” organised in the Bieszczady mountains by the pianist Hania Rani. This event, which nurtures an intimate encounter with very subtle music in the spirit of respect for nature and the values of contemplating the ephemeral, consists of just five or six concerts, workshops, meetings, and a joint mountain excursion. This festival began its existence as a crowdfunded project, and admission tickets offered in limited numbers sell out in no time. Another example of a micro-festival taken from the research is the Sanatorium Sound Festival, which is located in a small community and aimed at a narrow audience: “it’s a cool experience, (. . .) it presents avant-garde and experimental music, sometimes there are concerts in the woods and in the former sanatorium, which from the outside looks like a sizable castle, (. . .) it has some aspects of a dream festival and it would be nice if smaller events undertook such projects related to the place or the local community, i.e. involving some local choir or singing circle creating some project or concert referring to some history of the place”.23 The local rooting of the festival and its micro-scale as the object of audiences’ appreciation has been qualified as symbolic place not only in Polish cases, this is seen also in the Finnish perspective, as Juha Iso-Aho observes: “a smaller locality may be transformed as a whole into a specific symbolic place in which the utilization of the public domain depart from the norm. This phenomenon also enhances the feeling of community among the festival participants and enables the integration of different types of participants—audience, artists and organizers—in the way that would be difficult during performances in ‘closed’ venues” (Iso-Aho 2011: 105). The issue of the sustainability values of festivals came up very interestingly in the statements of the organisers regarding the beginnings of their activities, their vision and plans, and their experiences during the initial growth phase of the project when the festival was trying to enter the festival market: “it was a dream of power—it seemed to us that the festival should grow year on year, the audience should grow, but by the second edition, when I saw the meadow where there were 2500 people, I 22 23

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 09.06.2020.

The Festival as a Natural Space for Integration. Festivals Blur Boundaries

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realised that there was no need for more”.24 Many festival organisers that follow certain values are not looking for mass audiences and popularity among a wide range of potential participants. This is evident in their promotional methods, as one organiser recalls: “promotion has become targeted, which by the way is necessary in today’s reality—people live in their bubbles”.25

The Festival as a Natural Space for Integration. Festivals Blur Boundaries Integration very often comes naturally from the location of the festival, as one of the organisers points out: “it is this contribution we make to integration, by creating different places such as a relaxation zone, meetings under the totem pole or a quiet campsite, where families with children can come and live a completely different life than in a normal campsite. (. . .) people at such festivals, especially in the evenings, have no problem integrating and there is no need to organise anything for them, because people also come to simply relax and meet other people, it happens without us, but it happens a lot, and until very early in the morning”.26 The space itself encourages or discourages integration. One example is the jazz festival organised in the space of three adjoining halls and an open-air area in front of the venue, a solution that requires the movement and mixing of audiences, with concerts taking place in these rooms and spaces in turn and alternating. Also, the decision to extend the interval between concerts from 10 to 30 minutes is seen by the organisers as a natural means of integrating the audience with each other: “it helps us technically, and at the same time there are cafés all around and people integrate themselves and we are not needed there. (. . .) The building [with the concert halls] is this place of integration, and now there is a new place—the open air in front of the building”.27 In the space outside the building there are both participants who change halls, but also random people for whom music is a secondary thing—they come to feel the atmosphere and meet with friends. Audiences in successive editions of a different festival look for specific elements of the space they are used to at the venue: “there was a nice piece of lawn in front of the stage where we always sat, they took our lawn away from us!”.28 Among the most successful festival spaces the organisers mention “the festival beer garden, the market in the centre of town and the riverbank, where people loosen their tongues and carry on conversations until the early hours of the morning”.29 Other more niche festivals point to enclosed venues within which 24

Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 22.05.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 22.05.2020. 26 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. 27 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 25.06.2020. 28 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.07.2021. 29 Remote interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 02.06.2020. 25

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adjoining spaces serve all the necessary purposes for events: “the restaurant, it is one of the centres of festival life, because behind it there is also a courtyard [where concerts are held]. Upstairs is the festival office. It’s the heart and the brain. Next door in the building is the workshop and seminar centre”.30 More often than not, in the case of festivals geared towards open audience integration, the zones that can be separated within each festival have quite loose boundaries and the flow of different groups of people interested in the festival is fluid. Within the communities of festival participants and alongside festivals, there are also the so-called festival clubs. These are a type of real, physical space, separate from the territory of the festival itself—but allowing the associated community to integrate also after the festival schedule, beyond the duration of the festival events, and even outside the exact location of the festival. One expert points out some examples of such spaces: “informal groups of so-called ‘afterki’ [after parties places] or festival clubs are formed (. . .) people meet spontaneously in some designated places, pubs, [the time and place is] given by word of mouth to festival participants. This is a very beautiful custom and it probably applies to most festivals that last longer than one day”.31 One festival organiser sees it as a place to deepen relationships around the values and music of a particular genre with which a festival is associated: “The festival club is designed in such a way that it integrates the audience and the musicians, friendships and acquaintances are formed quickly (. . .) There’s a jam session with a group of musicians who have a playlist and play typical blues and jazz themes. . . here there are guests at the post and they play, and harmonica players come and can play. There’s even stuff on YouTube from there. And last year they even played until 5 am in the street [in front of the club after it closed] but acoustically, without a sound system. . . it’s magical stuff. . .”.32 The festival space is most often fenced off from the everyday world, divided into different internal sub-areas serving different functions and needs. But it is at the same time a space with a fairly free ability to move from one inner zone to another. This also creates a material context for the symbolic dimension of festivals. This symbolic space leads the respondents of the research on festivals to articulate in one breath the notions of “freedom”, “lack of boundaries” and what is “common”, “community”—to describe the key values characteristic of festivals: “first of all, this is a festival without borders (. . .) everyone is nice to everyone, polite, there are no quarrels, no divisions, everything here is common, we care about everyone. We know each other, there’s a pretty solid group that comes back here, we don’t care who believes in what, who likes what, what they support, here we are all connected by the music and the atmosphere. It’s freedom, after a whole year of hard work or school, generations from tiny children all the way up to ninety-year-olds. Above all, we are free here and that’s the most beautiful thing, besides this community. And it is

30

In-person interview, conducted by Waldemar Kuligowski, 26.08.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 14.09.2020. 32 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 26.06.2020. 31

The Festival Village Phenomenon

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not a sect”.33 As a meeting place, the festival is seen by many as a space that fosters selflessness: “that’s the part we’re at, the non-commercial part, it’s not about money at all, it’s just about people getting together, listening to music and having a bit of fun as they like”.34 Furthermore, the festival as an activity format, in the opinion of the audience and experts, stimulates and catalyses kindness and empathy: “everyone is very open, very friendly and helpful. You’re among strangers and you don’t feel like they’re strangers. This is for people who are open and want to recharge their batteries with this exchange with other people, this atmosphere”.35 The blurry notion of the atmosphere, so highly appreciated as the festivals time’ characteristics highlighted by the respondents of the surveys in Poland corresponds well with the one mentioned by a Finnish scholar Juha Iso-Aho: “In several surveys, festival goers in Finland said that the notion of ‘festival spirit’ or ‘atmosphere’ is as important a reason for attendance as the program itself. Festival spirit is a concept that describes the relation between the event and the participants and refers to the idea that a festival is something more than just the sum of its parts. It is the immaterial circle that encloses the members of the audience and makes them true participants of the event, so that they experience a heightened feeling of enjoyment” (Iso-Aho 2011: 105).

The Festival Village Phenomenon The ideal area for integration at festivals is the so-called festival village, a common occurrence whose appropriate location makes the integration of participants a matter of course: “we build a village and these zones are close to each other, traffic is generated from every group in every area. There are some people who practically don’t sleep for three days because they enjoy all the workshops, concerts”.36 A festival village, regardless of its shape and appearance, is a space that appears, as it were, suddenly in the middle of some town or village; one respondent calls it “a world of several days”.37 Within such a village, a space is arranged within which further areas are created, such as sectors for families with children, or the so-called quiet sector, or a sector linked and adjacent to the stage, which is geared to “partying all day and night”. Spaces for children and their parents function in at least two versions at festivals: in one, children are put under the care of professional childminders and nannies; in another, parents are encouraged to stay with their children together in a thematically moderated separate (workshop) space. In addition, some festivals create spaces with baby changing facilities and areas for feeding children. However, having festival

33

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 35 In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 03.09.2021. 36 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 37 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 34

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staff look after other people’s children involves a lot of responsibility on the part of the organiser, which is a challenge for festival managers, as one respondent to our survey notes: “here are blankets spread out and these children having a great time wearing headphones with stopwatches in their ears. In the first year [of the festival], parents could leave their children in the care of professional nannies, but then we moved away from that, because it’s too much work, it’s a responsibility”.38 The second form of space can be a place of activity aimed at imparting values linked to the festival, as one of the organisers points out: “these workshops are aimed at children with their parents and the various things that are communicated and shown there can then be repeated at home by the parent together with the child. We also don’t mean that a parent should come and leave their child to attend a workshop and go to a concert (. . .) we don’t offer that kind of thing. We want to encourage parents to participate together with [their children] and that is the main goal. There is no possibility that you leave your child—(. . .) we offer joint participation”.39 An important and separately functioning element of the festival village are the campsites, which are less common in large cities, where more standard forms of accommodation are accessible. More often than not, the space of a festival village gives organisers quite a lot of different possibilities to combine and separate functions and types of activities: “we can manipulate this space and thus take care of the intimacy of the festival”.40 The festival village is also referred to by the festival manager Agata Szakiel as “an experience that opens you up to other people, to being together”.41 Associated with this are the values of tolerance, peace, dialogue, community. One of the material artefacts for integration is the bonfire, which is one of the key attractions of many festival villages, as one festival manager, David Listos tells us: “there are really a lot of people gathering around the bonfire and it’s not just people from one group, (. . .) before they start singing they really talk to each other (. . .) there is also a very elderly gentleman who came in wearing a dressing gown, maybe he couldn’t sleep, he sits down with the young people and they talk to each other, exchange views”.42 In some countries, there are laws regulating the consumption of alcohol during a festival, hence festival organisers are sometimes forced to designate separate catering areas. This is of interest in the dimension of cultural policy analysis. This is an example of a so-called implicit cultural policy (Ahearne 2009), in which regulations introduced for a field other than cultural activities influence the behaviour and activity of cultural managers. Legislation restricting alcohol consumption at mass events was intended to counteract drunkenness and fan aggression at sporting events. Ultimately, it also influenced the location of places to eat during an arts festival. As one expert accurately puts it: “a law designed to suit brawling fans in 38

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 18.06.2020. 40 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 41 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 42 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. 39

Cleanliness of the Festival Space

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stadiums restricts the activities of events that have no history of violence or difficulties relating to adult audiences”.43 The area where food and drink can be purchased is therefore another sub-area of the festival space which organisers more or less consciously use as a place for integrating participants. One organiser spells out her role in this respect: “there is a great flow there and you can meet a lot of people. We intervene in the sense that we organise the layout of the area and control who comes there”.44 To prevent this zone being isolated from the festival, the catering space can be organised so that it is an attractive place for the audience (Fig. 10.20 in Appendix). One of the respondents gives examples of festivals that are able to organise this space in such a way that the audience feels comfortable there: “if it has to be separated, let it be a custom where people meet, exchange impressions, talk, get to know each other (. . .) and the arrangement of food trucks and tents [with food] serves integration”.45 The Other Sounds Festival in Lublin provides visitors to such a zone with a specially arranged separate music stage with concerts for people coming to eat and drink. Another expert points out another of the few possible benefits of a separate food and drink zone: “the organisers felt it was a good thing to control it, because then there would be less waste collection costs”.46

Cleanliness of the Festival Space Litter is one of the most frequently addressed environmental concerns of festivals, especially outdoor festivals. Participants evaluate the festival from this perspective: “this festival is the cleanest I’ve been to”.47 The organisers mention the mistakes they have learned from and the changes they have made—from edition to edition: “at the first festival there was a lot of rubbish (. . .) If you look at our square, it was pouring down yesterday, so it should be a tragedy here today right? Do you see the rubbish? No (. . .) it’s easier for me to clean up as we go along than to do a big cleanup at the end.”.48 There are different tools to encourage participants to keep the space clean. There are festivals that keep an eye on cleanliness on an ongoing basis through volunteers, and there are those that organise a final clean-up with audience participation. Such actions, if properly arranged, can also be a way to integrate participants: “we all scrupulously clean after each other on Sundays, this is also beautiful (. . .) it teaches us to take care of the space”.49 It is important to provide enough 43

Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 27.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 45 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 27.06.2020. 46 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 10.06.2020. 47 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. 48 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. 49 In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 44

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places where rubbish can be collected and separated. There are also organisers who encourage food providers on the festival grounds to reduce litter. One idea is to refund 40 percent of the space rental fee—if caterers do not use plastic or other non-recyclable packaging, disposable tableware and cutlery, and choose, for example, the option of reusable tableware, such as cups issued against a deposit. One interviewee reveals the details and purpose behind such a solution: “we have a spy there to check what they are doing there (. . .) we could have this money for the next festivals, but this is important for us. We had different ideas before, but they weren’t tested in practice and people just rubbished us. And this year there were 14 bags from the whole campsite after a whole night and a whole day, it’s amazing! (. . .)”.50 Influencing the audience in this respect is achieved before the festival with the help of social media, including the encouragement to bring reusable bottles or eco-cosmetics to the festival, and by counting on a chain reaction—the spread of the given solutions among the audience itself. As one manager calls it, “humans are observational animals, they will see [a behaviour] in someone and it somehow works”.51 The theme of ecology is one of the more prominent examples of values communicated explicitly to the audience, which are reflected in the selection of different organisational artefacts that encourage respecting nature and the cleanliness of festival sites. There are festivals that communicate these values through specific organisational artefacts that have symbolic power, as one interviewee points out: “sometimes [the value of ecology] is expressed on banners, sometimes it is just highlighted somewhere, but the festival clearly says that: ‘we have biodegradable cutlery in the food area, we drink tap water—this is the Unsound Festival, for example, which puts out jugs before concerts’.”.52 In the context of both cleanliness and shaping consumer habits, an increasing number of festivals are abandoning single-use plastic packaging. As one respondent points out: “this is very important in the context of the future of our planet and in the context of this putting ourselves on the axis, unfortunately, of the dispute, of this climate crisis.”.53 One festival organises its gastronomic offer as being 80% based on vegetarian and vegan dishes produced from organic farming. As one expert points out: “this is the norm. And a deviation from this norm is now a stall with traditional cuisine, where there is meat.”.54 Strategies for a more ecologically and socially inclusive access to the festival are also known and mentioned in the statements of the organisers; one festival manager talks about the moderation of these activities by the festival team: “we run a Facebook group where people can get to know each other in advance and arrange to come, where we encourage people to share transport. These people continue that familiarity by building a festival village where they keep in touch

50

In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińską-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińską-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 52 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 27.06.2020. 53 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 15.06.2020. 54 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 27.06.2020. 51

Ecological Values and Festival Spaces

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with each other all the time, so that’s the only way we moderate it [the integration].”55 Actions that serve the environment, specifically those related to reducing plastic use/consumption and introducing circular economy habits by many festivals, were halted during and shortly after the biggest waves of the pandemic, when festivals were opened with many sanitary restrictions. One organiser aptly describes this: “there is a risk that something that was starting to be the norm at festivals and was starting to be implemented by most of the big festivals would suddenly be stopped, be changed due to the sanitation regime.”.56 Such a retreat, however, has not happened. Many festivals are expanding and accelerating the transformation of many practices towards ecological values.

Ecological Values and Festival Spaces Talking to organisers and audiences about the specific values promoted and realised by festivals therefore directs us towards the values of sustainability, balancing the ecosystem, balancing the relationship with the environment, environmental issues. This includes ecology treated as a certain value conveyed at the level of the narratives themselves, a lifestyle that respects nature, animals, and other inhabitants of local ecosystems. It is also about the concrete decisions taken by organisations and individuals. It concerns both the dissemination of such values through the format of the events concerned, artistic content, and communication, but also through additional elements of festival productions. An example of such activities is the offer and the way the stands and the catering area function. The space developed by human beings for cultural activities is a place fraught with dilemmas in the thematic field of ecology. There are more than a dozen threads that would constitute a shortened list of possibilities chosen by festival organisers, and from below by audiences, that reflect ecological values. Most of these relate to spaces and specific festival venues and zones. However, a large number of respondents start the conversation about ecological values with the phrases living in harmony with nature, closeness to nature—as a description of the value present within the festival. This attitude stems, on the one hand, from the internal needs and beliefs of festival organisers, but is also a response to the needs of the audience. Festivals recognise their audiences, listen to their opinions, read their comments, and sometimes conduct specialised audience research. These observations suggest that loyal festival-goers are people who care about leaving a smaller carbon footprint, polluting the earth less—such beliefs are particularly prevalent among young people. One festival organiser points this out—“very many representatives of the younger generations of festival-goers

55 56

Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 15.06.2020.

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indicate environmental issues among the most important values for them”.57 Values related to ecology do not provoke protests from music festival audiences: “it’s nothing controversial to say very clearly: listen, we’re segregating rubbish, bring your own cups, because we’re doing it for our common good (. . .) they’re rather grateful if they get as many opportunities as possible to not only express such ecological views, but also to put them into practice at festivals—we’re all on the same side”.58 Among festival respondents, vegan and ecological attitudes are very close to each other and indicate a certain lifestyle if they are supported by a particular festival brand “whose organisers are close to the idea of ecology.”.59 Similar practices of festivals’ organisers are highlighted by Benny Majabacka in his outcomes of the survey conducted with few music festivals in Finland (Majabacka 2021). There are at least several Finnish music festivals that developed relatively advances solutions to apply their declared commitment to ecological values. Majabacka refers to examples of Flow Festival in Helsinki, Ruisrock located in Turku Archipelago, Tikkurila Festival in Vantaa, or Kesärauha Festival in Turku. All mentioned festivals advances the solutions mentioned above in this chapter. They follow their environmental guides, apply for nationally acclaimed (EkoKompassi) or international ecological certifications, they are carbon neutral (Flow) or aim to become one soon. Most of them use recyclable materials for the festival infrastructure objects, including festival architecture and furniture. Those Finnish festivals offer the option of the financial support to local or regional ecological initiatives with the entrance ticket, and the safeguarding of the Baltic Sea and archipelagos are the most frequent aims of that contributions. They use hard plastic pints with deposit and there is only or mainly a vegan catering for artists and voluntary workers. The festivals offer free bicycle park and some also the pocket ashtrays preventing cigarette butts ending up in the river, sea, or into the sewers. Plates, cups, food containers, and all cutleries are biodegradable. There is a green camping idea applied—by recycling the waste you get back part of the payment for the tent site when you leave. There is a separate event in the line-up the cleaning up after the end of the festival and both the audience and staff members are engaged in that activity. Merchandise and staff products are made of PureWaste materials leftover, recycled cotton. Festivals are reusing the structures of previous years (ticket booths, tents, signs and area decoration, banners etc.). Festivals organisers declare that they strive to ensure that nothing is wasted. The surplus of food is donated to charities. The festivals endorse climate electricity and waste electricity, in some festival cases the aim of having 100% wind powered electricity is achievable. Festivals’ partners have been chosen on the principle of responsibility and there is a regular mapping of the responsibility of the subcontracting chain. Local food is a preferred diary offered to festivals’ participants. Strategic and precisely agreed cooperation with local or regional public transportation companies and cleaning

57

Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 27.06.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 27.06.2020. 59 Remote interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 15.06.2020. 58

Aesthetic Qualities of Festival Spaces

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and sanitation public operators is the standard practice, all aimed to contribute to environmental sustainability aims. Some festivals like Flow in Helsinki seeks to minimise emissions through comprehensive environmental work and regular in-depth analysis of the environmental impact, introducing other calculation methods to the festival industry, in addition to carbon calculations, such as the material cycle. Festivals get through a regular environmental audit. Among sustainable values promoted by all festivals are also equality and accessibility. Festivals from Finland are seriously involved in at Keychange Pledge and 50/50 Programming, where the goal is to get more performances of women and other genders in the male dominated world of music. That all have absolutely positive impact on the reputation of festivals, that, as Finnish respondents of the survey claim need to act according to their values in order to remain a relevant offeror of cultural service for young generation of audiences. In this chapter, we pay particular attention to the management of the festival space. The issue of litter and recycling is perhaps the most media-laden and popular theme associated with festivals and ecology. However, the management and use of space or land is an issue that is at least on an equal footing with litter and recycling, since it involves the relationship of festivals to their immediate ecosystems. One festival manager refers to the relentless “policing of the level of space use, so that the festival does not intrude heavily”.60 Such an attitude is appreciated by the audience, whose representative emphasises that she does not see any aggressive interference of one of the researched festivals with the existing space: “the locations of the individual attractions are thought out so as not to destroy our greenery, our space.”.61

Aesthetic Qualities of Festival Spaces An important issue, which is at the same time a potential and very significant tool in the hands of festival organisers for influencing the quality of the space and the behaviour of its users, is their idea of the aesthetic dimension of the space that the festival occupies. Here, some of the respondents representing organisers attach particular importance to self-determination and self-sufficiency in this area. One organiser put it simply: “We build all the sectors ourselves, so we have the comfort of giving them the right shape and making sure that all the inscriptions are the same and made from wood—in this respect it’s all very coherent. We hang coloured LED lights, we have ornaments by local artists, so it’s not mixed up, and it’s not as if each exhibitor uses their own materials, we prepare everything—it requires hard work, but the effect is wonderful.”.62 Self-determination and freedom of choice in terms of the aesthetics of the festival space is fraught with considerable risk if the organisers

60

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 3.09.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.09.2021. 62 Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 61

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do not know or respect the standards of quality and visual attractiveness of the landscape into which they integrate their activities, objects, artefacts, and materially mediated communications. One of the issues raised by the organisers is a very pro-environmental practice related to the use of space and respect for landscape qualities, the application of which has intensified in recent years. This entails the abandonment of LED screens and billboards, littering the space, and obscuring the landscape with large-scale communication and promotional surfaces. As one of the organisers declares, “We have given up big screens, we do not display advertisements, we do not hang banners around the festival. Everything is done aesthetically and in keeping with the atmosphere of the space we are using. We take great care in this respect, even when signing media coverage deals we try not to overload the festival space with unnecessary advertising.”.63 For similar motives, festival organisers eschew printed advertising objects—on paper, foil, large-scale mesh: “when it comes to visuals, flyers, flags and the rest of that kind of advertising media—we don’t need that. We have decorations on the sides of the stage that are recycled every year and we just replace the colours. This allows us not to produce more banners, because they are plastic, though—when it comes to recycling— banners are just the black death”.64

The Choice and Importance of Location: A Festival “with a View” In reflecting on the quality of festival spaces, at least one comment must be made on the importance of location or the decision to locate a festival in a particular place, locality, and specific area. Among the festivals examined in the “Festivalisation of Values” project was a punk rock festival located in the vicinity of a national park, nature reserves, and wildlife refuges. Some of the audience representatives emphasise the benefit to them of such a decision: “it’s in such a nice place, i.e. grass, trees, river.”.65 On the other hand, it is quite obvious that such a neighbourhood, associated with an unavoidable acoustic intrusion on the border of a nature reserve and a noisy music scene, must generate contradictions and potential conflict. This is seen by both respondents and festival participants: “it’s kind of a wild combination in general, on the one hand such a festival I think is rather not good for nature, some birds that fly here, but on the other hand it’s like this is almost as far away from civilisation as you can get (. . .). we cut ourselves off from this civilisation, we cut ourselves off from

63

Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińską-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 65 In-person interview, conducted by Bogna Kociołowicz-Wiśniewska, 03.07.2021. 64

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this system, well let’s kind of be closer to nature, right”?66; “Here this nature changes a lot.”.67

The Format and Location of the Festival as an Opportunity to Shape Attitudes and Habits The last argument mentioned in the context of a festival neighbouring a wildlife oasis raises an interesting point to consider when assessing the creation of a valuebased relationship between festivals and nature. The organisation of a festival in the vicinity of nature sites can disturb the latter, but it can also “work” to promote pro-ecological behaviours, attitudes, habits. The festival, through its strategically planned location, and while taking care not to disturb the natural environment of the site, can attract people previously distant from a lifestyle in close proximity to nature, and can familiarise the festival’s wide audience with the benefits of ecological values. People involved in another festival organised away from urban environments, in mountainous areas, also note that: “people come to the Poprad River and fall into a different space-time, where there is no mobile network coverage, they sleep in tents, nothing bothers them, and the atmosphere is really utopian”.68 Festivals can propose a format close to the lifestyle currently characterised as “Slowlife”. It is a lowering of the pressure on people, an encouragement, with the help of the natural environment, to slow down, to contemplate natural phenomena, non-economic values. As one of the festival’s managers put it, “you have to let your neighbour live; you have to experience something new, but don’t rush, because if you rush, the festival will soon be over. (. . .) no one gets tense here.—It’s too hot—it’s cool, the toilets are far away—it’s cool, the queues for the showers—it’s cool. There’s no problem. Exactly this kind of slow jogging.”69 (Fig. 10.24 in Appendix).

Balance, Maintaining a Scale Appropriate to Needs, Resources, and Local Conditions A fundamental issue associated with ecological values, and one that is too often underestimated in the festival environment, is that of maintaining a balance and avoiding over-scaling, over-production. Here, this primarily concerns the management of space. There are massive festivals that use multiple stages, where, as one 66

In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. In-person interview, conducted by Anna Ważna, 03.07.2021. 68 In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińską-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 69 In-person interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińską-Antoniewicz, 03.09.2021. 67

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audience member notes in her speech, “people would run from stage to stage in a whole crowd, just to hear someone from the line-up, something was emptying, something was filling up—it was weird there. Here everything is on one level. Here you’ll sit on a park bench and have a festival. You’ll go to the main stage and you’ll have a festival. You’ll go out of town and you’ll meet people from the festival. You know what it’s about. This is a festival for me”.70 Here we return to the theme of unbalanced growth, distorted proportions of festivals, and lack of balance. As one festival organiser directly expresses it: “Our biggest concern was that the festival was growing and we didn’t want it to grow indefinitely, just to keep the ceiling, keep the quality and not necessarily limiting the number of people. To bring it all together and balance it out.”.71 Among the issues associated with the question of scale, there are critical voices on the attitudes of some festival organisers who—following the need, quite natural for this industry, to create spectacular activities—fall into the trap of “gigantomania”, over-scaling, and dehumanising the format of the artistic event which a festival is. These voices are concerned precisely with a distortion of proportions and the failure to respect the value of the ecology of relationships. It is worth quoting a statement by Maciej Szajkowski, one of the experts participating in the project “Festivalisation of Values”, who pointed out the unbalanced directions of festival producers, which do not serve the audience and artists, when “huge stages overlap (. . .) I can’t stand it when one stage interferes with another, it’s just so stupid, because what is the reception of music then, what is the concentration of the audience? It’s that effect of overstimulating people again. They leave such a festival mentally and physically exhausted. These gigantic distances between one stage and another, the inconsistency of the lineups, all this makes the festival hard to experience.”.72 A separate area of discussion—at the intersection of values in terms of ethics, social sensitivity [values], ecology, and economics—is the high prices of entrance tickets and festival passes.

Local Service Providers, Subcontractors, and Festival Partners An important solution for sustainable festivals is for the organiser to create a network of relationships within a given local ecosystem that allows the use of high-quality services using local suppliers, subcontractors, and partners. This may concern logistics, transport, catering, products, stands, construction, and carpentry services. This is signalled as an important theme of ecological importance by one festival producer: “the festival takes place in a small village—relying on local service 70

In-person interview, conducted by Aleksy Szymkiewicz, 10.07.2020. Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. 72 Remote interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 14.09.2020. 71

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providers is the simplest solution. It’s local specialists, local products and local people involved”.73 Another festival highlights the collaboration with local residents in providing healthy food for all the festival participants involved. The organisers managed to involve local residents, farm owners, and small-scale food producers to sell their products during the festival, to provide a diverse gastronomic offer based on local products. One of the initiators of this activity, a co-organiser of the festival, describes this solution: “there has been talk for decades about shortening the path from field to table. Our punk rock festival does just that. We don’t shout about it, we do it”.74

Festival Organisers Crossing Their Own Space It is worth drawing attention to the activities of organisers that stem from a commitment to specific values and that cross their own territory, the space of a particular festival. These are activities aimed at networking among festival organisers, helping each other, inspiring ideas for activities that respect nature, the sustainability of festivals and their ethical responsibility. More organisations with the character of forums and associations of festival organisers are emerging, which are regional, local, national, (less often) international, sometimes also arts-industry-specific. The aim of these is to create networks of support, sharing resources in partnerships with other festivals—especially solutions that are closest to the values of ecology and the circular economy. Such solutions sometimes find the form of an officially communicated network, for example as the kind of responsible festivals forum, or festivals and sustainability expertise hub for festival producers, such activities are undertaken in the Netherlands (Green Deal Circular Festivals75; Green Events/Future Festival Tools76), Sweden (Festival Sustainability Lab77), the United Kingdom (Vision 2025/ Green Events Code78) or Poland (Odpowiedzialne Festiwale—Responsible Festivals79), or the European “Green’n’Clean” initiative within the European Festivals

73

Remote interview, conducted by Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz, 08.06.2020. In-person interview, conducted by Marcin Poprawski, 03.07.2021. 75 Green Deal Circular Festivals: https://circularfestivals.nl/default.aspx (accessed 18.04.2023). 76 Green Events: https://www.greenevents.nl/en/; https://www.futurefestivaltools.eu/ (accessed 18.04.2023). 77 Festival Sustainability Lab/Live Green: https://www.livegreen.se/festival-sustainability-lab/ (accessed 18.04.2023). 78 Vision 2025, Green Events Code: https://www.vision2025.org.uk/green-events-code/ (accessed 18.04.2023). 79 Odpowiedzialne Festiwale https://www.facebook.com/odpowiedzialnefestiwale/ (accessed 18.04.2023) 74

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Association,80 among others. Such bodies disseminate practices that effectively promote values that are important to audiences and festival organisers. From the perspective of the festival as a social phenomenon, it is furthermore important that it is rooted in the local community, that it is located in the space inhabited by the local communities of residents, the symbolic and actual possessors of the area in question. The theme of space in discussions about the festival also concerns values related to the balance of conditions for the coexistence of many types of entities—the “inhabitants” of local ecosystems (Poprawski et al. 2015; Poprawski 2016; Robinson 2015, 2016; Luonila and Johansson 2015). These are discussions about the balance and proportions maintained in the relationship (O’Brian 2020) between humans involved in cultural and artistic activities and other beings, nature and the space managed by humans. These issues, in a systemic perspective, eventually become important in terms of the cultural policies (Klaić 2009, 2014) in force and applied in a given area, and in light of other practices of the public, private, and social administrators of a given space. The open, extensive, and interdisciplinary nature of festivals fosters the creation of cross-sector synergy when organising and implementing festival events. Abilities related to the cooperation of various professional circles, as well as the involvement of inhabitants of cultural ecosystems representing different types of organisations and communities are highly appreciated by festivals’ organisers. The usefulness of these features indicates the great importance of the joint action of various entities. Constant cross-sectoral cooperation or involving entities from other sectors in its activities may help organisers to create an ideal organisational formula for the festival based on the advantages of various organisational forms. Here we talk about the formula resulting from the balance between the permanent structure and base of the festival (including infrastructure, finance, and personnel) and the spontaneity, openness, and flexibility related to its implementation. Although one festival is not equal to another festival, each has its own scale, context, and content, each such event has something of a celebration in it. Festivals gather people who want to experience something together, get away from everyday life, and spend their free time well: listening, watching, having fun, and relaxing. The festive atmosphere attracts people and promotes openness to others. It is an excellent starting point for meeting and integration that is very often based on the same axionormative orders.

80 Green’n’Clean, European Festivals Association: https://www.agreenerfestival.com/wp-content/ uploads/pdfs/yourope_greenclean.pdf (accessed 18.04.2023).

Appendix: Festivals and Values: Photographic Material

Appendix: Festivals and Values: Photographic Material

Fig. 10.1 Audience of the Concert, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

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Fig. 10.2 Bands’ outfit style, Festival of Ethnic Music “Roots of Europe” 2021, photo Marcin Poprawski

Fig. 10.3 Banners and flags, Pol’and’Rock Festival 2021, photo by Waldemar Kuligowski

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Fig. 10.4 DJ, Ostróda Reggae Festival 2020, photo by Waldemar Kuligowski

Fig. 10.5 Audience’s selfie, Pannonica Festival 2021—the audience’s selfie, photo by Waldemar Kuligowski

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Fig. 10.6 Iconic signs and chillout time, Pol’and’Rock Festival 2021, photo by Waldemar Kuligowski

Fig. 10.7 Values related banner, Ostróda Reggae Festival 2020, photo by Waldemar Kuligowski

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Fig. 10.8 Town Square during the festival, Rock on the Swamp Festival 2021, photo by Waldemar Kuligowski

Fig. 10.9 Thanks from the town mayor—Chronicle, Rock on the Swamp Festival 2021—“Many thanks for the atmosphere of the festival. I think many years ahead of us. I wish you fruitful cooperation— Mayor”, photo by Lia Dostlieva

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Fig. 10.10 Uniforms, The Unbreakable and Independent Song Festival 2019, photo by Waldemar Kuligowski

Fig. 10.11 T-shirts and identities, Rock on the Swamp Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

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Fig. 10.12 Outfit, Ostróda Reggae Festival 2020, photo by Waldemar Kuligowski

Fig. 10.13 Festival village—the alley under the dream catchers, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

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Fig. 10.14 Festival’s kids and their village playground, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

Fig. 10.15 Eco-cosmetics Shop, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Waldemar Kuligowski

Appendix: Festivals and Values: Photographic Material

Fig. 10.16 Dance workshops time, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

Fig. 10.17 Festival’s club jam, Jazz on the Oder Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

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Fig. 10.18 Workshops in front of the tipi, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Waldemar Kuligowski

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Fig. 10.19 Stage decorations, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

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Fig. 10.20 Food trucks and catering area, Festival of Ethnic Music “Roots of Europe” 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

Fig. 10.21 High stage and variety of signs indicating places audience come from, Pol’and’Rock Festival, photo by Waldemar Kuligowski

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Fig. 10.22 Backstage, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

Fig. 10.23 Festival village—command centre, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

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Fig. 10.24 Slow jogger, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

Fig. 10.25 Festival’s Chronicle, Rock on the Swamp Festival 2021, photo by Lia Dostlieva

Appendix: Festivals and Values: Photographic Material

Fig. 10.26 Sectors of the space, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

Fig. 10.27 Stage barriers, Rock on the Swamp Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

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Fig. 10.28 Final selfie of the staff and volunteers, Jazz on the Oder Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

Fig. 10.29 Applause for the Festival’s Volunteers and Staff, Pannonica Festival 2021, photo by Marcin Poprawski

References

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