This chapter takes a closer look at the case of Amsterdam as a particular manifestation of a film festival city. Drawing from a new dataset on festivals in the Netherlands, the data supports the view of film festivals as a highly dynamic cultural sector: Internationally acclaimed film festivals exist beside smaller festivals that are more community bound; new festivals emerge annually, and young festivals struggle to survive the three-to-five-year mark.Amsterdam holds a unique position in the Dutch film festival landscape as a third of all film festivals in the Netherlands take place in the capital city. Our data collection helps to bring parts of the city’s film infrastructure to the forefront. On the one hand, Amsterdam’s top five locations for film festival events show clear creative cities logic: The data shows just how powerful the pull of such locations is. On the other hand, we find evidence of placemaking and livable city strategies: Amsterdam’s film festivals extend into the capillaries of the city.Dedicated festival datasets may cast new perspectives on local or national festival landscapes, by revealing patterns that remain hidden in qualitative and case-study based projects. But there are also challenges to address in data-driven research on festival cultures, we name a few such as categorization of data. We conclude that such challenges can be more easily faced if more datasets, of for instance, other cities, are pursued and become available.
In the past two years [2010-2012] we have done research on the visitor experience of music festivals. We conducted several surveys asking festival visitors for demographic variables, taste in music, their motivation for visiting festivals, mentalities and the evaluation of the festival. We also asked for the use of social media before, after and during the festival. Results show that visitors using social media have a significantly different festival experience from users that do not use social media before, during or after the festival. Results on difference in festival satisfaction are mixed.
Glastonbury, het theaterfestival in Avignon, North Sea Jazz, Sensation White, deDuitse oktoberfeesten, het carnaval in Rio en Venetië of de Mardi Gras in NewOrleans, de lancering van de nieuwste smartphone of gameconsole, de Fiesta inPamplona, plaatselijke talentenjachten, de May Day Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rollingand Wake, waarbij het de bedoeling is om van een steile heuvel achter eenrollende Gloucester kaas aan te rennen… Het kost tegenwoordig aanzienlijkemoeite om op een vrije dag niet ondergedompeld te worden in allerlei festiviteiten en evenementen. Festivals zijn hierin prominent aanwezig. Maar wat is een festival eigenlijk? Deze studie formuleert hier een antwoord op door het rijke landschap van festivals te schetsen en hoe dit te ontleden is in motivaties voor bezoek, de specifieke bouwstenen van een festival, het festivalDNA, en de plek waar het allemaal gebeurt: de festivalscape. Ondanks dat de laatste decennia het onderzoek naar festivals aanzienlijk is toegenomen is de bezoekersbeleving van festivals een onderwerp waar relatief weinig onderzoekers zich diepgaand mee bezig hebben gehouden. In het tweede gedeelte van dit boek staat beleving centraal, waarbij emotietheorieën worden besproken en allerhande belevingsmodellen en meetmethoden de revue zullen passeren om de weg vrij te maken voor een gerichte en onderbouwde analyse van de bezoekersbeleving, zoals de beleving van sfeer.
The precarity in the cultural sector became exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the lockdowns, the sources of income for cultural venues and cultural workers vanished overnight, intensifying an already challenging labour market. Particularly freelance cultural workers were hit hard. While the immediate shock of the pandemic on the cultural sector has been well documented, the effects on the sector in the aftermath of the pandemic are still to be revealed and repaired. This project tackles these issues by zooming in on the case of the performing arts scene in Groningen. This scene constitutes the part of the cultural sector that was affected the most by the lockdowns. Currently, venues and event organizers in Groningen lack qualified freelance staff as many left the industry during the pandemic. At the same time, self-employed cultural workers find it difficult to generate sufficient incomes and develop sustainable careers in the city. The municipality is eager to support the industry, including freelancers, but is unsure about how best to do so. With a consortium composed of the university, the municipality, a knowledge organisation specialised in cultural entrepreneurship, and a network for creative freelancers in the North of the Netherlands the project is well-equipped to reach its two-fold aims of investigating this current situation and coming up with suggestions for solutions. The core component of the project is an interview study with three groups of self-employed cultural freelancers: experienced production staff, experienced performers, and nascent freelancers (both production staff and performers). Based on data from this study, the project provides a multifaceted picture of the cultural ecosystem in Groningen, highlighting how this system is experienced. This establishes a solid foundation for staging discussions on working conditions in the sector, enabling the project to eventually conclude with recommendations on how to improve the situation.
