Anomale Used Blog: Lulu - Funny How Time Slips Away

Festivals can be sites for musical experimentation and hybridity, essential vehicles for the innovation and affirmation of daring artistic practice, where moments of mutual enrichment of the local by musics from elsewhere are commonplace.

Headliners may be internationally renowned musicians but festivals also provide platforms for up and coming local musicians, music festival producers/promoters are therefore both cultural importers and investors, the flipside of which being occasional claims of cultural invasion and even elitism. Performance at particular festivals can enhance the status of amusician and increase the chances of further festival bookings, other festivals include elements of adjudication in which musicians are judged and rewarded.

Festivals are often sites for showcasing local talent and for creating a platform for exporting musicians abroad. They can be key tools for developing new audiences for musicians and for genres more broadly. They thus function as trusted curators in which listeners are more willing to take risks in the music they experience and in the venues they attend, indeed, some festivals even sell out before the acts have been announced. Festivals are sites for learning and personal development for musicians, audiences, and crew including volunteers, and may even contribute to social inclusion via political engagement and communitas.

However, there is little research yet about the specific impacts of festivals on musicians/composers and/or genre development, or even on the important roles of festivals in commissioning new work or as sites for musical premieres. The commercialisation of festivals and the need to compete across markets can be seen in the inclusion of popular music into festivals such as world and folk, or other art forms such as comedy and ballet into music festivals, although this can have subsequent impacts on participants’ perceptions of authenticity.

Source: From Glyndebourne to Glastonbury:The Impact of British Music Festivals by Emma Webster and George McKay (Creativity: Music

And Musicians)

Lulu - Funny How Time Slips Away