[ecrea] Carnivalising Pop: Music Festival Cultures symposium, Salford, June 13

Carnivalising Pop: Music Festival Cultures

a one-day international symposium at the University of Salford

Friday June 13, 2014



Guest speakers:

·      Dr Gina Arnold, Stanford University, USA, author of Route 666: On 
the Road to Nirvana, Kiss This: Punk in the Present Tense

·      Alan Lodge, independent photographer and festival activist, 
discusses some of his classic images from 1970s free festivals and 
1980s/1990s free party scene.

Other contributors include:

·      Dr Nick Gebhardt, Birmingham City University

·      Dr Roxanne Yeganegy, Leeds Metropolitan University

·      Prof George McKay, University of Salford

·      Dr Anne Dvinge, University of Copenhagen

·      Dr Mark Goodall, Bradford University

·      Prof Andrew Dubber, Birmingham City University (TBC).



… Newport. Beaulieu. Monterey. Notting Hill. Woodstock. Glastonbury. 
Nimbim. Roskilde. Reading. Stonehenge. Castlemorton. Love Parade. 
Burning Man… Popular music festivals are one of the strikingly 
successful and enduring features of seasonal popular cultural 
consumption for young people and older generations of enthusiasts. 
Notwithstanding the annual declaration of the ‘death of festival’, a 
dramatic rise in the number of music festivals in the UK and around the 
world has been evident as festivals become a pivotal economic driver in 
the popular music industry. In 2010, there were over 700 music festivals 
in Britain alone, and it is estimated that three million people attend 
music festivals a year. Today’s festivals range from the massive to 
community and ‘boutique’ events.



The festival has become a key feature of the contemporary music 
industry’s commercial model, and one of major interest to young people 
as festival-goers themselves and as students. But the pop festival also 
has a radical past in the counterculture, a utopian strand in 
alternative living, some antagonistic anti-authoritarian history, an 
increasingly mediated other presence, as well as a strong current 
ethical identity. In the community/communitas of festival, 
interpretations vary from Temporary Autonomous Zone to festival as 
pollutant of the rural, from celebration to destruction of the genius loci.



To mark the start of the summer festival season, we have organised this 
event. The purpose of the symposium is to discuss and explore the 
significance of music festival cultures. In part the event presents work 
in progress from the forthcoming collection The Pop Festival: History, 
Music, Media, Culture (McKay ed., Bloomsbury, 2015). But we may also 
have some space for other current researchers in the field to share 
their work too—please do get in touch, soon. The day will be of interest 
across disciplines, from Popular Music, Media and Cultural Studies, 
Performance, Film, History, Sociology, American Studies, Business, 
Tourism and Leisure, Organisation Studies. And it will be of interest to 
festival organisers and festival-goers, too, as well as music media.



Registration and further information



This is a free event, as part of the AHRC Connected Communities 
Programme. It is organised by Prof George McKay, Connected Communities 
Leadership Fellow ((g.a.mckay /at/ salford.ac.uk)).


However advance registration is essential—contact Dr Deborah Woodman, 
conference administrator, (d.woodman /at/ salford.ac.uk), +44 (0)161 295 5876, 
for registration and all enquiries.



Further information is at http://georgemckay.org/festivals/symposium-2014/.

George

Oh is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel
Or just 20,000 people standing in a field….
In the middle of the night it feels alright
But then tomorrow morning, oh then you come down.
What if you never come down?

Pulp, 'Sorted for Es and whizz' (1995)

Prof George McKay
AHRC Leadership Fellow, Connected Communities Programme
University of Salford, MediaCityUK
Manchester M50 2HE, UK
t +44 (0)779 1077 074
georgemckay.org    connected-communities.org
Project Administrator - Dr Deborah Woodman, (d.woodman /at/ salford.ac.uk)


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