2 replies to this topic

[indie-anna]

Hi Guys,

I am conducting some research into the role of music festivals, and want to hear your views about whether music festivals provide the right kind of environment to bring about social change i.e. are they educational? I am specifically interested in looking at the role of music festivals in educating people about climate change. There are no questions to answer, just wanted to start a discussion really, and love to hear some specific examples of festivals that may have provided people with experiences of a changing nature, good or bad!

your views are much appreciated and will contribute towards valuable research in the music festivals and climate change field.

Thanks!

[FluffyBeanie]

indie-anna, on Mar 30 2010, 11:07 AM, said:

I am specifically interested in looking at the role of music festivals in educating people about climate change. There are no questions to answer, just wanted to start a discussion really, and love to hear some specific examples of festivals that may have provided people with experiences of a changing nature, good or bad!

Thanks!

I'll kick things off for you...

The main difference I have noticed in the last few years is the cup recycling.  People go mad for it now, you see loads running round with cup stacks.  The is a lot more environmentally friendly packaging about (from the food stalls), which all adds to the environmental feel.

I would not say that climate change is highest in people's thinking when they are at festivals.  There are some great stalls about though, I remember having a really good chat with some guys from Oxfam a few years ago.  There are lots of things that festivals can do to reduce the impact on the environment, but it very much depends on the people attending embracing what organisers and stall holders are doing.

[ShockTK]

In a word, no.

Climate change is a contentious issue but the idea of talking about saving energy (and the like) when you have a single festival generating enough energy to alter the orbit of the moon would seem a bit ridiculous and hypocritical.

Maybe if you held the festival in a very dark, single tent organically made from the tears of seals featuring performances from the quietest acoustic bands known to civilisation, you'd have something, but even then you'd have to worry about whether the bands were using cardboard-based guitars with strings made from the aluminium of recycled coke cans... and believe me, I've been playing guitars for nearly 20 years and not even Jimmy Page could make a sound worth hearing out of materials like that.

"The Festival Experience" is essentially all about being locked inside a bubble. Now, what this bubble is can be subjective to a lot of different people, but to me, it's a bubble I want to be trapped in where I can escape from the world. Not ignore it, mind you, but escape from it and get some restbite.

Do festivals play a role in nurturing social change? No. Should they? No.

The truth is, festivals offer you the chance to lose yourself in another world. Most people who aren't arrogant and take the time to care about contentious issues like climate change are already aware that the issues exist through watching the news, seeing adverts, etc, so they don't need the same rhetoric and underlined points reiterated to them.

I, personally, am aware of everything that is going on outside this bubble; I am educated on the various social, economic and political issues that affect me and my life... but being trapped inside the bubble of "The Festival Experience", frankly, I can afford to be arrogant and not care for at least one weekend in my life.