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The purpose of the study is to compare features of career development and fandom in frequent festival attendance in the context of Finnish music festivals.

The study uses a mixed methods research approach and employs two theoretical frameworks: theories of career development and fandom.

In frequent festival attendance, both festival career development and festival fandom are most clearly present in motivation development and social dimensions.

Strategically, frequent festivalgoers should be considered as crucial stakeholders, who might mobilize the co-creation of a sense of community or festival brand.

Music-related fandom has been previously investigated in relation to artists and specific musical genres, but not so much in relation to music festivals in general. Career studies, on the other hand, concentrate heavily on sports events. There is a scarcity of research scrutinizing both career development and fandom in the festival context within the same study, and festival attendance as part of music tourism is an under-researched area.

This paper aims to explore how music festival organisers negotiate diversity and inclusion in marketing and promotion practices through symbolic and social boundaries.

Based on semi-structured interviews with 18 festival organisers in Rotterdam and participant observation with six festival photographers I show that symbolic and social boundaries are employed in three areas: (1) boundaries in festival format (i.e. [partially] free or ticketed), (2) boundaries in distribution partners and technologies and (3) boundaries in promotional content.

Symbolic and social boundaries are intentionally used by festival organisers to build and delineate festival audiences. Implications are drawn on current understandings of the accessibility of music festival spaces, arguing that festival research should move beyond within-space dynamics to grasp the negotiation of diversity and inclusion at festivals more fully.

While music festivals are often marketed as celebratory spaces that are “welcoming to everyone”, few studies have investigated diversity and inclusion nor marketing and promotion practices at music festivals. This study shows how festival audiences are shaped through marketing and promotion practices.

The purpose of this paper is to: describe and contextualize the aims and distinctive and common characteristics of cannabis festivals in countries with different cannabis policies; assess characteristics of participants; identify reasons to attend cannabis festivals; explore to which extent cannabis festivals contribute to the social and cultural acceptance of cannabis, as perceived by attendees.

The approach incorporates three methods of data collection in the research design; quantitative research among 1,355 participants, participant observation and interviews with the organizers.

Cannabis festivals in Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome and Athens have common features but also maintain and reproduce local, social and cultural characteristics. Cannabis festivals, as well as their attendees, represent heterogeneous categories. The style of the festival – music festival or march combined with music – affects the main reason for attendance by the participants. In cannabis festivals more similar to music festivals the majority of the respondents attended for entertainment while at the cannabis festivals in the form of a march combined with music the majority attended for protest. Furthermore, increasing age, residency and the high frequency of cannabis use are factors that led the participants to attend for protest.

The research on cannabis festivals is limited. This paper not only explores the aims of cannabis festivals in four capital cities of Europe and the characteristics of their attendees including motivations, but also offers interesting insights for understanding the ways in which political and social constructions like cannabis festivals shape attitudes, perception and behaviors around cannabis use.

To explore the value in reminiscing about past festivals as a potential way of improving wellbeing in socially isolated times.

The paper uses previous research on reminiscence, nostalgia and wellbeing to underpin the analysis of self-recorded memory narratives. These were gathered from 13 pairs of festivalgoers during Covid-19 restrictions and included gathering their individual memories and their reminiscences together. The participant pairs were a mix of friends, family and couples who had visited festivals in the UK, Finland and Denmark.

Four key areas that emerged through the analysis were the emotions of nostalgia and anticipation, and the processes of reliving emotions and bonding through memories.

Future studies could take a longitudinal approach to see how memory sharing evolves and the impact of this on wellbeing. The authors also recommend undertaking similar studies in other cultural settings.

This study findings have implications for both post-festival marketing and for the further development of reminiscence therapy interventions.

The method provides a window into memory sharing that has been little used in previous studies. The narratives confirm the value in sharing memories and the positive impact this has on wellbeing. They also illustrate that this happens through positive forms of nostalgia that centre on gratitude and lead to hope and optimism. Anticipation, not emphasised in other studies, was also found to be important in wellbeing and was triggered through looking back at happier times.

Recreational drug use is widespread. It is argued that it has reached a phase of ‘normalisation’ among youth and has become a part of mainstream culture. While there is a substantive body of literature addressing substance use in club settings, the world of music festivals is underexplored. The research aims to fill this gap by analysing patterns of drug use and implementation of harm reduction measures among Polish and Hungarian women at music festivals. This explorative inquiry used an online questionnaire, which was shared via social media channels. The data collection lasted for one month during the summer of 2017.

The study found that over 95% (N=510) of women use psychoactive substances at festivals. The most popular drugs are alcohol and cannabis, and the least popular cocaine and psilocybin. The majority of women declare moderate use of alcohol and light to moderate use of cannabis. One-fifth of the respondents report a moderately heavy use of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine and 8% heavy use of amphetamine. There are numerous positive weak relationships between the intensity of use of various substances. Increased use of drugs is also related to increased frequency of combining them. Low prevalence of illicit drugs testing is observed. There seems to be a negative correlation between the intensity of substance use and the adoption of harm reduction measures. The results have high practical relevance primarily for harm reduction and medical services. Especially cases of moderately heavy and heavy use should be of interest, even more so given that combining substances seems to be prevalent. The data suggest that we can distinguish between two groups: one aware and implementing various measures of harm reduction and second not adopting any of them. There is a need for more widespread drug education and harm reduction promotion, which should be implemented in a favourable legal and policy environment.

This paper sets out to compare different methodologies for measuring the value(s) of live popular music and to explore the different motivations amongst a range of organisations engaged in that work.

The authors analyse how the values of live music are measured, who does it and why. Based on this analysis the authors present a model that visualises the myriad of organisations, methods, aims and objectives involved.

The authors identify three approaches to measuring the impact of live music (economic impact studies, mapping and censuses and social sciences and humanities) and three types of actors (industry, policy and academia). The analysis of these demonstrates that measuring live music is not a neutral activity, but itself constructs a vision on how live music ecologies function

For cultural organisations, demonstrating the outcomes of their work is important in acquiring various forms of support. The model presented in this paper helps them to select adequate methodologies and to reflect on the consequences of particular approaches to measuring live music activities.

While the number of studies measuring live music's impact is growing, theoretical and methodological reflection on these activities is missing. The authors compare the different methodologies by discussing strengths and weaknesses. This results in a model that identifies gaps in existing studies and explores new directions for future live music research. It enhances understanding of how different ways of measuring live music affect policymaking and conceptions of what live music is and should be.

The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare the role of communication, structural and intangible elements on both tourists’ rational and emotional engagement across five different types of events (nature, gastronomy, religion, theatre and music).

Responses from 1,528 tourists were obtained through a face to face questionnaire in five heterogeneous events in the Spanish region of Extremadura, a well-known cultural tourism destination. Linear regressions were used to evaluate focal constructs’ contribution (emotional and rational engagement, formal and informal communication and structural and non-structural elements) on tourists’ engagement across events.

The results revealed that tourist’s rational and emotional engagement depends on the type of event. Non-structural elements seem to be important for rational and emotional engagement for gastronomic and cultural events. Besides the impact of structural elements on rational engagement, all other factors seem to have a mixed influence. Therefore, practitioners must select the factors to highlight according to the type of events, besides structural factors.

The current results allow tourism managers to understand the mechanisms for tourists’ engagement in a multi-event scenario to strategically select and use and communicate each type of appeal when planning and communicating events to specific target audiences.

Unlike most studies that focus on a single event or typology, this study combines a set of heterogeneous events to provide a complete picture of tourism engagement for the tourism sector.