The Impact of Festivals was a 12-month project funded under the AHRC’s Connected Communities Programme, working with research partner organisation the EFG London Jazz Festival. I was the Principal Investigator, and the Research Associate was Dr Emma Webster, co-founder and director of Live Music Exchange. You can read about the project in more detail on its website.
The project’s stated research questions were:
- Do festivals contribute to local competitiveness, and if so, how?
- What contribution do festivals make to the local region in terms of a ‘cultural offer’?
- What contribution do festivals make to regional economic growth?
- What impact do festivals have on: i. the formation of a temporary community (i.e. among festival goers)? and ii. the permanent community which lives at the festival location?
- How has impact developed over the history of a festival?
- Drawing on the findings to questions 1-5, what are the processes through which arts and humanities research (including practice-based work) has impacted on festivals?
The key outputs included (click on each for further information/open access copy):
- Researching (Jazz) Festivals: A Day of Ideas and Discussion, Cheltenham Jazz Festival, April 2016
- free report, From Glyndebourne to Glastonbury: The Impact of British Music Festivals
- 170-entry annotated bibliography for above, including economic impact reports
- academic article, ‘The impact of (jazz) festivals’, Jazz Research Journal
- 110-entry annotated bibliography for above, including economic impact reports
- completed manuscript, 25 Years of the London Jazz Festival
- Jazz and the City symposium, Royal Festival Hall, EFG London Jazz Festival, November 2016.