ABSTRACT
Leading on from the critique of regimes of accumulation in Chapter 5, this chapter focuses more clearly on the role of events and festivals policy in legitimating a mode of consumption as the defining rationale for investing in an events-led policy. In the last decade of the twentieth and the early part of the twenty-first century in the developed West, it can be argued that events and festivals have been accorded significant value predominantly because of their contribution to economic development and place promotion. The outcome of the postindustrial commitment to consumption (Miles and Miles, 2004) and experiences (Pine and Gilmore, 1999) is that urban environments are now open to marketing activity in the same way that product promotion is understood. Moreover, destinations are frequently associated with an overarching brand narrative, which describes the city’s attributes and aspirations (e.g. ‘style’, ‘uniqueness’, ‘authenticity’). In this chapter it is suggested that, in a shift from the use of events as distractions in securing feeling and affect, to their use as part of wider destination branding strategies, ‘manufactured’ events are often in receipt of investment in favour of indigenous events that fail to portray the desired aesthetic or represent the ubiquitous cosmopolitan ethos being sought in city place promotion. However, it is also suggested that there is a problematic emanating from the local state’s commitment to branded events designed primarily to attract affluent mobile capital. While these events may satisfy the lifestyle aspirations of the sought-after tourist audiences, they may also exacerbate the exclusionary processes that exist within the urban milieu of post-industrial cities – in essence, the consumption-led events city may divide as much as it provides (Miles and Miles, 2004).
