ABSTRACT
Music festivals are often lauded for their specific ‘atmosphere’. As social events, motivation for attendance is based not only on engaging with the performed music but also on the interaction between audience members. The COVID-19 pandemic brought major changes to the live music industry, and despite hardship, it also showed the adaptability of the sector. With physical distancing measures put in place, festival spaces had to adapt to 1.5-metre distance regulations. In this chapter, this specific historical moment is used to explore the effect changes in spatial density and material composition have on the festival atmosphere. This exploratory qualitative study uses interviews and observations, collected at ‘physically distanced’ festivals during May and September 2020, in the Netherlands. It finds that many aspects of physically distanced events, such as the stage set-up and associated music and visuals, remain similar, but that the social function of festivals is heavily impeded by the change in material environment. This has a large effect on not only the establishment of collective rituals but also the overall festival atmosphere.
