ABSTRACT
The township of Akaroa has held a community festival celebrating the French heritage of the town for more than two decades. In 2015, the festival was larger than ever before, marking 175 years since the first French settlers arrived. Based primarily on in-depth interviews, this paper explores the meanings this festival holds for a range of festival stakeholders. The analysis reveals that different stakeholders attribute varied meanings to the event, ranging from the largely commercial to the personally significant, with a clear distinction evident between meanings framed around ‘celebration and spectacle’ and those centred on remembering the region’s cultural heritage.
