Cultural Events as Potential Drivers of Urban Regeneration: An Empirical Illustration

In this paper the relational dimension of cultural production is explored, with explicit attention to the impact of cultural events on networks and creativity in local contexts. Three qualitative empirical cases are produced, showing that networks have a crucial importance in sustaining spatial proximity-based creativity. Three models of local cultural events are identified and valued qualitatively in terms of their impact on local creativity, concluding that the value of an event in its territory is dependent on the organizational frame of the specific event. In particular, the bottom-up network-based model appears to be able to favour local activation and creativity spanning, thereby leveraging local resources.