ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how events function as masks, temporarily concealing and revealing the authenticity of places behind different personas and aura. It discusses ways in which events both articulate authenticity by bringing about a distinctive sense of place and mask places by generating consciously 'designed' experiences. The chapter assesses how some events can be firmly rooted in some peripheral communities that resist globalisation, de-commodifying their events by restricting tourist access to places and venues where they are held. A further examination of community festivals argues that some events reflect the object of the gaze back to tourists in displays of staged authenticity and local customs, while retaining a private backstage. Different types of gatherings assessed in the chapter include carnivalesque environments and hyperreal spectaculars, which suspend reality for atmospheres of magical reality. The chapter examines aspects of experiential authenticity, such as liminality, ritual, communitas and re-enactment.
