Socio-spatial authenticity at co-created music festivals

TLDR

Music festivals originated as hippie counter‑culture events but are now commercialized and lack the original counter‑cultural discourse. The study investigates how co‑creation of festival design, organization, and management by participants generates authentic experiences, contributing to authenticity research in tourism. The authors used participant observation, interviews, and focus groups at a rock festival and a boutique festival to analyze co‑creation processes. Findings show that socio‑spatial dynamics are crucial to authenticity experiences and that socio‑spatial engagement constitutes a form of aura.

Abstract

From the early days of hippie counter-culture, music festivals have been an important part of the British summer. Today they are commercialised offerings without the counter-cultural discourse of earlier times. Drawing on participant observation, interviews and focus groups conducted at a rock festival and a smaller boutique festival, the paper examines how their design, organisation and management are co-created with participants to produce authentic experiences. The paper contributes to research on authenticity in tourism by examining how authenticity emerges and is experienced in such co-created commercial settings. It presents the importance that the socio-spatial plays in authenticity experiences and how socio-spatial experience and engagement can also be recognised as a form of aura.