Festivals in the Barents Region: Exploring Festival‐stakeholder Cooperation

Abstract

The paper reports from a multiple case study investigating three music festivals located in the Barents region, namely the Festspel i Pite Älvdal (Piteå, Sweden), the Festspillene i Nord‐Norge (Harstad, Norway) and the Jutajaiset Folklorefestivaali (Rovaniemi, Finland). The aim of the reported study was to investigate how these festivals cooperated with actors in their surroundings. Furthermore, the purpose was to explore the study’s data through the perspectives of network and stakeholder theory. The data consisted of field notes from observations of 58 festival events; 10 in‐depth interviews with festival administrators and official representatives of the festivals’ host municipalities; and documentation. The data was analysed using meaning condensation and structuring displays. Through the theory‐related exploration of the study’s data, three themes emerged: first, the festivals cooperated with multiple stakeholders, who assumed multiple roles; second, the festivals and their stakeholders would sometimes enter into a state of symbiosis; and third, the festivals were seen to engage in long‐stretched, “loose” and glocal networks. The three themes appeared as interrelated and could all be understood as strategies, which the festivals employed in order to increase their sustainability. The findings could also be connected to a typology of festivals in the context of institutionalization.

Key Words:

• Festival research
• festival‐stakeholder cooperation
• festival management
• network theory
• stakeholder theory

Acknowledgments

Financial support from the Structural Funds of EU – the Interreg III A North – and the Luleå University of Technology is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

1. The study is reported in full in Karlsen (2008).

2. The fieldwork was carried out in 2005 (Festspel i Pite Älvdal) and 2007 (Festspillene i Nord‐Norge and Jutajaiset Folklorefestivaali).

3. By the term “event” we mean one particular festival performance, such as a concert, an opening ceremony, a festival mass, an arts exhibition or a public discussion between festival performers, organizers and audience.

4. The interviewees were divided among the festivals as follows: The Festspel i Pite Älvdal: two festival directors (in the year of the study, two persons shared this job), four official representatives (the festival took place in four municipalities at the same time); the Festspillene i Nord‐Norge: one festival director, one official representative; the Jutajaiset Folklorefestivaali: one festival director, one official representative.

5. The term “glocal” is a combination of the words “global” and “local”, and the notion of “glocalisation” is used to denote the late modern phenomenon of the global and the local interacting in dialectical ways (see Robertson (1995) for a more thorough discussion of this phenomenon).

6. While Getz and Andersson (2009) define mutual dependency as “stakeholders [becoming] committed to the event” (p. 12), we employ the term “symbiosis” to describe the process of two organizations living in long‐term, close association with each other to the advantage of both.