Festival City Futures: Reflections and Conclusions

Abstract

This concluding chapter reflects on some of the key themes highlighted by previous chapters, but it also aims to look forward by examining how city festivals and festival cities may develop in the future. The chapter explores one of the most important dimensions of the book – the ways festivals and events might help to produce more inclusive public spaces. The authors explore whether the social and cultural value of festivals may be (re)prioritised over the economic agenda which has dominated in recent years. The contested nature of city festivals and urban festive spaces is also discussed at length, and the chapter also covers the importance of analyses that can capture the affective and sensorial effects of urban festivity. This provides the basis for a wider review of the methods employed by the authors of the chapters that feature in the book. Inevitably, given the timing of the book, there is also an attempt to highlight the implications of the Coronavirus pandemic, and the ways that urban festivity may be affected in the medium and longer terms. The chapter concludes by summarising the contribution of the book, and by making some suggestions for future research that would help us to better understand the relationships between festivals, public spaces and social inclusion.