DIY Democracy: Festivals as Critical Political Arenas?

In recent years, the number of art, music and cultural festivals taking place across the United Kingdom and internationally has increased dramatically. This development has prompted interesting responses from political commentators, with Steve Hilton (2015) promoting the Glastonbury Festival as a “model for radical policy reform” and Matthew Parris (2015) arguing that, ‘conventional politics is out of favour and festivals have emerged to fill an important social function’. But just what is this social function and how do festivals deliver it? In exactly what ways are festivals ‘political’? Unfortunately, the existing academic research base offers no answers to these questions. The aim of this inter-disciplinary study is to fill these gaps in knowledge by delivering theoretically-informed but policy relevant research.