The Growth of the Music Festival and the Commercialisation of Music.
Abstract – wee bit of work for a Music in Context module. My first ever lecture – went alright actually. Was sh*tting myself though!
The Growth of the Music Festival:
Festivals and the Commercialisation of Music.
The contemporary music festival has evolved into a significant mode of music reception in Western popular culture. Since the early open-air Jazz concerts of post-war Britain, the music festival has played an historic role in the development of music audiences, helping to frame distinguishable music subcultures that mix together political, artistic and stylistic preferences. These have, in turn, influenced the commercial production and marketing of music recordings.
The 21st century has seen the free availability of music fuel the appetite for music festivals, whilst the recent decline of profits in the recording industry has repositioned the live performance as crucial to the commercial success of many artists. These factors have driven the formation of a new relationship between the record and festival culture. This lecture will look at the growth of the summer music festival and the festival’s changing relationship to commercial music markets, in relation to examples of festivals taken from a broad range of music genres.
