Events and Festivals: Fit for the Future?

Over recent decades, the events and festivals sector has enjoyed a period of sustained growth in terms of both commercial scale and media attention. now, however, a number of factors suggest that a retrenchment may be imminent, bringing with it significant threats to the viability of much current activity. environmental factors, particularly fossil-fuel depletion and climate change regulation, will work to make travel (and hence event attendance) more costly. At the same time, the necessary unwinding of public and private debt, in the West at least, may put further pressure on events' and festivals' revenues. This article examines these pressures in more detail and makes tentative suggestions as to how the sector might respond to ensure that it can continue to provide important social and cultural benefits in straitened times.