Festivalization as a Creative City Strategy

Abstract

Applying creative-based strategies, cities strive to be notable and distinctive in order to attract mobile citizens. In many cases it is achieved through transforming cities and cultural quarters into experience spaces.  In this sense, one of the most popular instruments of cultural planning implementation is the creation of city identity and its promotion through cultural festivals, which have become a ‘must-have’ policy for Creative City urban planners attempting to galvanize local cultural life, build a continuity of ‘happening’ and thus attract creative individuals. These factors turn urban space into a place of constant festival, a phenomenon called festivalization of urban space. Discussing the connections between the Creative City theory and festival studies, the paper aims to bridge a gap between the two by addressing the question how festivalization is applied within the creative city paradigm. The paper concludes that nowadays festivals penetrates to various aspects of cultural, social and economic activities, turning from being a strategy implementation instrument into strategy itself.