The Future Power of Decision Making in Community Festivals

Researching cultural festivals reveals the existence of a multitude of stakeholder relationships, connected and enforced through different cultures. The one commonality is that they are all influenced by power, which in turn impacts on how festivals are constructed, delivered, and consumed. The futures of community festivals and events will be determined by the decisions which are taken, or not taken, by the stakeholders in those communities but alongside the factors identified in the other chapters in this collection, they will be shaped, manipulated, coerced and created by the power relations which come to define them. Power is necessary to underline and warrant the truth claims of the festival organisers and participants in ways which are not necessarily apparent until they are more closely scrutinised. This chapter will propose critical takes on the macrohistory of power generally used in festival, events, tourism, hospitality and leisure researchers, if indeed they recognise the significance of the concept and its applications.