Festivals, events and inclusive urban public spaces in Europe

There is a long tradition of hosting festivals and events in urban public spaces, and in recent years the number of events staged in European cities has grown. Cities across Europe are using festivals and events to achieve place marketing and economic development objectives, but also to encourage cultural engagement and social cohesion.

Festivals and events staged in urban public spaces take various forms; there are many free cultural festivals and sport events hosted in street settings, but more commercially oriented events are increasingly staged in plazas and parks too. Festivals and events are, by definition, time-limited phenomena but they can have enduring effects on the people and places involved. They may affect who uses public spaces and how they are used, both in the short and longer terms. In the contemporary era, festivals and events offer opportunities for urban public spaces to be reimagined as more welcoming and more diverse spaces encouraging different behaviours and producing the inter-subjectivity that can foster the integration of migrants and other socially excluded people. However, there is also a risk that festivals and events represent merely a superficial ‘quick fix’ to social problems or worse – they might exacerbate social and economic exclusion. In their planning, and in their realisation and legacies, festivals and events include and exclude people and they allow (and restrict) the celebration of certain identities. They have the power to disrupt the fixed nature of public space and to change the dynamics of spaces. Like the spaces they inhabit, urban festivals and events are contested – with different interests competing to secure their own objectives.