Festival Cultures: Media, Place, Music - A one day conference

Date: Friday the 22nd of May, 10am to 5pm

Venue: The Thomas Paine Study Centre, the Univerity of East Anglia

With origins going back to the Radio 1 Roadshows that toured nationally each summer in the 1970s, the annual BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend is a free pop festival held in a different city in the UK each year. This year it is in Norwich, 23-24 May. According to the BBC, it is ‘the UK’s biggest free ticketed festival’, a live music event also broadcast on Radio 1 and 1Extra, and BBC3.

Also happening in May (8-24) is the annual Norfolk and Norwich Festival, a major multi-arts annual event for the East of England, presenting theatre, music, art, literature and more. The festival is among the oldest arts festivals in the UK, dating back originally to 1772.

To mark and to critically interrogate the correspondence of these occasions, an academic and industry symposium is being held at the UEA. It will feature academic speakers from media studies and popular music studies, from industry, from the media, and from festival organisations.

Speakers and features already confirmed:

Prof Tim Wall Professor of Radio and Popular Music Studies, Birmingham City University -

Keynote address: Radio One on the Road: creating that festival spirit for live radio broadcasts 

Bob Shennan Director of BBC Music

William Galinsky Artistic Director, Norfolk and Norwich Festival

John Cumming Director, EFG London Jazz Festival

Dr Chris Anderton Southampton Solent University, author Music Festivals in the UK (2016)

Prof George McKay AHRC Leadership Fellow, UEA, editor The Pop Festival: History, Music, Media, Culture (2015)

Ben Robinson Director, Kendal Calling

Dr Roxy Robinson Leeds Beckett University, author of Festival Culture and the Politics of Participation (forthcoming December 2015) 

East Anglian Fairs Archive 1972-1986 rural alternative festivals scene

 Areas to be discussed include:

• Popular music and festival
• BBC as promoter and commissioner of (live) music
• The role of festival in the construction of regional cultural identity
• Cultural festival as event; making a festival happen
• Multiplatform: media / music / digital crossovers
• Festival history and memory

Day Schedule

10.00-10.30 Registration, coffee

10.30-10.45 Welcome and Introduction - Professor George McKay, UEA 

Prof George McKay, UEA/AHRC Leadership Fellow for Connected Communities Programme

10.45-11.30 Keynote 1      Prof Tim Wall, Birmingham City University

 Radio One on the Road: creating that festival spirit for live radio broadcasts

11.30-13.00 Session 2       Researching festival

Chair Prof John Street, UEA

Dr Chris Anderton, Southampton Solent University, author of Music Festivals in the UK (Ashgate, 2016)

Dr Roxy Robinson, Leeds Beckett University, author of Festival Culture and the Politics of Participation (forthcoming December 2015)

13.00-14.00 Lunch & exhibition

14:00-15:30  Session 3     How does a festival reflect its environment? Festival directors speak

John Cumming, Director, EFG London Jazz Festival

 William Galinsky, Artistic Director, Norfolk & Norwich Festival

Ben Robinson, Director, Kendal Calling

15.30-16.00 Coffee Break & exhibition

16.00-17.00 Keynote 2     BBC perspectives

Bob Shennan, Director of BBC music, in conversation with Prof Tim Wall

Through the day:

Exhibition of East Anglian Fairs Archive, presenting photographs, posters and memorabilia from the fairs, which ran approx. 1974-1985, as an important regional seasonal festival / alternative gathering.

Festival Films from East Anglian Film Archive, screening of archival films of local festivals and jamming sessions from the 1960s and 1970s.

For further information contact Rachel Daniel, AHRC Connected Communities administrator, r.daniel@uea.ac.uk

Registration deadline: Monday 11th of May

This event is co-produced by the Arts and Humanities Research Council Connected Communities programme and Digital Transformations theme.