NOVEMBER | WELCOME
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Tom Hall
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I
t’s not hyperbolic to say that the USA’s festival scene has
transformed the country’s landscape and revitalised communities.
Austin, for example, has doubled resident numbers as a direct result
of its SXSW and Austin City Limits (see p8) events. These mainstays are
also credited with attracting permanent bases from the likes of Google.
Like the UK, the USA’s festival and event history is nothing short of
iconic. Bob Dylan ‘going electric’ at 1965’s Newport Folk Festival, Jimi
Hendrix burning his guitar on stage at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival,
and Daft Punk emerging in an LED-laden pyramid at 2006’s Coachella
are now globally enshrined cultural references. And that’s not to
mention Las Vegas’ continued re-invention (p22).
The US has also been at the forefront of using festivals to stimulate
business and innovation. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak used mass
events, dubbed ‘the US Festivals’, to encourage the 1980s ‘yuppie’
generation to be more ‘community-oriented’. He even paid for the
bulldozing and construction of an open-air venue and an enormous
temporary stage at Glen Helen Regional Park near Devore, San
Bernardino, California.
But what will define the next generation of events? Visionaries on
both sides of the Atlantic, such as Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff
Bezos, certainly have the fiscal and entrepreneurial clout to take events
into orbit, but – after talking to some of the world’s leading eventprofs
– Access discovers that Space Age thinking has already permeated
the events world, and will continue to revolutionise more earthly
innovations long after the first champagne corks pop into orbit.
Tom Hall, Editor
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