Event Management, Vol. 8, pp.

4958
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MAKING SENSE OF HOW FESTIVALS DEMONSTRATE A

COMMUNITYS SENSE OF PLACE

ROS DERRETT
School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW

The cultural aspects of a way of life of a place and a sense of community help us to better understand the
processes of change being experienced in regional Australia. This article explores how community-based
festivals grow over time to reflect the values, interests, and aspirations of residents. It presents observations
of the nature of four community cultural festivals in destinations in the northern rivers region of NSW. The
investigation explores how a sense of community and place are linked to such events. It seeks to establish
how festivals develop and manage the tensions generated by different community voices. How community
festivals reflect the communitys sense of itself and its place validates the substantial shared interest by
residents and visitors in such events.
Regional community cultural festivals

Sense of community

This article offers preliminary observations on an

analysis of four community cultural festivals in four
different destinations in the Northern Rivers region of
NSW. It demonstrates how a sense of community and
place are major contributors to such events. The study
of how community festivals reflect the communitys
sense of itself and its place also validates the substantial shared interest by residents and visitors in such
events.
The central investigation explores the nature of community cultural festivals. It identifies how different strategies have different consequences. A signifier of a
communitys sense of self and an expression of its sense
of place is the collaboration that occurs when festivals
such as the Beef Week Festival in Casino, the Jacar-

Sense of place

Events tourism

anda Festival held annually in Grafton, the Mardi Grass

Cannabis Law Reform Rally in Nimbin, and Byron
Bays New Years Eve celebrations, Last Night First
Light, are hosted. Communities seek to enhance the
livability quotient for their constituencies. They do this
by encouraging local enterprise, serving the needs of
residents, and promoting sustainable employment.
There is increasing recognition of the economic value
of natural and human capital. These festivals and events
offer an integrated approach to creating the vibrant communities to which people aspire (Dunstan, 1994; Getz,
1997; Hall, 1992). Festivals serve the needs of residents.
They can protect the natural environment, increase social equity, and provide a vision for participants as is
the case with the Grafton, Nimbin, and Byron events.

Address correspondence to Ros Derrett, Lecturer, School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW,
Australia. Tel: 02 6620 3150; Fax: 02 6622208; E-mail: rderrett@scu.edu.au

49

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DERRETT

By providing a local focus, they can satisfy specific

industry niches, as Casino Beef Week demonstrates.
Methodology
Community cultural festivals are a phenomenon in
a real-life context that can be examined in a descriptive manner. Evidence deals holistically with the who,
why, how, what, when, and where of case studies exploring similarities and differences in the nature of
the festival. The broader study deals with festivals,
communities, and destinations. This article focuses on
four community cultural festivals, their character, what
influences it, and the relationships between the festivals and stakeholders. Through surveys, interviews,
media analysis, and critical observation, it establishes
the dynamics between key stakeholders and the conduct of distinctive events. These methods were specifically used to develop the framework for the analysis of the four case study festivals. Only some of the
elements of the models described in this article are
explored in detail.
It is important to define a sense of community and
place. It is useful to assess all key factors that contribute to making effective festivals and how a
communitys sense of itself and its place emerge as
major elements. It is evident that an historical perspective allows for a strong narrative to emerge, which
in turn demonstrates the values, interests, and aspirations of a host community. From these stories key factors were identified and used as the initial investigative framework (see Fig. 1.)
The factors that comprise a sense of community and
place are explored in this study. An historical perspective reveals the forces that influence the image and identity of a community. Stories from individuals and groups
provide testimony. The complexity of the elements that
comprise a sense of community and place makes it
worth stepping through a narrative process and traveling from the personal to the global.
When investigating how cultural festivals develop and
reflect a sense of community and place, the following
key questions provide strong guidance. These identify
the characteristics that determine a communitys sense
of place, what constitutes distinctiveness; what the role
of key stakeholders in community festival development
and management is; how different voices in a community are accommodated in festivals; and how communities share festivals with visitors.

A Sense of Place
According to Teodori and Luloff (1998), community involvement, including support for a festival, is an
important factor in predicting the strength of a persons
attachment to a community or place. Place is a particular part of space occupied by people and things. Studies have shown that recognizing peoples attachment
to a place influences their sense of stewardship with a
place (Greene, 1996). Individuals affective relationship with the landscape or material environment may
vary in intensity, discretion, and manner of expression
(Tuan, 1974). Profiling the characteristics of individuals who are strongly attached to their (sense) community would be helpful to event managers responsible
for developing relationships with the local community
(Wickam & Kerstetter, 2001).
The emotional attachment to the natural landscape
and the built environment, climatic changes, and shared
memories of communal heritage allow individuals to
come together for formal or spontaneous interactions
like festivals and community cultural events. Place is
said to have spirit or personality. It seems that a sense
of place can vary from person to person and time to
time. There can be a distinction between the characteristics of place for residents and of those of visitors. Can
visitors ever develop an appreciation and commitment
to the same extent as locals? Does the contact with place
and space allow visitors to go beyond just appreciation
and understanding to conservation of sites or experiences based on access to particular location and natural forms?
Tourism, for example, is typified in some respects as
the experience and consumption of place (Meethan,
1995). For places to achieve distinctiveness and status
as places to go, or to be seen in, they have to be created. Organizers of events can offer tangible and intangible experiences to connect people to places. That is
why some popular events are sited in spectacular locations.
This suggests that a sense of place brings into play
not only the commonly understood five senses of touch,
taste, hearing, smell, and sight but also the two dimensions mentioned in the Bible, namely, animation and
feeling. This suggests that the sixth sense as the gift of
mind and the seventh as the interpreter of ones faculties could be readily accommodated in both the domains of individuals perception of place and community. Festivals offer people permission to indulge in both

HOW FESTIVALS DEMONSTRATE A COMMUNITYS SENSE OF PLACE

these sensual dimensions, particularly if events are outdoors and in proximity to iconic landscapes like rivers,
coastal areas, and rainforest.
That human society is bound to place and landscape
(Cotter, Boyd, & Gardiner, 2001, p. 335) is evident in
case study events. Few communities demonstrate
placelessness; however, some communities pay little
attention to celebrating their location and its influence
on their lives. The ancient Nimbin Rocks feature in the
story telling of and promotion of the Mardi Grass event.
How can place provide event organizers with sufficient
material to interpret itself effectively from the outside
in for visitors and inside out for residents? The event
can gather in real and imaginary elements that identify references to key features of heritage, current occupation, values held, and future envisaged. The density of content, access, clarity of explaining place, and
repetition of images, ideas, and issues about the landscape all have a decisive impact on attendees of events.
They are critical for memory as well.
Place (and landscape) can provide a medium for community values and beliefs that are celebrated in community cultural events. These celebrations provide participants with a physical manifestation and better
understanding of the relationships between residents,
their environment, their neighbors, and visitors. This
can be through the naming of the event. The Jacaranda
Festival in Grafton, through a visual identification with
the urban landscape, makes location immediately identifiable for locals and visitors; a reflection of the local
consciousness and the mood of a place is integrated
into the content of the program.
Community events can use place to demonstrate confidence in how they have kept order and developed interpretation so that others can do likewise when they
visit. This is evident in the beach-style culture of the
Byron Bay New Years Eve experience and the agricultural land use evident at Casinos Beef Week. Ferris
(1996) notes how memory and sense of place shape
individuals. He expresses concern for how people can
devalue the places they are from by abandoning old
worlds, attempting to achieve success, making a mark
on society, and by separating themselves from their
roots. Festivals and events provide a vehicle to preserve
and celebrate culture and facilitate family reunions. He
suggests place is a family affair.
Trotter (1999, p. 39) suggests the identity, cultural
experience, and sense of place are the new objects of
tourism, and visitors will know when they are not

51

present. People turn to their culture as a means of selfdefinition and mobilize to assert their local cultural
values (Adams & Goldbard, 2001) and share them with
visitors. This is demonstrated in the four case study
destinations.
A Sense of Community
A sense of community is an almost invisible yet critical part of a healthy community. Though hard to define, it includes a communitys image, spirit, character,
pride, relationships, and networking (Bush, 2000). A
sense of community comes from a shared vision, where
a clear sense of purpose values individuals ideas and
contribution and involves working together on community issues, celebrations, and problem solving. Developing a sense of community is challenging, longterm work, building levels of connectedness, belonging,
and support (Dugas & Schweitzer, 1997). Festivals and
cultural events are observed as providing a forum for a
shared purpose to be manifest (Dunstan, 1994).
The complex relationships that festivals provide for
individual members of a community as each exchanges
information and energy offers the stability and protection that community can provide and that isolation cannot. Festivals can provide the heart to a community
(Wheatley & Kellner-Rogers, 1998, p. 14) as their
celebratory nature provides residents with conditions
of freedom and connectedness rather than a fixation on
the forms and structures of the community. The organizations and civic institutions managing the festivals
and events temporarily offer a spatial boundary in terms
of place, which harnesses the communitys vision of
itself and provide participative opportunities to nurture
and sustain what is important to their constituency.
Festivals and events provide an opportunity for community cultural development (Getz, 1997). Festivals and
events can provide direction for communities. They
provide a now and offer opportunities to speculate
on a future. Programming can draw out views of attendees through symposia, workshops, skills development workshops, dreaming places, graffiti walls, and
postcards.
Festivals can reflect the dynamic value systems of
individuals united by the same customs, images, collective memory, habits, and experiences. Festivals can
be replicated and each generation can pass on something of its experience to the next. This is of particular
interest to families that use events to assemble reunions.

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DERRETT

Bringing people back to generously share their special

space and favorite places with visiting friends and relatives assists in healing, awareness raising, and through
understanding issues of sustainability associated with
some delicate environments.
Values and beliefs held by individuals in a community are inextricably linked and shape peoples attitudes
and the way they act in specific situations. Under scrutiny in these regional communities is how the values,
interests, and aspirations of individuals are influenced
by their biophsyical environment (space and
place)which leads to a sense of communitythat
influences how the community celebratesthat affects
the communitys well-beingthat in turn informs the
environment in which individuals and groups define
their values and beliefs. Residents share all of this with
visitors.
Festivals and events demonstrate the popular definitions of a sense of community through offering connections, belonging, support, empowerment, participation, and safety. The sort of informal participation
afforded by festivals and events provides residents with
a sound overall view of their community. They can often be more willing to contribute to the solution of community problems. This social capital (Cox, 1995), or
social glue or social fabric, is now a feature of the regional development agenda. It focuses on minimizing
the gaps between people particularly in sociocultural
and economic ways. It is observed that communities
are creating festivals and events to emphasize the value
they recognize in the feelings of ownership and belonging generated for resident participants. The extra dimension of involving visitors has engaged the interest
of the tourism sector. Festivals can be the gatekeepers
of community values, encouraging some people in,
while keeping others out.
The case studies demonstrate that community offers
individual members a structure for attending to general aspects of life. Challenges arise as individuals and
groups within communities initiate, plan, prepare, promote, and manage community celebrations. These operational aspects of events provide the framework to
explore how regional and local distinctiveness influences the contact, conduct, and reception of festivals.

ism by forming its content. Only if Australians are involved in tourism will it survive (Wood, 1993).
While there is little research on how a community is
empowered to form the content of tourism, Wood suggests that tourism influences identity by generating
images such as that of the quintessential Australian. This
anthropological approach to cultural tourism is highlighted by Lips (cited in Wood, 1992) who suggests
that, cultural tourism is the art of participating in another culture, of relating to people and places that have
a strong sense of their own identity. It is an approach to
tourism that gives tourists credit for intelligence, and
promises them some depth of experience and real-life
layering that can be explored on many levels (p. 4).
The four community cultural festivals that share their
culture that becomes the content of the tourism
experience for visitors demonstrate how regional and
local distinctiveness influence festivals. To better explain the phenomenon it is useful to map the major elements, processes, and relationships found in such
events. These are represented in Figure 1. Festivals
emerge from the congruence of three major elements;
the destination (place) in which they are held, the people
who reside in that location (and within the region), and
the visitors who are attracted to the festival. All of these
are underpinned by the physical landscape in which

Cultural Tourism

Distinctiveness

Community, the custodians of the content of Australian tourism, must be enabled to participate in tour-

Figure 1. Representation of how elements, processes, and relationships of regional and local distinctiveness influence festivals.

Regional

PLACE

Sense of
Community
and Place

RESIDENTS

FESTIVALS
Destination
Marketing

Cultural
Tourism

VISITORS

HOW FESTIVALS DEMONSTRATE A COMMUNITYS SENSE OF PLACE

they collaborate. In the northern rivers of NSW, the
coastal fringe, the hinterland, World Heritage Area
rainforests, and the volcanic caldera significantly impinge on the psyche of residents and visitors. The specific features of northern rivers (NSW) landscape and
the lifestyle choices of residents are under scrutiny because they provide the regions identity.
These primary forces generate and reproduce the
identities and values of each community, as they dont
remain constant. The landscape changes; settlement
patterns evolve and visitor segments vary. The internal
and external environments in which communities operate are regularly impacted by internal and external
political, cultural, social, technological, and economic
forces. Individuals within communities are members
of families and subcultural groups with characteristics,
shaped by demographic and psychographic factors.
Destination marketing, cultural tourism, and a sense of
community and a sense of place (shown as a combined
element in the figure) essentially manifest the
commodification of a way of life.
The marketplace hosts destination marketing messages, especially when the tourism subset of the business sector appropriates the same image and identity.
Thus, a brand representing core values becomes a
brand that can be used by both the community and tourism sectors. Destinations are branded by festivals (e.g.,
Casino becomes the Beef Capital, Grafton the Jacaranda City, Nimbin the drug center, and Byron Bay the
preferred summer party destination). The publicity that
festivals and events can generate for a community can
not only have a cumulative impact on the destination
but also feed into the positive and negative image and
identity of the community.
Regional festival organizers acknowledge the importance of using values, honesty, responsibility, humility,
love, faith, cooperation, and a respect for mystery when
making choices for the conduct of their event. The case
study communities are dealing with how each community values diversity and tolerance in a region with significantly layered demographics. There is recognition
that people want to work on what matters to them. Each
of the four communities is dealing with the issues differently.
Community Well-Being
Dunstan (1994) suggests festivals can be used to build
communities. Organizing a major festival takes a lot of

53

individual and collective effort. To get the job done the

organizers have to be able to give a lot of time personally and be able to call in a lot of favors and/or inspire
volunteerism. Celebration can bind a community and
it can also be the instrument that keeps the community
a fresh and constantly renewing experience. Annual
festivals create a shared testimony to community
through the passage of time. Celebration is the way
humans integrate change (Dunstan, 1994).
Community cultural festivals help create communities of values (Ulrich, 1998, p. 157) by forging strong
and distinct identities. One mechanism that assists in
establishing whether festivals effectively represent their
constituencys sense of community is to engage with a
well-being model. Community well-being (Wills,
2001) demonstrates how clear rules of inclusion, sharing information across boundaries, creating social reciprocity, using symbols, myths, and stories to create and
sustain values, and managing similarity so that the community feels familiar with clear building blocks. Community well-being can be described as having such
outcomes for residents as livability, sustainability, viability, and vitality (Hancock, Labonte, & Edwards,
1999; Landry, 1994, cited Wills, 2001). Key concepts
of active citizenship, social justice, and social capital
(Cox, 1995) allow residents to create attachments to
the place and the people with whom they share that
location.
Community well-being identified by the Local Government Community Services Association of Australia
(Wills, 2001) incorporates qualities for developing
healthy and sustainable communities including the activity, participation, and interaction between people
(Wills, 2001, p. 23). These seven elements provide an
opportunity to sensitively assess how communities see
themselves and measure themselves against a set of
criteria that can meaningfully underpin how a sense of
community and place contribute to cultural festivals.
These are represented in Table 1.
These results are linked to Well-Being Building
Blocks (Wills, 2001, p. 34) that include democratic
governance, active citizenship, social justice, and social capital (Table 2). These assist in clarifying how a
sense of community and place contribute to regional
cultural festivals.
Communities seek to enhance the livability quotient
for their constituencies. For example, through
volunteerism, they offer lifelong learning opportunities and civic partnerships that can be transferred to

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DERRETT

Table 1
Community Well-Being
Community Well-Being

Community Well-Being

Dimensions
Social and cultural
Economic
Environmental and built

Outcomes
Conviviality, equity, vitality
Adequate prosperity
Livability, sustainability, and viability

Source: Wills (2001, p. 22).

Table 2
Components of Well-Being Building Blocks
Building Blocks

Components/Features

Democratic governance
Visions, goals, leadership, policies
Active citizenship
Equal political, civil, and civic rights
Social justice
Human rights, social supports, empowerment
Social capital
Interpersonal and organizational trust,
reciprocity, and collective action
Source: Wills (2001, p. 34).

other aspects of community life. Festivals can be a longterm investment in the aggregate value and principles
that underpin that elusive sense of community. The
Well-Being Framework has been applied to the four
festivals and their communities and provides a useful
tool for observations of communities anywhere.
Sense and Sensitivity: Four Case Study Communities
The northern rivers region has a distinctive heritage
that reflects the waves of migration to the coast and
hinterland. The individuals and groups who have sought
to stay since the indigenous settlement have contributed to the regional culture. Their stories reflect the give
and take of each generation of people who came as
timber-getters, farmers, professionals, merchants, surfers, hippies, alternates, and retirees. Each layer contributes to the tapestry of celebrations that have been
generated by individuals and communities ever since
and that are attractive to residents. New settlers contribute ideas and experience to the development of festivals that reflect the cultural mix.
Each communitys festival provides occasions where
a specific mood, tone, or spirit, responding to a sense
of place, time of year, or season, is demonstrated. As
people seek to fill their increased leisure time in the
region with new experiences, they demand value for

money expended to access the event, heightened enjoyment from exposure to these new and novel activities, security, and recognition as individuals (Dimmock,
Tiyce, & Derrett, 1999). With the self at the center of
modern consumer society, community-based festivals
appear to tie together issues of choice, identity, status,
alienation, and culture. Visitors to community cultural
festivals wish to avoid unsafe situations, discomfort,
doubts, and being made to feel a nuisance. Event organizers of the case study events identified a responsibility to deliver not only a program of activityreflecting who the locals are by showcasing local skills and
pursuits and what they aspire to through a celebration
that provides the aesthetics of wonderbut to capture
a regional spirit for the visitors as well! They have done
this with local produce, cuisine, arts practice, youth
involvement, and business activity.
The four community events involve the local population in a shared experience for their mutual benefit.
These annual moments provide both the social function and symbolic meaning of the festival. These functions reflect the communitys social identity, its historical continuity, and its physical survival that is
ultimately what festivals celebrate. While each of the
four communities offer separate and distinctive programs reflecting these functions, there is evidence of a
significant overarching regional flavor to them. Each
festival has also, over time, identified key ways in which
to distinguish themselves from other regional events.
In marketing terms, each has sought a point of difference, particularly in terms of the program of the event.
In each of the four festivals under discussion, the power
exerted by individuals and subgroups begins to work
independently of the dominant culture. The trust,
reciprosity, proactivity, commons, participation in networks, and social norms, suggested by Cox (1995) as
fundamental to the notion of social capital, are represented in each event. A particular subcultural group in
Nimbin, for example, convenes Mardi Grass, fully mindful of competing interests represented within the community. The collaboration between local government and
community-based festival committees is a marked feature of the Casino, Byron Bay, and Grafton events.
The Jacaranda Festival, Grafton
The Jacaranda Festival (www.graftoncity.nsw.gov.au)
was the first floral (themed) festival organized in Australia and was based upon the traditional English spon-

HOW FESTIVALS DEMONSTRATE A COMMUNITYS SENSE OF PLACE

taneous revelry, music, dance, and a celebration for the
natural flora with which the city of Grafton and district
is endowed. The first festival was staged on October
29, 1935. The Jacaranda Festival Committee has
guarded closely against the deterioration of a peoples
festival into a commercialized carnival. It remains a
celebration focused on the lilac flowers and the traditional lifestyle of the Clarence Valley. The local press
identified (Jacaranda Festival, 1994) that the Jacaranda Festival is not a spectacle for a talented few, but
an opportunity for everyoneyoung and old, rich and
poor, visitors or homefolkto join together in the spirit
of fun. It maintains a full program of parades, exhibitions, street celebrations, retail involvement, and special interest events.
Mardi Grass, Nimbin
The Nimbin Mardi Grass (www.nimbinmardigrass.
com) bills itself as the biggest hemp harvest festival in
the Western world. It regularly attracts over 10,000
people to the village of Nimbin (population 600) in the
first weekend in May to celebrate all things hemp, from
medicine, fiber, fuel, to food. The political event is conceived as a drug law reform protest. The celebration
incorporates resident culture, and, more than expressing contemporary cannabis culture in Australia, it is
central to creating and sustaining it (Dunstan, 1999).
Powerful emotional views are held within the host
community and shared through a unique forum mechanism. The volunteer management by the Help End
Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) organization, which
conducts a retail information service in the main street
of the village as well as Mardi Grass, annually deals
with the tensions generated by the influx of visitors
and attendant logistical issues during the 3-day event,
while visitors are oblivious to the community development ramifications. The police, local government, the
Chamber of Commerce, tourism agencies, and regional
media are all significant players in how the image of
the village is projected beyond the festival. Over the
years, a closer collaboration has taken place to minimize tensions that arise from the pressure of visitation,
the logistics of parking, noise, overnight camping, toilets, litter, and drugs.
New Years Eve, Byron Bay
The Last Night First Light celebrations annually held
in Byron Bay are a result of the establishment of what

55

was known as a community safety committee. A community-based Council committee sought to redress the
image generated by chaos and mayhem resulting
during New Years Eve street activity in 199394. The
negative national media coverage spurred volunteers
to seek solutions of a local nature through strategic
partnerships, rebranding the town, and generating street
entertainment. Extensive work has been undertaken to
reorient the target market to revert to resident families
primarily, provide participation opportunities for locals
and youthful holiday-makers through workshops to
prepare floats for a parade, harm minimization strategies in relation to consumption of alcohol and drugs,
and innovative waste management to deal with up to
40,000 people.
Extensive community consultation sought to develop
an event that reflected the lifestyle of residents. Held
during the summer season, it reflects the outdoor beach
culture while at the same time capitalizing on the iconic
status of Byron Bay as a tourism destination. The business houses in the CBD were vital to ongoing negotiations for effective management and monitoring of subsequent events. The 2000 New Year event was deemed
a millennium success in terms of local empowerment,
delivery of accessible entertainment, and satisfying
expressed concerns about potential tourism influxes.
This model has been continued through the employment of an event director and a program reflective of
community suggestions (Lawrence & Wynn-Moylan,
2002).
Beef Week, Casino
Casino Beef Week (www.casinobeefweek.com.au)
commenced in 1981 on the recommendation of an outside consultant engaged by the local Council to determine the viability of an event linked to local interest
that would ultimately attract visitors. While not initiated from within the community, it was immediately
embraced by the Casino Agricultural Show Society and
a community committee has managed it from its inception.
It is actually a 12-day week of activity geared to
its established market of beef producers across the eastern states of Australia. It comprises such elements as
the annual dinner dance and crowning of the Beef Week
Queen with each of the up to 10 candidates representing a specific breed; broadly based community entertainment with a cattle theme; and the highlight is seen

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DERRETT

as a parade of cattle, horse-drawn vehicles, and commercial floats. A roundabout in the main street is converted into a judging ring for 120+ live steers to compete. In recent years programming has embraced aspects
of the timber industry, local arts and crafts, and shop
displays.
This profile-raising exercise involves numerous individuals, volunteers, and community representative
groups in its management with a dedicated Festival
coordinator funded from donations and fundraising for
the event. Tour packages are developed by accommodation houses and bus companies. The Council employed a Tourism Officer and a committee-financed
Festival Coordinator work to integrate Beef Week into
local and regional promotions. Visitors are drawn mostly
from the regional and domestic market, though increasing media exposure has relayed details of the event
overseas.
Breakfast with the Butchers and service club barbecues are no longer enough for the increasingly sophisticated festival attendee, and so a new element in the
festival is Beef on Barker (Street). Local enterprises
value add to the beef sector with olives, nuts, vegetables,
wine, and dairy and are now showcased in a sit-down,
coupon-based food fest.
Summary
The actual place and space used by each of the festivals in each destination plays an influential role in program choices, reflects the heritage of settlement, and
provides boundaries between residential areas, commercial outlets, and public space. Grafton stages activities on both sides of the Clarence River. The four
destinations each utilize their CBD for day and night
activities. The beach and adjacent parkland is important to Byron Bays New Years Eve revelers, while
Nimbin Mardi Grass uses the main thoroughfare for a
parade and the parkland for a rally. Grafton and Casino
hold events indoors and outdoors. Parades are a distinctive program feature of all events, allowing people
to move through the natural and built environments.
Graftons Jacaranda Festival has been entertaining
locals and visitors since the mid-1930s, while Casino
Beef Week commenced in 1981. Nimbin Mardi Grass
celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2002 and Byron Bays
New Years Eve celebration has been managed in a formal way since 1994. The flowering of the Jacaranda
trees in late October or early November influences the

timing of the festival. The harvest seasonal cycle also

influences the timing of HEMPs Mardi Grass in
Nimbin in early May. New Years Eve is locked into the
traditional social calendar and Casino hosts Beef Week
at the end of each May.
The content of each festivals program is influenced
by the specific migrations and interests of the committee members and their host community. The natural
phenomena, the river heritage, and the traditional engagement with the business community are significant
elements of the Jacaranda Festival, which serves as an
umbrella for numerous, diverse exhibitions, sporting
and cultural events. Likewise, Casino showcases local
arts, crafts, and importantly the beef industry through
events like a rodeo, hoe-down, auctions, and field days.
Nimbin Mardi Grasss political underpinning encourages speech making, demonstrations, and exhibitions
as well as the popular and whimsical HEMP Olympix.
Each year up to 10,000 people are in the village over
the festival weekend. Byron Bay hosts local musicians
and street artists as entertainment for up to 40,000 visitors and residents who take to the streets for the 12
hours of the main event.
All events are managed by community-based notfor-profit organizations established principally to conduct each event. The HEMP organization undertakes
other retail, information service, and caf business in
the Nimbin village, while Byron Bay Community Safety
Committee is a Committee of Byron Shire Council and
works with services clubs to conduct the event. Local
government has varying levels of involvement in the
management of each event. All assist in providing logistical support, some marketing assistance, and sometimes direct funding. Individuals in leadership roles
within each organization and more broadly as community champions are distinctive features and influencers
on the direction and longevity of each event. Distinctive personalities have been identified.
Different voices in each host community are represented in management. At each turn, what becomes
available for the visitor clearly identifies distinctive
features of each community and may be said to represent a clear sense of self and place. There is considerable evidence of a strong visiting friends and relatives
(VFR) market for these events as families use the events
to reunite and past residents return to something familiar. This is particularly noticeable in Casino and Grafton,
where the age of the event means numbers of generations of residents have been associated with the event.

HOW FESTIVALS DEMONSTRATE A COMMUNITYS SENSE OF PLACE

It is less obvious with Byron Bay and Nimbin, where
there is clear evidence of specific short-term visitation
(especially from S.E. Queensland) for the specific
events. Grafton and Casino deal comfortably with the
pressure from numbers of attendees; Byron Bay and
Nimbin deal less well with substantial strain on infrastructure.
Busloads of visitors are particularly drawn to Casino and Grafton, while individual, self-drive visitors
are attracted to Nimbin and Byron Bay. The latter two
destinations and/or festivals draw considerable numbers of young people from southeast Queensland. Tourism infrastructure is not sufficiently developed in
Nimbin to cope with the influx. Byron Bay is the best
equipped to accommodate visitation with significant
numbers of hotels, motels, B&Bs, cafs, and restaurants available, but the event draws substantial criticism from the residents of the town because of its location, scale, noise, traffic problems, pollution, and strain
on infrastructure. Residents of Grafton and Casino appear comfortable about hosting their respective events,
attend elements of the festivals in substantial numbers,
and enthusiastically welcome visitors.
When assessing how each destination engages with
the events they stage and how each reflects their residents sense of community and place, observations may
be registered in terms of their well-being. Wills (2001)
matrices allow a significant insight into how regional
cultural events reflect a distinctive sense of community
and place. The discussion included in this article underscores the disparate manner in which concepts and
theories are limited in their ability to provide comprehensive coverage of complex and multifaceted processes that operate in communities. The key factors in
each area are interlocking and affect differing levels of
influences, spatially and temporally in each community.
It is evident that the festivals contribute substantially
to the specific well-being outcomes of active citizenship, social justice, and social capital derived from Wills
(2001). Long-serving membership of the management
committees in Casino and Grafton has not always sat
easily with all community stakeholders. While each
organizing committee appears grounded in equity and
access for diverse voices in the community, collaboration comes with tensions emerging from special interest groups. The local media in each destination reports
on lack of support. In Byron Bay it is noticeable that
shire wide there is less support for the New Years Eve

57

festivities than from residents of the host destination

(Lawrence & Wynn-Moylan, 2002). In fact, in each case
negative feedback regularly comes from regional residents who have not actually attended the specific events
(Lawrence & Wynn-Moylan, 2002).
The social implications of power, politics, and personal interaction offer researchers an opportunity to
evaluate the importance of a sense of community and
sense of place in the choices made in developing community festivals. A number of significant influences on
the choices made by these four case studies include not
only the personal or the intrapersonal described by
Richins and Pearce (2000, p. 211), where the process
is affected by the beliefs, attitudes, and values brought
to a situation by participants, but the circumstantial influences where broader regional conditions are applied.
These can include factors that are often external to the
host community, but will have long-term impacts. The
massive concurbation of the Gold Coast in S.E.
Queensland, while offering potential audiences for the
four festivals, brings with it the pressure on regional
infrastructure.
Conclusion
The four case studies reveal differing forms of tourism, emerging from festivals and special events that vary
in nature from place to place. As a form of tourism,
festivals can be examined in relation to their social and
cultural contexts. A better understanding of the cultural
identities of host communities in tourist destinations
shows festivals holding a significant position in three
areas of the human condition. They celebrate a sense
of place through organizing inclusive activities in specific, safe environments. They provide a vehicle for
communities to host visitors and share such activities
as representations of communally agreed values, interests, and aspirations. Thirdly, they are the outward
manifestation of the identity of the community and provide a distinctive identifier of place and people.
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