| Event was an episode of regional cultural activity.It represented the culture in a small field during short time.With the improvement of domestic economic and the process of globalization,the traditional culture and emerging creative industries had gradually received more attention in recent years.Accordingly,event had been increasingly exposed to the public,and become an important tool to attract tourists and create profits.At present,there were nearly 10,000 tourismrelated events in China,containing some influential local folk festivals,modern events for consumption and social activities,and various types of large-scale tourism and sightseeing events.However,judging from the domestic development situation of events,excepting the increase of scale in the domestic market,they always got into troubles in branding,organization,technic spreading and Word-of-Mouth Communication.Therefore,it was especially important to think about how to keep the cultural traditions and the spirit of the times in a changing environment without making the events fall into the predicament of “fast food” chaos.With the increasing openness and diversification of domestic music and the acceptance of modern music art by young people,large-scale outdoor music had appeared in China from the late 1990 s.By the past two decades of exploration and development,the music festivals had provided useful space for the development and understanding of events.At the same time,the social environment and cultural situation during the development of music festivals also brought us a full perspective to observe the events cultural innovation in these days.The confusion and rebelliousness in the transitional society presented in the embryonic and developing stage of music festivals and the transformation from underground to above-ground space of rock market both represented by the development of music festival were the products of historical changes and the symptom of the times just as Hall pointed out.As consumers of festival activities,young people gathered not only to establish identity,but also to discover theirselves.They tried to resisted and challenged to the unfair and injustices in mainstream society.The representation of these cultures made music festivals impossibly independent from the macroscopic context of confusion,conflict and exploration in the transitional society.However the representation theory presented by the Birmingham School could bring us a new perspective to understand this phenomenon.Secondly,the non-sustainable music festival chaos,the neglect of cultural creativity and inheritance also made us to seek more theoretical guidance on the development of the events industry.In addition,from the development of domestic music festivals in recent years,there were still very few influential music festivals.Then what caused its occurrence? Whether the disconnection in the process of cultural transmission between supply and demand or the problems of technology and management made the festival culture not better disseminated? As a creation process of "selection,expression,construction and shaping",representation theory could provide useful theoretical guidance for the development and research of cultural events industries.Based on the reviews of cultural representation theory and related researches in tourism,this study introduced the participation and experience of identity in the representation process to systematically analyze the process of cultural representation in music festivals.Theory of representation was applied to practice in festival activities and to explain the phenomenon of music festival activities.The process of first representation system in music festival was explored by constructing the object into a specific concept and finally presenting to consumption.This study also discussed how participants experienced the transfer,extension and generation of meaning at the second representation process in music festivals.Moreover,the cyclical of the representation in music festival also had been discussed.In additionthis study discussed how to handle the qualitative research in the study of events.The Midi Music Festival considered as China’s "Woodstock" was chosen as the study case.It was the earliest outdoor rock music festival in China and the first cultural event in China that was organized by private organizations.The Midi Music Festival had been held since 2000.By the end of 2016,the music festival had been held for 16 years and successfully held for 34 sessions.It had beneficially combined culture and consumption,and had long explored and sought survival in the festival market.As a domestic benchmark music festival,Midi Music Festival’s span of the venue,the rich content,the scale and the duration provided a typical case study for understanding the events culture.The study adopted in-depth interviews,participatory observations,questionnaire surveys,and online ethnography for data collection.The field data used in the article originated from 7 sessions fieldwork in Midi Music Festival from October 2014 to May 2016,the fieldwork in Beijing Midi School for three months From March to June 2015,and the network data searched around the music festival from October 2014 to January 2017.The first-hand information obtained includes a total of 102 interview samples,a total of 1600 questionnaires,and two company project summary reports that totaling more than 60,000 words;2003-2013 Midi Music Festival media report data,music festival founder’s interview data during 15 years,a total of 36 brochures of the previous Midi Music Festival,one government report and some on-site records related to the organization of the festival.In addition,the related documentaries collected during the field,the photos were taken at the scene,the photographs were taken by the official MIDI photographers from 2014 to 2017,and the researcher’s field observation records were also as supplemental data for more complete understanding.The collection of network data was based on the status tracking,observation and recording of the WeChat group and QQ group organized by fans covered the pre-,during and post-events phases.The study observed the pre-,during and post-events phases online by participatory observation.All the chats in the organization during these times were exported as texts.In addition,the network data also included media data of networks and newspapers in recent years;fans of midi school BBS(before 2009),midi groups of Douban(after 2009)and 12 copies of the band interviewed as second-hand information.In the analysis process,the content analysis was used as the main method,and questionnaire survey also used as auxiliary analysis.Main conclusions of the study:First,music festival activities completed the process of first representation through cultural representation,technological representation and related changes,and finally presented the relevant conceptual factors.Just as the process of presentation from object to construction of concept in Hall’s cultural representation theory,representation of festival was a process from nothing,which was based on the corresponding social and cultural foundation,and was the subversion,compensation or extension of real culture,in order to concentrated represent the culture through amplification and condensation.In music festival activities,the critical attitude and the reflection on social life in rock culture were the spiritual compensation of the young people who lack power of discourse in real life.The young people who were impressed by the rock culture and went to Beijing to find a dream,grew up from confrontation in the bottom to become a rock community centered on the Midi Music School.They completed the birth of a new music festival and the establishment of a new system in mutual help,which was lengthen of reality.As a kind of youth subculture,the Midi Music Festival represented the sincere attitude of young people to constantly reflect and criticize the problems in the realities of the times.However,only the birth of culture couldn’t really promote the persistence of festivals from nothing.To turn them into activities that can be perceived,participated and experienced,materialized means had to be used to transform the things in real life to concepts of specific perception,through which it is possible to pass this culture through the representation of festival in preparation for communication.Therefore,the achievement of festival was represented into perceptible concept through a series of operations throughout the phase of preparation,admission,the on-site and the end.In addition,the production of festival culture different from the production of objects was non-solid and metabolic.The Midi music festival also continued to seek development in the midst of change through the growth and transmission of the original culture,as well as the exploration and development of technology.Finally,based on the previous data and analysis,28 related conceptual elements corresponding to the first representation in the music festival activities were obtained.Thus,the first representation of music festivals completes the process from the existent thing in real life to a specific perceptible concept through culture,technology and change,so that the cultural production of music festival was finally constructed,rendered,inherited,and changed.Second,this study discussed the second representation of the music festival activities from concept to meaning based on the three aspects: access,creation and development of consumer cultural identity in the Midi Music Festival;the reception of concept and identity of the consumers in the experience process;meaning produced in the experience.The appeal of the festival culture attracted core audience of similar values to gather in the festival.As a gathering of similar people,they temporarily escaped from the constraints of certain norms and mainstream social norms.They formed a liminal space different from the daily state in the music festival to challenge secular social rules and values and release pressure.A series of shareable symbolic had been developed into default rules and culture in Midi participants.After the participants entered the music festival,experienced and perceived the liminal space,and gained the overall feeling of the music festival activities,the concept getting ready at the end of the first representation represented as a real concept with higher delivery and reception.The participants of the festival not only passively accepted the concepts presented in the first representation process,but as part of the festival,they also actively created new concepts with high acceptance in the festival.The transcendental experience and the high-receiving perception of concept in the liminal of the music festival allowed the participants to form a three group experience perception of spontaneous communitas,ideology communitas,and normative communitas.In the resonance,they gained identity.The culture which was condensed,enlarged,and resulted in short time shared and transmitted through the first and second representations of the festival.The meaning was also produced when the cultural concepts presented in the festival were received by the participants.Through the interpretation of the meanings of the experiences of the fans during the music festival,it was found that the experience at the festival had created the intoxicated and shared utopia carrying the pursuit of ideal state of life for fans.This utopia,or the utopia on the road,may has not been realized,but it was created and constructed by young people in their self-practice of festivals outside the world,becoming a place for self-harmony and release in secular society.Third,a cycle of representation has formed in the process of the cyclical evolution of the Midi Music Festival.As periodic and one-time event,the Midi Music Festival could be timely adjusted through the feedback of the previous round in the process of continuous circular interaction,in order to get sustainable vitality,specialization and large-scale.Not only the music festival as organizer constantly self-improved,the participants also make feedbacks during the uncertain incidents occurred during the music festival to promote and improve the festival in an attitude of understanding,acceptance and expectation.It can be seen that this study explained the production and consumption process of music festival through cultural representation theory.The culture and identity shared by rock music festivals had enabled producers and consumers to effectively deliver in the process of representation.It maintained the authenticity of music culture and allowed both supply and demand to gain effective balance in spontaneous market power,which made the festival sustainable. |
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