How Urban Events Establish Roots in the Local Community : A Case Study of the 'Hiroshima Flower Festival' in Hiroshima City, Japan

This study investigates the case of 'Hiroshima Flower Festival (FF)' in Hiroshima city concerning the two following points: how regionality is shown in a festival using flowers as a theme and how the participants and visitors are integrated. Besides, this study also focuses on the continuity of the events and considers the necessity of 'regionality' of festivals based on the needs and interests of participants and visitors. The FF is one of the famous festivals of Hiroshima City in Japan and one of many festivals based on the theme of flower nationwide. The characteristic of the FF is that the material 'Flower' connotes the regionality of Hiroshima where the atomic bomb was dropped. This 'Flower' is not a general flower like in other localities but the flower involving the image of 'Peace'. Therefore, the FF stands not for simple flower viewing but for the installation of the event identity as a 'Celebration of Peace'. This identity strongly reflects the regionality of Hiroshima and furthermore, setting the themes of the festival each year in reference to regionality and planning programs that reflect this regionality clearly represent the same identity over a long time. Moreover, the FF well reflects the regionality in the identity of the event, place and theme of the festival, symbol, program contents, etc.. As a result, an image structure such as FF → 'Hiroshima regionality' = 'Peace' is installed by fusing together the identity of the event with regionality. This study showed that participants and visitors are feeling 'Hiroshima regionality' and 'Peace' at various occasions throughout the event. However, to encourage participation and attract more visitors recent management of the FF changed the contents of programs to emphasize exchange and enjoyment while at the same time it maintained the identity theme of 'Peace'. In other words, a too strong emphasis on regionality only limits the possibility to maintain the continuity of a festival. The contents of the event is required to change based on regionality by keeping the interests of participants and visitors in mind and adapting to changes over time consistently. To adjust contents and style of an event is considered an important task for the realization of continuity of a festival in conjunction with a consistent appeal of the regionality of the event