Music festivals as catalyzers for the development and regeneration of rural regions : an experience within waking life festival

The following document corresponds to a report of an internship performed within the Waking Life Associação, of a duration of 6 months, from February the 01st to August the 31st of 2019. It offers to tackle the question of the development and regeneration of rural areas, specifically in the region of Alentejo, Portugal, within different scopes of society such as - but not only - the social, economic, cultural and ecologic spheres, and the relation between those fields and cultural-led events of foreign initiative, of which Waking Life is part of. For instance, the influence that the festival has on its surroundings, which can be the development of the land where the festival happens every year, but also the relation and connections between the festival and the town of Crato, the nearby entity administrating the land. The report will also analyses the specifies of Waking Life and what makes the festival different compared to other music festivals. A clear understanding of the festival’s artistic offer as well as the atmosphere aimed to be created will be the base of the study. The aim of the internship by itself was for me to get involved in the operational management of the festival, specifically regarding the camping site and its infrastructures. The main tasks where focused on working with local suppliers to sell various Portuguese products at the shop located on the camping area, as well as developing a project together with festival-goes in the place of the Creative Camps, where attendees of the festival where encouraged to create their own artistic projects within the boundaries of the camping area. The first part of the report will serve as an understanding of the sociological and economical situations of the rural areas as well as exploring the solutions – might they be already existing or not – and their nature to tackle the issues. In a second instance, the research will examine the phenomenon of so-called ‘music festivals’ and how they differ from ‘traditional’ festivals. Furthermore, the analysis will explore the different appealing aspects of the festivals to understand their popularity and how they can contribute to proposing different experiences to their crowd as well as the people involved internally and externally. In the second main part of the research, the report will focus on Waking Life festival and its characteristics which define the festival and differentiate it from other festival entities. Finally, the report will focus on the internship experience and reflect on the regenerative processes through it, before concluding with observations and results drawn from the experience in relation with the initial topic of the research