Musicfestivals as an example for masstourism - Are departies a classical example for masstourism? by Alexander Prötzsch (ebook reader for laptop .TXT) 📕

visitor has the opportunity to survive different situations. The camping ground, the “holy” mud, the noise of the concerts, or the huge masses of people are just a few experiences that are makeable. For many visitors it is the goal to dive into a mud pit.

The makeable experiences in Sziget are very different. They are presenting a huge amount of different positive aspects that you may face during the festival. You have the possibility to meet many people from all over the world and get in touch with art (https://szigetfestival.com/de/experience).

 

 

 

Now that those both festivals are compared under the five dimensions of departies. It is interesting to answer the following questions.

2.1 What are those festivals about?

Both festivals are about to guarantee their visitors a good time and many experiences. That those festivals are such huge events it is obvious that for many visitors a lifetime goal to visit them once. Furthermore, is the visitor up to make a great experience, which is part of the departy concept and after comparing both festivals under the departy aspects you can say that both are able to be departies.

Now that the question if those festivals can be defined as departies is answered as well as the question; what those festivals are about, it is necessary to find out the following.

Can you define those festivals as mass tourism events? When you look at the number of visitors, it seems that the festivals are mass tourism events. The W:O:A welcomes around 80.000 and the Sziget around 400.000 people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sziget_Festival). So that if you count the visitors from both festivals you’ll get half a million people spending a week there.  

2.2 Are departies a classical example for mass tourism?

After the festivals have been compared, the view on departies is generally directed. It is now to be clarified whether departies can be considered as a classical example of mass tourism. If you focus only on the chosen examples, you have to admit that those departies, like festivals or spring break, are mass events. That means if you answer the question based on this knowledge from the examples you’ll find the conclusion; Departies are an example for mass tourism. But in general it isn’t possible to define departies as a classical example for some reasons. First of all departies seen as a concept are a young phenomenon (Fjær/Tutenges 2016). However mass tourism is way too divergent, to fit only into one example because in the classical definition mass tourism is defined as a phenomenon where many people are traveling to one place, this happens during a bus-vacation-trip or a sightseeing tour. According to this huge spectrum of opportunities to describe mass tourism it is only possible to answer the question, if departies are an example for mass tourism, where the answer is yes.

3. Conclusion

Finally you can say that departies can be defined as an example for mass tourism. But instead of having a classical example for mass tourism, departies are just a form of mass tourism and how it takes place. The chosen examples are pointing out the diversity of departies. This shows that even departies aren’t as similar as they seem.

To sum it all up it is remarkable that the beginning thesis couldn’t be validated. According to that result, it is clear that you can get many different examples for one topic. So for the topic of mass tourism it is possible to take the concept of departies as an example for one specific kind of mass tourism. Furthermore, it is possible to mention that music festivals, or festivals in general, might stand as an example for departies and also as an example for mass tourism.

Literature

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extended youth parties, Journal of Youth Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13676261.2016.1206865.

 

Gilmore, James H. / Pine II, Joseph (1998): Welcome to the Experience Economy, in: Harvard Business Review, July-August.

 

Nagy, Adrienn /Nagy, Henrietta (2013): The importance of festival tourism in the economic development of Hungary, in: Visegrad Journal on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development, 2 /2013.

 

Nohr, Rolf F. / Schwaab, Herbert (Hg.)(2011): Metal Matters. Heavy Metal als Kultur und  Welt, In: Braunschweiger Schriften zur Medienkultur, Band 16, Lit Münster.

 

Pollock, Anna (2013): Six reasons why mass tourism is unsustainable, in: The Guardian.

 

Schlicht, Anja, Amann, Caroline : FULL METAL VILLAGE (BRD 2006)

In: Kieler Beiträge zur Filmmusikforschung 4, 2010.

URL: http://www.filmmusik.uni-kiel.de/beitraege.htm

 

 Sönmez, S., Apostolopoulos, Y., Yu, C.H., Yang, S., Mattila, A.S., and L.C. Yu (2006). Binge Drinking and Casual Sex on Spring-Break. Annals of Tourism Research. 33(4):895-917.

 

Towner, John (1985): The Grand Tour. A Key Phase in History of Tourism. In: Annals of Tourism Research. Vol. 12. Pp.297-333.

 

Willnauer, Franz (2017): Festspiele und Musikfestivals in Deutschland .

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Publication Date: 05-21-2019

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