Brainstorming Round 1

Today I went through several brainstorming activities. I thought about my knowledge gaps surrounding music festival experiences. What don't I know, and what don't I understand - about people, their music festival needs and wants, and the events themselves? I thought of as many things as I could, and then sorted them by timeframe - whether they are about the experience before a festival, during an event, or the aftermath.

Then I wrote down every possible idea I've had so far for things that festivals could do for audience members that would be awesome that don't exist yet. These are all things that would excite me, as a veteran music festival-goer.

I've also been re-reviewing all the reading I've done, including books, academic articles and news stories about festivals for gems of information that seem relevant to improving festival experiences for audiences. I also reviewed my notes from SXSW earlier this year.

For instance, what are the things that inherently make people happy? How do people co-produce their own experiences? What are the elements of peak experience that could map on to music festival experience?  My next step will be to take inventory of all the ways festival promoters and events can connect with or support their audiences.

My kitchen has turned into thesis central.

Great Quotes about Music Festivals

"Even before we looked at it, it hit us. We wanted it to be far. So you surrender. So you can’t leave your house and see a couple bands and be back home that night. We want you to go out there, get tired, and curse the show by Sunday afternoon. That sunset, and that whole feeling of Coachella hits you." - Paul Tollett
http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/touring/1083099/paul-tollett-goldenvoice-team-on-the-struggle-and-ultimate-success

"Festivals bring new generations into the music fold, they place families and CEOs into the ranks shoulder to shoulder with hopeless dreamers and hippy drifters. They’re either the best or they’re the worst, and since I don’t have to choose, I guess I won’t. But what is certain is the ten year lease on the festival grounds. Firefly will be in Dover next year - so will all the fans, all the bands and all the hype. Whether the motivation behind it is as bleak as the bottom dollar or solely focused on the captivating power of live music is yet to be seen, but it might as well be enjoyed." - Raymond Lee
http://www.popmatters.com/feature/173012-examining-a-new-music-festival-firefly-2013/

"They used to be about leaving the social snobberies and constraints of everyday life at the gate. The mud and general madness was a great social leveller. Banker or buddhist, everyone was in it together. Now many are sponsored by big corporate brands and money can buy you luxury unimaginable years ago - tipi with shower and double bed for £3,000 anyone?
...
"If your sub culture sets you apart, once everyone else joins in it no longer makes you different. You're just normal."

But researchers say one thing has not changed and spans the divides - the temporary escape from the mundane routine of everyday life.

"Young people like festivals to experience the freedom of youth and their own new music, and older people like them too, trying to remember their own youth, not least by seeing their favourite bands reforming," says McKay.

"And that kind of child-like freedom is a great part of the promise of any festival: outdoors, open air, camping in the countryside, music and other arts, with a group of like-minded people, seeking relaxation or excess."

Put that way, it sounds so good." - Denise Winterman
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8692313.stm  

"Right about here it’d be easy to crack about the true meaning of rock ‘n’ roll or whatnot. But the festival scene is its own beast. Promoters may think of their events as the spiritual descendents of Woodstock. It’s debatable whether the Aquarian Exposition was truly an historical inflection point of expanded consciousness, but it’s clear that the modern festival has perfected its formula, establishing a baseline level of competent organization while limiting spontaneity to the the occasional special appearance. A festival like Coachella is — like similar destination events such as Bonnaroo and even Burning Man — its own justification now. You go to say you’ve been. Speculating on the next year’s Coachella lineup is a cottage industry at this point, but no matter who makes the cut, the general contours will remain: a healthy mix of indie rock, art-pop, EDM, and hip-hop. Not buying a pass to a Björk-less Coachella would be like avoiding a buffet because it lacks chiles rellenos.

Still, an all-buffet diet is no way to live. Coachella and its like offer a particular experience: a weekend with friends beset on all sides by music, a chance to gorge on buzz and revel in nostalgia. Comparing it to the a la carte option of individual shows isn’t remotely fair. A club gig puts you closer to the mechanisms. Band members are much more likely to run the merch table or watch the other acts from the floor. Interactions between audience and performers is closer to a conversation than a commencement address. Brand presence is mostly limited to the gear. There’s less pressure to focus on the hits. And underrepresented styles can thrive. (It’s also in the price range of way more people.) The nature of the festival is more: more choice, more spectacle, more people. Playing and attending Coachella are mutually-reinforcing validations. The scale confers importance; the crowds confer worthiness. Eighty thousand people can’t be wrong." - Brad Shoup
http://www.stereogum.com/1245041/deconstructing-coachella-and-the-music-festival-industry/top-stories/lead-story/

 “But according to research reported in the New York Times, there's one catch to those relaxing dream holidays: they don't actually leave us any happier afterwards. In single-minded pursuit of peace and quiet, we miss out on noisy, disruptive joy.

Peak moments don't require pristine beaches. They can emerge from cramped, deplorable conditions; just think of your favorite concert. I know mine. I camped in ankle-deep mud for three days at the UK's Glastonbury Festival with Finnish and Japanese tentmates, and by the time the headliners played, we had run out of soap, common language and food other than dried octopus. After enduring mediocre opening bands to stake out a spot, our view was suddenly eclipsed by tall late-comers.

Then, an oooooooOOOOOOOH! rippled through the crowd. A bass line thumped; a thousand craning necks relaxed into a groove. A stranger lifted me so I could see the stage. In my mouth, the octopus jerky turned from salty to sweet. We became mighty, a tide of exultation rolling over the damp, British countryside. Within hours, we would retreat to our separate shores - but at that moment, we were rolling deep with strangers.” - Alison Bing
http://www.fest300.com/magazine/the-joy-of-the-crowd#sthash.1XVgg6D0.dpuf


"It was like a throwback to the old days, with so many different groups of people coming together for three days of music on a farm in the middle of nowhere. You felt like you were a part of something bigger than yourself, but it wasn’t something that pushed on you. It just happened. I have never felt such positive energy at a music festival before."

 http://whiteraverrafting.com/community-at-counterpoint-makes-best-festival-experience-2012/2012/10/05/#ixzz2gX7WzKZ6

Music Festival User Experience Design (MFUXD) Reading List

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience", New York: Harper & Row,1990.

Turino, Thomas, “Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation”, University Of Chicago Press, 2008.

Campbell, Richard Bret, "A Sense of place: Examining music-based tourism and its implications in destination venue placement". UNLV Theses/Dissertations/Professional Papers/Capstones. Paper 1142, 2011.

Maslow, A. H. (1962). Toward a psychology of being. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.

Battarbee, Katja and Koskinen, Ilpo, "Co-experience: User Experience as Interaction". CoDesign, Vol.1, No.1, March 2005, 5-18.

Packer, Jan and Ballantyne, Julie. The Impact of Music Festival Attendance on Young People’s Psychological and Social Well-being. Psychology of Music, 39(2) 164–181, 2011.

Dispenza, Joseph, “The Way of the Traveler: Making Every Trip a Journey of Self-Discovery”, Avalon Travel Publishing, 2002. 

To do:

Allen, Johnny, “Festival and Special Event Management”, Wiley, 2008.  

Leach, D. (1962). Meaning and correlates of peak experience. Doctoral dissertation, University of Florida

Notes on Thomas Turino's Music as Social Life

Summary

There are several different kinds of musical performance - four fields of practice, which do not map to particular genres of music. They define the types of activity, artistic roles, values, goals and people involved in the music making.

Participatory performance: artistic practice in which there are no artist-audience distinctions, only participants and potential participants - the primary goal is to involve the maximum number of people in some performance role

Presentational performance: situations where one group, the artists, prepare and provide music for another group, the audience, who do not participate in making the music

High fidelity: the making of recordings that are intended to index or be iconic of live performance

Studio audio art: the creation and manipulation of sounds in a studio or on a computer to create a recorded art object not intended to represent real-time performance

Relevant Quotes

"Art is not really an "imitation of life"; it would be more accurate to say that artistic processes crystallize the very essence of a good life by dramatically emphasizing the interplay of future possibilities with experiences and things we already know from the past - all within a specially framed and engrossing present." (pg 18)

"I think what happens during a good performance is that the multiple differences between us are forgotten and we are fully focused on an activity that emphasizes our sameness - of time sense, of musical sensibility, of musical habits and knowledge, of patterns of thought and action, of spirit, of common goals - as well as our direct interaction." (pg 18)

"With the array of musical choices available, there is larger variety in habitual time sense and musical sensibility, and this often makes finding people to sync with more difficult." (pg 19)

"We also need the Possible - dreams, hopes, desires, ideals: these are the elements of life that add dynamism and challenges and that make us want to keep living." (pg 17)

"People develop a deeper sense of engagement and investment through direct participation in contrast to simply being a spectator or consumer." (pg 231)

"...by connecting and integrating the different parts of the self we are better able to connect and integrate with others and our environment." (pg 233)

Notes on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow

Summary

Optimal experiences must be actively made, and require work. They require mastery, determination, focus, attention and active participation. Of all of these attributes, attention is key.

The basis for optimal human experience is ordered consciousness. Consciousness itself is inherently limited, and disordered. Without focus, consciousness tends toward entropy. Maintaining order of the self ultimately strengthens the self, and reinforces it.

Growth comes from increasing complexity of the self. When we concentrate on something, the self, and its inherent disorder, disappears. The loss of the self and loss of self-consciousness allows us to transcend our limitations, and ultimately expands our boundaries, mentally and otherwise.

The self must determine what justifies life in the present moment.

Requirements for optimal experiences: rules, goals, challenges appropriate to skill levels, feedback.

Friendship is crucial. It is in time spent with friends that your true self emerges, as friendship provides a place for new kinds of social or individual growth. Communities are about shared goals.

Individuals must pay attention to what is outside of them, what is going on in the world, to have optimal experiences. People must make and set goals for themselves, and make choices. Skills must be developed in order to pay attention to experiences enough to become immersed in them.

Relevant Quotes

"Often children - and adults - need external incentives to take the first steps in an activity that requires a difficult restructuring of attention. Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding." (pg 68)

"This in turn suggests that people who can enjoy themselves in a variety of situations have the ability ot screen out stimulation and to focus only on what they decide is relevant for the moment." (pg 87)

"Music, which is organized auditory information, helps organize the mind that attends to it, and therefore reduces psychic entropy, or the disorder we experience when random information interferes with goals. Listening to music wards off boredom and anxiety, and when seriously attended to, it can induce flow experiences." (pg 109)

"It is not the hearing that improves life, it is the listening." (pg 109)

"It is in the company of friends that we can most clearly experience the freedom of the self and learn who we really are." (pg 189)

"A true friend is someone we can occasionally be crazy with, someone who does not expect us to be always true to form. It is someone who shares our goal of self-realization, and therefore is willing to share the risks that any increase in complexity entails. (pg 189)

"Friends are mentioned more often in contexts of excitement, discovery and adventure." (pg 189)

"A person who pays attention to an interaction instead of worrying about the self obtains a paradoxical result. She no longer feels like a separate individual, yet her self becomes stronger. The autotelic individual grows beyond the limits of individuality by investing psychic energy in a system in which she is included. Because of this union of the person and the system, the self emerges at a higher level of complexity." (pg 212)

Music festival-related thoughts: 

• Develop feedback music listening skill levels, a way to move listeners up in their skills or in personal complexity
• What are festival or audience skills?
• How can audience attention be focused or developed by or at a festival? (What are the 'hidden' knowledges and understandings of festivals?)
• Something you create or make through being at a festival or through your experience there, through the time spent, distance you traveled, stages you saw, artists you saw, something earned; something you build through participation
• Establish goals or goal-oriented activities at festivals, use of voting or audience input, or how to use and provide feedback (to individuals, en masse, groups?)
• How can repeat or 'advanced' festival-goers be challenged anew?