Notes on "The impact of music festival attendance on young people's psychological and social well-being"

 "I felt something that I hadn't really felt before and I've been chasing it ever since." (pg 169)

While the cognitive, emotional, psychological and cultural benefits of exposure to and participation in musical activities (such as playing, dancing, listening, etc.) are well documented and thoroughly researched, I've found little research into the benefits of music festival experiences. This article, released in Psychology of Music in 2010, provides a thorough investigation of the topic, and some additional quantitative data in support of the benefits of music festival attendance. While it's specific to young people, I posit that the impacts would be similar across age ranges.

So we know music is a good thing, and good for you. But what about the whole festival experience, the full immersion in a musical community context, paired with that?

Music festivals don't just contribute to 'a transitory state of subjective well-being' but also become 'party of the way a person defines themselves' (pg 169). 

The study focused on four facets of a music festival experience: the music experience, the festival experience, the social experience, and the separation experience.

As for the music experience, which affords participants 'unstructured and informal music learning':

"Rather than being passive recievers of music, participants felt they played a central role in the music experience" (pg 168)

The festival experience:

"The experience was seen to start weeks, even months before the festival commenced. The anticipation and preparation contributed to a gradual build-up of excitement, and when the festival was over the cycle started again, with anticipation of the next festival" (pg 169)

"The sheer enjoyment of festival participation was expressed strongly by participants and was so satisfying that they were continually drawn back to repeat the experience." (pg 169)

The social experience:

"Sharing the same taste in music led to more positive appraisals of others and the desire to befriend them" (pg 170)

"...once a group is formed, its members benefit. They attain the emotional gratifications of belonging to an 'elite' group that they themselves define as distinct from other groups" (pg 171).

The separation experience:

"By providing a new social context that was removed from the expectations and routines of everyday life, it allowed participants to reflect and re-evaluate their own self-understanding and self-acceptance" (pg 172).

Similar to my survey results, this study found that many of their participants would endorse the statement that "I feel happier with myself as a person", "I feel I have grown/developed as a person" (pg. 177).

So, at least for young people (aged 18-23), festivals can provide a crucial space for self-development and exploration. As the article concludes, "for some participants the music festival experience was not only meaningful in itself, but gave meaning to the rest of their lives" (pg 178).

In summary: getting away from everyday life and routines and off to a music festival, is, more often than not, really good for people and their lives.