Events and Community Development

Community festivals are recognised as a worldwide phenomenon (Chacko and Schaffer, 1993;Derrett, 2003; Gabr, 2004; Getz, 1997) with about four hundred active festivals in Europe alone(Maurin, 2003, p.5). Arcodia and Whitford (2006) depicted festivals as an emergent, growing andvibrant sector of the tourism and leisure industries which are seen to have significant economic,socio-cultural, and political impacts on the destination area and host groups. Community festivalsresearch has become skewed in many areas and followed a positive pattern of benefits or impactresearch perhaps similar to the way in which tourism has evolved into a field of study.This chapter is split into three distinct sections: firstly it provides an overview of community festivalsand seeks to provide a more inclusive definition of community festivals, which is firmly set within alocal community context. The second section seeks to investigate the literature surroundingcommunity festivals, while the third and final section of the chapter argues for a future researchagenda within community festivals.