Abstract
This chapter explores how the fans of the Untold festival in Cluj, Romania—the country’s biggest music festival and one of the largest electro-dance music (EDM) festivals in Europe—negotiate their regional, national and global identities as part of the festival culture. The chapter also discusses the ways festival organisers appropriate, adapt and express universal symbols and cultural tropes, to make local Transylvanian identities relevant to global audiences and so to compete with similar festivals in the local market. By tapping into the vampire and magic beast franchises popular worldwide, diversifying the music genres, inviting star DJs, as well as blending old and new, history and technology, Untold becomes a staged event that is inherently universal, but also locally specific, thus reflecting the interplay between received, inherited, adopted and internalised identities at an international music festival.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Works Cited
Appadurai, Arjun. 1990. Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy, In Theory, Culture, Society, ed. Mike Featherstone, 295–310. London: Sage.
Campbell, Peter. 2011. Creative Industries in a European Capital of Culture. International Journal of Cultural Policy 17 (5): 510–522.
Candea, Cristina. 2017. Important Message from the Black Sea Coast! A New Festival Makes Waves in Europe! Cosmopolitan Romania, 27 March.
Cohen, Sara. 2013. Musical Memory, Heritage and Local Identity: Remembering the Popular Music Past in a European Capital of Culture. International Journal of Cultural Policy 19 (5): 576–594.
Connell, John, and Chris Gibson. 2003. Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place. London: Routledge.
Connell, John, and Chris Gibson. 2016. Music Festivals and Regional Development in Australia. London: Routledge.
Coutinho, Tiago. 2006. From Religious Ecstasy to Ecstasy Pills: A Symbolic and Performative Analysis of Electronic Music Festivals. Religião e Sociedade 26 (1): 135–157.
Dragomir, Bianca. 2018a. Exclusive Interview with Armin van Buuren. Cosmopolitan Romania, 7 August.
Dragomir, Bianca. 2018b. #Untold2018, Here Is the Love!’. Cosmopolitan Romania, 9 August.
Durham Peters, John. 2001. Witnessing. Media, Culture & Society 23 (6): 707–723.
Electric Castle. https://electriccastle.ro.
European Youth Capital. https://www.youthforum.org/youthcapital. Accessed 27 September 2018.
Ferdinand, Nicole, and Nigel L. Williams. 2013. International Festivals as Experience Production Systems. Tourism Management 34: 202–210.
González-Reverté, Francesc, and Oriol Miralbell-Izard. 2009. Managing Music Festivals for Tourism Purposes in Catalonia (Spain). Tourism Review 64 (4): 53–65.
Griffiths, Ron. 2006. City/Culture Discourses: Evidence from the Competition to Select the European Capital of Culture 2008. European Planning Studies 14 (4): 415–430.
Herrero, C. Luis, et al. 2006. The Economic Impact of Cultural Events. A Case-Study of Salamanca 2002, European Capital of Culture. European Urban and Regional Studies 13 (1): 41–57.
Holt, Fabian. 2010. The Economy of Live Music in the Digital Age. European Journal of Cultural Studies 13 (2): 243–261.
Ispirescu, Petre. (1972). Basme (Fairy Tales). Illustrated by Done Stan. Bucharest: Ion Creangă Publishers.
Krüger, Simone. 2014. The Cosmopolitan City: Music and Mediation During the European Capital of Culture Event. In Media and Cosmopolitanism, ed. A. Yilmaz, R. Trandafoiu, and A. Mousoutzanis, 93–120. New York: Peter Lang.
Lalioti, Vassiliki. 2013. “Stay in Synch!”: Performing Cosmopolitanism in an Athens Festival. Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 5 (2): 131–151.
Lash, Scott, and John Urry. 1994. Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage.
Montano, Ed. 2011. Festival Fever and International DJs: The Changing Shape of DJ Culture in Sydney’s Commercial Electronic Dance Music Scene. Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 2 (1): 63–89.
Nobili, Valentina. 2005. The Role of European Capital of Culture Events Within Genoa’s and Liverpool’s Branding and Positioning Efforts. Place Branding 1 (3): 316–328.
O’Callaghan, Cian. 2012. Urban Anxieties and Creative Tensions in the European Capital of Culture 2005: ‘It Couldn’t Just Be About Cork’. International Journal of Cultural Policy 18 (2): 185–204.
Pine, B. Joseph, and James H. Gilmore. 1999. The Experience Economy. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Pine, B. Joseph, and James H. Gilmore. 2013. The Experience Economy: Past, Present and Future. In Handbook of the Experience Economy, ed. Jon Sundbo and Flemming Sørensen, 21–44. Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
Richards, Greg, and Julie Wilson. 2004. The Impact of Cultural Events on City Image: Rotterdam, Cultural Capital of Europe 2001. Urban Studies 41 (10): 1931–1951.
Ritzer, George. 1999. Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Robinson, Roxy. 2015. Music Festivals and the Politics of Participation. Farnham: Ashgate.
St John, Graham. 2015. Introduction to Weekend Societies: EDM Festivals and Event-Cultures. Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 7 (1): 1–14.
Turino, Thomas. 2008. Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Untold. https://www.festicket.com/festivals/untold-festival/2019/.
Special Note
The author is grateful to Daiana Sălăgean for the information and title suggestions, and also to all the fans and critics of Untold, who were happy to impart their experiences.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Trandafoiu, R. (2019). A Tale of Two (or #EverMore) Festivals: Electronic Music in a Transylvanian Town. In: Mazierska, E., Győri, Z. (eds) Eastern European Popular Music in a Transnational Context. Palgrave European Film and Media Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17034-9_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17034-9_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-17033-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-17034-9
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)