Weekend Societies

From Detroit's Movement Electronic Music Festival to Portugal's Boom Festival to Rio de Janeiro's Eu Amo Baile Funk, EDM festivals have become stages for the performance of transnational meta-cultural aesthetics (e.g. techno, psychedelic, baile funk) and their potential synthesis. With Barcelona's Sonar, Amsterdam's Pitch Festival and events operated in California by Insomnia, as examples, events became critical vectors in regional service and tourism industries. Attracting worldwide festivalgoers, sometimes as pilgrims, other times as tourists, these events serve as cultural crossroads. Weekend Societies is a timely interdisciplinary volume from the emergent field of EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festival and event-culture studies. Echoing an industry trend in world EDM culture from raves and clubs towards festivals, Weekend Societies features contributions from scholars of EDM festivals showcasing a diversity of methodological approaches, theoretical perspectives and representational styles. Organised in four sections: Dance Empires; Underground Networks; Urban Experiments; Global Flows, Weekend Societies illustrates how a complex array of regional, economic, social, cultural and political factors combine to determine the fate of EDM festivals that transpire at the intersections of the local and global.