Urban Space, Festivals, and Consumption: Sociological Reflections on Two Festivals in Post-Soviet City

The article explores social relations between festivals, consumption, and urban spaces. The study deals with two city festivals, Sea Festival and International Short Film Festival Tinklai, in post-Soviet city Klaipeda, Lithuania, over the period of 1991–2010, and impact of consumption on the geography of festivals’ locations within the city. We argue that modern festivals gradually move to those urban spaces which lost their functionality and can be easily transformed into temporary places of controlled consumption. Festivals set urban spaces for new sociality of emotional community, while physical arrangements of festival territories reproduce more general patterns of social distinctions and hierarchies. Methodological assumptions of the study come from Bourdieu’s typology of taste, De Certeau’s idea of urban space signification practices, and H. Lefebvre’s theory of urban space production.