Networked relationships between Fringe festivalsDavid Jarman

d.jarman@napier.ac.uk@dsrjarman

1 Slides to accompany the David Jarman and Mike Duignan podcast on Fringe festival networks.

Networked relationships between Fringe festivals

• Key themes and concepts from social network analysis

• Examples of formalised Fringe networks

• Graphs from the “Festival to Festival” article

• Network-centric eventfulness

• References

Image: ‘oh what a tangled web we weave’ https://www.flickr.com/photos/dorkymum/4770500879

2 Topics to be covered, setting out some SNA terms and moving on to consider the research at hand.

Connection and contagion

Shared workplacesJoint projects

Administrative processesSocial circles

Show informationFunding opportunities

Job vacanciesResources

Image: ‘Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2010 programme’ http://www.flickr.com/photos/theedinburghblog/4695929476/

3 - CONNECTION: examples of possible means by which connections are formed, whether related to festivals and events or not.

- CONTAGION: examples of the sort of information and items that might flow across such connections, in a festival environment.

Identifying components within a network…

Clusters as areas of higher density

Cliques where everyone is connected to everyone

Social capital links: bonding and bridging

An optimal arrangement?Image: ‘(Small-World) Networks as a new organizational paradigm’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/centralasian/8126066133/

Clusters, cliques and small worlds

4 - CLUSTERS: higher density areas, in terms of social connections. - CLIQUES: where all members are connected to all other members –

close knit, used to working together, but perhaps closed. - SMALL WORLDS: a balance between the close working of clusters,

and the advantages of enabling outside influences?

Weaker connections

Links to other clusters and components of a network

Weak ties as bridges

Weak ties overcoming social fragmentation

Image: ‘Lanyards’ http://www.flickr.com/photos/collylogic/8314870885/

Weak ties5 - WEAK: could be a former colleague, tutor, project partner.

- LINK: they can potentially open up more distant components of the network.

- BRIDGE: bridges link parts of the network. - FRAGMENTATION: a network that relies on strong ties will be

limited in scale.

Centrality

Degree

Closeness

Image: ‘Box Office in the Filmhouse during EIFF 2013’ http://www.flickr.com/photos/edfilmfest/9114170371/

Betweenness

6 - DEGREE: the number of connections associated with a node; sometimes these are directed - ‘indegree’ and ‘outdegree’.

- CLOSENESS: reflects the position of a given node in relation to its connections to all others within a network.

- BETWEENNESS: the importance of a node in enabling other nodes to reach other - how important is the node and how much would it be missed if it wasn’t in place?

Formalised Fringe networks and associations

• Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals (CAFF)

• Fringe University

• Fringe World Congress

• Nordic Fringe Network

• United States Association of Fringe Festivals (USAFF)

• World Fringe Alliance

• World Fringe Network

7 - What are these networks seeking to offer? - What happens when people start associating themselves with the

network, rather than an individual festival? - To what extent are these networks and relationships designed, and

what limitations exist for those trying to achieve a level of control? - How does this look to different stakeholders: festivals; performers;

city governments; funding organisations?

339 applications to participate in the case study 2018 Fringe Network festivals

Red circles: applicants. Blue squares: festivals.

8 - Four Fringe festivals, working together to create a network. - Applicants used an online form to notify the festivals of which ones

they would like to attend. - This can be analysed as a “two mode” network: the applicants and

the festivals represented in the same graph. - Network density: 339 applicants to four festivals = 1,356 possible

ties. We see 1,084 notes of interest. A density of 79.9%… seems high. The networked approach is attracting interest to each festival.

White circles: applicants. Grey squares: festivals.

339 applications to participate in the case study 2018 Fringe Network festivals 9 - Focusing on the management of these Fringes is a key finding. - Keep in mind that these festivals are all less than a decade old. One

had never taken place, at all, while applications were open. But just look at the density of activity.

- Are we seeing the network effect of festivals aligning themselves to each other, enabling applicants to tap into that network, and demonstrating that the network is beneficial both to the festivals and their applicants?

Festivals are here linked affiliation to applicants: e.g. 216 applicants selected both “1G” and “2L” among the Fringes they wished to perform at..

Eigenvector centrality: 1G: 0.474 2L: 0.482 3B: 0.513 4S: 0.529

Betweenness centrality: 1G: 0.244 2L: 0.163 3B: 0.238 4S: 0.353

50 of 339 applicants (14.7%) reported being a ‘Fringe veteran’ of these Fringes. 102 of 339 (30.1%) reported at least one of the network’s countries among their production’s origins.

339 applications to participate in the case study 2018 Fringe Network festivals 10 - The two-mode network can be split into 2 one-mode networks. - Here, the four festivals are represented as nodes, with the ties

connecting them representing the number of applicants who were interested in both festivals. The lines are sized according to their relative score.

- We can now consider standard SNA measures, as in the boxes. - We’re not really seeing a core-periphery relationship though: all

festivals are popular.

Emerging models of the eventful city (Richards, 2017)

‘An eventful city purposefully uses a programme of events to strategically and sustainably support long-term policy agendas

that enhance the quality of life for all’• Event-centric eventfulness: • ‘…event policy, programming, and management’• Edinburgh; Antwerp

• Sector-centric eventfulness: • ‘…events as important platforms for particular economic, social, and

cultural activities in the city’• Rotterdam; Dubai; Austin, Texas; Montréal

• Network-centric eventfulness: • Events can ‘tie the city into broader global networks and to make it a hub for

economic, social, and cultural activity’• Den Bosch; Barcelona

11 - Network-centric eventfulness: - Key consideration: see the city as a ‘network actor’. - When a city starts taking an active role in networks, it can start to

position itself such that it can link different networks together. - How can the city help to link local event producers with global

networks of influences and opportunities?

‘the global “space of flows” and the local “space of places”’ (Richards, 2015)

From Castells:Space of flows: global connectivity, destroying time and spaceSpace of places: isolated from those around us?What part events and festivals to bring these phenomena together?

Image: ‘Latitude’ https://www.flickr.com/photos/arkadyevna/5951993225

12 - Finally, how does this all map on to our wider, global context? - Castells offers a conceptual language through which to consider life

in the network society. Yet his work is critiqued on the basis of a lack of data: where’s the SNA?

- This Fringe network research attempts to bridge the divide between network data and network theory.

Bibliography and readingAnttiroiko, A.-V. (2015). Castells’ network concept and its connections to social, economic and political network analyses. Journal of Social Structure, 16(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.21307/joss-2019-021 Borgatti, S.P., Everett, M.G. & Freeman, L.C. (2002), UCINET for Windows: Software for SocialBorgatti, S.P., Everett, M.G. & Johnson, J.C. (2013), Analyzing Social Networks. SAGE Publications, London.Bostok, J. (2014) ‘Chapter 2: Stakeholder Centric Approach’ in Sharples, L., Crowther, P., May, D. & Orefice, C. (eds.) Strategic Event Creation Goodfellow Publishers Ltd., Oxford

Castells, M. (2000b). The rise of the network society (2nd Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Crossley, N. (2010) The Social World of the Network. Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Elements in Social Network Analysis, Sociologica, 4(1), pp. 1-34Crossley, N., Bellotti, E., Edwards, G., Everett, M.G., Koskinen, J. & Tranmer, M. (2015), Social Network Analysis for Ego-nets. SAGE Publications Ltd., London.Fisker, J. K., Kwiatkowski, G., & Hjalager, A.-M. (2019). The translocal fluidity of rural grassroots festivals in the network society. Social & Cultural Geography. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2019.1573437 Getz, D., Andersson, T. and Larson, M. (2007) ‘Festival Stakeholder Roles: Concepts and Case Studies’ in Event Management, vol.10, no.2-3Graham Devlin Associates (2001) Festivals and the City: The Edinburgh Festivals Strategy, City of Edinburgh Council, EdinburghJarman, D., Theodoraki, E., Hall, H. & Ali-Knight, J. (2014), "Social network analysis and festival cities: an exploration of concepts, literature and methods", International Journal of Event and Festival Management, 5(3), pp. 311-22.Jarman, D. 2016, The strength of festival ties: social network analysis and the 2014 Edinburgh International Science Festival, in I Lamond & L Platt (eds), Critical Event Studies: Approaches to Research, Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp. 277-308Jarman, D. 2017, Social network analysis and the hunt for homophily: diversity within festival and event communities, Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 2, pp. 117-133Jarman, D. (2018). Personal networks in festival, event and creative communities: Perceptions, connections and collaborations. In A. Jepson & A. Clarke (Eds.), Advances in Events: Power, construction and meaning in communities, festivals and events (pp. 65-89). Abingdon: RoutledgeJarman, D., 2018, Festival community networks and the transformation of place, Journal of Place Management and Development, 11(3), pp. 335-349Prell, C. (2012), Social network analysis: history, theory & methodology. SAGE, London.Richards, G., & Palmer, R. (2010). Eventful Cities. Oxford: ElsevierRichards, G. (2015). Festivals in the network society. In C. Newbold, C. Maughan, J. Jordan, & F. Bianchini (Eds.), Focus on festivals: Contemporary European case studies and perspectives (1 ed., pp. 245-254). Oxford: Goodfellow PublishersRichards, G. (2017). Emerging models of the eventful city. Event Management, 21, 533-543Scott, J. (2017) Social Network Analysis (4th ed.), Sage, London

13 - A collection of sources, including SNA text books, some of my own publications, and sources mentioned in the podcast.