By Grant Hall

Transformational festivals are changing the lives of individuals, and influencing society in a broad range of ways, including environmental consciousness, social organisation, and the way people create things or do business.

Transformational festivals are ‘counterculture events, alluding both personal and cultural transformation through self-realization and an ethos of sustainability, sharing, co-creation, creative expression and community-building’^[1]. Festivals which have been categorised as transformational festivals include Burning Man (USA), Boom (Portugal) and Rainbow Serpent (Australia).

As a worker in the events, arts, cultural and festivals sectors, I have long been interested in how arts and cultural initiatives, such as festivals, can bring about positive change within individuals, communities and organisations. One thing I have found very interesting in my reading about festivals, is how many people, including some world leading innovators, have discussed how their transformational festival experience has had an impact on their working-life innovation processes.

My interest in this topic has developed into a research project, which will allow me to learn more about how transformational festivals support innovation processes, and subsequently share this information with others. You can click here to read more about my motivations for starting this project.

This research project will be informed by surveying and interviewing people who have attended one or more transformational festivals. As such, I am putting a call out for people (20 years of age or older), who have attended at least one transformational festival, to complete a short survey. Subsequently, I will also be inviting some survey participants to be interviewed about their transformational festival experience.

To do the survey, click here. 

The terms and conditions for the survey can be accessed here, and you can read more about the research project by clicking here.

Do you have any thoughts on the links between innovation and transformational festivals? What are your experiences? Please let us know in the comments section below.

Do you have any friends who have attended a transformational festival, such as Burning Man or Boom? If so, please share this call-out with them – the project team and I would love to hear from them.

To stay up-to-date with news and information about the project, please subscribe to the project’s blog by entering your details in the box towards the bottom of your screen, or by joining in the conversation in my Facebook group, Culture for business, governments and life.

Endnotes, sources and photo credits are listed on the next page.