Mobilizing the cultural consumer through the senses: festivals as sensory experiences

Festival management is becoming an established sub-discipline in the broader area of event management, and is often concerned with how organizers should effectively control and plan their festival in order to attract participants. With this paper we aim to contribute to the literature on the meaning and management of cultural festivals by introducing a previously neglected, sensory perspective. Specifically, we explore the framing of festivals as multi-sensory experiences by looking at how a particular type of festival - the boutique festival - is discursively constructed as sensory consumption, with the purpose of creating an engaging experience. In this vein, we will reflect on how the senses are mobilized to produce the festival consumer, claiming that the festival goer is often constructed as a sensuous subject whose participation is achieved through governance and control.