Page 102 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

1022. NT BEFORE AND DURING THE FESTIVAL2.1. Social media and communitiesIf there is anything a large number of festivals, both national and international, have in common, it is the use of at least one social media site – especially Facebook and Twitter, followed by YouTube and Instagram.The generally ephemeral nature of festivals (in that they run for a few speci c days of the year) means that they use the social media di erently from cultural spaces where things are constantly happening all year round. Postings are generally concentrated on pre-festival campaigns, for example in connection with booking ticketsand packs, on advertising activities and promotions during the run-up to the festival, during the festival itself to provide information on forthcoming activities and share interesting happenings and dates of presentations or talks; and during the weeks subsequent to the festival to gather people’s impressions, accounts and feelings.The social media are not merely promotional tools – at least not in the old-fashioned sense (through impacts on passive spectators who had previously had few channels of communication). The good thing about these platforms istheir two-way communication, as anyone can communicate with the organisation or inform their followers and contacts about the festival.In this respect, we are also witnessing how the tables are being turned on relations between cultural organisations and the public in the traditional sense. In recent years, and more intensively in the past decade, the public has gone from being a large mass audience to various, increasingly segmented audiences. This process neither stems from a single factor nor is due exclusively to sociocultural changes. The new economic models are partly responsible, but so are new and digital technologies, such as Web 1.0 (forums) and Web 2.0 social platforms (social media, weblogs with social networking tools...).2. NT BEFORE AND DURING THE FESTIVALFocus: Use of New Digital Technologies at Cultural Festivals