Podcast blurb: Networks matter to festivals, and all the people and organisations involved in putting them on. Individuals build careers by navigating a web of connections, shared projects, and employers past and present. Festival organisations bring together a wide array of employees, suppliers, performers and more, each at the heart of their own criss-crossing network. Researchers need to recognise the insights that a network-focused approach can bring, and which social network analysis (SNA) can support and allow. This is work that at the very least complements more familiar stakeholder-based research, and can potentially supersede it in terms of detail, dynamism, flexibility and rigour.

David’s bio: David Jarman is a lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University, where he has led the BA (Hons) International Festival & Event Management since 2007. David completed his PhD in September 2022, with Tilburg University in the Netherlands, having focused on social network analysis, festival communities, and the value of taking a network-focused perspective to the critical study of events. He has also worked for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society and other festivals, providing first hand experience of the importance of networks to both individuals and organisations.

Further reading and resources:

David’s PhD, containing half a dozen papers exploring and applying SNA in festival communities: https://research.tilburguniversity.edu/en/publications/social-network-analysis-and-festival-relationships-personal-organ

Special issue with Greg Richards:

https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/em/2021/00000025/00000001

Richards "Events in the Network Society":

https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/em/2015/00000019/00000004/art00010

Fisker, Kwiatkowski & Hjalager, responding to the Richards's work: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14649365.2019.1573437