Adapting Festivals to a Changing Climate: A Policy Framework for Climate Resilient Festival Grounds
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2025-11-20
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en
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Abstract
Music festivals are increasingly exposed to climate-related risks, while the sector remains insufficiently prepared for structural climate adaptation. This study examines which factors influence the institutionalization of climate adaptation policies within the MOJO-network and how these factors constrain or enable structural implementation. An institutional perspective is adopted, integrating four institutional dimensions, operationalized through the four dimensions of the Policy Arrangement Approach (PAA).
A qualitative single case study with an embedded design was conducted, focusing on the MOJO-network and their three multi-day outdoor festivals: Pinkpop, Lowlands, and Down The Rabbit Hole. The dataset consists of sixteen semi-structured interviews with key actors, supplemented by document analysis. Data were thematically analyzed to identify institutional mechanisms shaping climate adaptation policy.
The findings show that institutionalization is constrained by cognitive resistance to external regulation, institutional voids in policy frameworks, limited shared understanding of climate adaptation, and fragmented interactions driven by short-term operational priorities. Enabling conditions include a shared interpretation of extreme weather, MOJO’s central network position, and the potential of climate adaptation to generate organizational co-benefits.
The study concludes that factors widely identified in the literature—such as fragmentation, short-term logic, institutional voids, and resource dependencies—also operate within the MOJO-network, but in specific and underexplored ways. By showing how cognitive frames, interactions, and regulatory absences reproduce these mechanisms, the research refines existing theories on institutionalization and climate adaptation governance in the festival sector.
Keywords: music festivals, sustainability, climate adaptation, institutional change, institutionalization, constraining and enabling factors.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen