Local Festivals - the Visible and Invisible Benefits for Local Communities: an Empirical View

Abstract

The article presents the results of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions held in Sadovo, Elin Pelin, Gabrovo, Bolyartsi, Novi Han and Pozharevo within a project “Local festivals: A resource of local communities for coping with crises”, funded by National Science Fund – Ministry of Education and Science of Republic of Bulgaria (KP-06-H45/5 from 30.11.2020). The aim of the text is, based on the main essential features and characteristics of local festivals, to prove and derive empirically the importance of “visible” and “invisible” benefits of these events for the preservation of local communities. The various points of view of representatives of local authorities, organizers of local festivals, and representatives of the Roma ethnic community will be presented without claiming to be exhaustive. Numerous studies are available in the literature, focusing on the benefits of holding these events and the various effects they produce on the cultural, social and economic life of local communities. Local festivals in the Bulgarian context, regardless of their thematic focus, in most cases combine the festivities of traditional society, combined with new forms of collective gatherings. In most cases, these events can also be seen as part of the process of building local identities, which draw their resources from what is imagined, reconstructed and argued as local heritage.