AustLit

'Each year, Adelaide hosts a range of diverse sporting and cultural events - headlined by the Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Fringe, and WOMADelaide - in Mad March'. When the 2012 open-air opening night concert of the Adelaide Festival by Ennio Morricone was disrupted by the nearby Clipsal 500 V8 Supercar Race, this concentration of events led to an unprecedented contest over Adelaide's urban space. This clash between cultural and sporting fans was indicative of what geographer Don Mitchell calls a 'culture war' that exposes a conflict with the place-making narratives of Adelaide as the capital of the 'Festival State'. In this article, I read the events, debates and discourses surrounding Adelaide's festivals in 2012 for how local cultural identities and priorities were staged, contested and renegotiated within the public sphere. I argue - drawing on theoretical concepts borrowed from cultural geography - that the cultural clash between V8s and violins was a competition between two groups exercising what David Harvey terms their 'right to the city' and 'power over the processes of urbanization' through their choice of leisure activity. This controversy calls into question South Australia's ongoing status as the nation's premier Festival State and provides a case sturdy through which to examine the role of ubiquitous arts festivals in place promotion and their impact on local culture.' (Publication abstract)