SATJ 2009 VOL 23 23 Situational inhibitors preventing attendance at three selected arts festivals in South Africa Ciná van Zyl & Dorothy Queiros University of South Africa Introduction Festivals are social gatherings for the purpose of thanksgiving and celebration. They are often ritualistic and convene in the same place each year. They are spaces of ephemeral and liminal ‘time out of time’, enjoyment and difference, infused with conviviality and cheerfulness (Ruting & Li, 2006; Sharpe, 2008:219). “Observance of and participation in festivals… is an increasingly significant aspect of the contemporary tourist experience” (Picard & Robinson, 2006:1), and has recently become an important and growing niche in the tourism industry (Ruting & Li, 2006:1). This has resulted in the coining of the term “festival tourism” (Picard & Robinson, 2006) which is often placed under the banner of “special interest tourism” (Van Zyl, 2005a; Kakaza, 2000:6). O’Sullivan and Jackson (2002:325, 326) describe festival tourism as a “catch-all term to include special events tourism and festivals of any size or organisational persuasion”. This, notes Visser (2007), makes festival tourism a complex area of study. Since the late 1960s a large number of new festivals have been created. Some of these are “rediscovered” and “reinvented” festivals, while others are new to the scene (Picard & Robinson, 2006). Relating this trend to South Africa, Visser (2007) reports an immense growth in festivals in almost every village, town or city, with a total of 211 annual festivals identified across the country; 28% of these fall under the banner of ‘pure’ arts festivals, which is roughly in line with the 79 arts festivals identified by Van Zyl and Botha (2004). Visser (2007) uses the term “arts festivals” for those festivals involving performing and visual arts ands various combinations of them. This explosion in festivals is partly a response from communities attempting to re-assert their identities because of cultural dislocation brought about by social mobility, globalisation and rapid structural change (De Bres & Davis, 2001; Quinn, 2003). In this context Picard and Robinson (2006:3) refer to festivals as “markers of social and cultural