Purpose -This paper aims to examine the cultural heritage of outdoor rock and pop music festivals in Britain since the mid-1960s, and relates it to developments in, and critiques of, corporate sponsorship in the contemporary music festival sector. Design/methodology/approach -The paper uses extant research materials to construct an account of British music festival history since the mid-1960s. It then draws upon Bakhtin's concept of the carnivalesque and the literature on sponsorship, experiential marketing and branding, in order to understand critiques of corporate sponsorship and the changing nature of the sector. Findings -Outdoor rock and pop music festivals were dominated by the ideologies of a "countercultural carnivalesque" from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s. In the 1990s, changes in legislation began a process of professionalization, corporatization, and a reliance on brand sponsorships. Two broad trajectories are identified within the contemporary sector: one is strongly rooted in the heritage of the countercultural carnivalesque, while the other is more overtly commercial. Research limitations/implications -It is argued that experiential marketing and brand activation are key methods for achieving a balance between the competing aspects of commerce and carnival. Hence, festival organisers and sponsors need to understand the history of the sector and of their own events and attendees in order to use corporate sponsorship more effectively. Originality/value -This paper adds historical and theoretical depth to the debate between commerce and carnival within the music festival sector, and makes connections between cultural theory and the literature on sponsorship and branding.

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There has been a marked resurgence of interest in progressive rock music both commercially and critically, with a number of articles and books now reassessing its styles, meanings, politics and appeal. Despite this, there has been a tendency to define progressive rock through a ‘symphonic orthodoxy’ which preferences a limited, albeit highly successful, number of British groups operating in a relatively narrow sonic landscape. This article questions that orthodoxy by drawing on the lay definitions and understandings of fans to extend the definitions and geographies of progressive rock, and to characterise it as a European meta-genre. It examines the meta-genre's formative years at the beginning of the 1970s, and argues that progressive rock was inspired by the explorations of a European youth counterculture whose music was influenced by local socio-political and economic contexts, as well as by the music and attitudes of the American counterculture and of European Romanticism.