The V Festival has been held since 1996, and was the fi rst large-scale outdoor rock and pop music festival in Britain to be held at two sites simultaneously over one weekend. Developed as a mainstream alternative to the Glastonbury and Reading Festivals, it struggled to create a distinctive identity or gain critical acceptance, especially among the more radical or countercultural of festival-goers and press. Managed by a consortium of highly successful concert promoters, it actively embraces commercialism, sponsorship deals, and a forward-thinking ethos of quality and customer service. However, rather than escaping the countercultural and carnivalseque imagery and meanings historically associated with outdoor rock and pop music festivals it has, to varying degrees, commodifi ed, modernized, or subverted them. In the process, it has gained considerable popularity among festival-goers and secured the plaudits of music industry professionals. The event is at the forefront of initiatives regarding festival policing and safety, and offers a role model for the many new commercial events that are established each year. This article considers how the concept of the countercultural carnivalesque has been used in relation to large-scale outdoor music festivals, before examining the V Festival through a cultural economic focus. It demonstrates how the beliefs and backgrounds of its organizers have infl uenced the management and image of the event, and how it has helped to transform the large-scale outdoor music festival market more generally.
In economic theory, quotas have always been considered as a major impediment to trade. A concrete application of this view can be seen in Article XI of the GATT which prohibits any form of quantitative restrictions other than customs duties. Curiously, however, the use of quotas for the specific purpose of protecting domestic content in the film, radio, and television sectors remains largely permitted under existing international trade regulation. In addition, the practice of States since the entry into force of the WTO discloses an obvious reluctance on their part to make commitments in the audiovisual sector, which is easily understandable considering the significant number of States who still deem it necessary to resort to quantitative restrictions in those sectors.More recently, a tendency has developed in bilateral and regional free trade agreements to make room for reservations concerning quotas in the audiovisual sector. Obviously, there must be issues other than commercial but just as important that are at stake behind this special treatment granted to audiovisual products. These issues, as will be seen, are very real and justify resorting to quotas under certain circumstances. However, it does not mean that the question of their use is definitively solved. For many observers in fact, it is not so much the theoretical considerations advanced to justify quotas that explain the tolerance they are accorded in the audiovisual sector, but rather the fact that digital technologies are going to render this type of intervention obsolete by simply making border inspections impossible. Still, it may be a little premature to conclude that local content requirements will soon be a matter of the past, as evidenced by the fact that those who predict such a development are generally the same ones who are asking for new international regulations prohibiting any type of barriers to trade in digital products. To the extent that significant cultural issues are at stake, there is no doubt that means will be found in order to prevent the right to cultural expression, and thereby cultural diversity itself, from being compromised.
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