Standing Stones, Festival, and the Celtic Diaspora

Abstract

Ancestral homelands continue to influence the identities and tourism behaviors of populations living in a diaspora. Festivals create a time and space to reflect on the collective myths where aspects of emotional memory can find creative expression through communal celebration with others. This article explores the influence of Celtic diaspora in reimagining rituals, symbols, and ceremonies to create new multisensory experiences, and further how these can be incorporated into the process of designing and delivering festival experiences. The experiences of audiences and event stakeholders at the Australian Celtic Festival in Glen Innes, Australia offer a case study that examines the emergence of a flourishing annual festival with Celtic heritage at its core. The research uses a mixedmethod approach of stakeholder interviews and participant surveys to examine various perspectives of the event, from which the emergence of five key themes demonstrate how and why festivals can be manipulated to include a rich reappraisal of new spaces and places while maintaining selected elements of identity and homelands. Further, findings show that the festival activities facilitate the links between the communication of culture within tourism spaces.