Changing from Local-National to Global: Cultural Consumption and Youth Festivals in Romania

In this paper we analyzed how the cultural consumption related to youth festivals changed in Romania from the local and national specific taste to the consumption characterized by global patterns, between year 2000 and 2005. We looked for the typical recreational activities of young people and how the various activities fit? What kind of cultural consumption patterns emerge in relation to leisure time spending and how do these change?

Researches focusing on this issue point out that young people from Romania because of the specific socio-historical background, some cultural and civilization factors (cultural and historical traditions: traditional male-female roles, religion, etc.) are slowing down the change of youth period (young people sustain a shortened youth stage built on late personal independence) (Gábor-Veres 2011; Voicu, 2008-2009 Bartis2009; Veress, 2011).

The empirical data sources are the surveys conducted at Peninsula Festival in Târgu Mureş between 2006-2012 and Electric Castle Festival Bontida/Cluj. In our opinion festivals provide a great opportunity to get to know about in the scenario of cultural and leisure consumption of yougsters, (Ercsei, 2007, 2009; Veres, 2007).

Our analysis showed that young people, coming from urban areas, mainly from municipalities, are students or have higher education degrees, their material situation is higher than the national average. They could be identified as the youngsters of the urban middle-class, characterized by a great level of personal autonomy and by a specific, varied and intensive, leisure time consumption, which is shown also by the comparison of the eight cultural consumption profiles identified in our analyzes. We can conclude that since 2005 festivals both the composition of the participants and the cultural consumption preferences changed. The preference for the local/national styles decreased, and even the festivals with a traditional/local/national cultural offer ended or transformed to more global styles in cultural offers.