LIFT and the London 2012 Olympics: Spectacular Experiences

Abstract

In 2012, London staged the Olympic Games and the associated Cultural Olympiad, which produced the ‘London 2012’ Festival, funding a wide series of events including many productions by the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT). A decade on, this article considers the impact of these overlapping events during a period of unprecedented austerity in the United Kingdom, and how arts events might be considered as having colluded with the government’s own agenda. The connection between neoliberal governance, with its programme of increased privatization, rapid gentrification, and the opportunistic marketing of diversity is examined with reference to increasing nationalism through Olympiad displays, together with the increasing influence of the ‘experience economy’ as defined by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore. Phoebe Patey-Ferguson is a Lecturer in Theatre and Social Change at Rose Bruford College. This article, derived from their PhD on LIFT in its social, cultural, and political context, follows ‘LIFT and the GLC versus Thatcher: London’s Cultural Battleground in 1981’ (NTQ 141) and, in the same issue, Patey-Ferguson’s interview with LIFT’s founding Artistic Directors, Rose Fenton and Lucy Neal.