THE WELLBEING EFFECTS OF DEVELOPING AND STAGING A COMMUNITY FESTIVAL DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

This paper considers the wellbeing outcomes of a community festival that was developed and staged in 2020, during the first lockdown associated with the Coronavirus Pandemic (hereafter the Pandemic). It is an autoethnographic account that reports on wellbeing benefits as people engaged in a festival project together. Social aspects of wellbeing were enhanced through collaboration and connection, positivity and community volunteering. Environmental aspects of wellbeing were enhanced by activities that reconceptualised and reworked the local environment and enabled learning and sharing. The festival created opportunities for play, laughter and frivolity and developing a community story of sharing and coping. The conclusion identifies the learning from the process of creating a community festival in the midst of crises in the hope that others will be able to take some of these ideas forward in their own communities.