THE SEMIOTIC PARADIGM FOR DECONSTRUCTING EVENT DESIGN AND MEANING

Festivals and events convey a range of historical, political, social and cultural signs and meanings, however, there remains limited methodological guidance for understanding these. This paper proposes semiotics as a valuable yet underappreciated and underutilised approach in contemporary event studies and design. In contending the value of semiotics to deconstruct the layers of meanings of festivals and events, this paper builds on the semiotic paradigm first proposed by Echtner (1999) in a tourism marketing context. Drawing from two empirical studies, the paper provides a framework for the application of semiotics to deconstruct layers of meaning communicated both at and by festivals and events. In making this methodological contribution to the field of event studies, the paper also highlights additional potential benefits of semiotics and the adoption of a design perspective in event management practice.