Andrew Smith
@andrewsmithwest
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Professor of Urban Experiences. Place & Experience Research Group. I research urban parks, leisure, events & tourism. Basically, Parks & Rec without the laughs.
London
Joined May 2016
I have become slightly obsessed with fences over the past few years - not just festival fences, but park fences, and fences in general. So, I'm pleased to share a new #openaccess paper - written for @LandscapeResJ with Didem Ertem & Goran Vodicka
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#Wimbledon is now the epicentre of lawn tennis in London, but in 1889 the highest concentration of public courts was in #FinsburyPark. When the Metropolitan Board of Works was dismantled that year, its 34 parks contained 36 grass tennis courts, 22 of which were in Finsbury Park.
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This is great - and really interesting that fencing off parks for events is now in the public consciousness as something that happens everywhere.
'Ten messages for a man who thinks children should stay off the roads and stick to the park'.
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RT @thesohopoly: The last event of our summer season! Come and celebrate with us tomorrow 12 July. 6 amazing bands, afternoon and eve! @wmi….
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RT @BBCLondonNews: The bronze statue of Fanny Wilkinson has been installed in a garden she laid out.
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Just been talking to @jasonmohammad on @BBCRadioWales about staging music events in public spaces. An honour to be squeezed in between great songs by LaRoux and Roxette 😆
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As we gear up for the Oasis reunion, I have been trying to figure out how much they are paying Manchester City Council to use Heaton Park. The best guess from council budgets is £375,000 - which seems very low for an event hosting 80,000 people every night for 5 nights (<£1 pp).
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Park Live(s) in '25 . First it was Brockwell Live, then Blackweir Live, and - later this month - Blackheath Live.
First it was Brockwell Live, now it's Blackweir Live. Festivals are great. Councils are desperately short of money. I get it. But parks are precious and I think its time for stronger legal protection from over-exploitation.
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Meanwhile, in other park fence news . (thanks to my friend Ru for sending me this, presuming picture is faked/AI ? but I suppose it makes the point ).
Croydon’s crisis-torn council hired Adam Wilkinson as interim head of planning, only for him to leave within weeks after it emerged his consultancy had been dissolved following a winding-up order by HM Revenue and Customs for unpaid tax. PLUS news from the Rotten Boroughs of
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First it was Brockwell Live, now it's Blackweir Live. Festivals are great. Councils are desperately short of money. I get it. But parks are precious and I think its time for stronger legal protection from over-exploitation.
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RT @catterall_pp: My latest article, on the choice of design for the memorial landscape for the late Queen in @TheConversation - https://t.….
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And Cardiff .
The eventification (i.e. event driven commodification) of public parks is not just an issue in London; it is affecting parks in Manchester, in Newcastle, in Bristol, in Liverpool, and in Sheffield.
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RT @JakubKronenberg: Are you a #birdwatcher?. Take part in a study on #BIRDWATCHING & #BIRDCONSERVATION. Help understand birdwatchers & bir….
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The eventification (i.e. event driven commodification) of public parks is not just an issue in London; it is affecting parks in Manchester, in Newcastle, in Bristol, in Liverpool, and in Sheffield.
It was Parklife this weekend and it seems to have gone off without any problems. It does though place a lot of restrictions on residents (including me) so it’s good to see this fund in place. However, none of these project support those continuities around the park directly
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RT @TourismJournal: On social movements in the fight against unrestrained tourism growth and the long tail of its effects. .
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RT @DrMicMartin: Our article in @ConversationUK reveals substantial #play inequalities across #England. @DrPaulBrindley & I looked at Engla….
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A better question would be "on balance do the benefits of staging ticketed festivals in public parks outweigh the problems they create" - with the question flipped to "do the problems created by staging festivals in public parks outweigh the benefits" for 50% of those asked 🙂.
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Not sure this tell us much, other than if you design a flawed survey then you can't be sure what it shows. Festivals do offer various benefits but also cause significant issues when they're staged in public parks - not just 'noise and disruption', but also damage and exclusion.
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RT @BBCLondonNews: Following a new certificate of lawfulness being approved, events in Brockwell Park have begun for the summer. But the i….
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