Urban regeneration and stakeholder dynamics in the formation, growth and maintenance of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival in the 1990s

Abstract

This article presents a case study of the formation and growth of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF)—later renamed Sheffield Doc/Fest—in the 1990s. It uses archival sources to understand a crucial question: why was the festival located in a post-industrial city like Sheffield? By the end of the 1980s, the city was undergoing economic transformation, from ‘steel city’ to ‘post-steel city’, in the process suffering an identity crisis given its decades of dependence on its former steel industry. With a focus on the motivations of the political, industrial, cultural, and academic stakeholders that were central to the festival’s formation and growth, the article demonstrates how an exploration of festival formation in a post-industrial city, using a political economic approach, can allow for a fuller understanding of the formation, growth, and maintenance of festivals in a post-industrial context.