Urban Regeneration and Stakeholder Dynamics in the Formation, Growth and Maintenance of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival in the 1990s

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 and interviews with figures central to the festival’s formation 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 reveals wider implications about urban regeneration in the 1990s. The article examines the role of the Sheffield City Council’s Department of Employment and Economic Development and its endeavour to initiate a catalytic effect between private and public organisations, showing how the cultural and media industries were viewed as vital to the economic diversification of the city in the 1990s. The article demonstrates the importance of stakeholder dynamics and their intervention in the cultural management policies of local councils, suggesting that SIDF’s fate rested on the cultural networks of local and national figures and the political tensions in their respective motivations. It demonstrates how a political economic approach to the study of festivals allows for a fuller understanding of the formation, growth, and maintenance of festivals in a post-industrial context.