The Arena Concert: Music, Media and Mass Entertainment is the first sustained engagement with what might said to be - in its melding of concert and gathering, in its evolving relationship with digital and social media, in its delivery of event, experience, technology and star - the art form of the 21st century. This volume offers interviews with key designers, discussions of the practicalities of mounting arena concerts, mixing and performing live to a mass audience, recollections of the giants of late twentieth century music in performance, and critiques of latter-day pretenders to the throne. The authors track the evolution of the arena concert, consider design and architecture, celebrity and fashion, and turn to feminism, ethnographic research, and ideas of humour, liveness and authenticity, in order to explore and frame the arena concert. The arena concert becomes the "real time" centre of a global digital network, and the gig-goer pays not only for an immersion in (and, indeed, role in) its spectacular nature, but also for a close encounter with the performers, in this contained and exalted space. The spectacular nature of the arena concert raises challenges that have yet to be fully technologically overcome, and has given rise to a reinvention of what live music actually means.Love it or loathe it, the arena concert is a major presence in the cultural landscape of the 21st century. This volume finds out why.

AcknowledgementsContributorsIntroduction: "A Stately Pleasure-Dome"? Robert Edgar, Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs, Benjamin Halligan and Nicola SpelmanPart One: Prehistories1: From Mach Schau to Mock Show: The Beatles, Shea Stadium, and Rock SpectacleJeffrey Roessner2. Beyond Beatlemania: The Shea Stadium Concert as Discursive Construct Mark Duffett3: Through a Lens Darkly: The Changing Performer-Audience Dynamic as Documented by Four Progressive Rock Concert FilmsKevin Holm-Hudson4: Evolutions of The Wall: 1979 - 2013Kimi KärkiPart Two: Arena Concerts Now5: From Shed to Venue: the Arena Concert Event SpaceRobert Kronenburg6: Constructing the Cosmopolitan Arena ConcertLukasz Swiatek7: "Roll Up and Shine": A Case Study of Stereophonics at Glasgow's SECC ArenaEmma Webster8: Being There: Encounters with Space and the Affective Dimension of Arena SpectacleAlice O'GradyPart Three: Perspectives - Personal and Professional 9: "Hello Cleveland..!": The View from the StageJon Stewart10: Illuminating Arenas: Towards the "Ultimate Multimedia Experience"Jon Stewart and Benjamin Halligan11: A Personal History of UK Arena Concerts: Reflections on Gigs over the Past Forty YearsPeter Smith12: Rocking Around Watford: Trying to Find What I Was Looking ForRobert Edgar, with Julia and Evan Shelton Part Four: Arena Media13: The Aesthetics of the Arena: Live and RecordedRobert Edgar14: We Made This Together: How Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! Foresaw Changes in the Live Concert Experience Brought about by Digital Technology and Social MediaNeil Fox15: Framing Experience: Filming and the Excesses of AestheticsErich HertzPart Five: The Arena Experience16: "Sing it with me now": Audience Participation in Arena ConcertsNicola Spelman17: Performing Kylie: Looks DivineSunil Manghani18: Intimacy in PublicJos Mulder19: Beyoncé's Celebrity Feminism and Performances of Female Empowerment in the Arena ConcertKirsty Fairclough-Isaacs20: Intimate Live GirlsBenjamin HalliganBibliographyIndex