Cluj-Napoca, Romania: Electronic Dance Music and Local Policy (2015–2020)

This chapter takes a historical approach to look at the development of electronic music in Romania, focussing more particularly on the establishment of an EDM scene in the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca. It takes into account local and European cultural policies, as well as audience research pertaining to the period 2015–2020. This case study shows a tendency to institutionalize festivals (Gibson and Connell 2012, p. 20) in the service of branding or regional development. As Gibson and Connell rightly point out, it is important to look at the way ‘interrelationships’ between economic, environmental and cultural aspects of festivals (Gibson and Connell 2012, p. 5), as well as the contextual drivers of local policy and support of the local administration (Mair and Laing 2012, p. 694), shape music and taste, especially as Cluj offers the unique advantage of comparative music research in both urban and rural settings.