Rebranding the Cultural Legacy of Communism: The Golden Stag Festival (Braşov, Romania) and Local Placemaking

Music festivals have always had a key role in the production and reproduction of urban identities, regardless of the various leading political systems. This paper focuses on the Golden Stag Pop Music Festival (Brasov, Romania) as a particular case study in-depth investigated. It emphasizes the festival’s distinctive and complex issues: from a former communist era festival (a rather unusual form of heritage), it was rebranded as a completely new post-communist musical event. The festival plays an important role in the post-socialist place-making of Brasov. The study aims to unpack the issues of rebranding this festival as part of the cultural legacy of communism enhancing the local placemaking. The research uses a multi-method approach all-through the study with quantitative and qualitative analysis. In addition, ethnographic research and visual methodologies were used to examine this emblematic music festival. The findings are designed to inspire local urban agendas of all involved actors to rebrand the festival, thus refashioning the cultural legacy of communism and enhancing the local placemaking.