Rock of our salvation: ideological production at the Christian youth music festival

Christian youth music festivals (CYMFs) are an important niche sector in the realm of large-scale leisure events. In line with the recent turn towards exploring festivals and events as spaces of cultural production and articulation, this compressed time ethnographic study analyses two very different Protestant CYMFs – one of which is affiliated with conservative Christianity and one of which is affiliated with counterculture Christianity – and investigates the way these leisure spaces function as sites where ideologies are produced and religious identities constructed. It concludes that, despite the festivals’ differences in ideological orientation, both events draw on the mechanisms of leveraged liminality, embodied performativity, and youthful impressionability to advance their respective ends. The paper thus seeks to highlight the ideological importance of leisure event management.