“For many, both locals and would-be visitors, the festivals represent not so much a joyous overabundance of culture as a costly impossibility. … The city comes under huge pressure during August: there are crowded streets, innumerable tour buses, and a city centre that can feel hollowed out by Airbnb lettings and more and more new luxury hotels. … Meantime, the festivals themselves are caught in the curious trap of endless expansionism: the notion that each year’s ought somehow to be bigger than the last, that increased ticket sales and more visitors are necessarily and unquestioningly to be celebrated.”