Modern arts festivals were born in the rubble of WW2. Civic leaders created these annual events to celebrate culture as the highest expression of the human spirit… [and] the work they did was very very high art… But as the decades passed, these shows, these festivals, they really became the establishment and as the culture and capital accelerated, the internet brought us all together, high and low kind of disappeared. A new kind of festival emerged. The old festivals, they continued to thrive, but from Brighton to Rio to Perth, something new was emerging.