Event Religion and European Festival Experience

Published in 2026


Book abstract

This book contributes to empirical research on festivals and presents a model of ‘event religion’ for interpreting festival experiences from a religious studies perspective.  It features a comparison of three Hungarian case studies with different backgrounds - a mindfulness festival, a Catholic event, and a rock-metal music festival. The author suggests that examining event experiences along the four dimensions of spatiotemporality, symbols, community, and inward experience provides a conceptual framework for understanding contemporary alternative religious beliefs, behaviours, and experiences. She also utilises ‘religionesque’ as an umbrella term for the various concepts that describe religion-related experiences and approaches. The book will be of interest to scholars of religion, sociology, anthropology, and others with a focus on events and festivals. (From routledge.com)


Photo of a book called "Event Religion and European Festival Experience. Concepts and Case Studies" by Sára Eszter Heidl, with colourful pattern with small triangles. On the top right corner a small part of bookspines of other copies of the same book

The first copies of the book © Sara Heidl