Abstract

The article shares the results of a research on Sardinian jazz festivals, successfully prospering in the Italian island region since thirty years, despite difficult launching conditions. Adopting a neo-institutional approach, it first considers the institutional settings offering cultural entrepreneurs a window of opportunity to launch their festivals: the presence of regional funds for the performing arts and the existence of glocal networks linked to professional migration flows. Second, it confirms the soundness of festivals as organized forms of cultural production at different levels (organizational; productive; territorial) deepening the analysis to compare two «most similar» well-established Sardinian jazz festivals. The comparison also reveals significant differences between the two festivals, eventually reported to different ways of drawing borders between culture and economics, matching cultural policies related to opposing socio-economic models.