Gli eventi off diffusi sul territorio delle città metropolitane europee: tra strategie di branding urbano e identità locale

The aim of the thesis was to analyze the phenomenon of so-called fringe events, alternative and independent urban events, which arise from bottom-up initiatives that reject the institutionalized system. The first part is dedicated to a reconstruction of the debate on contemporary urban events by identifying the main classifications, the three dominant debates and by discussing the concept of an event city. The second part analyses three different case studies: Marseille 2013 Off (city of Marseille, France), Fuorisalone (city of Milan, Italy) and Paratissima (city of Turin, Italy). At first they are described in their constituent elements (the birth and the history of the event, the budget, the partners and the project governance, the local stakeholders and the relationship with the official event) to see how much those events can be considered "fringe". While later they are analyzed within their urban context to see how far fringe events manage to be urban events that make local identity. The conclusions of the work offer a comparative perspective of the three case studies that allow us to see how and if the fringe events are configured in terms of alternative events that re-interrogate the mechanisms of urban branding (Karavatizs 2004) and the success of urban events as new tools of international urban competition (Richards, Palmer 2010) and instruments of political intermediary strategy, legitimizing the political discourse and the public identity (Gravari-Barbas, Jacquot 2007).