Transmitting tradition in a ‘once-in-a-generation’ festival. Digital memory and the future of the Fête des Vignerons

This chapter explores digital platforms’ role in transmitting tradition, focusing on the case of the Fête des Vignerons , a Swiss Winegrowers’ Festival that takes place once every 20–25 years and is perceived as a ‘once-in-a-generation’ event. Through ethnographic offline and online observations, the chapter examines how digital traces on Facebook extend, reconfigure, and potentially fragment collective memory. While social media facilitates the circulation of festival memories beyond physical and temporal boundaries, it does not ensure intergenerational continuity, as memory transmission becomes increasingly contingent on algorithmic visibility, engagement patterns, and platform governance. The Fête des Vignerons represents an extreme case of digital heritage transmission, as its infrequent recurrence makes its memory particularly vulnerable to shifts in digital infrastructures and archival instability. The chapter demonstrates that digitalisation extends festival memory without replacing embodied participation or guaranteeing long-term preservation. The festival’s official archives do not systematically store social media data, and the digital traces left behind remain scattered, transient, and susceptible to commercial and political shifts. By linking festival heritage to broader debates on digital memory, intergenerational engagement, and cultural transmission, this chapter contributes to linking festival studies with discussions in heritage studies, memory studies, and digital anthropology. Whether the digital traces of 2019 will shape the Fête des Vignerons in 2044 will depend less on platform longevity than on the social practices that mobilise them.