Critical Incidents, Emotions, and Value-Added Moments: The London 2012 Spectator Experience

Abstract

In an increasingly complex and demanding sport event environment, spectators expect to fulfill their insatiable hedonistic needs through engaging in memorable customer experiences. However, experience creation and management suffer poor conceptualization and contextualization. Using the case study of London 2012 Olympic spectator experiences and applying a range of mixed-methods tools, this exploratory study advances the emerging research agenda on understanding the nature of critical incidents and accompanying emotions, as well as the value-added moments of a memorable hedonistic sport spectator experience. The study findings reveal the valence of critical incidents and emotions, identify when and where they occur, and suggest that spectators want to engage with a series of highly interactive and multimoments that include building, watching, being in, capturing, and sharing the moment. Determining the value-added and value-destructive drivers of memorable consumption encounters can help event managers exceed desired levels of service expectation, and facilitate the delivery of superior customer experiences.