Cultural Capital and Expenditures of Classical Music Festival Visitors

Abstract

A better understanding of predictors of festival expenditures is critical for festival organizers to be able to conduct marketing promotion effectively, organize attractive programs, and accurately estimate economic impact. In an attempt to identify predictors of festival consumption, this study focuses on the influence of the cultural capital of music festival visitors. Based on a survey of visitors to a classic music festival in Korea, this article analyzes the divergent effects on festival expenditures of four different forms of cultural capital: embodied, objectified, institutionalized, and familial capital. The empirical research shows that institutionalized and familial cultural capital have a positive and significant effect on the expenditures of festival visitors while embodied and objectified capital do not. The research findings suggest that cultural taste aspect of cultural capital may explain festival participation but economic resource aspect of capital is more deeply related to the amount of consumption at festivals.