Who spends and who does not: Clustering visitors at a national arts festival

M Saayman,A Saayman,E Slabbert

doi:10.4102/sajbm.v42i1.485

M Saayman, A Saayman + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4102/sajbm.v42i1.485

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Abstract

The Grahamstown National Arts Festival is the oldest National Arts Festival in South Africa and was founded in 1974. This celebration of the arts takes place over a period of eleven days with the main festival running over eight days, which also makes it the longest (in terms of number of days) arts festival in the country. The literature review revealed that high spenders at arts festivals are also the visitors who buy the most show tickets. The success of these events is determined by ticket sales and not necessarily by the number of visitors. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to determine who the high spenders at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival are. Data obtained during the festival in 2008 by means of a questionnaire survey (N=446) was statistically analysed by means of K-means clustering, Pearson‟s chi-square test and ANOVAs. Results indicated two clusters, namely high and low spenders and can assist festival organisers in developing a more focused marketing strategy and festival programme. This was the first time that K-means clustering was applied to festival data in South Africa.

Highlights

In 2008, the Grahamstown National Arts Festival celebrated its 34th year of existence, and is South Africa‟s longestrunning arts festival
The results show that a natural division of the data is in two groups only – a high-spending segment
High spenders are significantly older than low spenders are, the average age of both these segments is in the mid-thirties

Summary

Introduction

In 2008, the Grahamstown National Arts Festival celebrated its 34th year of existence, and is South Africa‟s longestrunning arts festival. Grahamstown is a small town in the Eastern Cape Province. The latter is a province with high levels of unemployment. The Festival began in 1974 with just over 60 items and exhibits It offers over 500 productions that include dramas, stage shows, music, cabaret, jazz and rock. It is held annually over an 11-day period during the month of July of which the first few days form the fringe programme and the last eight days form the main programme. In 2008, the festival contributed in excess of R54 million to the local economy, supporting the notion that festivals are important generators of income for a town, city or region (Slabbert, Saayman, Saayman & Viviers, 2008)

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