Music Festival Experience Research Articles

Experience, satisfaction and loyalty in the context of online music festivals in China

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the fast growth of online music festivals. This paper explores how festivalgoers' experience affects their satisfaction and drives their loyalty to re-attend online music festivals in China.Design/methodology/approachBased on an understanding of the music festival experience and the characteristics of live-streamed performances, this paper investigates five factors that affect festivalgoers' satisfaction and loyalty, namely the music experience, ambience experience, separation experience, social experience and novelty experience. The relationships between festivalgoers' experience, satisfaction and loyalty are also explored using structural equation modelling techniques.FindingsThe empirical results suggest that four of the above-mentioned five factors of the online music festival experience directly affect festivalgoers' satisfaction and loyalty. The online mode is a rapid adaptation of and preferred alternative to offline music festivals, whilst the creation of the experience, along with satisfaction with and loyalty to the online music festival, are determined by different factors compared to offline modes. Overall festival satisfaction positively enhances the relationship between festivalgoers' experience and loyalty to online music festivals.Practical implicationsThis study offers a range of practical and managerial implications for organisers of online music festival, similar activities such as live-streaming concerts and stage performances and hybrid events.Originality/valueThis study explores a phenomenon that has evolved quickly since COVID-19 and will, potentially, have an ongoing and enduring impact on the music festival sector. It differentiates the understanding of festivalgoers' experience in online and offline modes, which is a new addition to the literature. It also enriches the theoretical understanding of the experience of, satisfaction with and loyalty to online music festivals.

Perceived Intense Emotions and Their Influence on Cultural Identification Processes: A Mixed-Method Study of a Classical Music Festival

Music festivals are meant to create a unique experience for those who attend them, and this occurs through multiple phenomena. Among these phenomena are various cultural identification processes, which may be directly connected to festivalgoers’ emotions. In this scope, the main aim of this research is to understand how music festivals trigger, shape, reinforce and influence cultural identification processes and how these processes relate to the emotions felt by festivalgoers. In order to attain this aim, we present the academic state of the art in terms of models for evaluating intangible impacts and emotions in different settings. We then propose a model and a mixed-method approach for analysing such impacts on music festival experiences. This model is based on attendees’ perception of cultural impacts and music emotions during these experiences. Finally, we apply these different methodological approaches to the study of a classical music festival experience. We then draw conclusions about the relationship between festivalgoers’ emotions and identification processes. Specifically, there is a clear relationship between intense positive emotions and regional identification processes, cultural skills development and growth in music listening, where the festival experience encourages attendees to add new music to their musical preferences.

An emotional perspective of music festival experience evaluation: a new model of emotional analysis

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to test a new proposal of a model to analyze emotional outcomes in relation to the key factors constituting the experience of a music festival.Design/methodology/approachThis article first examines how emotions and intangible impacts are conceptualized and analyzed by different disciplines; secondly, this article exposes the relevance of musical emotions and the contextual elements in the generation of the music festival experience; the article then proposes a new model to assess the emotional impacts of music festivals, named the Emotional Impact of Music Festivals (EIMF). Finally, this article shows the test of the model through quantitative and qualitative analysis.FindingsThe findings reveal that perceived emotions in the music festival context should be based on the definition of musical emotions. At the same time, the model combines the different sources of emotions taken from validated tools in multiple academic disciplines. The new proposal enables the emotional outcome of the music festival experience to be identified and helps to understand the weight of the experience's main elements.Practical implicationsThe new proposed model facilitates the research on music festivals and illuminates the key role of music when organizing festivals to enhance attendee experience. Finally, this model reveals the main elements required to obtain an intense emotional outcome in these types of events.Originality/valueThe study expands the different scales and model proposals in live events and combines existent musical emotion models from the psychological perspective with theoretical models from the intangible impact evaluation. This study shows a genuine test for a theoretical model that can be further developed. Finally, this study shows how the new tool EIMF can help music festival organizers to understand the weight of the constituting factors of festival experience and the results in applied studies.

Splendour XR: Place, Experience and Liveness at a Virtual Music Festival

A popular turn to online live music in response to the COVID-19 pandemic included the staging of so-called virtual music festivals, including Splendour XR, an ‘extended reality’ version of Australia’s largest ticketed music festival in 2021. Where the ‘liveness’ of online performance is now broadly accepted, a virtual music festival necessarily makes a more ambitious claim, as popular music festivals are valued for their construction of certain types of place affording particular kinds of experience. This article considers this claim in light of the history and meaning of popular music festivals, including the role of mediating technologies, before presenting a case study of Splendour XR drawing on primary research at the event. The article explores key issues for the online delivery of popular music festivals including the negotiation of liveness, the construction of place and the music festival experience.

How Was Your Music Festival Experience? Impacts on Loyalty, Word-of-mouth, and Sustainability Behaviors

As the popularity of music festivals increases worldwide, an essential component for successful festivals is creating an exceptional guest experience. A conceptual model is proposed, positing that experience economy has a positive effect on loyalty, word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions, and sustainability behaviors of event attendees at a music festival that focuses on sustainability. Multiple regression and structural equation modeling (SEM) were employed to test the model using data collected from 216 attendees at an annual music festival staged in Costa Rica. Results reveal that experience has a positive effect on sustainability behaviors. Additionally, some dimensions of the experience economy have a positive impact on WOM intentions and loyalty. Lastly, WOM intentions have a positive effect on sustainability behaviors. The study provides vital contributions to planning and managing sustainable music festival events. Music festival planners and marketing teams are recommended to offer activities that provide an overall positive experience.

Phenomenological psychology & descriptive experience sampling: a new approach to exploring music festival experience

ABSTRACT This paper provides in-depth discussion of a methodological approach to researching music festival experience. Grounded in existential phenomenology (Heidegger, 1927/1962. Being and time (J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell) it argues for the adoption of an interpretative phenomenological perspective (Merleau–Ponty, 1945/1962. Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.). New York, NY: Humanities Press) to more fully understand the live music festival experience. Phenomenological psychology (Smith, Harre and Van Langenhove, 1995. Ideography and the case–study. In J. A. Smith, R. Harre, & L. Van Langenhove (Eds.), Rethinking psychology (pp. 59–69). London: SAGE Publications) contextualises the music festival experience within the attendee's Lifeworld. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith, 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications Ltd) provides a robust process for analysing the music festival experience ideographically. Participants used Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) (Hurlburt & Heavey, 2001. Telling what we know: Describing inner experience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(9), 400–403) to record their Green Man music festival experiences, this data was then explored during phenomenological interviews. DES and IPA provide a contrasting conceptualisation of experience, with findings that contribute to Ashworth's (2003b. The phenomenology of the lifeworld and social psychology. Social Psychology Review, 5(1), 18–34) theories of Lifeworld and Krueger's (2014b. Varieties of extended emotions. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 13(4), 533–555) Hypothesis of Individual Extended Emotions and his Hypothesis of Collective Extended Emotions. Lastly, building upon the application and adaptability to the music festival context allows a consideration of future studies.

From headliners to hangovers: Digital media communication in the British rock music festival experience

Extant tourist experience literature focuses on ‘live’ space and time activity, while pre- and post-components are often neglected despite the opportunities offered by increasing use of digital media communication (DMC). Focusing especially on the pre-festival experience but also addressing peri- and post-phases, this study examines the role of DMC in tourists’ experiences at British rock music festivals. Interviews with festivalgoers revealed three core and inter-related themes: information, emotional response and communitas. Initial engagement with DMC enabled planning, generated feelings of anticipatory excitement and created a sense of communitas. Online activity reduced peri-festival but continued to enhance the live event experience, while the virtual communitas was extended at the post-festival phase.

Understanding Festival-Goers and Their Experience at UK Music Festivals

This article explores the influence of sociodemographic characteristics in determining the perceived importance of attributes of the UK music festival experience to festival-goers. Quantitative data were collected through an online survey using a cluster, snowball sampling technique and 586 respondents completed the survey. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was used to identify factors of the festival experience, whereas linear regression and structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed the relationship between the sociodemographic characteristics of festival-goers and the resulting experience constructs against the overall evaluated experience. From eight major factors, seven hypotheses were identified. The results revealed the most important factors to the overall experience to be entertainment, added value, and music, whereas the remaining factors did not have a direct impact. Conversely, the sociodemographic characteristics contributing to the dependent constructs were primarily age and gender, followed by education and marital status. The location where festival-goers grew up and their employment status had minimal impact. The practical implications of this study provide the opportunity for festival organizers to direct their strategic management efforts towards the elements of the festival experience that are most important to their targeted or typical festival-goers. This article also addresses a notable gap in the literature by evaluating the importance of specific experience attributes in the context of popular UK music festivals. Moreover, it examines the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics of festival-goers and the importance of experience attributes to the overall UK music festival experience.

The way of generation Y enjoying Jazz festival: a case of the Korea (Jarasum) music festival

ABSTRACTResearch studies about the attributes of music festival experiences and the effect of information technology in music festival help us to understand Millennials. With the purpose of providing more insights about the perception and behavior of young people at a festival, this study aims to investigate how festival attributes and the interactivity of information sources affect festival attendee satisfactions and behavioral intentions in a music festival. The results are expected to assist festival organizers in managing and implementing market-oriented service strategies to improve the quality of festivals and therefore to enhance the attendee satisfactions and their behavioral intentions.

Advancing the 5E's in festival experience for the Gen Y framework in the context of eWOM

Abstract The study queries whether providing a memorable music festival experience will encourage Gen Y attendees to share their experience via electronic word of mouth (eWOM) for a small island destination (SID) and a music festival. The study advances the 5E’s framework in festival experience for Gen Y by adjusting the dependent variable of interest to that of eWOM. The adjustment to the model framework is done in order to address some prominent challenges of confined island economies with regard to festival production, such as: restrictive market access, limited capital for promotions, and the need for generational market succession to sustain tourist arrivals. The research uses the case study of the Aruba Electric Festival, which was created by tourism officials in order to increase Gen Y tourist arrivals without deflecting other generational cohorts from arriving to the island. The study recognizes the importance of creating a music festival experience that would influence attendees’ intentions to promote the event and destination via eWOM, thus increasing market reach and decreasing promotional expenses. The data was assessed using a structural equation model. The results reveal that if festival organizers craft an overall memorable music festival experience that incorporates the 5Es, then Gen Y attendees are likely to provide positive eWOM for the festival and the destination. The results address some immediate industry concerns of Aruba’s destination managers and festival organizers.

Facebook as a platform for co-creating music festival experiences

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the need to understand how younger music festival-goers use and engage with a music festival’s Facebook page, and how they perceive this social networking service (SNS) as a potential on-line platform for value co-creation. Design/methodology/approach Face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 young adults who attended an annual New Year’s Eve music festival, Rhythm and Vines, in Gisborne, New Zealand. Findings Analysis of the interview data revealed that the majority of participants did not actively engage with this platform and could be categorised as passive viewers or information-seekers. In addition, participants perceived five types of value from using this SNS: functional, social, emotional, interactive and aesthetic value. Even though participants were not segmented due to the small sample size, patterns in their levels of engagement with Facebook, attendance status, reasons for attending the festival and the combinations of forms of value that they perceived were identified. Research limitations/implications Future research should use a large-scale survey method to obtain a representative sample that is generalisable to a specific population of music festival-goers. Practical implications Dominance of features on Facebook providing festival-goers with functional value suggests they prefer a passive or co-optation approach to value co-creation in this context. Due to the limited extent of participants actively co-creating value on this platform, alternative means of encouraging interaction to co-create value with festival-goers should be investigated. Originality/value This study demonstrates that this SNS provides this group of young adults with a means to connect their real-time festival experience, with their on-line Facebook social network during the year.

Designing and managing music festival experiences to enhance attendees’ psychological and social benefits

Attendance and participation at popular music festivals has become an important and increasingly common experience for people in many Western societies, yet little is known about the kinds of benefits visitors perceive they gain as a result of attending. This research explores attendees’ perceptions of the psychological and social benefits associated with their attendance at the Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland (Australia). Based upon the research findings, music festival management strategies are suggested to improve the design of festival experiences to better cater to the artistic, musical, social and psychological needs of attendees thereby increasing the impact and depth of the experience.

Dancing to sustainable tunes: an exploration of music festivals and sustainable practices in Aotearoa

Living sustainable lifestyles that meet the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs has become a driving force for social change. Music festivals are contextualized within this setting and can provide both a site to encourage environmentally responsible behaviours and a place for communities of likeminded people to meet. A sense of community and freedom, efficient festival organization, good music, and being in the outdoors are all aspects of positive festival experiences, but so too does caring for the local environment and community. This paper discusses a qualitative research project that investigates the extent and impact of sustainability-related social and environmental aspects of music festival experiences. Tentative conclusions suggest that the way festival organizers plan for social and environmental impacts directly influences the experience of those attending, but also has the potential to instigate social and environmental change in ways which at present are largely untapped.

The impact of music festival attendance on young people’s psychological and social well-being

Although the social, emotional, physical and cognitive benefits of engagement in music are well known, little research has been conducted on the psychological benefits of music in the context of music festivals. This article draws on theoretical constructs from the field of positive psychology to interpret the impact of music festival attendance on participants’ psychological and social well-being. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from a focus group and questionnaire survey with young festival-goers aged 18—29 years. Four facets of the music festival experience were identified that were associated with well-being outcomes. These are explored and discussed with reference both to participants’ focus group comments and statistical analysis of questionnaire responses. A conceptual model is presented in order to guide further research in this area, and enable both festival organizers and attendees to take optimal advantage of the potential of music festivals to impact positively on young adults’ psychological and social well-being.