Maarit Kinnunen

Visitor discourses on experiences: reasons for festival success and failure

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to unfold factors anchored in visitors’ experiences possibly determinant of the success or failure of cultural festivals. Design/methodology/approach – The studied data included 931 experience descriptions, 23 interviews and 51 empathy-based stories collected from 17 cultural festivals around Finland during the summers of 2012 and 2013. The nature of the study was exploratory, the theoretical framework was social constructionism, and the analysis was done using Foucauldian discourse analysis. The Method of Empathy Based Stories, a non-active role-playing technique, was used in the data collection. Findings – The identified success factors were the programme, good quality food, sense of community, chill-out opportunities and building blocks of one’s identity. The factors that might cause failures were commercialised and low-quality programme, the low quality of services, commercialism demonstrated by elevated ticket and service pricing, VIP services confronting egalit...

Evaluating the brand image of a rock festival using positive critical incidents

Purpose Since effective and successful branding increases the popularity and loyalty of the festival, and its economic success factors like positive media coverage and sponsors’ interest, it is essential that the festival brand image is credible and strong. The purpose of this paper is to focus on interpreting audience’s perceptions on a rock festival brand image to find out the factors that influence the brand image of the festival and how organisers could contribute to it. Design/methodology/approach Critical Incident Technique (CIT) was used in defining the factors influencing a rock festival brand. Findings The attending public co-produce the festival brand, and the brand image was created by the festival community where the importance of social and inclusive behaviour towards strangers was essential. Research limitations/implications The data were collected as a voluntary response sample which led to a biased sample. Another limitation is that the informants were asked to describe only positive incidents. Practical implications The festival brand image cannot be produced solely by organisers; rather, volunteers, artists and especially audience members are crucial for the success and creditability of the brand. This should be considered in marketing and event management. Originality/value The use of CIT in the festival brand image evaluation introduces new possibilities in the field.

Segmentation of music festival attendees

ABSTRACT Festivals have seen a surge in both size and numbers leading to a more business-oriented festival management. Thus, knowledge regarding the audiences and consumption of festivals deserve more attention, and monetary properties such as ticket sales and partnerships have become focal points in festival management. All these aims can be achieved by market segmentation. Festival Barometer is a longitudinal survey focused on the audiences of the largest Finnish rhythm music festivals. Using 7797 answers from the years 2014 and 2016, the audience was segmented using personal music preferences into groups named: hedonistic dance crowd, loyal heavy tribe and highly-educated omnivores. The members of the loyal heavy tribe are the most confident about their future participation in festivals. The hedonistic dance crowd love to have fun, and highly-educated omnivores see festivals’ values important for them. However, music preferences might not necessarily indicate the respondent’s actual taste but rather the referential group that best reflects the festivalgoer’s own identity. Additionally, the meaning of the music is highest in the youngest age group and it will be replaced with other priorities as the person gets older. This indicates that the music festival organisers are forced to attract constantly a new younger audience.