Motivating and Retaining Festival Patronage

Abstract

Globally, festivals and host communities face increased competition each year from one another and from the myriad of alternate entertainment options. To remain competitive, festival organizers must fully understand what keeps festival attendees coming back year after year. Festivalscape has been an emerging concept of value in this arena, and previous studies have found that festivalscape has an effect on the attendees' emotion and behavior that influences their overall perceived value of the festival. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between festivalscape and the attendees' motivation, satisfaction, and loyalty. A self-administered questionnaire was developed and a structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Study results support the hypotheses, indicating the importance of using festivalscape factors for festival organization and management and effective customer relationship marketing. Further, this study provides academic contributions to theoretical foundations by confirming the effects of these factors. This study also provides practical implications for managing festivals effectively and successfully.

The application of enduring involvement theory in the development of a success model for a craft beer and food festival

“…Other important results from the model included three of four festivalscape factors (food/ beverage quality, festival staff, facility) influencing satisfaction. This confirms prior research that indicate a significant relationship between festivalscape and satisfaction (Bruwer and Kelley, 2015;Chou et al, 2018;Yoo et al, 2020). The festivalscape factor convenience did not influence satisfaction.…”

“…Festivalscape → satisfaction Previous literature has demonstrated that festivalscape factors influence festival attendees' satisfaction. For example, Yoo et al (2020) found that the festivalscape factors were important to attendees' satisfaction with a festival. Bruwer and Kelley (2015) explored four key domains of the festivalscape that were positively correlated with satisfaction: (1) generic festival features and festival staff, (2) entertainment and catering, (3) comfort amenities and (4) festival venue and information.…”

Segmenting food festivalgoers: experiential value, emotional state and loyalty

“…Due to the highly profitable and benevolent nature of food festivals, achieving a competitive edge and ensuring the viability of festivals is a major challenge for festival organizers (Kruger et al. , 2010; Yoo et al. , 2020).…”

“…Holding food festivals promotes a destination's food culture, boosts the local economy and stimulates domestic/local agriculture (Organ et al, 2015). Due to the highly profitable and benevolent nature of food festivals, achieving a competitive edge and ensuring the viability of festivals is a major challenge for festival organizers (Kruger et al, 2010;Yoo et al, 2020). Nevertheless, food festivals often fail because of poor design such as lack of food innovation and variety, long lines and waiting time, an overcrowded, rowdy environment and an insufficient or unappealing food supply (Culha, 2020;Mykletun, 2011).…”