In the past two years [2010-2012] we have done research on the visitor experience of music festivals. We conducted several surveys asking festival visitors for demographic variables, taste in music, their motivation for visiting festivals, mentalities and the evaluation of the festival. We also asked for the use of social media before, after and during the festival. Results show that visitors using social media have a significantly different festival experience from users that do not use social media before, during or after the festival. Results on difference in festival satisfaction are mixed.
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Cultural festivals can attract cultural tourists, extend the tourist season and add vibrancy to the cultural scene. However, there is relatively little research on how festivals affect tourist experience of the destination or outcomes such as satisfaction or repeat visitation. This study used the Event Experience Scale to measure tourist experiences at three cultural festivals in Hong Kong – the Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and the Cheung Chau Bun Festival. The findings show that tourist experiences of these festivals are distinct, and they positively affect destination image and behavioural outcomes. Relative to permanent attractions and tours, festival experiences elicit stronger affective, conative and novelty responses. Festivals also convey a stronger impression of Hong Kong as a destination exhibiting Chinese and traditional culture, but less as a global city. The festival experience is associated with positive outcomes, namely greater satisfaction, intention to recommend and intention to return.
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Waarom gaan mensen naar festivals? Hoe beleven ze een festival? Waarom komen ze wel of niet terug? Hoe kunnen festivalorganisatoren de motivatie en beleving van bezoekers effectief beïnvloeden? Wat betekenen sociale media voor de festivalbeleving? Antwoorden op deze vragen helpen festivalorganisatoren een uniek festival aan te bieden en effectiever resultaten te behalen en overtuigender te rapporteren naar subsidieverstrekkers en sponsors. Het Crossmedialab, onderdeel van het Kenniscentrum Communicatie & Journalistiek van de Hogeschool Utrecht, heeft onderzoek uitgevoerd naar festivalbeleving. Dit cahier geeft een overzicht van onder zochte theorieën en bevat een integraal overzicht van factoren die van invloed zijn op de festivalbeleving. Nieuwe inzichten en het uniek ontwikkelde model van festivalbeleving biedt onderzoekers, eventprofessionals en vakdocenten kansen voor verder onderzoek en praktische toepassing.
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From June 28 to July 7 the National Arts Festival took place in Grahamstown, South Africa. For the 20th time Cue, a daily print newspaper about the Festival, was produced by Rhodes University journalism students. It was the first time that the newspaper was printed in full color. Cue is at the core of journalistic production during the Festival. But nowadays, what is a newspaper without pictures or without an online edition? Cue Pix, run by the photo department at the School of Journalism and Media Studies in the AMM (African Media Matrix) provides the pictures. Cue Online is run by the NML (New Media Lab) in the same building and is mostly shoveling print content online. Cue Radio and Cue TV take care of the audio and video, and broadcast during the Festival. Up to 2000 copies of Cue newspaper were printed daily with the number of sold copies around 1600. The newspaper was sold in the Grahamstown streets for 3 Rand. The number of pages of Cue ranges from 16 to 20, including advertisements. Cue is produced by students and lecturers of the School of Journalism and consists of about 50 student-reporters, 10 sub-editors, and 2 editors (who are generally University staff). The productions layout is taken care of by a group of design students. Twenty students from the photo department take care of the pictures and rework them with Adobes Photoshop. Cue TV and Cue Radio (with a total of about 10 students) brought their reporting skills to the Festival as well. Reporting about the Festival by Cue is a major happening that has been growing over the years. From print to TV, to radio and online. This is fantastic, but also reflects equal problems in the media industry: each media platform runs their own show. Print, TV, radio and photography: they all have their own targets, content production, and some coordination. In order to take full advantage of the different possibilities of all the media platforms, convergence is the keyword.
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Abstract: Experiences are becoming increasingly important in events and festivals, which are prime manifestations of the experience economy. However, research on event experiences has generally been concerned with economic impacts and visitor motivations [Gursoy, D., Kim, K., & Uysal, M. (2004). Perceived impacts of festivals and special events by organizers: An extension and validation. Tourism Management, 25(2), 171–181. doi:10.1016/s0261-5177(03)00092-x]. Few studies have attempted to operationalise and quantitatively analyse experiences, and there is no consensual definition regarding the essence of experiences [Walls, A. R., Okumus, F., Wang, Y., & Kwun, D. J.-W. (2011). An epistemological view of consumer experiences. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30(1), 10–21. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2010.03.008]. This article develops an Event Experience Scale (EES) for event experiences. In this exploratory study the item generation and selection for this scale are presented in three phases: specifying the domain of construct and generation of items, item selection, and scale purification. An 18-item scale, comprising four dimensions – affective engagement, cognitive engagement, physical engagement, and experiencing newness – with satisfactory values for Cronbach's alphas (.83,.86,.86, and.87), emerged. Implications for theoretical and practical research are discussed.
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De Stichting EYOF Utrecht 2013 en Official Partner Achmea hebben besloten om rondom het European Youth Olympic Festival 2013 onderzoek te laten uitvoeren rond de thema’s: maatschappelijke betekenis; economische betekenis/beleving evenement; het organisatieproces met betrekking tot maatschappelijke betekenis. Het onderzoek naar de maatschappelijke betekenis is uitgevoerd door de Hogeschool Utrecht (Kenniscentrum Sociale Innovatie). De economische betekenis en de beleving van het evenement is door het Mulier Instituut in kaart gebracht (in nauwe samenwerking met de Werkgroep Evaluatie Sportevenementen, WESP). Het onderzoek naar de organisatie van het evenement met betrekking tot de maatschappelijke betekenis is uitgevoerd door de Universiteit Utrecht (USBO). Het onderzoek werd gecoördineerd door het Mulier Instituut. Over de drie onderzoeken is separaat gepubliceerd in drie deelrapporten. In deze overall rapportage brengen we de uitkomsten uit de drie deelonderzoeken bijeen en formuleren we de belangrijkste conclusies en aanbevelingen. De reactie op de onderzoeken vanuit het bestuur van de Stichting EYOF Utrecht 2013 is als bijlage in het rapport opgenomen
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This paper applies the Event Experiences Scale (EES) to seven cultural events in different countries with the aim of identifying generic dimensions of event experience. Exploratory factor analysis indicated the presence of four experience dimensions: cognitive engagement, affective engagement, physical engagement and novelty. These broadly reflect the four dimensions found in the original EES study [de Geus, S., Richards, G., & Toepoel, V. (2016). Conceptualisation and operationalisation of event and festival experiences: Creation of an event experience scale. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 16(3), 274–296]. In the cultural events analysed here, the cognitive dimension is strongest, followed by affective engagement, novelty and finally physical engagement. The experience dimensions are shown to vary significantly between visitor groups (particularly in terms of age) and by event location or context. Analysis of social media use shows that experiences also vary significantly through the stages of the ‘event journey’, with affective engagement being particularly prominent during and after the event.
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In juli 2013 vond in Utrecht het European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF Utrecht 2013) plaats. Op zeven locaties in de stad streden 2.300 atleten tussen de 13-18 jaar oud uit 49 verschillende landen in negen takken van sport om de medailles. De organisatoren van EYOF Utrecht 2013 wilden niet alleen een mooi toernooi voor de atleten organiseren, maar ook een breder maatschappelijk effect sorteren. Mede om deze reden werd er een programma aan side-events georganiseerd, onder de noemer Achmea High Five Challenge (Achmea H5C). Het doel van de Achmea H5C is om Nederlandse jongeren kennis te laten maken met sport en hun eigen talenten, zodat ze ook na de Achmea H5C aan het sporten blijven. Met het side-events programma wilden de organisatoren bekendheid geven aan EYOF Utrecht 2013 en de officiële partner (Achmea). Verder wil de Achmea H5C bewegen, sportiviteit en vriendschap uitstralen (High Five) en meer kinderen en jongeren via sport in contact brengen met hun talent (Challenge). Het programma beoogde met name kinderen en jongeren te bereiken, die nu nauwelijks bewegen en sporten (Achmea H5C, 2012).
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Aiming to re-conceptualize liveness in the social media era, this paper explores the temporality of liveness within the lived experience and media practices of cultural events. Through qualitative analysis of extensive interview material, diaries and media content from three very different Dutch case studies - Oerol Festival 2017, Serious Request 2017, and Pride Amsterdam 2018 – it will shed light on the participants’ experience of ‘time’ within the spatio-temporal proximity of these mediated ‘live’ events.As liveness is mediated attendance to events, the experience of the moment - the ‘now’ of the event - is always accompanied with the awareness of a variety of other moments in time: the moment that your friend watches your Facebook live stream; the algorithmic time that makes your post pop up on Instagram; the moment that you see the photo while back at work and remember the fun you had. As we are skillful media users and knowledgeable participants in event-spheres (Volkmer & Deffner, 2010), the experience of a live moment therein is blended with the idea of re-living it at a later time. Nowness and memory are intertwined as we create mediated memories that enact both future and past, the community and the self (Van Dijck, 2004). In this paper I argue that the prominence of live digital technologies within our deeply mediatized (Couldry & Hepp, 2017) society has made navigating event-spheres a very complex and layered temporal experience, a struggle between living and re-living moments that appear to us as current due to an interplay of immediacy and affinity.
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