Research project
For my research project, I researched into "Understanding the Motivations of Attending music Festivals in the UK." This research allowed me to understand and detained the motivations for events in general as well, understanding that events aren't just about the 'act' and are about the atmosphere of the event. This knowledge has allowed me to gain a more in-depth understanding of events management and how to attract more potential customers to events. To read about my findings please click on "Read More" and this will take you to me research.
Below is my conclusion of my research project
Conclusion
The objective of this research was to conduct an extensive investigation of festival attendees and their experiences at UK Music Festivals. As noted throughout this research, little recent attention has been paid in literature to determine significance or value that music festival attendees attach to various aspects, both tangible and intangible, of the overall festival experience, as a basis for informing effective festival management decision-making within the UK, in turn, making music festivals more attractive to potential attendees. This study attempted to fill a gap in the research.
Research has revealed key motivators for attending music festivals assisted by previous research within the area. The focus group confirms that there are two clear drivers for people to attend music festivals; the social aspect of community and the appeal of live music being the predominant driving forces. This finding furthers the understanding of what motivates people to attend music festivals, and establishes the main motive to attend, to escape from day-to-day life, proposed by Iso-Ahola, (1982). Thus, the data presents that the motivations of festival attendees are not only specific to artists performing but atmosphere based, a sense of belonging to a community, experiences and ambiance. This was evident across the focus group responses.
The desire for experience and atmosphere means festival organisers can adjust their festival offer, allowing the attendee to customise their experience with features that appeal to them most. Increasingly, festival attendees are given the opportunity to tailor their experience to their own desires. Higher quality services including premium offerings such as comfortable pre-erected accommodation, good quality showers and toilets targets a wider demographic, providing higher degree of comfort leading to attendance. Not only can this drive attendance, it creates an additional added-value revenue stream to festival organisers. For a discretionary price, higher quality facilities will increase the overall hygiene of festivals, improving contentment and re-attendance. Giving attendees the option to customise their experience improves their experience, enabling organisers to extend the diversity of the demographic.
Organisers can further attract attendees by announcing up-and-coming artists, closer to the festival date to persuade un-decided customers to attend while also creating pre-festival anticipation for pre-booked attendees.
This research has its own limitations. The sample size of this study was comparatively small to represent the UK population due to resource limitations, and contributors were primarily drawn from contacts of the researcher. As a result, the findings of this study may give a restricted view in explaining reasons for attendance at music festivals. Future research should expand the diversity of demographic characteristics, and how each demographic has a variety of influences that motivate them to attend festivals. A larger population sample should be used so the work can be generalised, with the ability to conduct interviews alongside questionnaires. A comparative analysis of each demographic would be an effective method to distinguish what motivates each demographic, helping researchers to better establish the motives for music festival attendance. However, this research offers a compelling snap-shot of the motivations of festival attendees in the UK today.