Editorial

Citation

Mair, J.C.a.J. (2014), "Editorial", International Journal of Event and Festival Management, Vol. 5 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEFM-04-2014-0008

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Event and Festival Management, Volume 5, Issue 2.

Understanding attendees and volunteers is an important part of managing and organising events. In this issue, we have several papers considering attendee and volunteer motivations for various types of events. In addition, this issue presents an interesting examination of event experiences and also takes a close look at how we judge event feasibility.

Devesa and Baez take film festivals as their subject, and consider the Valdivia International Film Festival in Chile, identifying attendance motivations, attendee evaluation of the event, and attendee profiles. Noting the existing lack of cultural diversity in many festival studies, and using cultural consumption characteristics such as cinema attendance, they identify clusters of film festival attendees which will help film festival organisers to tailor their events to suit a range of attendees.

The Dubai Shopping Festival is the context for the paper by Peter and Anandkumar, which examines motivations of international visitors for attending this event. They identify seven key factors which help to explain attendance motivations and note that these include self-development (e.g. new cultures, and exploring the unknown), the attractions of the festival itself, and escape and excitement. Using analysis of variance, they demonstrate how the importance of these factors differs depending on the country of origin of the visitors. This is valuable information for event organisers hoping to attract international audiences.

In a precursor our upcoming special issue on The Event and Festival Experience (Volume 5, Issue 3), Bertella explores the experiential and sensorial dimensions of a rural sporting event in Italy through the concept of embodiment. Her model informs event organisers and designers as to the natural and cultural activities that can be incorporated into an event in order to stimulate as many senses as possible. The aim is to engage the event visitors emotionally and psychologically, not just physically during the event.

Duran and Hamarat also investigate event visitors, and their motivations for attending different elements of a multicultural festival in Turkey. They argue that understanding motivations has important implications for event design and attendee choices and satisfaction with the event. While multiple motivations for attending festivals and event have been identified in extant research, regression analysis is used to identify the underlying dimensions of these motivations which in this case include cultural exploration and family togetherness.

Motivation is also the subject of investigation by Dickson, Benson, and Terwiel, specifically those of volunteers at the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Olympics mega-events. Review of the literature revealed a range of motivations as well as methods of investigation for previous event volunteer groups. Principal component analysis revealed two important dimensions of motivation, being the uniqueness of the event and the desire to contribute to the successful hosting of the event on behalf of the community. Furthermore, these motivations were consistent across the two mega-events and this raises the prospect of exploring them in different temporal and cultural contexts at future mega-events and Olympic Games.

Finally Hudson, Meng, and Cárdenas gauge potential interest in an equestrian event using a multistage, mixed methods approach to identify the feasibility of a proposed equestrian event venue in the USA. Interviews with potential users of the venue as well as surveys and economic modelling of likely impacts indicate that the venue and host city has the potential to succeed as long as careful planning and a staged approach to development of a multiuse venue is adopted.

We hope that you enjoy this issue.

Jack Carlsen and Judith Mair