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To make sense of the relationship between the festival attendance and the aims in arts festival management, the purpose of this paper is to explore the key characteristics for success and analyze the perceptions of the future in arts festival productions.

This qualitative study uses interviews with festival managers and empathy-based stories (MEBS) written by members of festival audience. Discourse analysis is employed for answering the questions: What are the characteristics of a successful festival, and what could ruin it?

The paper highlights the importance of interaction with the audience orchestrated by the festival organization. Such interaction co-constructs a more holistic festival experience valued by both parties, which supports the sustainability and future success.

The research data are limited to one country, and music festivals dominate the data.

Among managers, there is a need to consider audiences as consumers and as producers in the current competitive climate in the arts and cultural field and clarify the role of the audience as a partner in the networked festival production by placing the attendee at the core of the strategic planning process of arts festivals.

The research combines the views of the demand-and-supply side. It adds to the knowledge in arts and festival management by exploring the relationship between attendance and the aims of arts festival management in general, and the key characteristics of success in the arts festival context in particular. MEBS offers new interesting opportunities for future research in qualitative festival research.

The role and importance of arts festivals are well documented within the festival and events literature. Art and culture, as well as the subsequent enhancement thereof, are especially significant in multicultural societies. However, little is known regarding the role of culinary experiences within an arts festival setting. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The case study was a well-known and popular Afrikaans national arts festival held annually in Potchefstroom, South Africa. Visitors to three distinct tasting experiences (brandy, whisky and sparkling wine, including Méthode Cap Classique), offered as part of the festival programme, were surveyed.

In the analyses, 292 completed questionnaires were included, which revealed three managerial factors for a successful tasting experience, as well as six tasting experience dimensions. In all cases, the experiences exceeded the expectations. This research greatly contributes towards the body of knowledge regarding tasting experiences at national arts festivals, an aspect that has not been researched to date.

Based on the results, practical implications are provided to enhance the current tasting experiences as well as visitor loyalty. This research is a stepping stone towards understanding the needs and preferences of the visitors, as well as identifying how the festival can capitalise on delivering these experiences.

This research identified for the first time the factors that contribute to a memorable tasting experience, as well as evaluated the tasting experience dimensions.

The purpose of this study is to examine how young residents in two Indonesian kampungs (urban informal settlements) participate in two grassroots art festivals and to what extent their participation affects their capacity and network.

This study uses a qualitative method. The data collection were done in 2017 and took the form of in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 respondents in two kampungs, Kampung Dago Pojok, Bandung, and Kampung Bustaman, Semarang.

The results show that the grassroots festival can empower youth throughout its process while also influencing their networks. The festival could act as the catalyst for youth to gain event management skills and exchange cultural knowledge. This study also found that there are two sides the art festivals can bring to the youth regarding their network: while the festival was able to develop their internal and external network, it also led to social division within the community.

The originality of this paper lies in the context of the research where it contributes to understanding the implications of community-based art festivals in the developing context, particularly in the low-income informal settlements. The paper’s content also provides insights that festivals can also be understood as more than place marketing or branding but as collections of steps and efforts of the community to provide meaningful actions for their place and people.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to describe a novel tool (conjoint analysis (CA)) for application by explaining the theory behind it; second, how the tool was developed; and third, how it can be used to ensure an optimal festival/event offering. In this way, the research needed on the individual behavioural and psychological factors of the events-tourism sector are addressed.

Planned events in this case the three largest arts festivals in South Africa (SA) (in Potchefstroom – Festival A, Grahamstown – Festival B and Oudtshoorn – Festival C) were studied. Five different attributes – festival brands, ticket prices, entertainment activities, food and beverages and transport to venues – were developed to describe arts festivals. The data were analysed using CA. CA was used in a linear regression model with individual ratings for each arts festival product. In addition, two techniques often used as complementary to and in conjunction with CA, namely, cluster and correspondence analysis were also used. K-means clustering constructed a four-factor solution, which categorised and labelled the attributes as, brand-, price-, activity- and transport-sensitive. The software package STATISTICA used the results for the correspondence analysis to draw maps between the arts festivals and attribute importance, age groups and festival attributes, arts festivals and language.

Festival A and B preferred the attribute level quality music, whilst Festival C preferred quality performances on the attribute entertainment. On the attribute refreshments, Festivals B and C preferred value for money and Festival A, a wide variety of good quality refreshments. On the attributes transport and ticket prices, all three festivals agreed for safe and secure parking and at the same price.

This paper demonstrates, by applying the recommended tool, how it can be used to distinguish festivals/events in an overcrowded SA market with the possibility of providing a competitive advantage. In that all three festivals researched preferred the attribute festival brand held in the region which destination marketing organisations (DMOs) can use to their advantage.

This paper demonstrates, by applying the recommended tool, how it can be used to distinguish festivals/events in an overcrowded SA market with the possibility of providing a competitive advantage. In that all three festivals researched preferred the attribute festival brand held in the region which DMOs can use to their advantage.

The description of the development of the model could illustrate how market positioning (by way of revitalizing older theories), in the arts festival context can be approached to ensure an optimal arts festival offering. By so doing the paper strives to make an academic contribution.

The purpose of the study is to compare features of career development and fandom in frequent festival attendance in the context of Finnish music festivals.

The study uses a mixed methods research approach and employs two theoretical frameworks: theories of career development and fandom.

In frequent festival attendance, both festival career development and festival fandom are most clearly present in motivation development and social dimensions.

Strategically, frequent festivalgoers should be considered as crucial stakeholders, who might mobilize the co-creation of a sense of community or festival brand.

Music-related fandom has been previously investigated in relation to artists and specific musical genres, but not so much in relation to music festivals in general. Career studies, on the other hand, concentrate heavily on sports events. There is a scarcity of research scrutinizing both career development and fandom in the festival context within the same study, and festival attendance as part of music tourism is an under-researched area.

In recent years, festivals have become prominent events in many cities throughout Europe, playing a crucial role in improving the image of the host city and enhancing its attractiveness to tourists. Festivals are temporary organizations with a short-lived and intermittent nature. Such features could raise several challenges in terms of maintaining a festival’s identity and its attendees’ identification during the periods of inactivity. Drawing on the literature on temporary organizations, organizational identity, and social identification, this chapter investigates how festivals can communicate their central and stable characteristics to audiences by adopting Web 2.0-based communication strategies. To explore this issue, the chapter illustrates the case of an Italian festival, Fotografia Europea, which has changed its communication strategy from a more traditional approach to a Web 2.0-based one.

Festivals are often explicitly connected to the destinations in which they take place, explored here as contributing to broader processes of place-making and engagement with local communities. Place is defined at a local scale, primarily as experienced by volunteer contributors to an arts and cultural festival in urban Scotland. Networked relationships between festival volunteers inform the research methods and analysis, reflecting both observer and insider perspectives. This paper aims to comment on varying attitudes among the contributors, relating these findings to their positions in the festival’s social network.

Social network analysis methods were used to capture and examine data from a sample of festival volunteers: a survey instrument was distributed among individuals identified by the creative director, acting as a key informant. These data generated information on connections between the respondents, as well as demographic and opinion-based attribute data. Network centrality measures were used to sample the respondents for four follow-up interviews with festival volunteers.

The resulting network revealed a core-periphery structure to the festival’s organising team. The influential core group members were more established volunteers, recognised for their value to the team. The festival was widely endorsed as contributing to local place-making, though not uncritically. Management implications were identified for the dual nature of the festival organisation: a formal hierarchy with clear functional departments, acting as a platform for an intangible yet vital social network.

Social relationships are shown to have profound implications for the management and identity of this volunteer festival, in relation to its host neighbourhood. Combining social network analysis with semi-structured interviews has demonstrated the value of this mixed methods approach.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of place-making on the quality of place through community-organised art festivals, with two case studies in urban informal settlements or kampungs in Indonesia.

Findings presented here are based on data collected and 39 in-depth interviews conducted in 2017 in two kampungs, namely, Kampung Dago Pojok, Bandung and Kampung Bustaman, Semarang.

This paper argues that place-making can happen through temporary practices, such as festivals, and improve the quality of place in informal settlements. It indicates and analyses the kinds of activities that increase the aesthetic value of spaces and build a positive image of the kampungs. The study concludes with the finding that place-making through temporary interventions has the potential to permanently change and reshape public space. At the core of these activities is the collective and voluntary work known as kerja bakti that is done by the kampung communities and the civil society organizations involved.

The paper offers a fresh perspective in the context of understanding the implications of place-making in the Global South. Assessing the development of public space, the paper provides insights into the use of grassroots festivals as a tool to permanently reshape urban spaces and engage the local community throughout the process.

The UK city of culture (UKCoC) scheme developed out of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2008 and is synonymous with urban renewal. The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenges of bidding for this scheme.

The authors conducted semi-structured telephone interviews with bid team members from four out of the five short-listed cities for the 2021 award. Respondents were situated across the country and, at the time, finalising their Stage 2 bids. Thematic analysis was conducted to analyse the responses.

The UKCoC scheme is a top-down scheme which is delivered “in place”. The danger of the top-down vision is that local people cannot often conceptualise what it might mean within the context of their own locality. The findings here suggest that bid team members are attempting to do this despite obvious time pressures. The research presented here suggests that cities are reconciling the top-down, criteria-led nature of the scheme with a real reflection on how to make that work for their locality which is distinctive.

The UKCoC scheme has proved to galvanise communities to reflect on the nature of their places and think about what makes them unique in comparison to the other bidding cities. The bidding teams acknowledge the challenges of bidding but there is a sense that competing is worth the investment.

This paper offers a unique insight into a recent competitive placemaking scheme and reflects on how placemaking can potentially be reconciled as both top-down and place-based.