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Academic studies have sought to understand the motivations of festival and event attendees usually through single-event case studies. This approach has failed to generate a generalizable set of motivation items. In addition, there is increasing criticism in the literature of the common methodological framework used in festival motivation studies, due to a perceived over-reliance on motivations derived from the broader tourism and travel research, with too little attention to event-specific factors. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues by analyzing a sub-category of motivation studies, music festivals, in order to see if this approach can elicit a consistent set of motivation dimensions for the sub-category, which can in turn be compared and contrasted with the broader literature. A new case study of motivations to attend the 28th Macau International Music Festival (MIMF) is included to complement the existing music festival sub-category by adding a classical music and music festivals in Asia.

Motivation dimensions important to music festivals are compared to dimensions across the broader festival motivation literature to find similarities and differences. Factor analysis is used to identify the motivation dimensions of attendees at the MIMF and the results are compared to those of existing music festival studies.

Music festival goers are shown to be primarily motivated by the core festival offering, the music, in contrast to festival attendees in general, where socialization has emerged as the primary motivating element. The results of the additional case study support these findings.

In contrast to previous research, this study examines the possibility of identifying common motivations among festival attendees through studying festivals by sub-categories.

The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap in the literature by focusing on the profile and loyalty of visitors to a literary arts festival in South Africa. In addition, this research advocates that festivals can influence visitors’ supplementary behavioural intentions and actions beyond loyalty in the form of literary arts appreciation, purchases and tourism.

A visitor survey was conducted at one of the oldest literary arts festivals in the country where a total of 391 completed self-administered questionnaires were obtained. The statistical analyses comprised three factor analyses (motives to attend the festival, satisfaction with the festival offering elements and behavioural intentions) as well as structural equation modelling, to establish the relationship between the motives, evaluation of the “festivalscapes”, behavioural intentions and loyalty.

The findings confirmed that literary arts festival loyalty is the principle behavioural intention that will occur after attending a literary arts festival. However, the results demonstrated that literary arts festivals also have the potential to increase and stimulate supplementary behavioural intentions in the form of greater awareness of the arts, increased purchasing behaviour of literary works, increased travel to support the literary arts and greater personal involvement.

Festivals, irrespective of the art form that they showcase, therefore, play a significant role in encouraging and increasing purchasing behaviour, which is vital to the viability and continuation of the arts industry.

This is one of the first studies to research the literary arts festival market in South Africa, thereby making a distinct contribution by expanding the literature on the needs of this neglected market and the aspects that influence loyalty to these types of festivals.

Researchers studying festivals have overlooked exhibitors as a population within tourism research. Instead, researchers focus primarily on examining festival visitors' economic impacts and motivations for attending. Festival exhibitors have been overlooked because they are considered a part of the overall festival product. The purpose of this paper is to propose a research agenda for festival exhibitors by analyzing embedded relationships created from their festival participation.

A literature review was conducted to explore why exhibitors have not been studied in festival research. A search of publications in other relevant fields was also conducted in order to review how exhibitors have been studied. An analytical framework was developed to analyze embedded relationships within festival exhibitors.

The analytical framework developed revealed that the exhibitor relationship with the festival can be divided into three dimensions: the festival, the market place and the business. In total, nine major lines of research topics were suggested to understand the relationships uncovered within festival exhibitors.

The academic researcher is introduced to the potential research opportunities in examining festival exhibitors and is pointed in the direction of relevant research questions and disciplines that would equip them with the practical tools of investigation.

This paper makes an original contribution to knowledge in the study of events and festivals because festival exhibitors are not studied. By alerting the reader to the applicability and value of exhibitors to understanding festivals, this paper aims to encourage scholars to empirically investigate exhibitors. This will thereby lead to a more diverse literature on festivals and will provide a further understanding of the contribution festivals make to local and regional economies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the origins and management of literary festivals in Ireland from the perspective of their founders or those involved in managing these festivals.

This qualitative research study explores six literary festivals across the island of Ireland. The research and data collection instruments include bibliographic research and a series of in-depth interviews with festival founders, directors and managers.

The festivals in this study have evolved from a range of origins and are strongly influenced by the artistic vision and strategic approach of their founders and/or directors. Generating adequate revenue remains a constant challenge for these festivals as they rely on three primary sources of funding, i.e. ticket sales, sponsorship and grant support. Volunteering at literary festivals provides an opportunity for increased community involvement, participation and a sense of co-creation. Building strong partnerships and positive stakeholder engagement is fundamental to successful festival support and funding, ensuring that festivals can deliver well-structured programmes that will attract a loyal and engaging audience.

This exploratory research is limited to six literary festivals in Ireland and there is potential to extend this into a more comprehensive study.

This study provides insights into this increasingly popular festival sector and identifies practical strategies for developing and managing literary festivals and related events.

Even though literary festivals have proliferated in Ireland over the past twenty years, there is a dearth of academic research in this area. The research study focuses on literary festivals, primarily from a “supply” rather than “demand” perspective.

The study investigates how cultural festival attendees’ familiarity and involvement may influence their overall satisfaction and future behavioral intentions towards the festival.

A path analysis is used to test the proposed model. The Sobel test is performed to determine the mediating role of attendee satisfaction on future behavioral intentions.

Attendee familiarity positively and directly impacts attendee involvement. Attendee satisfaction mediates the relationship between involvement and intention to return to the festival. The findings did not demonstrate a relationship between attendee involvement and intention to recommend the cultural festival. Attendees’ intention to return to the festival positively and directly impacts intention to recommend the festival.

For repeat cultural festival attendees, satisfaction is influenced by festival familiarity and involvement. As attendees become more satisfied with their festival involvement, their decision to return to the festival increases. The mediation effect of satisfaction indicates that this should be a priority, as it fully mediates the relationships. However, this is not the case as it relates to the intentions to recommend the festival.

The study contributes to literature on the impact of familiarity and involvement on repeat attendee satisfaction levels and how these relationships influence attendees’ decisions to return or recommend the festival. It is one of the first studies that investigates actual behavior of festival attendees, specifically in the context of an African-American cultural festival.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how festival quality, satisfaction and intention to return among cannabis festival attendees were interrelated by using the 2018 Mile High 420 Cannabis Festival in Denver, Colorado, USA.

This study employed an online survey with festival attendees to the 2018 Mile High 420 Festival. A total of 664 attendees participated in the survey.

Findings of the study revealed the demographic profile of cannabis festival attendees (i.e. relatively young, single and evenly distributed in terms of gender and residency) and its relationships with respondents’ perceived festival qualities. In addition, two dimensions of festival quality unique to the context of marijuana festival influenced attendees’ satisfaction and intent to return significantly. Festival attendees’ travel characteristics were used to describe attendees’ satisfaction and intent to return to a different degree. This research has also highlighted a lack of research in the area of cannabis events/festivals.

This study is the first investigation that studied a cannabis-themed festival in the tourism literature. As legalization of recreational cannabis has been embraced in the USA and abroad (i.e. Canada), the findings of this empirical study will help the industry professionals and policy makers to understand this unprecedented SIT market and can be used as the benchmarks for their legal and operational practicality. Further, this study highlights research gaps in the tourism literature, and identifies those areas where future study is unlikely to provide new knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to develop both a systematic framework and priorities for comparative and cross‐cultural festival management studies, based on literature review and results of a four‐country study.

This research is based on four samples of festivals in Sweden, Norway, UK, and Australia that are systematically compared. The survey is designed to profile the festivals in terms of vision/mandate, ownership, age, size, assets, venues used, decision‐making structure, and programs. Costs and revenues are examined in some detail, including trends in each category. Festivals' use of volunteers and sponsors are specifically addressed. Levels of dependence on a number of types of stakeholders and other strategic management issues are also explored. Respondents are also asked to respond to statements regarding challenges and threats to their festival and organization.

The empirical research identifies important similarities and differences that exist within the UK, Sweden, Norway, and Australia, by three ownership types, in how festivals are organized, their operations and strategies, stakeholder influences and dependencies, threats, and strategies.

In the recommended framework are five components: antecedents; planning and management; planned event experiences and meanings; outcomes and the impacted and dynamic patterns; and processes. Specific points of comparison are enumerated within each component, foundation theories and concepts are identified, and some research priorities suggested for each.

The framework developed in this paper can help advance both the process and applications of comparative festival studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore literary festivals in Ireland and gain an understanding of the vision and strategic approaches of the stakeholders involved in their development and management.

This qualitative research study explores literary festivals in terms of how these are managed and developed, as well as the experiences offered, from a supply-side perspective. The research and data collection instruments include bibliographic research and a series of in-depth interviews.

The strategic vision and approaches of the founders and directors are critical to the success of literary festivals. The findings of this study provide insights into the stages of festival professionalization, as it explores the development and management of six literary festivals in Ireland.

This study is essentially exploratory in nature. This topic is under-represented in the literature and there is potential to extend this research into a more extensive study of literary festivals from the perspective of key stakeholders. This study was limited by the challenges and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the festival and events industry.

Against a backdrop of increasing numbers and popularity of literary festivals and related events in Ireland, this study could influence the development and promotion of this sector. Furthermore, the findings identify strategies adopted by festival founders and managers, and this is likely to be of interest to stakeholders at national and international levels.

Even though literary festivals have proliferated in Ireland over the past 20 years, there is a dearth of academic research in this area. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study exploring a range of literary festivals in Ireland. The research focuses on literary festivals from a “supply” rather than “demand” perspective. Moreover, it discusses the evolution and development of literary festivals as well as the vision of the key stakeholders involved in their management.

The music festival industry is challenged by intense competition and financial exigency. As a result, many festivals have either folded or are currently struggling. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to show that motivator-hygiene-professional (MHP) strategic capabilities (SCs) are positively associated with quality music festival management thereby providing a playbook for potentially mitigating these challenges.

The mixed methods research design comprised a case study of a leading event management company as well as nation-wide in-depth interviews and questionnaire survey. The authors initially confirmed the nature of the challenges to the industry from the case study and the in-depth interviews. The authors then developed an MHP Model of 15 SCs that were identified from the literature and the qualitative research. The relationship of the MHP SCs model to quality music festival management was tested in the questionnaire survey.

The respondents suggested that all the SCs were related to quality music festival management. However, Professional SCs were considered comparatively less important than motivator and hygiene SCs. Across all three groups, interviewees highlighted the significance of artists, site and operational planning, financial and stakeholder management and ticket pricing. In addition, careful planning, delegation and quality focus, problem solving, resolve and flexibility, leadership and vision, communication and innovation were considered conducive to the quality management of music festival organisations.

The MHP SCs model and dimensions of quality management offer music festival event managers a detailed practical playbook for moderating challenges to music festival management. In essence the authors provide the specific drivers that festival managers should best focus their attention upon. Visionary leadership, artist differentiation, innovation, customer service and flexible management have priority.

The findings add to the festival management literature by demonstrating the importance of motivator, hygiene and additional professional SCs for moderating challenges to the music festival industry. To the best of authors’ knowledge, no previous studies have directly investigated specific SCs critical for quality event and festival management. In particular, the academic significance of this paper is that the authors have combined Herzberg’s motivator and hygiene factors with SCs, which are in essence success drivers, to create a novel holistic MHP SCs model for quality music festival management. Further explanatory insight is gained by the addition of a third factor of professional SCs.

The place of festivals in national economic development has received increased attention from researchers globally. However, there appears to be a relatively small and disparate literature on the subject especially within the Ghanaian context. The study seeks to contribute to the global recognition of festivals as developmental tools and thus presents the effects of festival tourism on socio-economic capital of the people of Kwahu traditional area (Ghana) and how festival tourism in the region engenders economic benefits to businesses and the community.

This study is guided by the social development theory. A quantitative cross-sectional survey utilizing convenience technique was used to gather data from a sample of 398 residents of the selected towns and the regression model was used to analyse the data.

The findings revealed festival tourism to have a positive effect on community cohesiveness but not statistically significant. Further, the festival brought economic gains but had negative social effects on development of the selected towns.

This research is destination-specific. The application of the findings to other festivals would demand a bigger sample size for generalisation to be made.

The findings suggest that for growth of festival tourism in Ghana to be actualised, the Ghana Tourism Authority needs to ensure festivals do not erode entrenched traditional values and negate efforts at developing social structures and systems by putting measures to reduce the negative effect of commoditisation of festivals on the communities' cultural authenticity. Law enforcement agents should also be massively beefed up to curtail crime and social vices.

The study's findings extend earlier studies to extend the scope in festival tourism literature. This study found that festival tourism has effect on both community cohesion and economic development of the people of Kwahu traditional area.