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The purpose of this paper is to conduct a within-gender analysis and between-gender differences in seeking (personal and interpersonal) and escaping (personal and interpersonal) motivations to attend a non-traditional festival in Saudi Arabia. Specific objectives were: to conduct a within-gender analysis in motivations to attend a non-traditional festival in Saudi Arabia; and to examine between-gender differences in motivations to attend a non-traditional festival in Saudi Arabia.

Based on the data collected from 458 attendees at a non-traditional festival in Saudi Arabia, the authors employed network analysis for within-gender analysis and MANOVA and ANOVA for between-gender comparison. The network analysis served two purposes, in that it examined each item’s predictability for each gender, and analyzed the correlations among motivation items within each gender. In addition, the General Linear Model served to compare the male and female groups’ motivations to attend the non-traditional festival. The authors first performed MANOVA for each dimension and then ANOVA for each dimension’s individual items.

Within-gender analysis reveals that several sets of motivations were associated strongly for both genders. This suggests that Saudi Arabians seem to enjoy entertainment because it projects the festival mood; they want to escape both from home and work and attend the festival to relieve stress by changing their routine pace. However, gender differences were apparent in several other items, especially for the group of women. Between-group comparison analysis shows significant gender differences in several elements of motivation. Overall, personal seeking and escaping were greater for males than females. In contrast, interpersonal seeking was greater for females than males.

Entertainment seems to be a key contributor to the festival mood because entertainment and the festival mood were related closely for both genders. In fact, personal and interpersonal escaping means were greater than personal interpersonal seeking means for both genders. Indeed, opportunities exist to develop non-traditional festivals in the country further. Gender differences were identified in several items of personal seeking and escaping, and interpersonal seeking. With respect to personal seeking, men tend to seek the entertainment, festival mood and the event’s uniqueness more than do women, a finding that their higher means in personal escaping supported. It is clear that men view the festival as a way to enjoy themselves to escape from their jobs and daily stress to a greater degree than do their female counterparts. Women are more likely to seek interpersonal experiences in that they are more likely to enjoy the festival because it offers the opportunity to meet new people and spend quality time with family and friends. This study has several limitations, leading to suggestions for future research. Because seeking and escaping motivations have been used relatively little in the festival setting, future researchers should develop a valid scale of personal and interpersonal seeking and escaping motivations specifically for festivals employing both qualitative and quantitative methods. Second, while the data were collected at a single non-traditional festival, future research can use multiple sites to increase the ability to generalize the findings. Third, although this study was limited to Saudi Arabia, further research can apply seeking and escaping motivations, both at the personal and interpersonal levels, to other cultures to extend the applicability of the framework used in this study.

Non-traditional festival managers need to focus on an atmosphere that provides festivities, as many people in the Saudi Arabian culture appear to be escaping from their everyday lives to enjoy themselves and with family and friends. To appeal to male workers, festival organizers and managers need to advertise and market the events’ mood and liveliness overall with photos of workers leaving the office free of stress and looking forward to attending an event. To appeal to women who desire unique experiences that a variety of forms of entertainment provide, event managers must ensure that the entertainment is innovative and creative, and differs from what other festivals provide to attract more female attendees. Also, festival planners must focus on events that incorporate the family unit and promote the opportunity to meet new people to appeal to women in Saudi Arabia.

This is the first study to examine gender differences in festival motivations in Saudi Arabia. The relaxation of the historically strict and conservative cultural values, coupled with the country’s desire to develop its tourism and event sector, provides an ideal opportunity for future research. The authors hope that this research will stimulate further interest in the country with the goal to develop and market its tourism sector and products on the world’s stage.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether visitors’ seeking and escaping motivations influence the cognitive evaluation of a non-traditional festival in Saudi Arabia, which in turn leads to the sense of joy and subsequent word-of-mouth publicity. In Saudi Arabia, leisure and tourism opportunities are limited and many Saudis have a strong desire for new leisure experiences. Although the government and event organizers have made efforts to provide visitors with unconventional experiences at non-tradition-based festivals, these festivals have not attracted many Saudi Arabian visitors.

A quantitative methodology was used based on the on-site data collected from 458 visitors attending the Abha summer festival in Saudi Arabia. A structural equation modeling was used to test the relationships among seeking motivations, escaping motivations, cognitive evaluation, sense of joy and word-of-mouth.

The result reveals that two seeking motivations (i.e. food and entertainment) and two escaping motivations (i.e. diversion and escape) influence cognitive evaluation, which in turn influences their sense of joy and ultimately word-of-mouth. However, novelty, a seeking motivation, does not influence cognitive evaluation.

The authors limited the study of seeking and escaping motivations to one non-traditional festival in Saudi Arabia. Further studies can use multiple festivals to increase generalizability to non-traditional festivals in Saudi Arabia. Another extension of this study would be to examine these motivations in both traditional and non-traditional festivals in Saudi Arabia to assess to what extent visitors’ seeking and escaping motivations are fulfilled in each type of festival.

Diversion motivation is the most important factor for non-traditional festival organizers to consider in developing strategies to attract more visitors in Saudi Arabia.

This paper is the first that applies Iso-Ahola’s motivation theory and the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion in the non-traditional festival setting in Saudi Arabia.

Concepts of health and wellbeing have long been conceived as relevant to leisure, recreation and rejuvenation. These are now conceived as being necessary and useful as potential measures of success in community development and in that subset of leisure and recreation pursuits that is designated as tourism at a destination. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

A post-modern approach to development of community and markers of sustainable development more-or-less correspond to sustainable development goals (there are 17) that often overlay the concepts of good health and wellbeing that concern all stakeholders.

This paper encompasses best practice experiences from two case studies conducted in a tourism “hot spot” in the environs of the first National Park established in Derbyshire in the UK. There is some urgency about this topic as resources for community development are increasingly under pressure from local, central government and the expectation is now that local communities take full responsibility for that development. An inter-disciplinary approach using concepts of health and wellbeing is recommended.

Wellbeing may demand a greater allocation of scarce resources in an era of self-determination, bottom-up and locally sourced community aspiring to become, or remain, a destination of choice. Two case studies’ outcomes in this development are presented with a special focus on creation of a repository for the know-how and know what of the learning acquired.

Ratings grids, emerging from personal construct theory, measure an individual's perception of a situation. This paper and exercises seek to demonstrate how researchers and managers can use the grid to evaluate visitors' perceptions of an attraction or event.

A training exercise explains how to use the ratings grid, a type of repertory grid, to evaluate tourist attractions or special events. A ratings grid example analyzes visitors' impressions of an art festival (n=142). The steps taken for grid development, administration strategy, and analysis are discussed and described.

The results suggest that visitors' impressions of the art festival are consistent with the festival's communication objectives. These findings suggest that the art festival presents itself to visitors accurately.

Ratings grids are designed to examine only the elements a researcher selects. Important elements to respondents may be overlooked using this test, and the researcher will not get an accurate measure of respondents' attitudes.

The exercise provides guidance to a useful method for measuring visitor perceptions and allows researchers and managers to understand visitor experiences better.

The present study aims to investigate resident attendees' perceptions and attitudes towards a traditional cultural festival. It further clusters the attendees and identifies the profiles of each cluster based on its demographic, attitudinal and behavioral variables.

The Drunken Dragon Festival, a traditional cultural festival in Macao SAR, which has been embedded in the local community for about a century, is used as a case. Data collected from 378 residents on the day of the festival were factor analyzed and then grouped by using cluster analysis.

A two-cluster solution revealed that the two groups, overall, had distinct demographic characteristics and had somewhat different perceptions and attitudes towards the festival.

The results not only show the overall perceptions of the Drunken Dragon Festival among the resident attendees, but they also imply that the government and the organizers need to communicate with and involve the two resident attendee clusters differently.

This study is one of the first attempts to investigate the residents' attitudes towards the transformational development of a traditional cultural festival as an effort to ensure the viability of intangible cultural heritage and to utilize it as a tourism resource.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the traditional practices of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH) through “Guthi”, that is continued by the indigenous community of Kathmandu Valley. It explores the ancient system as a management practice rather than just a social costume. By analyzing existing laws and policies relevant to intangible heritage of Nepal, it aims to find scope for the Guthi in the formal heritage conservation practice and its relevancy in present context of 2003 Convention, where community participation plays a pivotal role.

To study the traditional method of safeguarding heritage “Guthi system”, the case of “Yehya Punhi Festival” also known as “Indra Jatra” of Kathmandu was taken as a case. Qualitative research methodology was used to study various sub festivals within Yenya, its functions, funding mechanism and its way of continuity by Guthi. Review of various legislations associated with the heritage of Nepal, published and unpublished official documents as well as international conventions and recommendations were done. In addition to semi-structured interview with Guthi members, experts and locals; the observation of eight days long festival was also conducted,

The study found that traditional Guthi system still holds a strong value in the social structure and safeguarding of traditional practices even with negative impact of modernization. Guthi is the main reason for the continuity of the Yenya Punhi festival, along with various associated rituals, while the national legislations of Nepal do not recognize Guthi as a safeguarding practice. Traditional practice could be a way forward for implementation of 2003 convention in Nepal when Nepal has already ratified the convention. Guthi could be sustainable way of safeguarding heritage if integrated well in the formal heritage practices.

Guthi has been studied by many researchers from anthropological perspectives and even conservation for tangible heritage but not as a mechanism of safeguarding ICH. Guthi could be one of the excellent examples of Safeguarding Intangible Heritage and could also be a good recipe for management with community participation, sustainability and indigenous knowledge. More research and publication like this is necessary to push government to look into homegrown solutions than implementing new management plan.

Contemporary outdoor rock and popular music festivals offer liminoidal spaces in which event participants can experience characteristics associated with the carnivalesque. Festival goers celebrate with abandonment, excess and enjoy a break from the mundane routine of everyday life. The purpose of this paper is to explore the way gender is negotiated in the festival space.

The rock and popular music tribute festival, known as “Glastonbudget” provides the focus for this conceptual paper. A pilot ethnographic exploration of the event utilising photographic imagery was used to understand the way in which gender is displayed.

It is suggested that liminal zones offer space to invert social norms and behave with abandonment and freedom away from the constraints of the everyday but neither women nor men actually take up this opportunity. The carnivalesque during Glastonbudget represents a festival space which consolidates normative notions of gender hierarchy via a complicated process of othering.

This is a conceptual paper which presents the need to advance social science-based studies connecting gender to the social construction of event space. The ideas explored in this paper need to be extended and developed to build upon the research design established here.

There is currently a paucity of literature surrounding the concept of gender within these festival spaces especially in relation to liminality within events research.

This paper aims to uncover how social media is used, managed, and perceived by sports and entertainment venue (SEV) managers. While there is considerable evidence that social media has been used effectively by Fortune 500 companies, it is not known how social media is administered and perceived among managers of arenas, stadiums, performing art centers, and convention centers.

This paper used survey methodology to capture the perceptions of 383 venue management professionals, all members of the International Association of Venue Managers (IAVM).

Most venue managers feel their social media efforts are proficient or at the expert level and most have a defined social media strategy. Others feel much less confident about their social media efforts and have no defined social media strategy. At a statistically significant level, those with a defined social media strategy report increased revenue, while those without a defined social media strategy do not. Venue managers forecast a significant increase in non‐traditional marketing strategies while using traditional marketing efforts over the next three years far less.

While the 383 responders are IAVM active members who are in venue management, they reasonably represent SEV managers in general and these survey results can be generalized to SEV managers with an overall conservative margin of error of ±5.0 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. The survey was conducted online by e‐mail invitation. While using the online media to deliver a survey related to the proliferation of various online activities was, at one time, questionable and, potentially, a source of responder bias, the current level of saturation of e‐mail use by and comfort with online activity of professionals mitigates these likely sources of responder bias and is not a source of additional concern with this study.

The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and a recommendation that venue managers define a social media strategy that includes hiring or reassigning staff to support this important area of social media marketing.

This paper is unique in that examines social media use in the unique context of SEVs.

This paper responds to a range of theory and industry reporting, to provide an informed narrative which explores the current state of accessibility at UK festivals for people who are Deaf or disabled and the potential implications of developments in ICT for enhancing design, marketing, operations and performances across all phases of festival delivery, in order to improve inclusivity and accessibility. To this end, the paper addresses the following question: What do representatives of the UK live music industry perceive as barriers to accessibility and exemplars of current best practice for music festival attendees who are Deaf or disabled? What do representatives of the UK live music industry consider as the role of ICT to increase accessibility for music festival attendees who are Deaf or disabled?

Primary research focused on supply-side considerations with a sample group of 10 UK live music industry professionals. The scope of the research was limited geographically to England and by artform to open-air music festivals, venues which host some music festival provision and a Sector Support Organisation. Open questions elucidated qualitative information around; awareness of accessibility and inclusivity initiatives; potential for co-creation; non-digital improvements; current technological influences; and potential digital futures for accessible “live” experiences. A conceptual framework was constructed and semi-structured face-to-face interviews were carried out with six respondents, and four respondents completed a structured, self-administered e-mail questionnaire.

Findings include: ICT can facilitate enhanced dialogue with existing and potential audience members who are Deaf or disabled to both; reduce existing social exclusion (Duffy et al., 2019) and improve the visitor experience for all attendees. All respondents agreed that physical enhancements are important and some mentioned communications and customer care. Respondents reported increasingly ambitious usages of ICT at music festivals, which may support suggestions of a virtual experience trend (Robertson et al., 2015). Online ticketing systems have potential to grant equal functionality to people who are Deaf or disabled, as recommended by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (2015). Respondents broadly welcomed the potential for positive impacts of ICT on increasingly accessible live experiences at music festivals which retained a sense of authenticity and “liveness”. Challenges around “as live” ICT-derived experiences were identified including risks of creating second-class experiences for Deaf and disabled attendees.

The limitations of this case study include the small sample size and limited scope.

Promoters should: consider further developing the co-creation of accessibility initiatives, utilising ICT to both deliver improvements and engage with potential audience members who are Deaf or disabled. Seek to pro-actively recruit staff members who are Deaf or disabled and significantly increase their programming of performers who are Deaf or disabled. Consider reviewing their ticketing processes for music festivals, to identify accessibility challenges for audience members and implement appropriate ICT-based solutions. Consider maximising accessibility benefits for audience members who are Deaf or disabled from existing ICT provision on site and explore additional bespoke ICT solutions at music festivals.

Adopting the best practices described across the festival sector may improve inclusivity for disabled people at music festivals and other events. Event management educators should consider reviewing provision to ensure that best practice is embedded around accessibility for audience members who are Deaf or disabled. Additional public funding should be provided to drive ICT-derived improvements to accessibility for audience members who are Deaf or disabled at smaller-scale music festivals. Further research should be considered around inclusive approaches to digital experiences within a music festival environment for audience members who are Deaf or disabled and tensions between accessibility and notions of “liveness”.

The “snapshot” of digital aspects of accessibility at UK festivals within this research is of particular value due to paucity of other research in this area, and it's narrative from varied industry professionals. The paper makes recommendations to promoters, academics and public funders, to attempt to advance inclusion (or at least to mitigate current exclusion) and identify directions for future research into accessible digital experiences at music festivals for people who are Deaf or disabled.