The experience economy approach to festival marketing: vivid memory and attendee loyalty

TLDR

A desirable experiential environment is a key competitive advantage in the festival industry, and understanding attendees’ experience is essential because it predicts future behavior. The study pioneers the evaluation of vividity of memory in festivals by identifying four experience dimensions (education, entertainment, esthetics, escapism) and examining their impacts on memory vividness and loyalty. The study surveyed 338 VEISHEA festival attendees and used confirmatory factor analysis, regression, and structural equation modeling. Experience positively affects vivid memory, which in turn boosts loyalty; all four dimensions influence memory vividness, but only entertainment and esthetics directly affect loyalty, suggesting marketers should design activities around these dimensions.

Abstract

Purpose – A desirable experiential environment is an essential source of competitive advantage in the festival industry. Understanding festival attendees' experience is imperative for festival organizers because attendees' experience is a predictor of their future behavior. With the experience economy concept of Pine and Gilmore (1998), the study identified four underlying dimensions of festival attendees' experience (education, entertainment, esthetics, and escapism) and examined the impacts of these experience dimensions on festival attendees' vividity of memory and loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from online surveys completed by 338 attendees of VEISHEA festival. This study employed confirmatory factor analysis, regression analysis, and structural equation modeling to achieve its goals. Findings – Experience has a positive effect on vivid memory, which consequently influences loyalty. Each dimension of experience economy significantly influences vividity of memory. However loyalty is affected only by the entertainment and esthetics dimensions. Practical implications – Festival marketers are advised to design activities that provide memorable experiential products and services for attendees based on the four dimensions of the experience economy. Originality/value – The study is a pioneer in the evaluation of vividity of memory to the festival context.