Acta electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 248 MAARIT KINNUNEN Total Festival Experience A Mixed Methods Research Approach to Consumer Experiences in Finnish Cultural Festivals Academic dissertation to be publicly defended with the permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Lapland in lecture hall Castrén on 30 November 2018 at 12 noon. Rovaniemi 2018 Acta electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 248 MAARIT KINNUNEN Total Festival Experience A Mixed Methods Research Approach to Consumer Experiences in Finnish Cultural Festivals Rovaniemi 2018 University of Lapland Faculty of Social Sciences © Maarit Kinnunen Layout: Taittotalo PrintOne Cover photo: J. Pekka Mäkelä Sales: Lapland University Press PL 8123 FI-96101 Rovaniemi Finland tel. +358 40 821 4242 publications@ulapland.fi www.ulapland.fi /LUP University of Lapland Printing Centre, Rovaniemi 2018 Printed work: Acta Universitatis Lapponiensis 381 ISBN 978-952-337-111-8 ISSN 0788-7604 PDF: Acta electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 248 ISBN 978-952-337-112-5 ISSN 1796-6310 Abstract Th e festival experience is one of the main motivations for festival participation. Furthermore, studies reveal that festival experiences contain elements that can be used in building the festival brand; that in turn, increases loyalty, positive media coverage, ticket sales and sponsors’ interest. Th e rationale of the study lies in the need to explore the consumption of the festival experience to fi nd ways of facilitating the experience of the audience. Th e overall aim is to construct a model of the total festival experience consisting of elements present in festivalgoers’ experiences. Furthermore, the objective is to fi nd out possible reasons for the existence of the experience elements. Th us, the study sees if there are diff erences between these elements regarding positive and negative experiences and if festival genre has any infl uence on their importance. Th e main research question is: What are the elements that comprise the total experience for attendees of a cultural festival? A cultural festival is a regularly and professionally organised event at the same place or region, it has several performers and is open for the public. It represents a certain cultural genre off ering a programme that consists of performing or visual arts. Th e total festival experience is an experience that is constructed from the available experience elements by a member of the festival communitas inside the liminoid zone. Th e experience elements are both tangible (food, drink, and so on) and intangible (programme, atmosphere, rules and restrictions, other persons’ behaviour, and so on). Event and festival research are the most important framework for the study since the focus of the study is the core phenomenon of festivals, that is attendees’ experiences. Th e second most important framework is experience research and the study concentrates on identifying the experience elements that festivalgoers describe. Th is study is a mixed methods research (MMR), meaning that the data and analyses of the study employ qualitative and quantitative methods and, most importantly, the results are integrated in meta-inference. Th e intention is to develop a total festival experience model using an abductive mixed methods approach that is missing from the development methods of festival experience models so far. Th is methodological approach, employing the attendees’ own words, enables the construction of a model that reveals new insights. Additionally, the model is applicable to various types of cultural festivals. Th e study relies on a pragmatic stance since any suitable means are used in answering the research question, looking for the characteristics of the festival experience from the attendees’ viewpoint. Th e principal reason for the use of MMR is to get a deeper understanding about the total festival experience, with sub-questions Abstract | 5 shedding light on diff erent angles. Mixed methods are also used for the weakness minimisation point of view since the diff erent methods complement one other. Th e study contains data from 17 cultural festivals all around Finland representing fi ve genres. Th e research is an instrumental multiple-case study, with fi ve cases comprising cultural festival genres of rock music, classical music, dance, fi lm and visual arts. Th e research data includes both primary and secondary data collected in the years 2012 and 2013. Th e data comprises answers to surveys, interviews and empathy-based stories written by attendees. Th e use of diff erent text types enabled collection of descriptions of actual and imagined festival experiences, including those both successful and failed. Positive experience elements were illustrated by the actual state, actual diff erentiators and possible utopia; while the negative experience elements were divided into actual needs for improvement, the possible ruiners of the festival experience and imagined dystopia. Altogether, 1,995 festivalgoers contributed to the research data. Th e aim of this work is to build a total festival experience model. Th is is accomplished by the meta-inference of three published articles and the research data. Th e total festival experience comprises organiser- and attendee-induced experience elements, as well as external experience elements and atmosphere. Th e organiser-induced experience elements include the programme, services, arrangements, crowds, commercialism and/ or non-commercialism and other values, while attendee-induced elements comprise participants, socialising and code of conduct. External experience elements are the place and the weather and/or summer. Atmosphere is constructed from all the previous elements. A further aim was to fi nd out reasons for the existence of the experience elements in the model. Within the positive experience elements, the programme and atmosphere are the main success factors; while the study noted that place, participants, services and arrangements could be diff erentiators creating a competitive edge for festivals. On the other hand, failed arrangements, programme, crowding and services are the biggest threats likely to cause negative experiences. To summarise the genre-specifi c fi ndings, the programme and atmosphere are essential positive experience elements in most of the festival genres. Furthermore, atmosphere is critical in fi lm festivals, essential in music festivals, but less important for dance festivals, and meaningless in visual arts events. On the other hand, services play a major role in negative experiences. Th e validity of the study, or legitimation as preferred in the MMR, was scrutinised from aspects of sampling, inside-outside legitimation, weakness minimisation, paradigmatic mixing, conventional validities of qualitative and quantitative methods, and research ethics. Th e limitations of the study include the issues concerning the transferability of the results and the biases towards rock festivals, female respondents and regular festival attendees. Th e need for future research ranges from studying the additional cultural genres, longitudinal studies and confi rmatory research of the experience elements discovered, to the need for comparative research preferably in the Scandinavian context. 6 | Kinnunen: Total Festival Experience Th e methodological contributions of the study include the use of MMR, the Method of Empathy-Based Stories (MEBS) and multiple-case study in event and festival studies. From the theoretical point of view, the work adds to the festival experience knowledge, emphasising the importance of participants, their socialising and code of conduct for the co-creation of a festival atmosphere. Th e construction of the place identity for locals and non-locals is also stressed. Furthermore, the study scrutinised both positive and negative experience elements, which is a major research gap in (festival) experience research. Th e weight of diff erent experience elements is studied from the aspect of festival genre, whereas most of the experience studies imply incorrectly that the importance of diff erent elements does not vary. Furthermore, there has been a paucity of research on audiences of Finnish festival attendees and this study contributes to the area. Lastly, the theoretical contribution in the research of co-creation is essential. Although the very idea of co-creation was introduced quite early, there are only a few studies in the context of festivals. Finally, the practical contributions reside in the festival management perspectives of diff erentiation, branding and co-creation. Keywords: festivals, experience, audience, mixed methods, MEBS Abstract | 7 Acknowledgements In the spring of 2016 I moved from Helsinki to my summer cottage in Oittila thinking that, being in the middle of nowhere, it would be a perfect place for writing. Wrong! Th ere were many other ‘essential’ things to do like fi shing, painting and cleaning and… Finally, I found suitable locations for writing. It is so great that Viking Line and Tallink have low prices in the late autumn and during the long winter and that the bus trips from Jyväskylä to Helsinki are so cheap. I took over ten cruises from Helsinki to Stockholm and stayed on the boat in the harbour of Stockholm reading and writing while others went on shore for sightseeing, shopping and eating. Th e trips were immensely productive. Th e most important writing retreat was, however, in December 2017 in South Africa as dear friends Marianne and Rainer Backeberg off ered me their beach fl at in Hout Bay, free of charge. Marianne encouraged me further by saying that the fl at had good vibes since their son Nils fi nalised his PhD there. During the same trip, I fi nally met my web friend Debbie van Zyl and her husband Neil, enjoying their hospitality as well. Looking from the study window of the Hout Bay fl at with a view to the windy Atlantic Ocean, I wrote nearly for three weeks, waking up early in the morning as the sun rose and ending by the sunset. Marianne & Rainer, I love you both for what you off ered me! Th e trip to South Africa would not have been possible without the help of my siblings Kari, Pirkko and Ossi who visited our father also on my behalf.