Rethinking Music Festivals as a Staged Event: Gaining Insights from Understanding Visitor Motivations and the Experiences They Seek

Event managers are increasingly under pressure to develop new strategies that will optimize any competitive advantages that their event may have, while, at the same time, minimizing their operation's vulnerability to external threats and emulation. Yet, for all this, little research has been done to date with respect to visitor engagement in events, such as music festivals, in the Australian setting. With this in mind, the principal aim of this study was to profile visitors who attended the Tamworth Country Music Festival to determine their main motivations for attendance and what aspects of the event have differentiated it from others of its type. Overall, over 1,500 visitor surveys were collected, with results showing that there was a significant difference among festival visitors with respect to their activity engagement, reasons for attending the festival, and assessment of it when comparisons across key study variables were determined. These findings provide clear insights into the changing nature of visitor engagement in the experience economy and the importance of servicing the diverse needs of discrete niche groups who might congregate at a particular event. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.