Worth it, but will they return? Value-based profiles and the value–intention gap among Generation Z festival attendees

Festival research routinely assumes that favorable value judgments convert into loyalty, yet whether this holds for Generation Z (Gen Z) attendees remains largely untested. This study develops a value-based segmentation of Gen Z attendees of the George Town Festival in Penang, Malaysia, and examines how the resulting profiles align with pull motivation and revisit intention. Composite measures of perceived benefit, perceived affordability, pull motivation, and revisit intention were clustered using K-means, and a two-segment solution was retained on internal validity and stability diagnostics. Two profiles emerged: Value-Assured attendees and Value-Reserved attendees. The segments differed sharply in perceived benefit, affordability, and pull motivation, yet differed only modestly in revisit intention. This value-intention gap suggests that emphatic value endorsement offers a weak guarantee of behavioral loyalty in this cohort. The two profiles also differed in the social context of attendance, with Value-Assured attendees overrepresented in larger parties but indistinguishable from Value-Reserved attendees on gender and occupation. The study positions affordability as a constitutive value cue rather than a background constraint, evidences meaningful intra-cohort heterogeneity among Gen Z festivalgoers, and exposes the fragile link between positive appraisal and repeat attendance. Implications for festival pricing, experience design, and audience communication are discussed.