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Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the fast growth of online music festivals. This paper explores how festivalgoers' experience affects their satisfaction and drives their loyalty to re-attend online music festivals in China. Design/methodology/approach Based on an understanding of the music festival experience and the characteristics of live-streamed performances, this paper investigates five factors that affect festivalgoers' satisfaction and loyalty, namely the music experience, ambience experience, separation experience, social experience and novelty experience. The relationships between festivalgoers' experience, satisfaction and loyalty are also explored using structural equation modelling techniques. Findings The empirical results suggest that four of the above-mentioned five factors of the online music festival experience directly affect festivalgoers' satisfaction and loyalty. The online mode is a rapid adaptation of and preferred alternative to offline music festivals, whilst the creation of the experience, along with satisfaction with and loyalty to the online music festival, are determined by different factors compared to offline modes. Overall festival satisfaction positively enhances the relationship between festivalgoers' experience and loyalty to online music festivals. Practical implications This study offers a range of practical and managerial implications for organisers of online music festival, similar activities such as live-streaming concerts and stage performances and hybrid events. Originality/value This study explores a phenomenon that has evolved quickly since COVID-19 and will, potentially, have an ongoing and enduring impact on the music festival sector. It differentiates the understanding of festivalgoers' experience in online and offline modes, which is a new addition to the literature. It also enriches the theoretical understanding of the experience of, satisfaction with and loyalty to online music festivals.
Wang et al. (2024) studied this question.