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Journal of Strategic Marketing
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The relative importance of the brand
of music festivals: a customer equity
perspective
Mark A.A.M. Leenders a
a Department of Marketing and Strategy , Amsterdam Business
School, University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Published online: 23 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Mark A.A.M. Leenders (2010) The relative importance of the brand of music
festivals: a customer equity perspective, Journal of Strategic Marketing, 18:4, 291-301, DOI:
10.1080/09652541003768061
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09652541003768061
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The relative importance of the brand of music festivals: a customer
equity perspective
Mark A.A.M. Leenders*
Department of Marketing and Strategy, Amsterdam Business School,
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
(Received 16 March 2009; final version received 9 December 2009)
The aim of the paper is to examine the relative impact of tangible and intangible factors
on the success of music festivals. The paper draws on literature relating to hedonic
consumption, customer equity, loyalty, and the success of music festivals. Data are
collected among music festival goers by means of structured interviews in the
Netherlands, one of the leading music festival markets in the world. The results show
that brand equity aspects such as image, festival atmosphere associations, and
(anticipated) emotions are most important for loyalty. Value equity (i.e. ticket price)
plays some role but is less important than brand equity components. Interestingly, the
program of the festival does not seem to affect loyalty in the current environment.
Relationship equity components seem to play a marginal role at best. Implications for
strategic marketing decisions in cultural industries are discussed.
Keywords: music festivals; success; loyalty; customer equity; hedonic consumption
Introduction
Cultural industries such as music and film are becoming more prominent in the marketing
literature. Especially the motion picture industry has received much attention with respect
to theater success of movies, the role of critics and awards, and consumption behaviors in
general (Eliashberg, Elbertse, & Leenders, 2006; Gemser, Leenders, & Wijnberg, 2008).
Other creative industries that have attracted considerable academic attention are theater,
television, opera, and festivals (Conway & Whitelock, 2007; Holbrook & Hirschman,
1982; Leenders, van Telgen, Gemser, & van der Wurff, 2005; Prentice & Andersen, 2003).
Festivals in general and music festivals in particular obtain growing recognition for
enhancing a region’s image and appeal, improving recreational opportunities, contributing
to local and regional economies and enhancing local pride and culture (Frey, 1994).
Some festivals have developed from hippy gatherings to mega-events in recent years
(Koranteng, 2004). Others have stayed close to their local roots and draw audiences from
their local communities. Music festivals like PinkPop in the Netherlands, the Reading and
Glastonbury festivals in the UK, and Roskilde in Denmark, belong to the oldest in the
world. These widely known festivals belong to thousands of music festivals in the USA,
Europe, and the rest of the world, and hundreds of music festivals in the Netherlands alone,
covering all genres and formats (Leenders et al., 2005).
In this study, the focus is the relative effectiveness of key marketing investment
initiatives by festival organizations. Festival organizations in particular and cultural
ISSN 0965-254X print/ISSN 1466-4488 online
q2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09652541003768061
http://www.informaworld.com
*Email: m.a.a.m.leenders@uva.nl
Journal of Strategic Marketing
Vol. 18, No. 4, July 2010, 291–301
Downloaded by [RMIT University] at 20:42 18 March 2014
organizations in general, face many issues that are similar to other types of organizations
such as competition, succession, new technologies, and globalization. However, cultural
and artistic organizations are also different in a sense that customer orientation seems to be
less important and often needs to be balanced with other non-commercial priorities
(Conway & Whitelock, 2007; Voss & Voss, 2000). Proper budgeting, finding subsidies,
and booking artists seem to be essential for the survival of most music festivals. Several
festivals have experimented with the dates the festival is held in order to evade strong
(inter)national competition and to let it fall in the period of school holidays. Others
have experimented with extending the scope in terms of genres and other art forms.
Nonetheless, a growing number of festivals have experienced difficulties in attracting
sufficient visitors or have gone bankrupt in recent years. Even large and established
festivals such as PinkPop have experienced problems in getting sold out lately. In 2006,
PinkPop thought it needed an established ‘stadium act’ like the Red Hot Chili Peppers to
sell sufficient tickets, putting pressure on budgets and ticket prices.
So far, research has mainly focused on the economic impact of festivals on the region
and the impact of pricing and the programming on the success of festivals (Leenders et al.,
2005). However, there are more aspects of the festival experience that can be managed by
the festival organization and therefore a broader view on marketing is needed. Festival
organizers thus need to keep looking for new, innovative ways by which they can
differentiate themselves and stay attractive to visitors.
The key question in this study is what drives audiences and what matters most to
audiences in the music festival market. To answer the above question, this study not only
focuses on the programming and the format of the festival but also on the brand, the
experience, and the relationship between audiences and the festival. This introduces more
potential intangible, hedonic determinants of success. In addition, music festivals are not
only an interesting setting where research is narrow and lagging but since festivals are held
every year, music festivals can provide insight into the relative importance of the brand
versus the incidental programming of artists and other strategic marketing investments.
The theoretical underpinning of our model is provided by research on customer equity
(Rust, Lemon, & Narayandas, 2005) – a stream of research focusing on loyalty and the
discounted monetary value of all current and future customers. This research has shown
that there are three components that drive the long term value of customers: the brand
(brand equity); the value of the product (value equity); and the relationship (relationship
equity). The relative value of these components is likely to differ across industries and the
key focus of this study is to investigate where the next marketing dollar in the music
festival industry should go. It can go to the program (invest in acts) and the pricing
(reducing the price), for example, to the brand (awareness, associations), logistics,
experience, or new technologies (e.g. waiting lines, facilities, direct mail, internet, etc.).
The outline of the article is as follows; first a review of the relevant literature of
music festivals, hedonic consumption, and customer equity is presented. After that, the
conceptual model of the drivers of music festival success will be presented. Then, the data
and measures are described and the findings of the research will be discussed. The article
will end with the key findings and managerial implications.
Theoretical framework
Nowadays most countries, regions, and cities have a musical festival such as a jazz
festival, a rock festival, or a classical music festival. Festivals are considered as one of the
fastest growing types of tourism attractions (Thrane, 2002). Nevertheless the growth in the
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festival market is not obvious anymore and the problems of competition will become more
visible in the near future (Leenders et al., 2005). Frey (1994) found that the past growth of
festivals can be explained from the demand side as well as from the supply side. There is
more demand for festivals because of an increasing availability of time for leisure and
holidays and besides this there is an increasing demand for culture as well. Because of the
large increase in real disposable income since 1945, people have the possibility to spend
more money on holidays and cultural entertainment (Frey, 1994). Even in 2008 when the
financial crisis was entering the arena, Live Nation – one of the biggest festival organizers
in Europe (and other live music events) argued that they were seeing no slowdown in their
business (Live Nation, 4th Quarter results 2008, press release, 2 March 2009). In general,
there is more and more emphasis on live music, relative to recorded music.
From the supply side, Frey (1994) gives the explanation that the number of festivals is
growing because of the evasion of the restrictions imposed on high artistic activity in
concert halls and opera houses. Another reason is the possibility of gaining high rents by
exploiting the comparatively low marginal cost of producing festivals. It turns out that
festivals are an important means of overcoming the tendency of ever increasing deficits of
live artistic performances (Frey, 1994).
Getz (1991) also named different business reasons that can explain the growth of
festivals like fund-raising or private profit. In addition, he mentions – besides increased
income – leisure time and leisure interests, also socio-demographic trends as a reason for
the growing interest in visiting festivals.
Visiting music festivals can be seen as a form of hedonic consumption (Voss,
Spangenberg, & Grohmann, 2003). Consumption can be conceived as a wide range of
activities and states of being encompassing leisure activities, aesthetics, symbolic
meanings, variety seeking, hedonic responses, daydreaming, creativity, emotions, and
artistic endeavors. All these aspects together can, according to Holbrook and Hirschman
(1982), be categorized under the ‘experiential perspective of consumption’ (Hackley &
Tiwsakul, 2006). According to Batra and Ahtola (1990) consumer attitudes are inherently
bi-dimensional, because consumers purchase goods and services and perform consumer
behavior for two basic reasons: (1) consumatory affective (hedonic gratification) from
sensory attributes; and (2) instrumental, utilitarian reasons. All products may carry a
symbolic meaning, but in the case of entertainment and the arts the symbolic role is
excessively rich and salient (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982). Products like movies,
concerts, plays, and novels can evoke complex fantasies and fulfill deep-seated and salient
emotional needs (Eliashberg et al., 2006). As a result, emotional aspects of the experience
will be included in this study and brands play an important role here. According to Rust et al.
(2005, p. 238) brands can build customer awareness and recognition and they can build an
‘emotional brand-based tie with the customer’.
The question what factors (tangible or intangible) have more influence on the success
of music festivals and where do festival organizers need to focus upon to differentiate
themselves is not easy to answer. Leenders et al. (2005) investigate the tangible factors of
success of music festivals in the Netherlands. These factors can be seen as value equity
assets as they relate to the price/quality of the offered experience (Rust et al., 2005). Value
equity is one of the components of overall customer equity: the total of the discounted
lifetime values summed over all of the firm’s current and potential customers (Rust et al.,
2005). Customer equity exists of three key drivers: (1) value equity; (2) brand equity;
(3) relation (retention) equity. Building customer equity is critical to a firm’s long-term
success of any organization and is primarily affected by loyalty (Gupta, Lehmann, &
Ames Stuart, 2004).
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In this research, customer equity literature is used to come up with a model that takes a
comprehensive view on what drives success of music festivals. By combining customer
equity models with insights from studies on success factors in cultural industries, I also
provide one of the first comprehensive models of customer equity drivers in a non-
traditional industry such as the music festival industry.
1
The conceptual model is presented
in Figure 1.
The model in Figure 1 is both comprehensive and operationalized toward a specific
cultural industry. Although the industry specific nature limits the possibilities for broader
generalizations somewhat, the relevance for industries with similar characteristics
becomes much higher (Voss & Voss, 2000). This approach is consistent with marketing
strategy research that indicates that there is a high need for industry specific research
because the relationship between competences and success varies across industries. This is
also in line with earlier research that has shown that value equity is, for example, most
important in car rentals whereas relationship equity (e.g. loyalty programs) is most
important for airlines (Rust et al., 2005).
On the right hand side the dependent variables are presented. The key variable in the
model is loyalty. Loyalty is known to be the most influential driver of customer equity as
future profits from customer relationships are exponentially dependent on loyalty (if 20%
of customers will drop out after one year, it means that the expected profits after two years
Brand features
Associations and image
Good experience (having fun)
Atmosphere during the event
Emotions
Festival success
- Loyalty
Relationship features
Mailings
Website
Meet & Greets
Contests
Value features
Program
Line-up quality
Having a theme
Ticket price
Figure 1. Conceptual model: determinants of success of music festivals.
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have to be discounted with 36% regardless of the interest rate). Gupta et al. (2004) found
that 1% improvement in retention has almost five times greater impact on customer equity
than discount rate or cost of capital.
On the left hand side, the three drivers of customer equity are specified. The key driver
in this study is the brand. Brand equity influences customer equity in general and loyalty in
particular as follows. First, if customers develop more favorable associations with the
brand, they are more likely to visit the festival more. If the brand is associated with
positive experiences in the past, the visitor is likely to stay loyal. The same is true if the
brand is associated with positive (anticipated) emotions (Rust et al., 2005, p. 238).
From a strategic marketing perspective, the brand cannot be managed in isolation. Any
investment in the brand must compete with investments in value or relationship equity (see
model). In the latter area for example, the internet and new technologies are providing a
wealth of new opportunities for festival organizations. By testing the model, the following
question can be answered: what is the relative importance of value, brand, and relationship
equity in the musical festival market? The method and measurement of the variables will
be discussed next.
Research method
To provide an answer to our research question, we opted for street interviews using a
questionnaire in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is one of the leading festival markets
in Europe in both density and age. The questionnaire took about five minutes to fill out
and this was done in public places. Overall, 200 people were asked to participate and
ultimately 107 questionnaires were collected (54%). The answers relate to the respondent’s
last visited festival. This approach makes sure that answers are not linked to a specific
festival and that we have a range of music festivals in our sample of which the respondent
still has fresh memories. The data were collected in different places in the Netherlands to
establish a good mix of festivals as well. The resulting sample consists of 61 male
respondents and 46 females. The age of all the respondents is between 16 and 55 years. The
mean of the age of the respondents is 25 and the dataset covers 60 different festivals.
Dependent variable
The variables in the conceptual model were operationalized using existing scales as much
as possible.
Loyalty
This is measured by asking the respondents how many times in the next five years they are
planning to go to the music festival. Loyalty is one of the most important performance
metrics in any industry and directly relates to profits and Word of Mouth (WoM) processes
(Rust et al., 2005).
Customer equity
The definition of customer equity relates to the total of the discounted lifetime values
(profits) summed over all of the firm’s current and potential customers (Rust et al., 2005).
Customer life time value is a measure of the future financial value of the customer’s
purchases with an organization. In this research the life time value is measured by means
of asking the respondents the amounts of money the visitors are likely to spend on ticket,
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merchandise, travel, drinks, and food in the next five years. See Gupta et al. (2004) for a
basic version of the model. To simplify the calculations, I focus on future sales instead of
future profits. Given that the profit margins of most festivals are low and probably similar
across festivals, this is quite acceptable.
Independent variable
Value equity
The aim of this research is to find out what the relative impact is of value, brand, and
relationship components on the success of music festivals. The key independent variables
that relate to value are as follows.
Ticket price
The price of the entrance ticket of the festival (in Euros) as paid by the respondent. This is
measured by asking the respondents, by way of an open question, which price they paid for
the ticket.
Travel costs
The costs the respondents had to make for the journey to the event in Euros. This is also
asked through an open question about the travel costs.
Line-up quality
Having a high quality line-up was defined as having a line-up with at least some featuring
stars. This is tested in this research with the statement: ‘At the festival, there are many
famous artists.’ Respondents could point out to what extend they agreed with this
statement on a five-point Likert scale.
Having a theme
A festival is considered to have a theme when it has been organized because of a certain
subject or event or when it chooses to have a special topic. The festival could also have a
message, in this case the festival is organized not only to stage music but also to spread
ideas of a social, political, or religious nature (Leenders et al., 2005). This is measured in
this research with asking the question: ‘The festival had a clearly recognizable theme.’
Themes differ across years and there may be years without a theme, therefore, I categorize
this variable as a value equity variable instead of a brand equity variable.
Brand equity
Image
Image is measured in terms of perceptions and overall attitudes linked to the music festival
and its brand. From the theory it could be expected that image has an influence on the
ability to obtain an audience. In this research this is measured with the statement: ‘The
festival has a positive image.’
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Atmosphere
With atmosphere we measure the emotional states that the visitor experienced during the
last visited music festival, but they may not have been fully conscious of these emotions
while visiting (Peter & Olson, 2008). First the respondents are asked if the atmosphere was
positive and after that they could give the reason and explanation for the atmosphere in
their own words.
Emotions
Emotion, in its most general definition, is an intense mental state that arises automatically
rather than through conscious effort, and evokes either a positive or negative psychological
response (Peter & Olson, 2008). The respondents were asked to answer several questions
about their emotions during the festival. They needed to indicate to what extent they
experienced emotions such as: cheerful; happy; active; relaxed; sad; energetic; tense;
nervous; down; calm; passive; and lazy.
After collecting the data, a factor analysis was done to look for potential data
reduction. It appeared that the factors; ‘cheerful’, ‘happy’, ‘active’, ‘relaxed’, and ‘sad’
(‘sad’ is negatively related) could be computed into one variable (Cronbach’s alpha is .8).
This variable is called ‘happy’ in the analysis. The second computed variable consists of
the factors ‘tense’, ‘active’, and ‘calm’ (calm was reversed) labeled ‘aroused’ (Cronbach’s
alpha is .8). The third computed variable is labeled ‘misery’ and consists of the factors
‘down’, ‘nervous’, and ‘sad’ (Cronbach’s alpha is .6). Not many festivals score high on
this last emotion but still it comes out as a strong dimension of the emotions that may be
present at a music festival. This may be related to alcohol and tense situations resulting
from it and/or the weather.
Relationship equity
Website visits
A website is a set of interconnected web pages, usually including a homepage and
prepared and maintained as a collection of information by the festival organization.
Visiting a website could contribute to the level of loyalty the visitor feels toward a festival.
The respondents are asked if they had visited the music festival website frequently (again
measured with a Likert scale).
Receiving mailings
A mailing is a batch of mail dispatched at one time by the organization of the music
festival to attract (potential) visitors for the event. The respondents were asked if they
received (e-mail) mailings from the organization.
Organizing (online) contests
Another relationship tool the festival organization can use to attract visitors is organizing
contests by which the participant could win a price of a meet and greet for example. This
was measured with the question: ‘The music festival organizes contests and other events
where you can win rewards.’ Since these constructs are easier to measure than for example
emotions, it was decided to mainly focus on single item scales for these constructs
(Rossiter, 2002).
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Analysis and results
Exploring the data
From the data (N¼107), it appears that, in general, the greater part of the respondents
has the intention to return to the festival and 12.1% does not intend to revisit the music
festival. The data show that almost 90% of the attendees were satisfied with their
experience. Of the respondents, 86.9% says that the music festival stood up to their
expectations. The expenditures of the respondents at the festival range from 0 Euro to 900
Euros (about 100 Euro on average). The average ticket price is 29 Euros and the maximum
is 150 Euros.
From the qualitative statements, it showed that good weather, cozy and sociable
company and good music appear to be of great influence on the festival experience (81%
mentioned). In addition, a feeling of solidarity and togetherness and the refreshments play
an important role in the experience as well (76% mentioned). This is in line with Holbrook
and Hirschman (1982) who argue that hedonic aspects are more important than utilitarian
aspects in entertainment and art.
To test the model and to investigate the relationships between the value, brand, and
relationship components of the festival and success (i.e. loyalty), a regression analysis was
conducted. The regression analysis shows some interesting results and the results are
presented in Table 1.
Table 1 shows that festival brand components are most important for loyalty, followed
by the value components (i.e. ticket price), and finally the relationship components.
Overall a significant amount of variance in loyalty is explained (23%, p,.01). With
respect to the brand, the results clearly show that the atmosphere and the (anticipated)
emotions explain most variance. Especially high levels of arousal (beta ¼.28, p¼.01)
and low levels of misery (beta ¼–.22, p¼.03) are associated with higher levels of
loyalty. Follow-up analysis showed that free festivals suffer more from the misery emotion
than others. Alcohol and drug abuse, the weather, lost possessions, and poor logistics (on
site and off site) are sometimes mentioned as well. A positive atmosphere has a direct
influence on loyalty (beta ¼.19, p¼.08). The only relationship component variable that
is just significant, is visiting the website (beta ¼.2, p¼.09).
Table 1. Regression analysis for expected attendance (loyalty) in next five years.
Variable Beta Significance
Value components
Ticket price –.28 .03
Travel expenditures –.01 .45
Quality line-up –.13 .15
Having a theme –.07 .27
Brand components
Positive image .17 .08
Positive atmosphere .19 .08
Happy .13 .15
Aroused .28 .01
Misery –.22 .03
Relationship components
Visiting website .20 .09
Receiving mailings .14 .14
Organizing contests .02 .42
Notes: R
2
¼.231. Significant effects in bold. N¼107.
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Travel expenditures (value component) obtain a negative coefficient but they are not
significant ( p..10). Interestingly, the quality of the line-up has no effect on loyalty in
the current environment. So, festivals that have more quality in the line-up (which is
expensive) currently do not outperform on loyalty after controlling for all the other factors.
Therefore, the next marketing dollar should probably go to non-value components or to
lowering the ticket price (beta ¼– .28, p¼.03).
Robustness checks were run with similar regression models. For some festivals, we
have multiple observations and therefore we pooled the observations to construct one
average data point per festival. This leads to similar results. We also checked whether
multi-collinearity is inflating our explained variance but this is not the case (correlations
between all independent variables r,.4). If we use the measure for customer equity as a
dependent variable instead of loyalty, the results are largely the same as well. However,
ticket price (value component) is somewhat more strongly related to customer equity than
to loyalty. Although this may be a statistical artifact because ticket price is a large part of
the monetary value of the future visits (customer equity), it is interesting to note that the
brand emotions still explain significant variance in the customer equity model as well. The
relationship components apart from the website do not have a significant influence on
customer equity but this does not mean that in the future, relationship innovations will be
unimportant. It merely shows that in today’s festival environment, the website and other
online efforts add little to loyalty and customer equity, relative to the brand for example.
However, since much innovation takes place in this area, this may change dramatically
when more effective tools emerge beyond the website.
Conclusion and discussion
Music festival organizations face trade-offs in their investments in strategic aspects of the
event. Our analyses show that brand equity components – more than value (programming
and ticket price) and relationship components (direct mail, online efforts) – are most
important for success of music festivals in terms of obtaining a loyal following. This shows
that brand and reputation building should play an important role in festival organizations.
Too often, organizers are understaffed and unprofessional and only involved in day-to-day
activities with respect to setting up the program and getting the costs covered. Brand
management should be more important in the future as competition grows.
From earlier research, it appears that people are likely to attend a festival if they think
the festival is going to be exciting, delightful, fun, thrilling, and interesting (Gursoy,
Spangenberg, & Rutherford, 2006). Emotions appear to play a key part in the attendance
and this study shows that festival brands that articulate certain emotions such as happy
and/or aroused create loyal audiences.
2
Having a theme proves to be of no significant
influence on the expected future attendance. This seems to be in contradiction with the
theory of Gursoy et al. (2006) who suggests that having a theme is the dominant reason for
attending a festival because of the uniqueness, symbolic meaning, or the emotional arousal
and imagery it evokes. As mentioned before, emotional arousal has a positive influence and
seems to overtake the theme effect. All these findings point in the direction that the brand, its
reputation, and the emotions that relate to it are a key driver for loyalty in the next few years.
A remarkable earlier finding of the research of Weinberg (1986) was that the name of
the individual performer was not needed to forecast the attendance. In addition, Minor,
Wagner, Brewerton, and Hausman (2004) found that the way the musicians appeared on
stage had little effect on how the visitors experienced the music festival. From our research
it appears that currently the quality of the line-up indeed has no effect on the expected
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future attendance (i.e. loyalty) especially if the brand and the associated emotions are
strong. Anecdotal evidence of the music festival Lowlands in 2008 in the Netherlands
points in the same direction. Before the festival was held, there was some negative
publicity on the program and the lack of top artists. However, after the festival was held,
reviews and anecdotal evidence showed that visitors were again very satisfied. Lowlands
had a line-up that was dominated by less well known acts but still they sold out in a matter
of days. Maybe the image, the emotions and well known name contributes to the fact that
visitors decide to attend the festival in the first place. Maybe a line-up with less well
known artists stressed the unique experience and emotions during the festival even more.
Overall, the conclusion can be drawn that brand components have most prominent and
significant influence on loyalty of the audiences of music festivals (although ticket price is
a factor as well). The influence of value features and relationship features is present but
only just slightly and more research is needed into what these results mean for both new
and existing music festivals.
Strategic marketing implications
For organizers of music festivals, the results of this research suggest that the brand plays
a key role. As a result, music festivals should evaluate how the line-up, price, and
e-commerce/online efforts for example relate to the long term health of the brand. Many
festival organizations seem to be oriented toward the line-up and ticket sales/sponsors but
this research clearly shows that a long term brand strategy is vital.
Interestingly, the prices of tickets seem to be creeping up and are becoming a negative
factor in loyalty in the current environment.
3
Brand features like image, atmosphere, and
emotions attract people, make them loyal, and visitors are likely to spend more money on
high brand equity events. It seems to be important to emphasize aroused emotions.
Interestingly, little evidence is found for the importance of relationship equity in this
creative industry for future attendance and customer equity. It does seem important that
festival organizations keep in touch with their (potential) visitors and other stakeholders
by means of a ‘sticky’ website and mailings, especially because most of the festivals are
held once a year and still have an awareness problem.
Although it is difficult to generalize the results of this research to non-festival
industries, the results show that the (anticipated) experience is ‘made tangible’ in the brand
and that brand equity is probably a very important driver of customer equity in industries
where experiences and hedonic consumption are prominent. This may be true for other
organizations that stage creative products such as the Metropolitan Opera in New York,
the Tushinsky Cinema in Amsterdam, and the film festival in Cannes as well as for all
kinds of other creative/cultural organizations.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Edmee Rijneveld for the data collection and research assistance.
Notes
1. A music festival is defined as an event oriented toward music, where several performers/artists
perform live for an audience. Festivals are commonly held outdoors, and most of the time they
include other activities and attractions besides the performances, such as food and social
activities. Festivals are annual, or repeat at some other interval. Some are organized as for-profit
concerts and others are organized for a particular cause.
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2. We cannot really draw causal conclusions based on our cross-sectional analyses. However, our
regression results, together with the theory, provide strong arguments why building positive
associations and anticipated happy/aroused emotions are important.
3. The data were collected in 2008, pre-banking crisis.
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