El pasado 8 y 9 de mayo la doctoranda June Calvo-Soraluze, investigadora pre-doctoral en Ocio y Desarrollo Humano, participó en la tercera reunión de expertos en eventos celebrada en Sheffield Hallam University (Reino Unido) y organizada por ATLAS.
June ya había tomado parte en este grupo de expertos en la pasada edición celebrada en Polytechnic Institute of Leiria de Portugal donde presentó la comunicación titulada: “The transformation of leisure experiences in music festival: New ways to design imaginative, creative and memorable leisure experiences through technology” y que se publicará próximamente en un libro titulado Event Design por la editorial británica Routledge, una de las editoriales más destacadas internacionalmente en el campo académico.
En esta edición 2014 la doctoranda presentó la comunicación titulada: “Stimulating attendees leisure experience at music festivals: Innovative strategies and managerial processes”. Una investigación desarrollada conjuntamente con la doctoranda Ana Viñals Blanco y en la que se analiza el uso que los organizadores de festivales de música hacen de la tecnología y redes sociales para mejorar la experiencia de ocio del público.

Stimulating attendees leisure experience at music festivals: Innovative strategies and managerial processes

June Calvo-Soraluze and Ana Viñals Blanco

There are a number of important qualitative changes in demand which have taken place in recent years, like the rise in education, income and status levels in the market. This means that the general knowledge of the public is growing and so, they have become increasingly demanding and informed. This change along with the greater interest in experiences and creativity and the growing presence of technology, social media and digital platforms is forcing many industries to change the traditional management model to a new one where the main actor is the audience and what they feel and so, the offer is trying to facilitate memorable experiences rather than sell information or just services.

The trend is the same in the case of the event sector and more specifically in the case of music festivals. Current audience do not go to a festival and just listen the concert, they are tweeting, taking photos or videos to upload them, sharing the opinions of the concert with their Facebook or Whatsapp friends, everything at the same time. This show an evolution of the way people attend a festival and a change in the expectations they have of a music event. This transformation makes festival creators and managers to be continually challenged and constantly reinventing their festivals to achieve the attendee reactions they desire. Therefore, festival managers are trying to maximize and enrich the experience taking into account the aspects that nowadays attendees value most like interactivity, participation or emotional bond.

Hence, the goal of this article is to find out what are the innovative strategies and managerial processes that current festivals are carrying out in order to stimulate their attendee’s leisure experience and achieve a more dynamic participation and engagement.