An explorative study on audience involvement in the organization of festivals in the Netherlands

From passive

behavior

to creative

inclusion

University of Amsterdam

Master’s Thesis Business Administration

Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Author: Pip Cloo (10083863)

Supervisor: dhr. drs. A.C.C. Gruijters

Second Supervisor: dhr. dr. W. van der Aa

Date: June 29, 2015

This document is written by Pip Cloo who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

From passive

behavior

to creative

inclusion

An explorative study on

audience involvement

in the organization of

festivals in The Netherlands

An explorative study on

audience involvement

in the organization of

festivals in The Netherlands

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ABSTRACT

There is a high amount of competition in the festival market these days and festivals are trying to come up with unique, new concepts in order to compete. However, inventing something truly new has become more difficult (Schiermer, 2014; Gursoy et al., 2009). Co-innovation seems to be the solution for this problem as it is difficult to imitate because of the experience, co-creation and engagement which form its core (Lee et al., 2012). Burning Man is a festival organized in America which is completely based on co-creation and could offer as an example for the Dutch festival market. This research has been conducted with the goal to formulate recommendations for Dutch festival organizations regarding the use of co-creation. From the literature review it became clear empirical research was necessary as many concepts and processes were found with a complex cohesion and relationship. It was not clear which concepts would become important for the purpose of this research. With the help of empirical research which made use of in-depth interviews it was possible to get insight into how customer involvement plays as role in the festival market in The

Netherlands by interviewing ten festival visitors and two organizers on their thoughts and behavior.

Sub-questions were formulated which offered the ability to get more insights into the current situation and to be able to formulate an advice for the festival organizations. The results show co-creation is used by visitors as a means for self-expression. The value co-creation for co-co-creation festivals is based on emotional experiences and emotional involvement, which makes the character different from ‘normal’ festivals. Freedom is closely related to co-creation and variation is important as it allows for personalization. Customer involvement results in a richer experience which stimulates the creation of unique value where visitors are willing to invest time, energy and effort in. The sense of community is a binding factor and people prefer uniformity over individuality. Based on the results it is recommended for festival organizations to only implement co-creation partly into their set-up in order to answer individual needs and to be unique, but to remain profitable at the same time. Variation is important and there should be a focus on experiences. The visitors should be stimulated to participate by showing them the unique and personal value. However, because co-creation only appeals to a niche and adaptation to the experience takes time it is advised to communicate co-creation in the right way to the audience. The character of a festival should be focused towards freedom in behavior and being. An open culture will stimulate participation and own initiative. Furthermore, it is recommended to create a culture at a festival which makes people feel they are part of a group and to connect them to the festival and others visitors. This will lead to emotional involvement, value creation and more loyalty to the festival.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 3

1.1 The Burning Man concept 4 1.2 Research objective 5 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 6 2.1 Innovation 7 2.2 Co-innovation 7 2.3 Co-creation 8 2.4 Prosumption 9

2.5 Motivation to visit festivals 10

2.6 Self-expression 11

2.7 Value creation 12

2.8 Conclusion 13

3. RESEARCH QUESTION AND RESEARCH PROCESS 15 3.1 Research questions 15 3.2 Research strategy 16

3.3 Data collection 17

3.3.1 Interview guide 18

3.3.2 Sample 19

3.4 First phase of data analysis 20 3.4.1 Main themes and concepts 21 3.4.2 Additional literature and changes 21

3.5 Conclusion 22 4. RESULTS 4.1 Co-creation 24 4.1.1 Variation 25 4.1.2 Contribution 25 4.1.3 Participation 26 4.2 Festival Character 27 4.2.1 Value features and brand features 28 4.2.2 Positive attributes 28 4.2.3 Experience resulting from the festival character 29 4.3 Emotional Experience 30 4.3.1 Freedom 31 4.3.2 Adaptation 31 4.3.3 Personal change 32 4.4 Sense of Community 32 4.4.1 Identification 33 4.4.2 Community feeling 33 4.4.3 Inclusion 35 4.5 Conclusion 35 5. DISCUSSION 36

5.1 How co-creation is used 36 5.2 How experiences are involved with the festival character 38 5.3 How emotional experiences are involved with festivals 40 5.4 The role of the social image 41

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6. RECOMMENDATIONS 45

6.1 The implementation of co-creation 45 6.2 Character of freedom 46 6.3 Stimulating the visitors 47 6.4 Connection to the festival and other visitors 47 6.5 Future research and limitations 48

7. CONCLUSION 49

8. REFERENCE LIST 50

APPENDIX 1: The Ten Principles of Burning Man 54 APPENDIX 2: Interview guide festival visitors 56 APPENDIX 3: Interview guide festival organizations 59 APPENDIX 4: Overview candidates interviews 62 APPENDIX 5: Coding scheme 63 APPENDIX 6: Memos and coding examples 65 APPENDIX 7: Value features and brand features 67 APPENDIX 8: Interview transcript Martijn 69

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1. INTRODUCTION

Festivals are an important aspect of the Dutch culture in summer. Many youngsters seem to spend their leisure time in this period by visiting at least one of the many music events that are taking place. This trend has resulted into strong competition in the Dutch festival market. It often seems to visitors as if there are already too many music festivals to choose from. However, more and more events are organized each year. Large festival organizations such as Lowlands, Pinkpop, and ID&T seem to have more problems with selling tickets for their festivals as a result of the rising competition (Leenders, Telgen, Gemser & Van der Wurff, 2005). If many events are organized, the demand for these happenings will decrease and in turn may lead to high price competition as observed in other media industries. A study by Van der Wurff and Cuilenburg (2001) has indeed shown that this type of competition has led to similarity instead of diversification in the television branch. These results could be extrapolated to the music festival industry as well. Festivals thus have to use a differentiation strategy to avoid a price war. They need to stay innovative and distinguish themselves in order to be different from each other. (Van der Wurff & Cuilenburg, 2001; Larson, 2009). Innovation has shown to be a key factor in the market in order to be competitive and succeed in the market (Lee, Olson & Trimi, 2012). Research has proven that uniqueness is one of the aspects that is important for the attendance rate of visitors and thus cannot be ignored (Gursoy et al., 2009). Festival organizations are trying to come up with new, unique concepts that are eventually copied by others (Schiermer, 2014). It turns out that in this highly competitive and dynamic market, inventing something that is truly new has become increasingly difficult.

One form of innovation that is rising in popularity is innovation, in which experience, co-creation, and engagement form the core. It helps to establish competitive advantage as it is difficult to imitate by competitors. (Lee et al., 2012). This type of innovation seems to be important for festivals, looking at the competition and the demand of the visitors who are constantly looking for new experiences (Larson, 2009). A festival which is already making use of co-creation successfully is Burning Man. This festival exists since 1986 and has been growing in popularity over the past twenty years. It is unique in its character as it is created along the lines of self-expression and co-creation (Gomez, 2013). The festival is not only present in America, but is also stimulating other organizations worldwide to create local Burning Man events, known as ‘regionals’. (Chen, 2012) The most well known regional Burning Man event is AfrikaBurn. Other examples include ‘Midburn’ in Israel, ‘Burning Japan’, and ‘Burners from Belgium’. The Burning Man festival concept seems to be spreading around the world rapidly, as many people are interested in its philosophy. It might set foot in the festival market in The Netherlands as well, which is why it serves as an example for this research wherein there will be looked at the implementation of co-creation into this market.

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1.1 The Burning Man concept

Burning Man takes place every year in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada in The United States of America together with over 50.000 participants from around the world. People need to be selected to be able to participate in this festival and tickets can only be bought at a maximum of two per person which stimulates the authenticity and uniqueness of the event. The concept is mainly based on co-creation, where each unique individual is expected to take part in the festival community in his or her own way by adding something to it. Participants in the event are expected to involve themselves actively in the production and consumption as Burning Man is ‘a work in progress’ when you arrive. The non-profit model of Burning Man is based on ‘gifting and sharing’, meaning that no money is used to pay for food or goods, and everyone exchanges their items or talents instead. (Burning Man, n.d.) The visitors of the event are living according to the Ten Principles (Appendix 1). These principles serve as guidelines for behaviour for all participants and are strictly followed by almost everyone (Gomez, 2013; Chen, 2011). It is for example very important in this festival’s culture to not be influenced by commercialism, known as ‘decommodification’. This is also one of the reasons the festival has managed to stay truly authentic during the past decades. “Burning Man’s apparent rejection of mainstream society and idealistic ethos has led to comparisons between Burning Man and utopian societies” (Gomez, 2013, p. 371). The goal of the event is to create an atmosphere that allows for positive social values. The organization of Burning Man claims that it is not only a festival, but also a culture and a way of living. (Burning Man, n.d.) Burning Man has already set foot in The Netherlands, however the organization has not been present in the festival market itself. The organization called Dutch Burners is at this moment only organizing events and gatherings for ‘Burners’.

The Burning Man festival revolves around the feeling of belonging to a community on the one hand, and individuality, authenticity, and self-expression on the other (Gomez, 2013). A feeling that can also be found in today’s hipster culture (Schiermer, 2014). Self-expression, self-reliance, and also inclusion are very important aspects of this unique gathering (Gomez, 2013). However, it seems contradictory to look at Burning Man as an example for other festivals while simultaneously claiming that festivals should try to be unique. This paradox can also be found in the hipster culture, which is another cultural trend that has emerged over the past years. In this subculture youngsters depart from the mainstream by trying to be different and authentic (Michael, 2013). Here you also see a paradox between individuality and imitation, however this paradox seems to have solved itself within this culture (Schiermer, 2014).

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1.2 Research objective

The goal of this research is to give recommendations to festival organizations regarding the involvement of the audience in festivals by refining existing theory. In order to achieve this research will look into how customer involvement plays as role in the festival market in The Netherlands for

festival organizations and festival visitors. For this research ten festival visitors and two festival

organizations were interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were used in order to get in-depth insights into the thoughts and behaviour of the interviewees regarding the motivations for visiting festivals and the participation at festivals. This research will focus on The Netherlands as this country has one of the largest festival industries in the world and for this reason the outcome will be most relevant for this specific country.

In case the implementation of co-creation is having a positive influence on the success of festivals this could mean a change for their future and the discovery of a new strategy that festival developers could use. Every new festival based on self-creation, as seen at Burning Man, might be a unique experience. This potentially offers new opportunities for organizations in the festival market in The Netherlands.

The outline for this paper is as follows. First the Literature Review will discuss the research that has already been done in the field and will reveal that empirical research is necessary into the use and experiences of co-creation at festivals in The Netherlands to be able to give recommendations. In the section on the Research Question and Research Process the leading questions for the research are defined, the set-up of the research is outlined and some of the changes along the research process are covered. After this, the Results section will reveal the most important findings of the empirical research which form the basis for the recommendations. The Discussion will connect these findings with theory as found in the literature review and answer the research questions. The section on Recommendations will address the advice for festival organizations based on the empirical research in combination with the literature study and will give direction to future research based on the limitations of this thesis. In the end the Conclusion will give one final summary of the research and its key findings.

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW

In order to give recommendations, it is necessary to review existing literature. As already described before, Burning Man serves as an inspiration for this thesis. Research on Burning Man focuses upon the Ten Principles as a guideline for behaviour, the social structure of the festival, social values, self-expression, and the organization of the event (Gomez, 2013; Chen, 2011; Chen, 2012). Gomez (2013) has done research on the ‘order in the desert’ and the use of artistic performances to express oneself. Chen (2011) and Chen (2012) are looking at the organization of the festival when it comes to the prosumption of this art and the coordination of efforts that sustain creative context. Research has recognized the process of how organizations can facilitate a new vision on the activities of consumers at a festival. Burning Man is not scripted, so everything that happens at this festival is transformative. Innovation, participation and co-creation are closely related to the event, as Burning Man re-conceptualizes production and consumption processes. Also, diversity, heterogeneity and self-expression are found in research to be related to the event as well as the hipster culture which was already mentioned before in the Introduction (Schiermer, 2014). Furthermore, hedonic, or emotional, reasons as well as value creation are topics that are closely related to Burning Man. (Chen, 2011; Chen, 2012; Gomez, 2013) New organizations may use this festival as an example to create their own activities and purposes. Past research did not look into expanding Burning Man activities, like prosumption and co-creation, into other environments such as the Dutch festival market. This research will focus on this expansion as it is based on the role of customer involvement in the festival market in The Netherlands.

This literature review will focus on the main concepts related to Burning Man as previously outlined, because they might be useful to describe the processes in the Dutch festival market as well. There was found at the start of the interviewing process that some of the topics were not elaborated on enough, so the research based on co-creation and value creation from Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004 & 2008), Rowley et al. (2007), Payne et al. (2008) and Sandström et al. (2008) were added to the literature review. This was done in order to get more in-depth insights in research on the topic and to cover more from this research area. This section will first look into (co)-innovation, co-creation and prosumption as these concepts are closely related to Burning Man as already described in the introduction. After this, literature on motivations to visit festivals and self-expression as found in the hipster culture are addressed. This will provide more insights into the purpose of visiting festivals, which is necessary in order to give valid advice later on in the Recommendation section. Next, value creation is discussed as this is an outcome of co-creation as well as the different reasons to visit festivals and was found in literature on Burning Man. The section will close off with a conclusion that will give direction to further research.

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2.1 Innovation

Innovation is “any new idea or approach that is applied in fundamentally different ways to create value for the organization and other stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, partner organizations, communities or governments” (Lee et al., 2012, p. 818). As according to Lee et al. (2012) we are at the start of an innovation age, wherein this will be a leading aspect in many industries. Organizations are no longer local and their innovation systems are influenced by a global economy. This as a result of the changing business environment wherein there is a short life span of competitive advantage and shortening product life cycle. Looking at fast product innovation this usually meant competitive advantage in the past, however now it is no longer the case. New customer values are revolving around experiences beyond instrumental value of products. (Lee et al., 2012) Value creation and innovation are directly linked and can be used by organizations to grow and compete with other players in the market. However, innovation is not easy and can be done in many ways as it can be explorative and exploitative as well as closed, open or collaborative. (Lee et al., 2012)

Open innovation entails the implementation of the preferences of the audience into a business concept. Knowledge is shared and ideas are discussed. This is something which Magneet Festival has done in 2014, who allowed the audience to give input into the set-up of the festival (Magneet Festival, n.d.). Research claims that the network effects for value creation are a key ingredient of innovation in order to provide a new experience to all participants. (Xie et al., 2008) Open innovation is offering a new perspective on value creation as many more parties are involved than originally was the case. A convergence based on creativity of the organization itself and external parties with their own expertise form the basis for open innovation. (Lee et al., 2012)

2.2 Co-innovation

Co-innovation goes one step further than open innovation and is focusing more on the ‘we’ approach than an ‘I’ approach, which is also one of the core ideas behind Burning Man. Lee et al. (2012) is defining this new way of innovating as “a platform where new ideas or approaches from various internal and external sources are applied differently to create new value or experience for all stakeholders, including consumers” (p. 824). Research done by Lee et al. (2012) is proposing to use co-innovation to establish a new competitive advantage, as experience, co-creation and engagement form its core and is meant to be difficult to imitate by competitors. Co-creation is thus a part of the whole co-innovation process. New actors in the organization foster innovation, whereas long-term relationships may stagnate the innovation process, for this reason high change dynamics are necessary in order to innovate. This continuous innovation is specifically important for festival

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visitors as they are constantly looking for a new and exciting experience, and thus innovation becomes crucial for the organization (Larson, 2009).

Lee et al. (2012) has developed a conceptual schematic framework for co-innovation. It explains the platform can be used to create shared value through five aspects which are new efficiency of the value chain, new business model, new customer base, new customer value and new products, services and ventures. Aspects of this model might come back in the value creation in festivals which are making use of audience involvement and is for this reason useful for this thesis. Innovation within festivals already goes hand in hand with cooperation with external parties in a network. This process is incremental and does involve much of improvisation. (Larson, 2009) Earlier research is offering a gap as it has been primarily focused on the innovation within companies and not on co-innovation within festivals.

2.3 Co-creation

Co-creation is a concept which is very closely related to Burning Man and another new paradigm around the concept of innovation as part of the co-innovation process. Co-creation is defined by Larson (2009) as “a process in which consumers extend or alter the product beyond its original and/ or intended form, use and/ or meaning” (p. 292). The process goes outside-in as it starts with understanding the consumer and aims for better value creation. With the help of co-creation products or prototypes can be tested more quickly, get feedback and be implemented or eliminated. (Payne et al., 2008) The communication now goes both ways as interaction is the basis for co-creation (Schmitt, 1999; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2008) Organizational learning will result in answering the customer needs even before they have even recognized this need themselves and also in order to stay ahead of the competition. (Rowley et al., 2007) Also, because of the engagement of different parties who create their own shared value and bundle their different complements in a community it will be more difficult for competition to imitate ideas as already described before. (Lee et al., 2012) Every new festival created along the lines of co-creation is therefore a new experience. Festivals seem to be very flexible to change as they are not restricted to a place, time or genre. They can adapt to different situations and improvisation is triggering the entrepreneurial spirit for innovation (Larson, 2009). Innovation goes hand in hand with co-creation and cooperation at festivals as Burning Man and is thus important aspects for this research (Gomez, 2013).

Co-creation is meant to engage people in creating valuable experiences together (Lee et al., 2012). The environment needs to offer possibilities for all different kind of users to create their own experiences and new opportunities. Co-creation could thus also be seen as a form of personalization, because consumers are able to adjust the content to their own preferences. Personalization is important as not all participants have the same desire or enough skills to use a service. Also, a big

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part of responsibility is adjusted to the consumers, as they are now free in developing a part of the product themselves (Chen, 2012). It would be interesting for further research to look at what personification could mean for content and processes in the festival industry.

Payne at al. (2008) has developed a framework for value co-creation which is consisting of three main components which are customer value-creating processes, supplier value-creating processes and encounter processes. The model is explaining co-creation could be seen as an exchange of resources between two parties, the consumers and the providers. These resources could be information, time and products. The touch points, or encounters, where the exchange takes place can be categorized into emotional, cognition-supporting and behavior- and action-supporting encounters. Some encounters turn out to be more important for the building of customer experiences while others are used for value-creation. (Payne et al., 2008) The model can function as an example for this research as it will look into the processes of co-creation as linked to festivals. Also, there can be looked into every touch-point between the two parties at festivals and how these encounters are contributing to the co-creation of value.

2.4 Prosumption

A concept which is closely linked to co-creation is prosumption, which can best be described as the combination of production and consumption (Xie et al., 2008; Chen, 2012; Gomez, 2013). In this context customers are producing their own products for consumption. The process consists of an integration of “physical activities, mental effort and social-psychological experiences” (Xie et al., 2008, p. 109). Prosumption involves meaning making and touches upon the need of individuals to express themselves as described before in the hipster culture (Chen, 2012). At Burning Man the prosumption of art is practiced as found by Chen (2012), however there is a gap in research when it comes to prosumption at festivals in The Netherlands.

Along the lines of prosumption the ‘theory of trying’, which is used in the research of Xie et al. (2008), is testing attitudes and value creation. The theory is looking at the process of trying and succeeding and trying and failing. There was found that the attitude towards success or failure is defining the consequences for achieving or not achieving the goal. Prosumption is a function of the attitude towards success, process and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the drive to work on something guided by one’s own believes in the ability of completing tasks. (Xie et al., 2008) The model could be of importance to this research as processes and attitudes on prosumption will be researched in relationship with festivals. The level of contribution might depend on the attitude of the participants.

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2.5 Motivations to visit festivals

There are many different reasons as found by research for why people would go to a festival, described as utilitarian (functional) and hedonic (emotional) dimensions. Hedonic dimensions are closely related to festivals, as they together with utilitarian dimensions influence the attitude of people towards festivals and their motivations to visit. A scale which is used in earlier research to test the attitude of the audience towards festivals is the ‘Hedonic and/or utilitarian scale’ (Voss, Spangenberg & Grohmann, 2013, in Gursoy et al., 2009). Functional attributes could be satisfying physical needs and functional goals, whereas experiential attributes are fulfilled by interpersonal, social and personal experiences. (Gursoy et al., 2009) The evaluation of a festival by attendees seems to be focused on the evaluation of tangible and intangible factors, also emotional costs and benefits do play a large role. The hedonic dimension is more personal and subjective as “experiences can be derived from a product’s uniqueness, symbolic meaning or the emotional arousal and imagery it evokes” (Gursoy et al., 2009, p. 281).

People can visit festivals to fulfill either dimensions or one of them. There are many different reasons for why people are attending music festivals based on hedonic and utilitarian reasons. The three main reasons as found by research are all based on hedonic attributes offered by a festival, which are the theme, social reasons and novelty or curiosity (Gursoy et al., 2008). As according to Gursoy et al. (2009) is important to take both utilitarian and hedonic dimensions into consideration when setting up an event, as people are willing to spend more money in order to fulfill their needs. For attendees to justify their visit to the festival the organization needs to communicate the utilitarian value properly to its audience, as for example ‘education’ or ‘meeting community members’. However, fulfilling emotional needs seems to be most important. For this reason the emphasis should be on communicating these attributes, which could be based on for example excitement and fun. (Gursoy et al., 2009)

Research has looked into content features (scope of the audience, line-up, age, theme) and format features (budget, ticket price, location, maximum capacity visitors) at the control of the festival organization which might define the success of a music festival in The Netherlands (Leenders et al., 2005). According to this research budget, line-up, ticket price, theme and location are predictors of success. Though, because festivals are experiential ‘products’ it is hard to predict what exactly makes it a success. It is not the result of the usage but the experience of the usage what matters. (Leenders et al., 2005) In another research Leenders (2010) defined image, atmosphere, good experience and emotions are important brand features for loyalty of customers and the success of a festival. Value features as for example ticket price, line-up, theme and program, and relationship features as mailings, website meet and greet, and contests play some role. However, they are less important than the brand equity aspects. Leenders (2010) has found increasing prices for festivals

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are decreasing the sense of loyalty, however when brand features are involved people are willing to pay a higher price. For the purpose of this research is would be interesting to see what role brand features play in co-creation festivals, as this is where Leenders (2010) has not looked into.

Functional and hedonic attributes in combination with the attitude towards the product, brand, or activity are defining behavior. (Gursoy et al., 2009) These attributes thus also define whether people make use of co-creation or not (Sandström et al., 2008). The previous outlined research did not include all factors which might have an influence on the reasons for visiting festivals, as for example time or distance from home. For this reason further research is needed in order to define other factors along with hedonic and utilitarian dimensions as well as the brand and value features. Also these researches did not look into the reasons of people to attend co-creation festivals and offer for this reason a gap in research. It would be interesting to see whether there are different reasons, than those found in research, linked to visiting festivals which are making use of co-creation as opposed to those which are not.

2.6 Self-expression

Self-expression is an important aspect of Burning Man, as participants are using art performances to express their own identity (Gomez, 2013). One of the concepts very closely related to this topic which was already mentioned in the Introduction is the hipster culture, which has a significant impact on cultural industries. Hipsters are dismissing trends because they are seen as too easy, shallow and boring. Instead they are focusing on authenticity and individuality as their main concern when it comes to developing themselves. It is important for people in the hipster culture to not follow any regime around for example fashion or music taste, but to develop their own unique personality. (Michael, 2013) These individuals feel the need to self-expression and self-fulfillment by showing this unique identity. (Xie, Bagozzi & Troye, 2008) Though, hipsters are looked upon with laughter because they tend to rebel against mainstream society by being mainstream. Individuals who are all trying to be unique end up taking the same decisions and for this reason there is a paradox of individuality and authenticity versus collective imitation in this sub-culture. (Schiermer, 2014)

Research has shown that openness to and acceptance of other peoples’ taste is an important aspect of the hipster culture. Inside this culture you are allowed to be whatever, as long as you are yourself according to Michael (2013). Dressing up like a hipster is a way of getting closer to yourself. This diversity in people is necessary in order to stimulate creativity and creative solutions. (Chen, 2011) Besides making use of the hipster culture to shape identity, individuals are also making use of brand communities and festivals to express their own identity (Xie et al., 2008; Gursoy et al., 2009). Research however did not yet look into the result of audience involvement at festivals and the effect

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of this on self-expression and development of an identity. Also, concept as individuality, imitation and authenticity has not yet been applied to a research based on festivals which are making use of audience involvement yet. For this reason they offer a gap in literature which will be touched upon in this research.

2.7 Value creation

One of the concepts which seems to be brought up frequently by research based on innovation and co-creation is ‘value’. Xie et al. (2008) defined it as “an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally and socially preferable to alternative modes of conduct or end-state of existence” (p. 114). Research has distinguished three different global values which are interpersonal, personal and fun. Interpersonal values are focusing on the relationship with others, fun values on enjoyment and personal dimensions are related to accomplishments and self-respect. (Xie et al., 2008) Values are shaped along the lines of personal, social, cultural, economical and historical development. They have an impact on behavior, as for example prosumption, and attitudes. For this reason values might be important to look at when researching co-creation festivals and their outcome.

Growth and value creation seem to be contradicting themes for companies, as investment into a greater variety of products does not necessarily stimulate unique content and differentiation. As a result of this growing choice for consumers, there has been a shift from company-centric value creation to value creation where the consumer is the new frame of reference. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004) Prahalad & Ramaswamy (2008) has recognized a shift of the role of consumers from “isolated to connected, from unaware to informed and from passive to active” (p. 4). There is more access to information from all around the world, mainly because of the internet, which allows the customer to get self-informed. These customers can form (online) communities independent from a firm and be powerful in exchanging ideas and thoughts. This is also known as the Groundswell effect, where people shift from getting what they need from traditional sources to producing and getting what they need from others. There is more consumer activity and consumers start to experiment with and develop their own products as described before, and with this their own product-value. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2008; Lee et al., 2012) This is also seen at Burning Man where professional and amateur artists are producing art side. This is a form of prosumption that results in the creation of value (Chen, 2012).

Research is claiming these changes cannot be ignored by companies, as they have to start reacting to the needs and wants the consumer. Originally value creation was occurring inside the firm or outside the market. Now value creation is occurring within the market as consumers participate in defining and creating this value. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Lee et al., 2012) Experiences are no

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longer focused on the product only, but also on the co-creation experience and its value. The quality depends on the interaction and value-in-use of the product. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2008; Payne et al., 2008) Value-in-use is defined by Xie et al. (2008) as “value that can only be created with and determined by the user in the ‘consumption’ process and through use” (p. 110). Research has only looked into this creation of value-in-use for companies, which offers a gap in research for applying this concept to the festival market.

Co-creation between consumers and companies is the basis of value. Co-creation experiences are formed through diverse interactions between these two parties. However, as said before, every co-creation experience is personal, as it goes through the individual and situational filter found by Sandström et al. (2008). In her research on service experiences a framework is developed which describes how this experience is linked to value in use. Functional and emotional value proposition go through the individual and situational filter, before and after the service experience, prior to the creation of the value in use. This model is based on technology based services, however for the purpose of this thesis it would be interesting to see whether individual and situational filters do also have an influence on value creation at festivals. In other words, to see whether personal situations or the environmental situation are influencing the value the festival has for this individual.

Co-creation is not based on customer focus, but on a joint creation of unique value. Companies should now focus on building experience environments and experience networks in order to stimulate diversity and personalized, unique experiences. This experience from co-creation is forming the basis for the development of unique value. Now unique experiences can be created which cannot be commoditized as compared to products which allows for competitive advantage. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Rowley et al., 2007; Payne et al., 2008; Sandström et al., 2008) The market is changing from a target to a forum wherein a brand becomes an experience which is co-created. It is the task of the company to create value to the consumer which they are willing to pay for and with this be able to create a strong new business model (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Poulsson & Kale, 2004; Lee et al., 2012). This previous research is of importance for this thesis because co-creation, experiences and value creation are important aspects. These will be taken into consideration when analyzing customer involvement in the festival market in The Netherlands.

2.8 Conclusion

The goal of this research is to give recommendations to festival organizations about the use of co-creation in the future. To be able to give recommendations a literature review was conducted. The literature will give direction and support in doing qualitative research by showing what factors should

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be looked at. It will be necessary to do qualitative research because there are many concepts with complex relationships as found in this literature review.

Research has been done on self-expression, individuality, imitation, authenticity and uniformity as also found in the hipster culture, but did not cover this in relationship with festivals and the effects self-expression could have on the perception of a festival (Gursoy et al., 2009; Leenders, 2010; Michael, 2013; Xie et al., 2008). Utilitarian and hedonic reasons for going to festivals in general, as well as brand and value features have been defined too (Gursoy et al., 2009; Leenders et al., 2005; Leenders, 2010). Additionally research has been done to (co)-innovation, co-creation, prosumption and value creation separately (Lee et al., 2012; Larson, 2009; Payne et al., 2008; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2008, Chen, 2012, Xie et al., 2008). However, it will be interesting to look at the combination of these phenomena in relationship to the Dutch festival market. This is a booming market and trends get picked up quickly as shown in the hipster culture.

In general these concepts are focused on companies and for this reason empirical research is needed. It is not clear which concepts will become important and there are many different concepts, models and theories. This makes it unclear which are of importance for the purpose of this research. These concepts need to be refined in order to get deeper insights into the topic.

Based on the literature it is expected the recommendations will probably be based on the realization and implementation of co-creation into festivals. This because innovation is necessary to create value and to keep up with the competition and demands of the consumer (Lee et al., 2012; Larson, 2009; Rowley et al., 2007; Payne et al., 2008). However, empirical research will be needed in order to be able to formulate more concrete recommendations for festivals. In the next section the set-up of the qualitative research as following from the conclusion of this literature review will be discussed.

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3. RESEARCH QUESTION AND RESEARCH PROCESS

The topic of this thesis is the involvement of the audience in the organization of festivals in The Netherlands. As was found in the literature review not much research has been done yet on co-creation in the festival industry and for this reason the research is exploratory. Considering the objective of this research, to give festivals advice about the use of co-creation, and the findings in the past section it became clear further empirical research is needed. It will help to get more in-depth insights into the most important concepts. Because there are so many concepts with a complex cohesion and it is not clear yet which concepts will be important for the purpose of this research qualitative research is needed. In this section there will be looked into the empirical research. The leading questions will be outlined as well as the research process which has changed along the way. For this reason this section is named Research Question and Research Process to cover the full topic. First the leading questions for this research will be outlined, as they are needed in order to provide recommendations later on in research. Then the research strategy is describing the method which was used. After, the data collection process is covered, including a description of the interview guide and sample. The next subsection will cover an outline of the first phase of analysis, including a comparison of the main themes and concepts as found in the results to what was originally found in the literature review. Also, it is covering the additional literature and changes which have been made in the progressive research. In the end a small conclusion will sum up the most important aspects of this section.

3.1 Research questions

This research will be focused on how customer involvement plays as role in the festival market in The

Netherlands for festival organizations and festival visitors. There will be looked into how and in what

way festivals are already using elements of co-creation and what the outcomes are of this implementation. To get insights into the involvement of the audience in festival organization and the attitude of this audience and the festival management towards this we might be able to find out whether co-creation might become important in the festival market in The Netherlands. It might be that this new concept will be the answer to festivals who want to retain their own character, because the audience is able to create their own content and for this reason no festival would be the same. Also, looking at the increasing popularity and competition in the festival market as discussed in the Introduction this might be worthwhile to research. To get a clear perspective on this situation some guiding sub-questions were formulated.

Theory has shown some important concepts and theories which might become important for this research. There are many concepts and it is not clear where to focus on, however the literature

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is giving in indication where to look at. One of the main concepts related to Burning Man is co-creation as found in literature, and is a leading concept for this research. Concepts as (co)-innovation and prosumption are expected to be directly linked to co-creation. (Lee et al., 2012; Larson, 2009; Payne et al., 2008; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2008, Chen, 2012, Xie et al., 2008) For this reason the first sub-question was formulated:

- How is co-creation already used by festivals and festival visitors?

From theory concept as imitation, individuality, differentiation, authenticity and uniformity do come forward. These are also closely linked to the hipster culture (Gursoy et al., 2009, Michael, 2013, Schiermer, 2014; Xie et al., 2008). There is expected the social image, or the way people are seen based on their social behavior, will play a role in this research and for this reason the second research question was formulated:

- What role does the social image play for festival organizations and festival visitors?

During the cyclical analysis of the data it became clear ‘experiences’ is another important concept for this research. The interviewees were continuously talking about the character of the festival which led to experiences, but also emotional experiences. Foremost, self-expression as found in the hipster culture was a concept that was closely related to this experience (Schiermer, 2014). For this reason I decided to look into more research on this topic and to add a third sub-question. This was necessary in order to be able to sufficiently fulfill the goal of this research. The third question is:

- How are experiences involved with festivals?

These sub-questions are needed in order to be able to give recommendations to festival organizations. They are based on previous literature which has shown these concepts are closely related to co-creation and Burning Man. The questions will help us to look into the situation in The Netherlands at this moment when it comes to the use of co-creation in festivals and how this is perceived by the audience. With the help of these answers I expect to be able to formulate an advice for the festival organizations.

3.2 Research strategy

In order to answer these questions empirical research was done. Through observation the current situation can be described with the help of data collection and analysis which will structure the findings. Qualitative research is done in order to get in-depth insights into the topic and in order to be able to use a cyclical method to collect and analyze the data. This will lead to growing insights for the purpose of this research. The theory will help to give direction to the data collection and data analysis procedure. It will help to guide the research towards finding the right and most useful concepts in the analysis, as from the literature review it became clear there are many concepts which could be linked to this research. As described before, some concepts from the literature have already

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give guidance to the formulation of guiding questions for this research. Also, the literature is guiding for and gives structure to the interviews. It allows the researcher to continue on certain topics and to be critical.

The overall research method used was semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions. The questions were only guiding and did not have to be asked in the particular order or questions could even be skipped when not applicable. In an interview respondents cannot decide to skip questions, like they are able to do in for example online research, because a researcher will decide which questions to ask. Furthermore, interviews are a flexible way of doing research as the researcher can decide to focus more towards certain topics, which is an advantage if you want to achieve more in depth results. (Zhou & Sloan, 2011; Babbie, 2008). It was important that interviewees could speak freely and were not restricted by rules or a research method such as a survey with closed-answer questions. The more the interviewee speaks, the more likely it is that he or she will reveal underlying thought or behaviour. Interviews allow for collecting information about processes or things that cannot be observed as effectively by other research methods (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011). This makes interviews a very suitable research method for this research. It is important to get in-depth insight on the thoughts and behaviour of festival visitors and festival organizers when it comes to going to or organizing a co-creation festival.

3.3 Data collection

The potential interviewees were approached by phone. Appointments were made in order to do a face to face interview, which is better than doing it by phone or email. Face to face interviews offer the possibility to notice facial expressions and to make the conversation more like a natural conversation. (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011) This was especially important for this research as the interviewee asked the participants to tell in a narrative way about their experiences and was hardly making use of short answer questions. It was now possible to see whether the interviewee finished his or her sentence or was still thinking about an answer.

The interviews with the festival organization lasted one and two hours. The interviews held with the festival visitors lasted on average forty-five minutes. The interviews were done at the participants their homes or in a public space, in this case the interviewer bought the interviewee a drink as a sign of appreciation for their participation. All interviews were recorded with an iPhone 4S. The recording equipment was placed on a table next to the interviewees during the face to face interview, in order to make the interviewee the least self-conscious as possible (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011). All interviewees were from The Netherlands and live in Amsterdam, for this reason the language for the interviews was Dutch. Before the interview the interviewees were explained the procedure as outlined in the interview guide (Appendix 2 and 3). The interviewees were told the

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leading topic of the research was co-creation in festivals, as this was also a reason why they were approached. The interviewees were not told beforehand about the structure of the interview in order to keep it like a fluent conversation and to change direction when appropriate. After the interview the interviewees were offered the opportunity to ask questions or to add comments. Most of these questions were about subjects not relevant for the analysis of the research and are for this reason not included in the interview transcripts. One interviewee added something to the interview via Facebook later on. This piece of text was included in the analysis as it was a useful addition. More information on the details of the respondents and the interviews can be found in Appendix 4.

3.3.1 Interview guide

Two different groups which were interviewed and for this reason two different interview guides were used in order to ask the right questions to the right person (Appendix 2 and 3). Most of the questions were about the same topics, however it was important to ask festival visitors more about their behaviour at festivals and organizations more about the organization of the festival. Both interviews existed of four different parts, which relate back to the theory as found in the literature review.

Part one was based on questions about festivals in general to get the topic started. As found in the literature review there are many reasons for why people go to festivals (Leenders et al., 2005; Leenders, 2010; Gursoy et al., 2009). It was important do discover why people are making certain choices. Next, part two was meant to cover the use of co-creation in festivals. The interviewees were asked which festival they attended which makes use of audience involvement and to describe their thoughts and behaviour. In this part of the interview it was important to ask people about their social behaviour and their attitude towards the festival (Gursoy et al., 2009; Sandström et al., 2008). Also, the interviewees were asked to compare the co-creation festivals to ‘normal’ festivals, to get insight into the advantages and disadvantages of both types of festivals. This was important because literature pointed towards a difference between the traditional and new way of setting up businesses and maybe this accounted for festivals as well. (Lee et al., 2012; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2008; Larson, 2009; Chen, 2012; Gursoy et al., 2009).

Part three of the interview was based on questions about the social image of people related to festivals. Questions were asked about individuality, uniformity and authenticity, as these are concepts which are important in current cultural trends (Schiermer, 2014; Michael, 2013). This part was also meant to discover behaviour related to self-expression and identity (Xie et al., 2008; Schiermer, 2014). Finally, part four covered the emotional experience of people at co-creation festivals. They were asked about their feeling of belonging to a community, their personal learning from festivals and their self-evaluation when they are given the opportunity to co-create (Gomez,

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2013; Gursoy et al., 2009; Xie et al., 2008). Also they were asked towards their expectation about the future of co-creation festivals.

Along the interviewing progress three questions were to the guide, as interviewees were repeatedly covering the topics of experience and innovation of festivals. This was necessary in order to elaborate further and go more into depth on these topics. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Sandström et al, 2008)

3.3.2 Sample

Initially I planned to interview as many festival visitors as festival organizations for this research, to get an overall view on the situation and processes at festivals which are making use of co-creation. However, it seemed to be hard to get into contact with festival organizations. I tried to reach them via email, however did not get a response. In the end I managed to get into contact with two festival organizers via the other interviewees, one is connected to Burning Man and one to Familiar Forest. Because of these changes in the data collection procedure, the data for the analysis are all perceived to be one. The results will be focused on the differences between the respondents all together instead of the two ‘groups’. The data from the festival organizers was mainly used as background information about the set-up of the festival.

In total twelve people were interviewed, whereof ten festival visitors and two organizers. It was not easy to find participants, as I was not familiar with many people who have been to a festival which is making use of co-creation in The Netherlands. A criterion for the selection of the visitors was that they needed to have visited a festival based on co-creation in order to get feedback on their experiences. This could have Magneet, Familiar Forest or Burning Man. Later on in the research Imagine Beyond was added to the list, which had its first edition this year on the 16th of May. As already said in the Introduction Burning Man Netherlands is not similar to Burning Man America, the organization does not organize festivals and is for this reason not included into the list of festivals. Also, potential interviewees needed to go to at least three festivals per year in order to compare the different types of festivals. It turned out most interviewees go to more than eight festivals per year.

Two women were interviewed who are actively involved in the organization of Familiar Forest and Burning Man Netherlands. Both interviewees are not working for the festivals as a fulltime job, however they are closely involved in the organization. For neither of the two festivals people are working fulltime in the organization. It was important for this research to interview the management of festivals which is making use of audience involvement. This was necessary to get an insight into the processes of the organization, to see how and where co-creation is implemented and to find out which decisions are made.

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With the use of snowball sampling all interviewees, six men and six women, were found (Saunders & Lewis, 2012). The first interviewees were relatives of the interviewer through university and work, after this I only interviewed participants I did not know before. This method was best suitable to the research because the potential interviewees were difficult to locate (Babbie, 2008; Lindlof & Taylor, 2011).

3.4 First phase of data analysis

All the interviews were transcribed and analyzed during the data collection phase. First deductive research was done which moved towards inductive research along the way. There is general theory on festivals and co-creation separately, but for this research it was important to combine those two concepts and to see what is happening in the field at this moment in order to give recommendations to festival organizations about the use of co-creation. It was possible with the research strategy to find patterns amongst the answers of the participants and with this find a possible relationship with existing theory. (Strauss & Corbin, 1998)

Through the process of coding, which is divided into open, axial and selective coding, the data were analyzed. During the open coding the researcher is open to the text and picks up everything which is interesting, certain concepts and categories might be identified. (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) Open coding was used in order to put a label to the data and figure out what concept the participant were talking about. The data were read through several times, the text was highlighted and specific parts of text were coded which were about a certain topic or concept. Some parts of texts were labeled under multiple codes, because they could not be labeled to one. After coding the texts were re-read it and the codes were re-ordered by combining codes which were similar and by renaming codes which were too vague (Boeije, 2010). The final open codes can be found in under ‘Open Code’ in the coding scheme (Appendix 5).

Construct validity was assured by asking a fellow research student to encode a few pages of one of the interviews. This was done in order to see whether this person was looking at the results in the same way with the coding sheet. (Eisenhardt, 1989) Triangulation was used by looking at the websites of the festivals which are making use of audience involvement, in order to compare multiple sources of evidence and to increase reliability (Tracy, 2010). After the process of open coding was finished, axial coding was used in order to identify relationships amongst the open codes and to find a connection between them (Babbie, 2008). This type of coding was used in order to identify the core concepts in the study and to regroup the data into broader concepts under which the ‘smaller’ concepts could be placed. I checked whether each fragment has been coded properly and sometimes merged categories because they were covering the same topic (Boeije, 2010). For example codes as ‘attitude’ and ‘mentality’ could be coded into

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‘attitude’ because the two words were synonyms. Also, memos were written in order to remember certain ideas, explanations or patterns which were recognized. Appendix 6 is giving some examples of the coding and memos which have been written along the process of analysis. During the process there was looked back at the literature as found in the literature review for progressive analysis. Axial codes were developed, under which the open codes could be clustered. These focus codes can be found under ‘Category’ in the coding scheme (Appendix 5).

The selective coding led to the discovery of central codes in the study (Babbie, 2008). Four themes were identified, from the analysis of the data in comparison with already existing literature: Co-creation, Festival Character, Emotional Experience and Sense of Community. The final coding scheme can be found in Appendix 5.

3.4.1 Main themes and concepts

As previously found in the literature review, there are many different concepts and processes with a complex cohesion and relationship. However, from this empirical research became clear some concepts are most important for the purpose of this research. As expected (co)-innovation and prosumption are directly linked to co-creation and co-creation is the overall theme (Lee et al., 2012; Larson, 2009; Payne et al., 2008; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2008, Chen, 2012, Xie et al., 2008). Variation, contribution and participation are important concepts related to co-creation as found in this research. As expected individuality and uniformity are closely linked to the social image, which were categorized to identification (Gursoy et al., 2009, Michael, 2013, Schiermer, 2014; Xie et al., 2008). However, this social image was exacerbated more to the sense of community and for this reason this became an important theme which is overarching identification, community feeling and inclusion. Experience was the third leading concept, which could be divided into two themes which are Festival Character and Emotional Experience. The festival character could be subcategorized to value features and brand features as found by Leenders (2010). But also positive attributes were closely linked to this character. Emotional experiences include freedom, adaptation and personal change as important categories. Self-expression is a part of freedom, as freedom in the character of a festival is leading to personal freedom and thus self-expression. (Schiermer, 2014; Xie et al., 2008; Gursoy et al., 2009).

3.4.2 Additional literature and changes

The original literature review did cover most of the topics which came forward during research and analysis process. However, some topics were not covered into enough detail. In order to write proper analysis on the data I looked for new literature on co-creation and value creation by Prahalad & Ramaswamy (2008), Prahalad & Ramaswamy (2004), Rowley et al. (2007), Payne et al. (2008) and

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Sandström et al. (2008). These sources were added to the literature review during the research. Also, sources which were already included in the literature review were read through again and when necessary information was added to the framework. Many different reasons for why the interviewees were attending festivals were recognized and research from Pegg & Patterson (2010) was included in order to cover enough literature on this aspect. More importantly, from the analysis it became clear that ‘sense of community’ (McMillan & Chavis, 1986; Hogg, 1996) and ‘experience economy’ (Poulsson & Kale, 2004; Schmitt, 1999) were not covered enough in the literature review and turned out to play a larger role in the analysis of the results than was eventually expected. For this reason literature was added in the analysis part of this research in order to make good assumptions and to answer the sub- and research-questions properly.

Also, from the continuous analysis of the data it became clear experiences were not covered in the sub-questions. In order to be able to give proper recommendations at the end of this research another questions was added – How are experiences involved with festivals? This was already explained before in the section on the Research Question and Research Process. Another sub-question – What role does the social image play for festivals organizations and festival visitors? – was focused on ‘social image’ whereas ‘sense of community’ turned out to be standing out from the data. However, I decided to leave the sub-questions the same but did change most of the headings of the subsections to ‘sense of community’. This was done in order to be clear about this leading theme, which has been discovered from the continuous data analysis. Most importantly, the main research question – How does customer involvement play a role in the festival market in The Netherlands for festival organizations and festival visitors? – was initially developed to make a comparison between festival organizations and festival visitors. However, because it was hard to get into contact with festival organizers I decided to focus more on the festival visitors and to use the data retrieved from the two festival organizers to find out more about the character of a festival. In the Results and the Discussion section for this reason the difference between the two ‘groups’ is only mentioned when relevant for the outcomes of this research. The results will be focused on the differences between the respondents all together, as said before.

3.5 Conclusion

To be able to fulfill the purpose of this research, qualitative empirical research was conducted to get more in-depth insights into the most important concepts for this research. It was used to cyclically collect and analyze data. Three sub-questions were formulated because they will help with formulating advice for festival organizations. As outlined in this section the research process changed along the way. The composition of the sample changed and one sub-question was added to the research. Besides, more literature was added to the literature review and research analysis in order

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to get more in-depth insights into different topics and to be able to make valuable conclusions. After the whole process of continuous data analysis it was possible to write a Results section on the research with all the important findings, which can be found in the next section.

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4. RESULTS

This section will present the key results as found in the data from the interviews done in the empirical research. It will present what we have found out and what the thoughts, emotions and experiences of the interviewees are when it comes co-creation festivals. The four main themes as found in the last part of the data analysis are Co-creation, Festival Character, Emotional Experience and Sense of Community. The overall concept ‘experiences’ was separated into the character of the festival and emotional experiences as both dimensions add to the overall experience of a festival. These themes are chosen because they help with declaring what is happening in the festival field at this moment and will eventually help with the goal of this research which is to give advice to the festival organizations about the use of co-creation. The description of the results in this section will help to get to the advice later on. Also, they will be linked back to the literature review and other research which was found during the continuous analysis process in the next section.

First the findings on co-creation are described, as related to the behavior of visitors. The next subsection will give an outline on the findings related to the character of festivals and how this is different for co-creation festivals in comparison with ‘normal’ festivals. After, the emotional experiences as part of the experience theme are described. Next, the findings on the sense of community as related to co-creation are outlined. This results section will end with a small conclusion.

4.1 Co-creation

Co-creation is one of the themes, covering a large part of the data. It is “a process in which consumers extend or alter the product beyond its original and/ or intended form, use and/ or meaning” (Larson, 2009, p. 292). This theme is helping with answering one of the sub-questions as it is explaining which aspects of co-creation are already present in The Netherlands and what behavior is resulting from this implementation. For this reason this is an important theme, as it will help with the goal of this paper which is to give recommendations to the organization of festivals about the use of co-creation.

Most interviewees were thinking about co-creation in a different way when they were asked about their own conceptualization of the term. One of the interviewees who is working in a company which is using co-creation explains that co-creation is “the collaboration of different parties who all work together towards one goal” (Fleur, Burning Man). According to her everyone can add his own part to the festival, which enriches the event. Another explanation is co-creation to be based on everyone being part of the festival with not just one organization who is putting everything together. Some are mentioning volunteers, workshops at other events than festivals where you can participate