Innovation of Music Festival & Event Management
The role of Artistic Creativity &
Experiential Knowledge Assets in the
idea generation process for innovation
of experiences
by
Alexander Eijzinga
University of Groningen Faculty of Economics & Business MscBA Strategic Innovation Management
January 2015
First supervisor: Dr. R.A. van der Eijk Second supervisor: Dr. W.G. Biemans
Word count: 18.032 Zaagmuldersweg 598 9713 LZ Groningen + 31 (0) 6 5064 1705 a.j.eijzinga@student.rug.nl Student number: 1684078
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Contents
Abstract ... 2 Acknowledgements ... 2 Executive summary ... 3 1 Introduction ... 4 1.1 Creativity ... 4 1.2 Knowledge types ... 5 1.3 Research Question ... 5 1.4 Scope of research ... 5 1.5 Structure of paper ... 6 1.6 Summary ... 6 2 Literature Review ... 7 2.1 Music Festivals ... 7 2.2 Experience ... 7 2.3 Innovation ... 82.4 Innovation of Music Festivals ... 8
2.5 Artistic Creativity... 9
2.6 Experiential knowledge assets ... 10
2.7 Conceptual model ... 11 2.8 Important definitions ... 12 2.9 Summary ... 13 3 Methodology ... 14 3.1 Research Strategy ... 14 3.2 Data collection ... 14 3.3 Analysis ... 15 3.4 Sample Selection ... 16 3.5 Sample ... 17 3.6 Quality Criteria ... 17 3.7 Summary ... 18 4 Results ... 19 4.1 Data-matrix ... 19 4.2 Contextual Analysis ... 22 4.2.1 Novelty ... 22 4.2.2 Appropriateness ... 22 4.2.3 Emotional Impact ... 22 4.2.4 Experience (gained) ... 23
4.2.5 Experiential Knowledge Assets ... 23
4.2.6 Non-systematic ... 24 4.3 Summary ... 24 5 Discussion ... 25 5.1 Propositions ... 25 5.1.1 Proposition 1 ... 25 5.1.2 Proposition 2 ... 25 5.1.3 Proposition 3 ... 26 5.1.4 Proposition 4 ... 26 5.2 Conceptual Model ... 27 5.3 Summary ... 27 6 Conclusion ... 28 6.1 Research Question ... 28 6.2 Implications ... 28
6.2.1 Implications for theory ... 28
6.2.2 Managerial implications ... 29
6.3 Limitations ... 29
6.4 Future Research ... 30
References... 31
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Abstract
This article uses a qualitative multiple case interview study to create a preliminary understanding of the role of Artistic Creativity and Experiential Knowledge Assets in the idea generation process for innovation of the music festival experience. The role of novelty, appropriateness and emotional power are explored and the effect of Experiential Knowledge Assets, gained experience, a non-systematic process, intuitive process and eventually empathy on Artistic Creativity are explored as well. This article proposes that Artistic Creativity, consisting of novelty, appropriability, and emotional power, has a positive influence on successful idea generation. This article also proposes that a non-systematic idea generation process positively influence novelty; that Experiential Knowledge Assets positively influence appropriateness and emotional power; that empathy for visitors positively influence Artistic Creativity; that gained experiences lead to more Artistic Creativity and that gained experiences lead to more Experiential Knowledge Assets.
Keywords: Festival, Innovation, Event, Music Festival, Artistic Creativity, Experiential Knowledge Assets, Empathy, Novelty, Idea Generation, Appropriation, Experience
Acknowledgements
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Executive summary
Music festivals are cyclical leisure events where organizers, performers and visitors come together for an intense, fun and joyous experience, after which they dissolve. Visitors are mainly motivated by factors such as simply having fun, the festival atmosphere, and music. Because of the increasingly competitive music festival market, this article focuses on innovation of the visitor experience to gain a competitive advantage. In this paper, music festivals have been categorized as experiences (in contrast to products or services), which are intentionally designed or staged offerings that are meant to create a mental journey, sensations and memories. In this paper, innovation has been defined in this context. Innovation is the identification, selection, and use of resources to produce
differentiated new offerings in order to generate improved profits. Innovation is an important determinant of firm performance and essential to create a competitive advantage. An important part of innovation is idea generation, which will be the focal phase in this research.
While research so far was mostly limited to innovation in programming the festival, this paper will take a broader perspective. Success is largely determined by visitor loyalty, caused by visitor satisfaction and causing higher visitor attendance. Another important factor in innovation is creativity, especially Artistic Creativity which is a distinguishing factor in innovation of experiences. Artistic Creativity is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination to produce ideas and/or products that are novel and appropriate, to be appreciated primarily for their (beauty or) emotional power. However, this isn’t enough; Entrepreneurial involvement is needed to allow for significant economic and social value for society.
It’s unclear whether entrepreneurs (opposed to artists) would still use Artistic Creativity in their process of idea generation. Since knowledge is another important factor in innovation, a knowledge typology is used to identify the knowledge type of importance in the Artistic Creative process. Experiential Knowledge Assets, which consist of the tacit knowledge that is built through shared hands-on or working experience among employees and which are i.a. about knowledge of emotions, are expected to be most important. Also, festival organizers’ gained experiences are expected to have a positive effect on Artistic Creativity and Experiential Knowledge Assets.
A qualitative method is used, which fits the exploratory nature of this research. Data is collected through semi-structured interviews based on the literature review and are used to gain data through the expertise of festival organizers. A data-matrix has been developed which links the relevant data to the corresponding respondent and construct. Next, a contextual analysis was developed, providing the data with the necessary context and meaning. This led to a set of refined propositions.
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1 Introduction
The competition in the music festival market is growing every year (Mascarenhas et al., 2006). This makes it more and more important for the organizers of festivals to distinguish their events and the value they offer to visitors, in order to remain relevant and successful in a competitive and growing industry. This is called having a competitive advantage (Porter, 1985). Such a competitive advantage can be achieved in a variety of manners (e.g. Argote & Ingram, 2000; Barney, 1991). A critical source for achieving a competitive advantages is innovation (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010), which is the
introduction of new and useful products, services, methods, practices or processes that add value to the organization (Carlsen et al., 2010). However, the amount of existing innovation literature related to music festivals in specific is small compared to innovation literature that is related to, for example, small businesses (Carlsen et al., 2010). This can be the cause of a lack of knowledge on how to organize innovative activities in that industry effectively, which may hamper the ability of festival organizers to utilize innovative efforts to their advantage. It is therefore important to add to the available scientific knowledge in this field, which is the goal of this paper.
While other types of innovation like product and service innovation have been studied extensively for decades (e.g. Utterback & Abernathy, 1975; Barras 1986), music festivals differ from such offerings in a way that may affect the manner in which innovation must be managed. Not only are music festivals and events often of a temporary nature (Abfalter et al., 2012), but they also fall in the category of experiences in the categorization of Pine II & Gilmore’s much cited article “Welcome to the experience economy” (Pine II & Gilmore, 1998; Sundbo, 2009; Hjalager, 2009). According to them, experiences are considered as offerings that can be created or customized to fulfil customers’ individual needs and are about creating a mental journey, sensations and building memories. (Pine II & Gilmore, 1998; Chang & Horng, 2010; Sundbo, 2009). These aspects make it different from services and especially manufacturing goods (Pine II & Gilmore, 1998). This can also make the experience and its benefits harder to define than in the case of services and goods, since experiences are even more intangible and immaterial than services (Sundbo, 2009). As a result, innovation of experiences in general is different because it is more intuitive, non-systematic and artistic (Sundbo, 2009). It is therefore likely that this affects the way in which innovation differs in this industry. This makes it interesting to see how organizers should differ their approach of innovation of experiences from the approach necessary for innovating services and goods.
1.1 Creativity
While innovation of experiences is largely similar to that of innovation in services, a specific feature of experience innovation, though not the only one, is ‘Artistic Creativity’ (Sundbo, 2009). This is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination to produce ideas and/or products that are novel and appropriate, to be appreciated primarily for their (beauty or) emotional power. From this definition it appears that what results from this creative process should ideally be novel, appropriate and having emotional power. Part of this research will therefore be what the role of these factors role is in innovation of a music festival’s visitor experience and how that affects its success.
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Something else that Sundbo (2009) noted is that artistic creativity is usually intuitive, which he also describes as ‘non-systematic’. However, little evidence for this is presented. However, other research does show that an intuitive thinking process can lead to higher creativity (Wolfradt, 2001). Part of this research will therefore be to identify a system or structure in the creative process, or indeed confirm that festival organizers work on a purely intuitive, non-systematic manner.
1.2 Knowledge types
A key component for creativity, as well as for innovation, is having knowledge (Amabile, 1996; Sammarra et al., 2008). It is important to identify the right type of knowledge to be used in the creative and innovative process (e.g. Johannessen et al., 1999; Darroch, 2005). This will also be a central part of this research. The typology of Nonaka (2000) will be guiding in the search for the most useful type of knowledge, which offers four different types of knowledge that can be used in the creation of new knowledge, like ideas. In particular ‘experiential knowledge assets’ seem to be fitting with artistic creativity, because it refers to knowledge of emotions which fits with the emotional power that is expected to be a result of an artistic creative process. Another interesting link between experiential knowledge assets and creativity in general is that both increase through the acquisition of experience. As such it is expected that gaining experience will also play an important role in the innovative process (Nonaka et al., 2000; Chou et al., 2004; Chang et al., 2014).
1.3 Research Question
The research of this study will be held among festival organizers. The festivals this paper will focus on are music festivals (i.e. festivals that revolve around musical acts), because of their increasing role in society. The main focus will be on artistic creativity and its expected output components, as well as how it is affected by experiential knowledge assets and what the role is of (the lack of) a system in this process. In addition, the role of acquired experience will be examined in terms of how it affects creativity, both directly and through its effect experiential knowledge assets.
What is the role of Artistic Creativity and Experiential Knowledge Assets in the idea generation process for innovating music festival visitors’ experience?
1. What is the role of Artistic Creativity in this idea generation process?
2. What is the role of Novelty, Appropriateness and Emotional power in the innovative output and success?
3. To what extent is there a system or structure in this creative process?
4. What is the role of “Experiential Knowledge Assets” in idea generation through Artistic Creativity?
5. How does Experience affect the availability of Experiential Knowledge Assets?
1.4 Scope of research
This paper will not focus on the innovation of aspects such as service provision e.g. beverage
delivery, production innovation e.g. sound quality, or process innovation e.g. location setup. Instead, it will focus purely on innovating the experience itself, meaning the innovation of how the festival is experienced by visitors. And while innovation comprises of many phases (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010), this paper’s main focus will be the idea generation phase of the innovative process.
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Something that may cause confusion in this paper is the two versions of the experience that exist in the English language. One is the experience somebody lives in a certain situation like at a music festival, while the other is the experience one gains through repeated action, like a skill. To avoid confusion, we will refer to the latter as gained or acquired experience throughout this paper.
1.5 Structure of paper
Beyond this part, the paper will be structured as follows. Directly after this part, the Literature Review will provide the reader with a more elaborate review of the scientific information that is already available on the topics of this research. This includes the subsections Music Festivals, Experiences, Innovation, Innovation of Experiences, Artistic Creativity and Experiential Knowledge Assets. A foundation will be laid for a deeper understanding of these concepts to support the further development of this research. Based on this, propositions and an accompanying model will be presented. Next, the methodology of this research and the choices that were made in doing this research are presented and explained. The results that follow the empirical research process will come after that, including the data that was collected and its analysis. Lastly, a discussion and conclusion of the results will follow, including the limitations of this research and the possibilities for future research.
1.6 Summary
In the introduction, the increasingly competitive music festival market has been mentioned as the reason for this research, and innovation has been introduced as a main driver of competitive advantages. Music festivals have been categorized as experiences, and innovation has been defined in this context. It is about memories, sensations and a mental journey. Creativity is introduced, with the focus on Artistic Creativity for which a definition was designed. Also, an introduction to
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2 Literature Review
In this section, existing scientific literature is applied to build and connect the necessary theory for the development of this research. The result will be a set of propositions that will be refined and adapted depending on the results. A conceptual model and table with essential definitions is included.
2.1 Music Festivals
In order to gain more understanding of the innovation processes in music festival organizations, it is necessary to understand and define what a music festival, a festival revolving around music, is. Festivals are semi-permanent structures where a permanent staff organize a cyclical event where the organizers, performers and visitors come together for the creation of an intensive experience, after which they dissolve following the event (Abfalter, 2012). They are social gatherings convened for the purpose of celebration or thanksgiving, they’re leisure events, and they are meant to be fun and joyous (Sharpe, 2008). Perhaps not surprisingly, “having fun” or having a good experience, the festival atmosphere and the music are also among the most important motivators of visitor
attendance at a music festival, which is an important indicator of its success (Leenders, 2010; Pegg & Patterson, 2010). Music festivals can contribute to the creation of a sense of community, binding group members together as participants in a larger culture and providing an opportunity to engage in social activities. They can also offer opportunities for participants to define, develop or reflect on their understanding of themselves, and cultivate new expressions of self-identity. Next to that, they can also be “an ideal listening experience” due to the unique combination of venue characteristics, the balance of familiarity and novelty, and the social context of the experience (Packer & Balantyne, 2010). Festivals also potentially have considerable cultural and economic value as tourist attractions for their surrounding regions (Frisby & Getz, 1989).
2.2 Experience
Since music festivals are in the categorization of experiences (Pine II & Gilmore, 1998; Sundbo, 2009; Hjalager, 2009), it’s also important to define an experience and to understand how it is different from products and services. In the traditional model of consumption, consumers could mainly get either products or services to gain economic value. In more recent literature, the experience as a value-adding factor is becoming more important. Experiences are defined as offerings that can be created or customized to fulfil customers’ individual needs and are meant to create a mental journey, sensations and building memories. (Pine II & Gilmore, 1998; Chang & Horng, 2010; Sundbo, 2009). An experience is designed and intentionally produced or staged and it is a core strategic concern as a new value attribute. The distinction of experience as a separate, valuable commodity, compared to products or service, offers new perspectives for analysis and strategizing. (Stamboulis & Skayannis, 2003).
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social differentiation and membership of certain social groups through consumption of the experience(Sundbo, 2009).
2.3 Innovation
Innovation is an important tool in the creation of value for customers and society (Ahlström, 2010). It can be seen as the identification, selection, and use of resources to produce differentiated new offerings in order to generate improved profits (Nijssen et al., 2006). In literature, innovation is widely regarded as essential in developing competitive advantages (Dess and Picken, 2000; Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996) and according to scholars, it is the most important determinant of firm
performance (Mone et al., 1998). Literature on innovation is abundant, and many different
definitions have been generated (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010). A broad and comprehensive definition of innovation is given in a review paper on innovation by Crossan & Apaydin (2010), who include the important elements of the most fundamental definitions given in literature: It is the production or adoption, assimilation, and exploitation of a value-added novelty in economic and social spheres; renewal and enlargement of products, services, and markets; development of new methods of production; and establishment of new management systems. Otherwise, different perspectives on innovation have been given on innovation by a variety of scholars. It can be seen as a process of punctuated equilibrium or continuous change (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997), radical or incremental (Veryzer, 1998), as a process or as an outcome (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010), and so forth. In this paper, the focus will lie on innovation as a process; rather, it will assess the process underlying the attempt at successful innovation. In particular, the focus will lie on the generation of ideas because of it’s of great importance in the success of innovation (Rietzschel, 2010; Crossan & Apaydin, 2010). An idea in terms of innovation can be defined as an opportunity to create value through further investment. An idea can take different forms in the innovation process, for example the recognition of a new or future consumer need. This paper will not focus on the type of idea, other than that it should focus on enhancing the visitor experience, but will focus on its conception, or generation (Kornish & Ulrich, 2014).
2.4 Innovation of Music Festivals
Recently event managers have increasingly been under pressure to develop new ways of optimizing their events’ competitive advantages (Pegg & Patterson, 2010) As mentioned, innovation is widely regarded as essential in developing competitive advantages (Dess & Picken, 2000; Tushman and O’Reilly, 1996). While scientific literature on innovation is abundant (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010), literature relating to innovation of the festival experience is rather scarce (Carlsen et al. 2010) even though festival organizations that value creativity and innovation are in a good position to seize market opportunities and generate added value (Getz et al., 2010). Research has mostly focused on organizational and process innovation (Paleo & Wijnberg, 2008). In this paper we will focus on the innovation of the experience itself, on which the body of literature is rather underdeveloped. Not only the experience itself, but also innovation of the experience differs from innovation in services in several important ways. With services and products, the differences in the innovation process pertain mainly to the specific characteristics of services like co-production with customers and simultaneity (Nijssen et al., 2006). A similar effect is expected concerning the specific
characteristics of experiences, and their influence on the difference in the innovation process of services and that of experiences. Among the most notable differences there’s the nature of the offering which is not just intangible but memorable, the demand factor which is focused on
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partially because of that, innovation of experiences has been more supply determined and less user or demand determined than that of services. (Sundbo, 2009).
While literature on innovation in this musical experience has been mainly focused on the
programming of the festival, this paper will look at a broader selection of innovative enhancements of the experience such as innovative themes and locations (Leenders et al., 2005). It will also take a look at the success of the innovation that results from the idea generation process. According to Leenders (2010), the main driver of festival success is visitor loyalty, leading to higher visitor attendance. This means that festival success can be defined as customer attendance. Next to that, visitor satisfaction leads to visitor loyalty (Özdemir & Çulha, 2009), indicating the importance of visitor satisfaction for festival success.
2.5 Artistic Creativity
Creativity stands as a particular feature of experience production and innovation (Sundbo, 2009), especially in what is dubbed the “creative industries”, and is regarded by scholars as important for successful innovation (Park et al., 2014). Much research has already been done on creativity. One of the most significant and often quoted definitions of creativity is “(the ability) to produce ideas and/or products that are novel and appropriate (to the situation)”. (Amabile, 1983, 1988; Chang et al 2014). “Novel” refers to the degree to which new products are perceived as being unique, compared with competitors’, and “Appropriate” refers to the extent to which new products are perceived as being appropriate and useful to target customers or, in this case, visitors of music festivals. Creativity is continuously accumulated over time by organizations to generate novel and appropriate ideas in order to become or stay competitive (Barney, 1991; Hunt and Morgan, 1995). In other words, it increases with experience.
While different styles of creativity can be used and have different effects on an organization’s
offering (e.g. Puccio et al., 1995), Sundbo (2009) notes in his review on innovation in experiences that artistic creativity is an important element that distinguishes innovation in experiences from the very similar innovation in services. However, Sundbo argues that artistic creativity is not enough for the innovation of experiences, and that they are not only intuitive and creative. Artists may make some useful contributions to innovation, however this is far from enough to create innovations in the experience economy. In this research we will argue that artistic creativity, in spite of what might be expected, does not have to come from artists per se. Indeed, innovation of the experience can come from other sources such as entrepreneurs, which will generally allow for greater economic and social value for society (Sundbo, 2009). What is not mentioned by Sundbo is whether the type of creativity that is utilized by entrepreneurs is different from that which is used by artists in creating experiences. Also, research focused on the link between artistic creativity and innovation is rare, especially in the context of creating experiences and music festivals in particular. Primarily, this paper will focus on festival organizers as a source of innovative enhancement of the experience, and artistic creativity is expected to be essential to organizers in this innovative process.
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that art is about generating emotional impact. This is very similar to the “emotional journey” that is central to the consumption of experiences (Pine II & Gilmore, 1998).
In this paper, these two definitions will be combined into one to develop a comprehensive definition of Artistic Creativity: “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination to produce ideas and/or products that are novel and appropriate, to be appreciated primarily for their (beauty or) emotional power”. With this definition it is possible to distinguish the factors that should ideally result from this creative process, which means they should ideally be novel, appropriate and having emotional power. If this is the case, then ideas containing these factors should lead to more successful innovations at festivals.
Proposition 1: Generated ideas that are more novel, appropriate and emotionally powerful lead to music festival innovations that result in more visitor satisfaction and attendance.
Sundbo (2009) also notices that innovation activities in the experience sector are rarely carried out in a well-structured system when it comes to artistic creativity. Instead, they are carried out in a non-systemic matter, leading to intuitive, quick ideas, which can easily be implemented. Though he presents little evidence for this claim, other research does show that an intuitive thinking process can lead to more creative ideas (Wolfradt 2001). Part of this research will therefore be to identify a system or structure in the creative process, or indeed confirm that festival organizers work on a purely intuitive, non-systematic manner.
Proposition 2: Non-systematic idea generation positively influences Artistic Creativity capability, i.e. the capability to generate more novel, appropriate and emotionally powerful ideas.
2.6 Experiential knowledge assets
Innovation depends to a large extent on previous knowledge (Sammarra et al., 2008). Also, the type of learning, knowledge creation (e.g. idea generation) and innovation depend on the type of
knowledge. (Nonaka et al., 2000; Jensen et al., 2007). Therefore, the type of knowledge that organizers of music festivals apply when innovating the music festival experience will be another focal point in this research. Since plenty of models have been created to define and categorize knowledge types, and since creating a new definition and categorization of knowledge types would be beyond the scope of this research, an existing model of knowledge categorization is applied instead to increase the understanding of what type of knowledge facilitates artistic creativity as a tool to generate ideas for innovation. A well-known model on types of knowledge and how they are applied in organizations is the SECI model developed by Nonaka et al. (2000). The SECI model is often-cited in scientific business literature, e.g. Chou et al. (2004). Not only that, but it was designed to increase the understanding knowledge creation, like the generation of ideas. For that reason, we will use this model to identify the type of knowledge that is of most use to festival organizers seeking to generate ideas for their events. The SECI model describes four types of knowledge assets;
experiential, conceptual, systemic, and routine knowledge assets. Conceptual knowledge assets consist of explicit knowledge articulated through images, symbols and languages. They are the assets based on the perceptions held by customers and employees of the organization. Systemic knowledge assets consist of systematized and packaged explicit knowledge, such as explicitly stated
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the tacit knowledge that is built through shared hands-on or working experience among employees. This knowledge can also be shared between the members of an organization and its customers, suppliers, and affiliated firms. The experiential knowledge asset refers to knowledge gained by experience. In particular it describes knowledge that is about emotions such as care, love, and trust, knowledge on physical aspects like facial expressions and gestures, energetic knowledge such as a sense of existence, enthusiasm and tension, and lastly rhythmic knowledge such as improvisation and entrainment (Spender, 1996; Nonaka et al., 2000; Chou et al., 2004). As such it is of particular interest in this research for innovation of experiences. As said before, creativity increases in strength with gained experience as well (Chang et al., 2014), which fits with the idea of gathering knowledge through experience that is described with “experiential knowledge assets”. Next to that, the different types of knowledge that are described with these assets show clear similarities to the “mental journey” and “sensations” that Pine II & Gilmore (1998) describe as essential in customer
experiences. It is therefore expected to find that experiential knowledge assets play a significant role in the artistic creative idea generation process for innovation of music festival experiences.
Proposition 3: Having more Experiential Knowledge Assets will positively influence Artistic Creativity capability, i.e. the capability to generate more novel, appropriate and emotionally powerful ideas. Both experiential knowledge assets and creativity in general increase through the acquisition or build-up of experience. (Nonaka et al., 2000; Chou et al., 2004; Chang et al, 2014). Because of that, it is expected that gaining experience is also an important facilitator in the artistic creative process. The effect would be both direct, through its positive effect on creativity, and indirect, through its positive effect on experiential knowledge assets.
Proposition 4a: More gained experience in organizing music festivals leads to more Experiential Knowledge Assets.
Proposition 4b: More gained experience in organizing music festivals leads to more Artistic Creativity capability, i.e. the capability to generate more novel, appropriate and emotionally powerful ideas.
2.7 Conceptual model
The conceptual model is a graphical representation of concepts and relationships that form the propositions.
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2.8 Important definitions
Term Definition Reference
Music Festival Semi-permanent structures where a permanent
staff organize a cyclical event where the organizers, performers and visitors come together for the creation of an intensive experience, after which they dissolve following the event. They are social gatherings convened for the purpose of celebration or thanksgiving, they’re leisure events, and they are meant to be fun and joyous. Revolve around music.
Abfalter, 2012; Sharpe, 2008
Experience Intentionally produced or staged offerings that can be created or customized to fulfil customers’ individual needs and are meant to create a mental journey, sensations and building memories.
Pine II & Gilmore, 1998; Chang & Horng, 2010; Sundbo, 2009;
Stamboulis & Skayannis, 2003
Innovation The identification, selection, and use of resources to produce differentiated new offerings in order to generate improved profits.
Nijssen et al., 2006
Artistic Creativity
The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination to produce ideas and/or products that are novel and appropriate, to be appreciated primarily for their (beauty or) emotional power. Oxford Dictionaries, 2013; Amabile, 1983, 1988; Chang et al. 2014 Experiential Knowledge Assets
Tacit knowledge that is built through shared hands-on or working experience among employees, and are i.a. about knowledge of emotions.
Spender, 1996; Nonaka et al., 2000; Chou et al., 2004
Novelty Refers to the degree to which new products are
perceived as being unique, compared with competitors’.
Amabile, 1983
Appropriateness Refers to the extent to which new products are perceived as being appropriate and useful to target customers.
Amabile, 1983
Emotional power
The emotional effect something has, on visitors in this case. One could intuitively argue that this is linked to the sensations, memories and mental journey described by Pine II & Gilmore (1998) but there’s no theoretical foundation for this link.
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2.9 Summary
In conclusion, the Literature Review is summarized. Music festivals are cyclical leisure events where organizers, performers and visitors come together for an intense, fun and joyous experience, after which they dissolve. Visitors are mainly motivated by factors such as simply having fun, the festival atmosphere, and music. They contribute to a sense of community, bind group members together and offer opportunities to gain understanding of themselves. Festivals can have considerable cultural and economic value for their surrounding regions. In this paper they’re categorized as experiences (in contrast to products or services), which are intentionally designed or staged offerings that are meant to create a mental journey, sensations and memories. Not only that, but they can have a social function e.g. signaling group membership. Innovation the identification, selection, and use of resources to produce differentiated new offerings in order to generate improved profits. Innovation is an important, determinant of firm performance and essential to create a competitive advantage. An important part of innovation is idea generation, which will be the focal phase of this research. Literature on the innovation of the music festival experience is rather scarce. Because of the
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3 Methodology
In this section, the methods and principles behind this research are explained. First the research strategy, which is the basis for the method of this research, is explained. Next, the method of data collection is described and explained. After that, the method of analysis is explained and a list of constructs is provided, including the way in which they are identified. Lastly, the sampling method is explained and the sample itself is described, and the issues of validity, reliability and generalizability are addressed.
3.1 Research Strategy
The empirical research in this paper is conducted in through a qualitative research method. The goal of qualitative research is to develop concepts which help to understand social phenomena in a natural setting, with emphasis on the meanings, experiences, and views of the participants. It works through a process of induction, which means moving from data towards generalizations, hypotheses, or theory. Data collection happens through observation and interviews. To simplify, qualitative studies are concerned with answering questions such as "What is X, how does X vary in different circumstances, and why?" rather than "How many Xs are there?" like quantitative research. Qualitative techniques can be used to provide a description and understanding of a situation or behavior (Pope & Mays, 1995). Indeed, this research is still exploratory and looks at what certain concepts (like “artistic creativity”) are, how they vary in different circumstances and why, so the qualitative method is suitable for use in this research. Possibly, other important factors can be identified through this research. In this paper, certain inferences have already been made through the investigation of scientific literature. While this gives reasons to suspect relationships between artistic creativity, experiential knowledge and idea generation for innovation of the music festival experience, no earlier research has been focused on the effect of these factors on the idea generation process, and theories on such relationships haven’t been developed so far. With this research we hope to lay the groundwork for further research on the topic.
3.2 Data collection
To gain insight in the process of idea generation central to this research, the expertise of festival organizers is utilized as a source for data. Through interviewing them, insight is obtained in the experience they gained by organizing and reinventing music festivals. The aim of these interviews is to discover the interviewee’s framework of meanings that they gained through experience.
In these interviews it’s important to try and avoid imposing the researcher's structures and
assumptions. The researcher needs to remain open to the possibility that the concepts and variables that emerge may be very different from those that might have been predicted at the outset, as described in the literature review, introduction and propositions. While such openness is important, some structure is also essential to guarantee that the data gathered is appropriate to the research question.
Semi-structured interviews are conducted on the basis of a loose structure consisting of open ended questions that define the area to be explored, at least initially, and from which the interviewer or interviewee may diverge in order to pursue an idea in more detail.
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Because a foundation of theory and propositions has already been given in this research, otherwise called an “a priori theoretical orientation” (Cresswell, 1998), it is possible to prepare the interview in more detail than would be possible without such a foundation and utilize a moderate amount of structure. Therefore, a semi-structured interview will be used as the interview approach.
During these interviews it is important to be flexible, interactive and sensitive to the language and concepts used by the interviewee. The aim is to go below the surface of the topic that’s being discussed, explore what people say in as much detail as possible, and uncover new areas or ideas that were not anticipated at the outset of the research. It is vital to check that interviewees' meanings and perspectives have been understood instead of relying on own assumptions (Britten, 1995).
The interviews are held with the use of VOIP-technology. The interactions are recorded and later transcribed. The interviews range from 30 to 45 minutes in length.
We ask for ideas that were used by festival organizers and we will assess the success of these ideas. We will ask questions that were crafted to assess the constructs apply to the generation of these ideas, their results and the experience of the festival organizers.
For a full overview of the questions in the interviews and of what construct each question is intended to gain information on, see Appendix 1.
3.3 Analysis
The data collected from the interviews will be thoroughly analyzed by searching for key words and sentences that are of value in offering answers for the propositions. These answers are then organized and classified in categories and possible sub-categories that follow from – and lead to – the central research concepts. This leads to further strengthening or possibly preliminary
disqualification of the propositions.
To analyze the data, a data-matrix is used that contains the relevant words and sentences from the information that the interviewees have given. These are then categorized by the construct they relate to and by interviewee. Categorization is done based on the constructs that are central to the initial propositions.
Constructs are a set of theoretical creations that can’t be measured directly. For example, top
management commitment to quality is a construct, which is not directly measurable. To measure this construct, we have to use (surrogate) variables, such as top management’s encouragement for employee involvement in Total Quality Management and improvement activities, and allocation of adequate resources, etc. These variables are expressions of top management’s commitment (Das, 2008). They can be defined as: “terms which, though not observational either directly or indirectly, may be applied or even defined on the basis of the observables.” Thus, a construct may be viewed as a broad mental configuration of a given phenomenon, while a variable may be viewed as an
operational configuration derived from a construct (Bacharach, 1989). To operationalize a construct, it can be defined in terms of observable behavior believed to represent it (Byrne, 1998). The
observation of this behavior is what is discussed with the organizers of music festivals in the
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Construct Operationalization (Observables)
Novelty To what extent ideas (and the resulting innovations) are unique compared
to the competition
Appropriateness To what extent ideas (and the resulting innovations) fit with the target audience’s preferences
Emotional power To what extent ideas (and the resulting innovations) positively influence the emotional state of visitors.
Non-systematic Process
To what extent idea generation is purely based on intuition, or a consistent system or structure can be identified.
Experiential Knowledge Assets
To what extent one understands how the emotional state of visitors is influenced by generated ideas (and their resulting innovations). Gained/Acquired
Experience
The experience that is gained through repeatedly organizing festivals. Visitor Attendance Whether the amount of visitors was as expected.
Visitor Satisfaction Whether visitor were perceived to be satisfied (compared to expectations).
Table 2
Next, the data is synthesized into a contextually sound whole and again sorted by construct. If data related to the research does not fit the prepared categorization, new constructs and categories may be added. Then, the resulting information is applied in the adaption and scrutiny of the propositions.
3.4 Sample Selection
The sampling method used in this research is, as is typical for qualitative research, theoretical and purposeful sampling (Pope & Mays, 1995; Coyne, 1997). This means sampling on the basis of concepts that have proven theoretical relevance to the evolving theory. In this type of research, sampling strategies are determined by the purpose of the research project since qualitative research usually isn’t aimed at gaining statistical representativeness. Also, sample sizes are determined by factors such as the depth and duration of the interview and what is feasible for a single interviewer (Britten, 1995). More specifically, relational and variational sampling are used. This means that interviewees are chosen to maximize opportunities for acquiring data regarding variations along dimensions of categories, and that demonstrates what happens when changes occurs (Coyne, 1997). Next to that, some snowball sampling is used, in which current interviewees refer to future
interesting subjects among their acquaintances, making use of the interviewee’s network to find further interesting subjects (Goodman, 1961).
So for this research, a varying selection of festival organizers are interviewed, as heterogeneous as possible to get a broad set of data. Festival organizations of varying size have been initially chosen, whose festivals vary in regularity and size. While most festivals organizations that are researched will be those that organize electronic music oriented festivals in the Netherlands, some have
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3.5 Sample
In this table, the sample of this research is described by presenting several important parameters.
Respondent Event size (amount of visitors) Organization size (active organizers) Years active (as event organizer) Comment
1 500-2000 2-5 5-10 Also club owner
2 500-2000 5-10 2-5 Also artist
3 1000-5000 2-5 5-10 Organization is a
foundation
4 500-2000 5-10 2-5 Also artist
5 1000-15.000 Varies per organization 5-10 Also artist
6 500-2000 2-5 2-5 Trying to build scene
in China
7 1000-40.000 30-40 10 Internationally active
organization
8 500-4000 4-8 15-20 Also active in a club
9 10.000-40.000 15 8 Internationally active
organization
Table 3
3.6 Quality Criteria
It is important that optimal validity, reliability, and generalizability is achieved in scientific research. However, there is discussion among scholars on whether these are the right measurements for the quality of qualitative research, and some prefer to focus on factors such as rigor and trustworthiness (Morse et al., 2002). Not only that, but the strength of qualitative research seems to lie in its validity and not in its reliability (Pope & Mays, 1995). Nevertheless, several measures have been taken to assure the quality of this research.
The interviewees had not been given precise information about the research to ensure as little influence from such information on the responses of the interviewees. For that same reason, as little information as possible was given about the purpose of the research during the interviews. Only after the interview, disclosure was given on the purpose of the research. While the topics were loosely defined, efforts were by the researcher to make as little to no remarks that could influence the direction of the responses of the interviewee in a way that would unjustly support the prepared propositions. On the topic concerning non-systematic idea generation for example, the interviewer asked for a system or structure instead of asking if the process lacked a system. This increased the chance of a system being identified and the concerning proposition being falsified. Such measures were taken to decrease the chance of influencing interviewees, to increase reliability.
To make sure no flaws would occur in the process of transcription, various high quality recording and sound editing techniques were used to assure that the interviews were fully intelligible for
transcription. Transcription happened with precision and care. The relevant interview data was accurately translated from Dutch to English by the researcher who is fluent in Dutch and English. Since relational and variational sampling are used in this research, which demonstrate what happens when changes occurs (Coyne, 1997), a variety in several important dimensions is expected to
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and control that is applied in the idea generation process. In such a way these variations in organizations and festivals may have an essential impact on the generalizability or even validity of the research.
3.7 Summary
To conclude this section, the Methodology is summarized. In the first part, a research strategy has been developed. In this part it is explained that a qualitative method is used and that it fits the exploratory nature of this research. Next, the data collection method is explained. Semi-structured interviews based on the literature review are used to gain data through the expertise of festival organizers. Some technical details on the way the interviews are held are described. What follows is the explanation of the analysis and the methodology that is applied. A data-matrix is used to classify the data, based on the constructs that are described in a table and the synthesis of the data into a coherent whole is described. After this, the sample selection method is described and explained. Relational and variational sampling are used to identify a broad ranging sample, and snowball sampling is partially applied to find further interesting study subjects. Following the sample explanation of the sample selection, the actual sample is categorized based on several important parameters such as festival size and organization size. Lastly, quality criteria such as validity,
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4 Results
In this section, the most essential data is categorized by construct in a Data-matrix. Next, the data is analyzed and contextualized. Lastly, the analyzed data is applied to the preliminary propositions, possibly leading to refinement or additional constructs. The data is color-coded; Green refers to data that fits with the proposition, orange is for data that is ambiguous concerning the propositions and red is for data that contrasts the propositions. Blue refers to data that concerns possible new factors.
4.1 Data-matrix
Novel Appropriate Emotional Power Experience (gained) Experiential Knowledge Assets Unsystematic
1 - 50 DJ’s that all play for 15 minutes in their own style, doing a range of things in a variety of styles.
- The line-up at the time was good, but the way the concept and the line-up were hyped where, since people are also very focused on concepts and less specifically on line-ups, I think something was just insufficient in that area.
- Get them out of their comfort zone
- To surprise - Sense of freedom - Being able to be yourself - That cosy, personal vibe that makes us unique
- In the end it’s just a gut feeling
- It has become more clear to me what our target audience is and what we’re good at.
- You have to constantly be ahead of things. Doing things a bit too early so that when they’re there, you’re doing it. - What motivates this target audience and what motivates that person to go there, how would that person have a good time.
- I think… such a broad crowd goes there, that most people find it to be exciting
- I also always try to empathize with the potential target audience
- I mainly get inspiration from existing things I see. - Maybe [structure is better] for some things, but the spontaneity shouldn’t be kept… [a structured process] can lead to more crazy ideas.
2 - Giving Sunday-afternoon parties in the Suikerunie with biological food with a lot of concepts around it in which we all did it ourselves. - A while ago we had our own poet at KopjeK, so we had a poet at every event we had at the time.
- Not the kind of poetry that people have the
preconceived notion of it being very boring, but really, it was a young guy who can tell it very enthusiastically
and who’s a really good speaker …an audience that would normally not really be interested in poetry.
- Musically adhere to people’s expectations.
- The experience is actually focal. - What people look forward to. - What people enjoy very much. - [The poet] had so much energy in him.
- you start to understand more and more what needs people really have…
- Yeah of course you start to understand more and more what people really need.
- If you weren’t the one organizing the festival, would you still be walking around there and want to experience it
- That was a bit of coincidence [how we ended up with that poet at events] - Partially it’s just looking around a lot at other festivals outside our area. - A lot of brainstorming, so we often sit together to simply have a beer with the team.
3 - All those kinds of little things that make it just a bit more memorable for the visitor, and more unique compared to another event. - A bit of a personal approach, down-to-earth, and in that way it’s a very ‘flat’ and direct approach towards the visitors.
- Upon entering you hand out mini-stroopwafels which, for international visitors, well apparently they really like that.
- If you want to bind that target audience to you, then you have to really be sure that you take that target audience seriously and not draw in a different crowd too much, because your target audience will see through that.
- They can forget their worries and troubles for a bit. - A surprising factor. - Being in a friendly, fun environment with other cool people.
- Things people don’t expect and which they then see as sort of a bonus.
- The way we started was purely focused on the music and nothing else besides that… no production, no entertainment - You just realise that there’s appreciation from visitors to offer such things anyway.
- Which is also very hard to rationally explain, what kind of audience that is, but yeah, the target audience we focus on sees very quickly “this is the kind of crowd that doesn’t come here very often and who aren’t real fans.” And “we don’t feel at home when we’re a minority”.
- I think that, but I didn’t really go deep on that, that when you go into nature, you give your mind a more relaxed feeling in a way.
- So that they really get the feeling [our] people are ready for them and they feel like “I paid for my ticked, de organization has my money and that’s it”.
- You need to ask yourself, if you put yourself in the shoes of a visitor, what you would appreciate from the organization.
- You need empathize with the visitor and realize that the opinion of the visitor is the most important thing for your event.
- Of course I regularly go out to different events myself to take in emotions and impressions.
- I don’t have a very concrete [system].
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Novel Appropriate Emotional Power Experience (gained) Experiential Knowledge Assets Unsystematic
4 - Soon we’ll be implementing ‘honest’ water, “Earth Water” - Ticket sales were done offline, so people who came to get their ticket already had some contact with the organization before the party had even started. - The clothes peg used to be our little joke, you know. That clothing peg came with the ticket, which had our name on it, that has become a collector’s item after all these years.
- Besides that there’s not really an organization in Groningen that gives parties in that way, with the outfit and all that. With that concept you rather end up at a fraternity.
- Just keep our own niche. - There’s simply a large group of people that enjoy that, that way of partying, so we stick with that.
- Actually it’s always been our attitude that everyone and everything should be able to access us. - That’s less like that for us because we’re already used to having that group as our target audience so we don’t really see them as a target audience, by now we know what they want and what they expect from us. - [on attracting true music lovers or casual partygoers] That differs very much depending on what concept we’re doing.
- What we try to offer to our visitors is a unique overall experience.
- With a wink… a smile… Being able to forget everything… - Having a good experience. - Always with the intention of giving people an experience that they can think back to with a smile.
- If you’re into this, and you’ve been doing it for a while then it happens by itself
- So I just made the comparison to a musician, and that a musician is similar in that way, that if you’re into it, and you’ve been doing it for a while, you may at some point without even noticing it be looking at things in a completely different way. So to enforce that, it’s not something you do anything specific for. It’s something that happens subconsciously.
- When we’re looking for new locations… has to be something that the visitor goes there and before he’s even experienced the party already thinks “Wow, where the fuck have I ended up now, are we really partying here, that’s so crazy, funny!”.
- First, how it comes across to yourself… [and] I look at how the crowd reacts to something.
- We reason a lot from how people experienced it, we always really try to look at it from the visitor’s perspective.
- It’s actually all being done from our gut feeling. - We don’t really have a structure for that but what do get a lot of inspiration from is going to parties a lot ourselves.
- I think the lack of a structure… helps us to not be think in boxes, and to not be held back in coming up with crazy ideas. I think it’s only good for the final product if the first phase is
unstructured.
5 - Look, if you for example, as a festival, have a lot of extras around it like acts or other stuff, because of which the experience becomes a lot more fun for people, that they really step into a different world. But that’s not always attainable… Smaller organizations really need to base themselves on the experience of the concept. So “offering something extra” is actually very broad… The extras that you offer now to stay ahead of the competition.
- On the one hand it obviously depends on the event and target audience, what you want to offer but on the other hand you just simply want provide everybody with having a good time of course. - You just need to know who your target audience is and you start working from that.
- To just forget about all things around them for a moment. - And just be with themselves and acquaintances and friends, having a good time… And in what shape that eventually is, depends a lot on the event I think. - It has to have meaning to us, that we have the idea that we’re doing something we can feel good with. And that we can also give something people feel good with.
- Personally, I don’t really concern myself with that line of thought actually.
- Then you really want let it ripple through for a longer time period so people are actively engaged and feel connected with you.
- The value [of understanding the customer’s experience] is of course mostly that you try to figure out, that you try get an insight in what they want.
- To understand how people perceive certain things and how you can use an idea in a way so that they in turn think it’s fun and become enthusiastic about it.
- Of course you try to look at “how do visitors perceive events?”
- I always say that the best ideas, well… I was lying in my bed and suddenly an idea popped up in my head, so I get my phone and make a note of that. That’s pretty much what we do. - The best ideas come up by simply letting your mind run freely, then things will start to just come up.
21 6 - Not on a parking lot
somewhere where there’s a fake Great Wall… But actually on the Wall… Above everyone’s expectation actually.
- The only one organizing an outdoor night-festival in China.
- Connecting the East and the West.
- Something I used to think of “yeah that’s really cool”, I now think “yeah that’s really cool but won’t attract Chinese people”.
- Everybody feels really welcome because it’s so cheap.
- No show-off culture, but just enjoying the music.
- Now I’m focusing more on putting something cool out there that attracts Chinese people. - The longer I’m here, the more I’m succeeding at looking at it from a Chinese point of view.
- [I want to offer] an experience that’s to good to be true in every area. An escape of normal, daily, boring life. - [Understanding the visitor’s experience] is actually the most important value… Simply by asking how they felt about it and what could be done differently.
- The longer I’m here, the more I’m succeeding at looking at it from a Chinese point of view.
- [Is there a structure to how you generate ideas?] No, no no.
7 - We already saw back then that the youth of today more often has a poster of a DJ above his bed… it’s purely about letting the DJ play.
- People like purists are purely there for the artist but still want to see a bit more than just the DJ playing some records.
- Fun of course. - No sign of annoyance. - [show-wise] A sense of “wow” - The real purists, who really come visit us for the DJ and of course the on the stage itself
- I think our choices are still the right ones
- Of course you do have to keep that connection with your audience
- An event does need to have a soul… You need to be able to explain it to people
- [“Is there a system?”] No no no, because that would make things very static - It’s just what’s in the head on that day, you just have to let it out – They visit so many other shows, that definitely inspires.
8 - Themes that go on for 4 months… The first event you start with the whole club being black… at the end of the theme it’s fully into the atmosphere of the theme. - It might sound strange, but we don’t really look at the competition much
- Describing a very specific target audience is hard to do - A strong preference for electronic music… with some depth
- We do look at what we ourselves think is really cool. It’s not always
“commercially responsible”
- Losing yourself in the vibe, in the music, in everything that constitutes to the concept, the event. Sort of an escape actually.
- Giving it a certain musical meaning
- Concerning the themes… of course it matters… about 10% of the decision
- Those ideas [of what to offer to visitors] didn’t really change - [Do you think the experience you gained helpes you to better understand the visitor experience?] Definitely, definitely, yes.
- It gives a certain energy, a good feeling that you take with you throughout the week… It’s something I enjoy myself [“And you also want that for the visitor?”] Yes definitely. -[“How important is understanding the visitor experience for you?”] Very important… Mainly base that on what it feels like, how did I experience that night and did it go crazy, what was the energy in the room… It’s more of a feeling.
- Creative brainstorming nights, there’s a certain structure there… themes come up, then we cluster it, then we sleep on it, after which we finish it up… I think it’s better… just to be more concrete faster
9 - We gave [visitors] bracelets with LEDs which lit up along with the show.
- A 110 balls [on the ceiling] that all move and color seperately from each other.
- It’s important the audience doesn’t grow along with us too much, that the average visitor age isn’t 40 at some point. So we try to adjust our music but also our methods of
communication to that.
- …We call it the ‘experience chain’, it’s high quality. - But eventually it’s, and that’s what people come for, the show, the experience itself, in which the concept is most important to us… Actually the 2 most important things are the center stage and the dresscode.
- You know, by now we developed 15 shows, and at some point you just have better insight in what works and what doesn’t, what makes an impression in a stadium. … Because you play with a lot of things when making a show
- [There was] a show where we had sort of a 60 meter catwalk, with which we split up the room in 2, making the feeling more intimate. That’s an experience of which we thought, you know, that’s the kind of club-feeling we want.
- On the one hand you want you get overwhelmed by a feeling of “wow, what a lot of people and what a great sight” when you’re on the stand, but on the other hand you just want to have an intimate feeling on the dancefloor.
- I think that eventually, an organic process is inherent to creation, I think it’s hard to push out an idea under pressure.
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4.2 Contextual Analysis
To identify to what extent ideas were artistic creative, we also assessed the following three factors during the interviews: Novelty, appropriateness, and emotional impact. In this part we will provide a contextual analysis of the collected data.
4.2.1 Novelty
To assess the actual creativity of ideas, the respondents were asked about specific ideas that were novel, that is, unique to the competition. A variety of these were mentioned, that indicated novelty based on mostly low-tech ideas aimed at enhancing the visitor experience. An exception was respondent 9, who mentioned use of more high-tech tools to create a show to enhance the visitor experience. Still, the goal was definitely to be novel.
This fits well with the data respondent 5 provided, as he gave an explanation of how broad novelties should be categorized in this industry: “Look, if you for example, as a festival, have a lot of extras around it like acts or other stuff, because of which the experience becomes a lot more fun for people, that they really step into a different world. But that’s not always attainable… Smaller organizations really need to base themselves on the experience of the concept. So “offering something extra” is actually very broad… The extras that you offer now to stay ahead of the competition” with which he also indicates how the type of novelty may very much depend on the size and investment
possibilities of a festival’s organization.
However, while many novelties were mentioned, there were hardly clear links of this to gained experience and Experiential Knowledge Assets, so these might not necessarily lead to more novel ideas.
4.2.2 Appropriateness
The respondents were also asked as to what extent the used ideas were adapted to optimize the target audience’s experience. The answers to this varied, though all pointed towards incorporation of this aspect in the generation of ideas. Ideas that might seem to be of little significance, like giving out “stroopwafels”, were very often aimed at a specific target group like foreigners who appreciated it a lot. Others also indicate that their way of doing things does depend on the audience they’re trying to target, though some indicated having a hard time thinking of their specific audience like that because they were so used to them.
Related to that is that some information seemed ambiguous. Respondent 5 first claimed “You just need to know who your target audience is and you start working from that” but also stating “On the one hand it obviously depends on the event and target audience, what you want to offer but on the other hand you just simply want provide everybody with having a good time of course” which seems to be slightly contradictory. Respondent 2 explained how the poet they had hired was hired because he was “a young guy who can tell it very enthusiastically” and he didn’t tell “the kind of poetry that people have the preconceived notion of it being very boring”. This seems to be good for a party, but at the same time the respondent mentions that “that’s the strange thing, that it was pretty good poetry that was suddenly in front of an audience that would normally not really be interested in poetry.” The respondent did implement the idea however, apparently expecting it to work anyway. Respondent 8 describes to at least partially also “look at what we ourselves think is really cool. It’s not always “commercially responsible”.
4.2.3 Emotional Impact
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important role. Perhaps obviously, the musical experience was also very important. Also, an escape from reality seemed to be an important theme. Several respondents mentioned they want to be able to “surprise” visitors in their experience of the festival. This indicates that the experience’s emotional impact on visitors is important according to the festival organizers that were interviewed.
To identify what factors influence idea generation and how this happens, we questioned the interviewees on Gained Experience, Experiential Knowledge Assets, and Non-systematic idea generation. In this part we will provide a synthesis of the collected data.
4.2.4 Experience (gained)
Data on the gained experience of festival organizers should indicate whether this has a positive influence on the accumulation of Experiential Knowledge Assets and on appropriateness.
Respondents mention an increased ability to understand what to offer to visitors, even though that wasn’t even always the initial intention. These are positive indicators towards gained experience having a positive influence on appropriateness and on the accumulation of Experiential Knowledge Assets.
Respondent 5 was an exception. He did not claim such an effect from gaining experience and in fact rather said “Personally, I don’t really concern myself with that line of thought actually”. This may be because of his more technological perspective of visitor understanding he described in the interview, through internet-based market research. Respondent 7 said their “choices are still the right ones”, which may have something to do with the experience its founders already had in the industry when it was founded.
4.2.5 Experiential Knowledge Assets
In the case of Experiential Knowledge Assets, respondents indeed indicated this to be important for the design of the festival experience. They mentioned the importance of understanding the visitor’s experience at the festival, which indicates an understanding of how ideas can influence the
emotional state of visitors when implemented, even though it is sometimes describes as hard to rationally explain. This is in line with the expected tacitness of this type of knowledge.
Some of the data that was originally categorized with Experiential Knowledge Assets, did not fully fit with this category. Subtly different, it was more focused on “feeling” what the visitor would
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4.2.6 Non-systematic
When asked for a system, most respondents replied to not really have something they consistently do to generate new ideas in a structured way, be it alone or with a team. They mention it coming from a ‘gut feeling’ and often say it’s not only their way of doing things but actually better to work in a more organic, unstructured way if one wants to come up with better ideas.
Generally, these are indicators towards a positive influence of not having a system but some slightly different opinions seem to exist. Interestingly enough, they only speak of “crazy” ideas and such concepts. This shows similarities with ideas being more novel but shows no relation with appropriateness and emotional power.
However, something that was consistent among most of the respondents was that they got
inspiration for ideas from visiting other festivals and events. While this can hardly be called a system, it is a consistency among several respondents’ comments.
