Festival and Event Management in Nordic Countries

Tommy Andersson, Donald Getz, Reidar Johan Mykletun

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317977896
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

This book on events-related research marks a watershed in the development of a "Nordic School" of festival and event research. Each of the chapters presents a new and interesting approach to the study of events, in terms of methods, perspectives or content. It is mostly rooted in management theory but also incorporating other perspectives that enhance our understanding of the phenomena. Implications for real-world applications in tourism, hospitality, and community development are also at the fore.

The scholarship is comprehensive, not focused on only tourism or economic aspects. Management theory, including stakeholder management, social networks, and institutionalization processes is being applied. Attention is being given to the multiple roles festivals and events play in society, and to evaluation of their worth and impacts. Innovative methods are being developed to examine event experiences, innovation processes, and success factors.

There is now a critical mass of scholars in the Nordic countries that share a strong interest in event studies, and they are engaged in collaborative research, making it an appealing and innovative region for other event students and researchers to visit. It can be expected that the Nordic school will take an increasingly important place in the development of event studies, which is now truly global in terms of scholarship and university degree programs.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism.

Introduction

This special themed issue on events-related research marks a watershed in the development of a “Nordic School” of festival and event research. Each of the papers presents a new and interesting approach to the study of events, mostly rooted in management theory but also incorporating other perspectives that enhance our understanding of the phenomena. Implications for real-world applications in tourism, hospitality, and community development are also at the fore.

It is not just the geographic focus on Scandinavia that makes this “school” unique. Each year, scholars interested in tourism, hospitality, and events meet at the Nordic Symposium in Tourism and Hospitality Research, and most of the papers in this issue stem from the 2007 meeting at Lund University, Campus Helsingborg in Sweden, and from the 2008 conference at Lillehammer College in Norway. There is now a critical mass of scholars in the Nordic countries that share a strong interest in event studies, and they have established both a formal network and are engaged in collaborative research, making it an appealing and innovative region for other event students and researchers to visit. Each new Nordic Symposium includes an events-related research stream, so attendance is highly recommended for event scholars. It can be expected that the Nordic school will take an increasingly important place in the development of event studies, which is now truly global in terms of scholarship and university degree programs.

The papers presented here have all been refereed in the usual double-blind manner. It has been a rather time-consuming process, and authors have had to make many revisions and be subjected to a thorough editing. As the guest editors and editor-in-chief have also contributed, our papers have been processed independently to ensure unbiased decisions. Accordingly, many individual authors and anonymous referees have to be thanked for their contributions. In each of the papers there is something new and stimulating for event scholars, in terms of methods, perspectives or content. Some highlights from each paper follow, and the sequence is not particularly important – we have simply attempted to mix them by theme and geographic coverage.

From Finland, Katja Pasanen, Heidi Taskinen and Jenni Mikkonen have reported on the development of FEET – the Finnish Event Evaluation Tool. This approach places Finland at the leading edge in implementing a new paradigm, call it the “triplebottom-line” approach or “sustainable events”, wherein a better balance is desired in evaluating the worth and impacts of events. As the authors point out, there are many challenges – including the difficulty of getting all stakeholders involved, developing measures for intangible outcomes in the social and cultural realms, and effectively incorporating environmental indicators.

Sidsel Karlsen from Norway and Caroline Nordström from Sweden have presented research on festival networks and stakeholder relations with a view to improving event sustainability. Data consisted of field notes from observations of 58 festivals, plus in-depth interviews with festival administrators and official representatives of the festivals’ host municipalities. Three specific themes emerged: festivals cooperated with multiple stakeholders which assumed multiple roles; festivals and their stakeholders would sometimes enter into a state of symbiosis; and thirdly, the festivals were seen to engage in long-stretched, “loose” and glocal networks.

Reidar Mykletun from the Norwegian School of Hotel Management has studied a unique and successful extreme sports event, looking at factors to explain competitive advantage in an ever-more-crowded event marketplace. He examines seven forms of capital – natural, human, social, cultural, financial, physical, and administrative – that can be exploited, developed or invested to achieve success. This is a fresh approach that complements resource dependency and stakeholder theory, offering many new ways to analyze event origins and development.

Szilvia Gyimóthy from Denmark also studied the extreme sports event in Voss, Norway, using mixed quantitative and qualitative methods. Her paper builds on serious leisure theory, and concludes that beyond two previously documented motivational inclinations directed at the sport or the event, there exists a third type of visitor (experimentalists) who are mostly motivated by attaining intrinsic goals, such as identity construction by consuming “fetish” items at a niche festival. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the marketing potential of this group, and discusses the implications for sport-event segmentation.

Martin Robertson, now in Australia, and Philip Rogers from Scotland, have studied the role of media for festivals’ development in the UK. Their paper specifically examines media influences on perceptions of the social-cultural impacts of festivals. They measured the “salience” of perceptions among event attendees and event directors, confirming the conventional wisdom that the media tend to focus on negatives rather than positives. This paper certainly highlights the importance of managing stakeholder relationships, as the media can often make or break an event in the perception of politicians and the public.

Another Norwegian event is examined by Kari Einarsen with Reidar Mykletun, namely the annual food festival in Stavanger called Gladmatfestival. Data were obtained through interviews, observation and document studies. Their approach was to search for success factors by looking in detail at entrepreneurial leadership and the strong network of stakeholders that support the event. With the event being deeply “embedded” in the community and industry, its institutional status is assured. The scope of the festival developed from regional to national and Nordic coverage.

From a survey of festival management, with a sample of the 14 major music festivals in Sweden, Tommy Andersson and Donald Getz focus on festival ownership. Drawing upon theories about mixed industries, festival management in public, nonprofit, and private festivals are compared. Theoretically and practically interesting results related to decision making, volunteer involvement, and service quality emerge, and similar studies in other sectors of the tourism industry are recommended. Ownership is seldom factored into event-related research, but this paper shows its importance.

Anne-Mette Hjalager from Denmark takes a fresh perspective on events by studying their roles in fostering innovation at the community and regional levels. Organizers of the famous Roskilde music festival have developed dense, long-term and multi-faceted relationships that lead to the testing of new ideas at the festival. Funds from the (non-profit) festival are efficiently channelled into cultural and sports facilities, enhancing the attractiveness of the region. To keep ahead in the festival market, innovators in the field of managerial systems, technologies, and services are deliberately invited to use the grounds as test benches for new ideas.

Mia Larson’s article focuses on innovation within the organization. Material from case studies of three Swedish festivals showed that innovation takes place in complex networks involving many actors having various interests. Innovation networks are often highly dynamic and changing. She concluded that innovation often takes place in new partnerships – it is to a large degree an emergent process, and sometimes comes from improvisation. Some innovation can, however, become institutionalized and embedded in the routines of the partnership interaction.

From research conducted at a major sports event in the resort-town of Åre, Sweden, Robert Pettersson and Donald Getz examine the meaning and measurement of event experiences. Using multiple methods, namely interviews, participant observation and visitor surveys, this research yielded details of the spatial-temporal patterns of visitor movements and, notably, identified experiential “hot-spots” where positive experiences were concentrated. There is considerable scope for expanding and refining the use of photographs as employed in this ground-breaking research.

Kari Jaeger and Reidar Mykletun report on the undertaking of a novel whole-population study of festivals in northern Norway. Taking a population-ecology perspective leads to new insights on the nature and classification of festivals and their meanings. It is revealed that the events are very important in establishing place identity. There is enormous potential with this line of whole-population studies, and it can be recommended that scholars look at this paper with a view to advancing research on the dynamics of whole populations and comparing them across different regions and cultures.

In summary, it can be seen that several themes are emerging in this Nordic School of festival and event studies. The scholarship is comprehensive, not focused on only tourism or economic aspects. Management theory, including stakeholder management, social networks, and institutionalization processes is being applied. Attention is being given to the multiple roles festivals and events play in society, and to evaluation of their worth and impacts. Innovative methods are being developed to examine event experiences, innovation processes, and success factors.

Donald Getz & Tommy D. Andersson
Guest Editors

This Special Issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism has been supported by the Nordic Innovation Centre Project No. 08073 Nordic Event Tourism Networks. The collection of research articles presented here is a part of the scientific output from the project. The Guest editors and the Journal are grateful for the support that made this issue possible.

Impacts of Cultural Events in Eastern Finland – Development of a Finnish Event Evaluation Tool

Katja Pasanen, Heidi Taskinen & Jenni Mikkonen

University of Joensuu, Finland

ABSTRACT In recent years, events and festivals have been increasingly seen as a good way of developing the regions and the tourism in localities in eastern Finland. In order to be able to produce comparable information on the different impacts of events in Finland, and to gain continuity to event research, a pilot version of a Finnish Event Evaluation Tool (FEET) was created in 2007. The article presents the development of FEET which was piloted in 12 events. The tool is based on former impacts research. It concentrates on evaluating socio-cultural impacts of events in parallel with economic impacts. Innovative in FEET is the possibility of collecting comparable information from several stakeholder groups at the same time.

Introduction

Local festivals and events are being used as instruments for promoting tourism and boosting regional development. Events are becoming more and more important, especially in regional areas where possible sources of income are more limited than in cities (e.g. Felsenstein & Fleischer, 2003; Jackson, Houghton, Russel, & Triandos, 2005). In recent years, the importance of events for tourism promotion and regional development has also been acknowledged in eastern Finland. This has led to selecting the promotion of event tourism as one of the main focuses for the future development of eastern Finland.

In order to identify the current impacts of events and develop event tourism in eastern Finland, a research project ESS vaikuttaa (East Side Story – Impacts of Events in Eastern Finland) was launched and carried out during 2007. The aim of the project was to develop a tool for event impact evaluation and test the pilot version of the tool in 12 events taking place in eastern Finland. The purpose of this article is to present the development of the Finnish Event Evaluation Tool (FEET). First, earlier event impact studies and methods are introduced as background for the development of FEET. Second, FEET and the challenges of the tool are presented. Finally, some conclusions of the usability of the tool are discussed and proposals for future improvements suggested.

Importance of Events and Event Tourism

Festivals and events are becoming increasingly important to localities and the tourism industry, especially in regional areas where the available sources of income are more limited than in metropolitan areas (Jackson et al., 2005). They are important from more than one perspective. It has been recognized that events and festivals have economic but also social and cultural significance for the towns and regions hosting them (e.g. Allen, O’Toole, McDonnel, & Harris, 2002; Dimmock & Tiyce, 2001; Jago & Dwyer, 2006; Mossberg, 2000.) Most of the events are also significant tourist attractions (e.g. Dwyer & Kim, 2003; Getz, 1997, 2005, 2008), some even during the low season (Allen et al., 2002). Events can also help to create a positive image for the locality and provide a competitive marketing advantage in relation to similar localities (e.g. Allen et al., 2002).

Events are defined as one-time or infrequently (usually held no more frequently than once a year) occurring events of limited duration that provide participants with leisure and social opportunities beyond everyday experience (e.g. Getz, 1997; Mossberg, 2000). They are in many regions seen as very important elements of tourism products and a way of creating and promoting tourism (McMorland & Mactaggart, 2007; Walo, Bull, & Breen, 1996 cited in Jackson et al., 2005). The use of tourism as a tool for regional development has a long history (Gunn, 2004). Events have also become a tool for regional development since their economic benefits have been noticed (Moscardo, 2007; Dimmock & Tiyce, 2001). Developing the existing cultural events and event tourism is very appealing, especially for small and medium-sized localities. If a destination can cope with a large number of visitors in a short time-frame, even a small community event can become a significant attraction. Events can be developed and promoted even without the necessity of making long-term investments or building additional facilities (Bailey, 1998 cited in Smith & Forest, 2006; Law, 1993 cited in Smith & Forest, 2006.)

The importance of events as tools for regional development is expected to grow in the future. However, it should be remembered that regional development is more than just economic development of localities. In the destination context, economic values have always prevailed, but social and cultural perspectives are also crucial for the success of the events and destinations (Getz, 2008; Moscardo, 2007). Most events rely mainly on local and regional audiences, meaning that events are important not only to tourism but also for the local people (e.g. Getz, 2007). Not all the events need to be tourism oriented; events also have other important roles to play, from community building to urban renewal, and from cultural development to fostering national identities (Getz, 2008). Moscardo (2007) has argued that even if an event attracts substantial numbers of tourists and generates revenue but does not create community involvement, it is unlikely to have much of an effect on regional development. It means that without the local involvement the event remains “disconnected” to the locality. The importance of the events needs to be based on both economic and sociocultural values.

Evaluating Impacts of Events

Festivals and events have a range of impacts on their host destinations, and they are usually divided into economic, socio-cultural, environmental and political impacts (e.g. Allen et al., 2002; Dimmock & Tiyce, 2001; Jackson et al., 2005). In event evaluation research, the main focus has been on assessing the economic impacts of events with only limited empirical research on the difficult to measure, yet very important, socio-cultural impacts. Even less attention has been paid to environmental impacts of events. Great emphasis is often placed on the economic impacts partly because of the need for event organizers and governments to meet budget goals and justify expenditure, and partly because such impacts are most easily assessed (Allen et al., 2002; Dwyer, Mellor, Mistilis, & Mules, 2000a; Jago & Dwyer, 2006).

It...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Impacts of Cultural Events in Eastern Finland – Development of a Finnish Event Evaluation Tool
• 3. Casual Observers, Connoisseurs and Experimentalists: A Conceptual Exploration of Niche Festival Visitors
• 4. Festivals in the Barents Region: Exploring Festival-stakeholder Cooperation
• 5. Festival Innovation: Complex and Dynamic Network Interaction
• 6. Festival Ownership. Differences between Public, Nonprofit and Private Festivals in Sweden
• 7. Cultural Tourism Innovation Systems – The Roskilde Festival
• 8. Celebration of Extreme Playfulness: Ekstremsportveko at Voss
• 9. The Festivalscape of Finnmark
• 10. The Event-Tourist Career Trajectory: A Study of High-Involvement Amateur Distance Runners
• 11. Exploring the Success of the Gladmatfestival (The Stavanger Food Festival)
• 12. Stakeholder Influences on the Ownership and Management of Festival Brands
• 13. Sámi Heritage at the Winter Festival in Jokkmokk, Sweden
• 14. Event Experiences in Time and Space: A Study of Visitors to the 2007 World Alpine Ski Championships in Åre, Sweden
• Index