Events research group report

ATLAS Events Research Group Report Richards, G. Marques, L., Borba, C, Willemsen, J and Durand, A. (2018) Events Research Group Report. ATLAS Reflections 2018, pp. 35-38. The work of the ATLAS Events Group continues to expand, particularly in terms of data collection and analysis on event experiences. Event experiences and experience design have been a key theme of the group since 2013, when a meeting on this theme was held in Portugal. Since then members of the group have been involved in collecting data from events in many different countries around the world. This work has supported a number of publications, a number of which have been collected in the volume Experiencias turísticas de festivales y eventos edited by Greg Richards and Agustín Ruíz Lanuza, published in 2017. The 2017 meeting of the ATLAS Events Group was held in conjunction with the ATLAS Annual Conference in Viana do Castelo. A total of 30 delegates attended the meeting sessions, and 19 papers were presented. There was lively discussion about research approaches to event experiences, and in particular how to use and combine quantitative and qualitative data sources. This event attracted wide range of papers related to event experiences, and also considerable discussion on the further development of the Event Experiences Scale. The Event Experience Scale at different locations has not only provided very interesting comparative material, and has also stimulated a search for more flexible and shorter version of the scale. Work has also been done with a reduced scale at events and attractions in Hong Kong, which has emphasised the distinctive nature of experiences at attractions and events. The application of the EES to Carnival was also continued in 2018, with surveys being distributed in Brazil, Portugal and the Netherlands (see separate report below). Recent surveys have been carried out at other events in the Netherlands, including a major Jazz Festival. A further meeting of the group will be staged in conjunction with the ATLAS Annual Conference in Copenhagen in September 2019. This meeting will be on the theme “Event platforms, networks and communities: making time and space to link people”. This has also proved a popular theme, with an even larger number of abstract submissions than in the previous year. There are plans to produce a publication from the meeting, which will be discussed in Copenhagen. More information about the Events Group and its activities can be found on the Academia page: https://independent.academia.edu/gregrichards/ATLAS-Events-Group Carnival and São João, longitudinal research, 2016-2018 Lénia Marques, Carla Borba, Juanita Willemsen, Andre Durand As part of the ATLAS Events experience initiative, since 2016 a project on Carnival has been developing. In parallel, another popular event in the region of Pernambuco in Brazil, São João (Saint John), has also been studied. Thanks to the hard work of the research assistants Juanita Willemsen and Andre Durand (see biographical notes below), and the support of the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, we are now starting to see some results of this longitudinal study which allows for different comparisons. Carnival is a widely celebrated cultural phenomenon, which takes place on an annual basis in many countries across the globe. This ongoing study of cultural events has focused on Carnival in Brazil, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Greece, and other countries (so far less represented in our current sample). São João is also a popular event in the Northeast of Brazil, which allows for interesting comparisons. Up until now, academic research into event experience has been limited mainly to marketing perspectives. Although popular cultural events, such as Carnival, have been studied extensively across different disciplines, there is a lack of substantive research about the different dimensions of the Carnival experience, both in its individual and social realms. To broaden the knowledge on these topics, we have investigated the events of Carnival and São João from a consumer point of view within a social context. Throughout the research, several types of experience and other related subjects have been analysed. Besides motivations for attendance and the experience scale, this research also includes a creativity scale, and a social interaction scale (only for specific events). After the dissemination of surveys in a number of different countries, the data has been gathered and processed to make cross-cultural comparisons. Our focus has been on the annual event of Carnival throughout the years 2016-2018 as well as the Brazilian celebration of São João in 2016 and 2017 (2018 data collection is in preparation). For Carnival, we aim to gain some insight into the motivations that drive people to participate in the event. In addition, we are interested in the evaluation of different motivations across borders. Looking at the data of Carnival alone, preliminary findings highlight the atmosphere, entertainment, and spending time with friends and family as the primary motivations to attend the event (figure 1). Examined in more detail, the preliminary findings point towards the importance of atmosphere as a motivation for attendance, which is relatively high for Carnival-goers in Brazil. Another significant finding indicates that particularly the Dutch and Greek respondents participate in Carnival as a way to spend time with their friends and family. In the case of São João, the social interaction scale served as a tool to measure experience of the festival with regard to group dynamics. Preliminary findings indicate that attendees who participated in groups scored higher on some elements of the event experience scale (EES). When the experience of both events are compared, we can see that their experience footprint is extremely similar in all aspects (figure 2). As a longitudinal study, the aim is to continue and expand the study of these events, in particular of Carnival. Collaborations of different kinds are of course always welcome. In fact, this research has been made possible with the valuable contributions of different people around the globe. We would like to thank in particular: Greg Richards, Mireille Heijnen, Alba Colombo, Maria Podestà, Caroline Couret, George Chatzinakos, Zsofia Antal, Iren Gyoker and Xerardo Pereiro. For more information about the Carnival project, please contact: Lénia Marques marques@eshcc.eur.nl ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Juanita Willemsen is a second-year student of the International Bachelor of Arts and Culture Studies at the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Previous to this study, she attended the Cals College in Nieuwegein where she received bilingual education. One of her recent achievements includes the completion of the Arts and Culture Honours Programme within the Arts and Culture faculty at the Erasmus University. This programme consisted of extracurricular assignments, including a socially engaged blog post, a research proposal, a theoretical paper, and a projectory combining research in theory and in practice. Andre Durand is also a second-year student of the International Bachelor of Arts and Culture Studies at the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. During high school he received the IB diploma in Peru majoring in English, Spanish, and Business.