A Stakeholder Approach to Attendee Segmentation: A Case Study of an Australian Christian Music Festival

Abstract

Festivals provide many benefits to regions and communities such as tourism expenditure, community pride, and the celebration of culture. Whereas the literature has emphasized the need to incorporate stakeholders into the management of festivals, researchers have not considered how these stakeholders are segmenting their attendees. This article applies a stakeholder approach to attendee segmentation through the utilization of a case study approach with semistructured interviews to profile visitors to Easterfest, an Australian Christian music festival. The results suggest that stakeholders, although not actively segmenting visitors, share many similarities in their description of the characteristics and behavioral patterns of attendees to the festival. Limitations based on the findings are made while future opportunities are also outlined.