GROUP SIZE IMPACT ON PARTICIPANT EXPERIENCE AT FESTIVALS. Tiffany Brenner Thesis. (original) (raw)
Experiences are becoming increasingly important in events and festivals, which are prime manifestations of the experience economy. However, research on event experiences has generally been concerned with economic impacts and visitor motivations (Gursoy, Kim, & Uysal, 2004). Few studies have attempted to operationalize and quantitatively analyze experiences, and there is no consensual definition regarding the essence of experiences (Walls, Okumus, Wang, & Kwun, 2011). This article develops an Event Experience Scale (EES), for event experiences. In this exploratory study the item generation and selection for this scale are presented in three phases: specifying the domain of construct and generation of items, item selection, and scale purification. An 18-item scale, comprised of 4 dimensions: affective engagement, cognitive engagement, physical engagement and experiencing newness, with satisfactory values for Cronbach’s alphas (.83, .86, .86, and .87), emerged. Implications for theoretical and practical research are discussed.