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ABSTRACT
To what extent does the sense of touch matter in cultural consumption? After an extended period of limited social gathering due to COVID-19, it is vital to assess the importance of physical contacts in cultural events. Focused on the live music industry, our paper addresses the following question: How important is the perception and experience of tactile value amongst festival- and concertgoers? For this purpose, we conducted a survey between September and November 2021 and collected 142 exploitable questionnaires. Our goal was to detect structural relationships between latent variables related to touch through a Structural Equation Model. The latter reveals the relative pleasantness of tactile value experienced by our respondents, with effects on their live music experience. In view of the importance of tactile value in live music events, we formulate several recommendations to practitioners and cultural policy in order to further take into account this variable in decision making.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the participants of the 10th European Workshop on Applied Cultural Economics (EWACE, University of Turin, September 2022) and of the 12th International Conference on Cultural Policy Research (ICCPR, University of Antwerp, September 2022) for their valuable comments on previous versions of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Smell and taste relate more to culinary experience, which can be viewed as a cultural experience per se (Waldfogel, Citation2020).
2 See, for example, the initiative proposed by the Uffizi in Florence or the Omero tactile museum in Ancona.
3 See the publication of the recent report by the European Union: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/2ac1c129-5e57-11ed-92ed-01aa75ed71a1/language-en. See also the recent Voices of Culture”s report on Youth, Mental Health and Culture https://voicesofculture.eu/2022/06/17/the-role-of-cultural-and-creactive-sectors-in-improving-mental-health-of-the-youth/.
4 As evidenced by the Nobel prize awarded to neuroscientist Ardem Patapoutian, specialist of tactuality and the molecular basis of mechanoreception. See https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/2021-medicine-nobel-prize-winner-explains-the-importance-of-sensing-touch/.
6 Fingers tips and lips are notably the most sensitive zones given the high concentration of nerves and sensorial captors (Gallace & Spence, Citation2014).
7 Chandola et al. (Citation2022) found that around 29% of UK adults not presenting any common mental disorder before COVID-19 outbreak had a disorder in April 2020. Rossi et al. (Citation2020) found negative outcomes (such as post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and others) in the Italian population already 3 weeks into the lockdown measures.
8 Note that this reference typology has been subjected to revisions. See, for example, Hernando and Campo (Citation2017), Throsby and Zednik (Citation2014), and Hutter and Shuster (Citation2006).
9 Note that this limited access generated interestingly critical views on the first attempts of restarting the music events, such in the case of Sam Fender”s show in Newcastle in August 2020. See https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/50099/1/the-uk-s-first-socially-distanced-gig-looks-absolutely-awful.
10 When seated, the haptic cultural experience is limited to feeling the comfy and soft nature of the seat, and potentially, to deliberate or undeliberate contacts with the right or left seatmate. Fortuitous elbowing or kneeing in the seat back can alter the cultural experience at various degrees, as do undesirable noise or smell for the other senses.
11 Note that recent innovation in the recorded music industry aims to allow disabled people, and deaf people in particular, to listen to music via audio-tactile algorithms creating “tactile illusions.” See https://neurosciencenews.com/tactile-music-21692/.
12 While the debate about the cultural or entertainment nature of these events is out of the scope of this paper, it is worth stressing that the clubbing industry have been the most impacted during the pandemic. They are however worth considering for they belong to that category of music events, where live or recorded music is played by DJs in front of a significant number of partygoers gathered in a clearly delineated and confined space.
13 Note that a fourth part dedicated to physical vs digital live music experience was also included in the questionnaire but will not be discussed in the scope of this paper.
14 Before disseminating the questionnaire, we tested a first version of it with a test group of 10 persons, collecting feedbacks on the clarity and on the complexity of questions, and improving some of the questions according to these feedbacks.
15 The situation is expected to differ for people consuming classical music in seated format, which are not represented in this study.
16 Note that we are focusing on the impact on tactile value in live music event for concert- and festivalgoers, without the claim to extend what we find to the evaluation of the whole physical event with respect to the digital counterpart. The value of a physical event may be influenced by the quest for distraction, the disconnection from work, and other social or personal reasons (Shipman & Vogel, Citation2022; Zhao, Citation2023).
17 The three variables are built using answers to the question “Based on a ticket set at 100€ (full regular standing up experience), how much to you pay for”, respectively for “The same concert, standing up but with 1.5 metre between concert goers”, “The same concert but seated”, and “The same concert but fully online”. The answers range from “0 to 25 €” (1) to “More than 100€” (6). Since the answers to this question are not directly measuring the willingness to pay for an event with more likely touch experiences but the willingness to pay for an event with a limited haptic experience, we used the inverse of the value of each answer (i.e. 1/x where x is the answer) and multiplied it by 6, so to have a set of relative measures of willingness to pay compared to an event with at least 1.5 metres of social distance, a seated event, or a digital event, respectively.
18 These variables are built using the answer to the question “How do you experience each of these types of physical contacts in live music events?” respectively related to “Hugs and hand-shakes by strangers” and “Feeling of being compressed in a mass of people”, with a Likert scale going from “Mostly unpleasant” to “Mostly pleasant”.
19 The former is a 5-level Likert scale variable, obtained from the question “How much each of our 5 senses is important in a live music event?” related to the touch sense, with the scale going from “Not important” (1) to “Very important” (5). “Social value” is a 0–1 answer to the question “According to you, what are the most important values of art and culture?” where respondents could choose up to 3 values among aesthetic value, historical value, social value, educational value, authenticity value, spiritual value, or a customized value that they had to type. When respondent chose “social value” (by itself or with other answers), the variable “social value” is equal to 1, or 0 otherwise. The choice of values listed in this question is based on Throsby (Citation2001).
20 The first three – which are relevant variables recalled in other papers on the impact of lockdowns on music lovers (Zhao, Citation2023) – come. from a 5-level Likert scale question “How positive/negative are the following experiences linked to live music events?” respectively related to the points “Feeling physically connected with people (human interactions)”, “Sharing the cultural experience”, and “Experiencing the energy that emanates from a compact crowd”, with a scale going from “Mostly negative” (1) to “Mostly positive” (5). “Hand touch” is the answer to the 5-level Likert scale question “How positively or negatively do you experience physical contacts on the different parts of your body during a live-music event?” related to “Hands”, with a scale going from “Mostly negative” (1) to “Mostly positive” (5)
21 For example, the coefficient reported in the cell crossing the row for “pleasantness” and the column for “importance” must be read as the total effect of “importance” on “pleasantness.”
22 For example, olfactory marketing with fragrance developed by luxury hotel brands.
23 A relevant example of such a practice can be found in the trance music world, with the live events “Group Therapy” by the trance/dance group Above and Beyond. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyQru6UQZbc.
24 The pandemic has triggered the development of several digital alternatives, such as live streamed performances, virtual concerts festivals (with pioneering example of Travis Scott on Fortnite) and online music festivals (Tomorrowland around the World).
25 See https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329834/9789289054553-eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (Retrieved on 29 November 2022).
26 The detailed questions of the survey are available on demand.