Visiting pop concerts and festivals: measuring the value of an integrated live music motivation scale

ABSTRACT

To better understand the growing popularity of live music, this study analyses consumers’ motivations for live music attendance. In addition to existing literature, a generic approach to audience motivations contributes to our knowledge of the growing live music industry, where venues and festivals vie for the same artists and audience. Based on a survey among visitors of live music events (n = 1131), a principal component analysis was conducted to extract six motivations for visiting live music, the Live Music Motivation Scale (LMMS). Within this scale, for all motivations, a significant difference was found between visiting concerts and festivals. People predominantly visit festivals for social and personal reasons and predominantly visit concerts for artistic reasons and the uniqueness of the live experience. This study adds to the existing literature a more generic insight in motivations for visiting live music events and a clear comparison between motivations for visiting concerts and music festivals.

KEYWORDS:

• Live music
• festivals
• concerts
• motivations
• PCA

Introduction

Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity (…) You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left. It's terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn't matter if you think it's exciting or not; it's what's going to happen. (David Bowie in Pareles, 2002)

In a famous interview in The New York Times in June 2002, David Bowie predicted the era of streaming and live music. His prediction became reality: Spotify, YouTube and other streaming services turned music into running water while simultaneously the growth of the live music industry accelerated. This is specifically the case in popular music,¹ the focus of this study. In their annual review for 2019, Live Nation (the largest global live music company; predominantly popular music) reported the ninth consecutive year of growth, with a year-over-year revenue growth of 7% and the total concert attendance (for Live Nation shows) up 5% to 98 Million (Live Nation, 2020). Several (pre-Covid-19) forecasts expected this growth to continue from 2020 onwards (e.g. PWC, 2019; Technavio, 2020). In academic research, the growth of live pop music in both numbers and importance has been argued by Frith (2007), Holt (2010), Krueger (2019) and Montoro-Pons et al. (2013). Together with the popularity of live pop music in general, the number of live music stages has grown significantly (see e.g. Propheter, 2015). In particular, the number of music festivals increased rapidly since the early 2000s (Getz & Page, 2020; Lashua et al., 2014; Westgate, 2020). Research in the Netherlands showed an accelerated growth of music festivals from 2005 onwards with a total amount of more than 1100 music festivals in 2018 (Mulder et al., 2020; Van Vliet, 2019).

To be able to understand the growing popularity of live pop music, especially in times of abundant music streaming, this study aims to better understand the motivations for visiting the two most important forms of live pop music: pop concerts (live popular music events with clearly one main, headlining artist) and pop music festivals (live popular music events with more than one main artist and in most cases several stages). Why do people flock to these live music events? How do they decide between seeing an artist in a concert venue or at a festival? To what extent do motivations for visiting concerts and festivals correspond? Insights in music visitor motivations can help in answering these questions and provide understanding of live music behaviour. Moreover, these insights could benefit both concert and festival organisers and bookers, who vie for the same artists and audience (Mulder et al., 2020). A generally accepted definition of motivation is that it is “an internal factor that arouses, directs, and integrates a person’s behaviour” (Murray, 1964, p. 7). This implies that motivation cannot be observed directly but that it is an internal construct that is a crucial factor in the understanding of behaviour and consumer experience. For this reason, the topic of consumer motivations has received due attention in social psychology and related academic fields (e.g. Beard & Ragheb, 1983; Krech et al., 1962). It has also for long been an important part of the scholarly debate on live music ever since the 1990s (see literature review below). For example, in their study on music festivals, Crompton and McKay (1997) present three reasons underlining the importance of insights in motivations for visiting festivals: 1. To optimise the fit between the visitors’ needs and the design of the festival; 2. To optimise the post-experience satisfaction of the visitors; and 3. To better understand visitors’ decision processes.

There is a rich academic tradition in measuring and understanding consumers’ and visitors’ motivations in general as well as in performing arts (e.g. cultural sociology, anthropology) in particular. Within the field of performing arts, motivations for attending live music performances have received due attention as well (e.g. classical music in Dobson and Pitts (2011) and Sloboda and Wise (2016); jazz in Burland and Pitts (2010) and Pitts and Burland (2013)). Since it is likely that (motivations for) attending pop performances differ from attending a classical or jazz performance, and because of the scope of our overarching project on popular music, this study focuses on the specific visitor motivations for pop concerts and festivals. Key contributions in this field will be elaborated in the next section (literature review). Based on the existing literature on this subject, there are some criticisms:

1. Visitor motivation research appears to have developed separately for pop music concerts on the one hand and music festivals on the other. Studies on motivations for visiting pop music in general (including both concert and festival attendance) have not yet been conducted, except for a non-empirical study by Earl (2001). Such a more integrated approach to visiting pop music performances can contribute to the understanding of the (until 2020) rapidly growing live industry.

2. The existing research on popular music events is predominantly focused on music festivals (see literature review). This academic focus on festivals has two disadvantages: first, festivals generally offer more than just live music (i.e. a more general cultural supply of performing arts, entertainment and/or food) and second, the empirical data in the existing studies on motivations for visiting pop music festivals are predominantly based on one single event (case study). Hence, Nicholson and Pearce advocated the need for a comparative approach to attendance motivations: “What is needed now is a more systematic and comprehensive approach to the analysis of the motivations of eventgoers, one that moves beyond the study of individual events to explore issues of greater generality” (Nicholson & Pearce, 2001, p. 449). Abreu-Novais and Arcodia (2013, p. 41) refer to this as “the issue of the commonality of motivators”, pointing out contradictions in the findings of single-case studies.

3. Research on popular music (festival) motivations is strongly embedded in tourism studies. The vast majority of the analysed studies (see literature review below) refer to tourism theory as the context for analysis, leaning heavily on the work of Getz (1991), who attempted to integrate the fields of tourism and events. Nicholson and Pearce (2001) criticise the assumption that event attendance can be explained purely in terms of broader theories of tourist motivation rather than allowing for the possibility that motivations relating specifically to events might exist. Several scholars have supported this criticism, including Brown and Knox (2017, p. 13) who call to “consider the complex factors surrounding concert attendance more broadly, particularly given most musicians in the popular music sphere sustain a career from concert performances”. Maeng, Jang and Li firmly argue that motivations derived from tourism research are not suitable for measuring festival attendance motivations and even that it “can mislead festival planners into adopting inappropriate festival designs and inaccurate monitoring of attendance satisfaction, as well as lead to a misunderstanding of the decision-making process of festival attendants” (Maeng et al., 2016, p. 22). Finally, Perkins (2012, p. 6) suggests that future research should aim to better demonstrate how motivations can predict concert attendance.

It can be concluded that despite the attention that has been paid to motivations for visiting concerts and festivals in general, there is a gap in the field of popular music. No empirical research has been conducted to attempt to measure live popular music motivations in general, including both concerts and music festivals. Moreover, the vast majority of relevant research is based on single-case studies at festivals too comprehensive to be able to measure just live music attendance motivations. At the same time, the market for pop music concerts and the market for festivals are regularly approached as two separate markets, despite the fact that they operate in the same overall market, relying on the same supply (pop artists) and targeting similar audience groups (live pop music audience). The goals of this paper are (1) to apply a general, integrated approach to measure motivations for both visiting pop concerts and pop music festivals, (2) to understand the similarities and differences between these and (3) to examine the value of a general measure for live pop music attendance. The insights from this study can help entrepreneurs, marketeers and policy makers to enhance the live music supply and to better understand their (potential) visitors.

Literature review

To understand the behaviour of (potential) visitors of live pop music, an analysis of consumers’ motivations is indispensable. Consumer motivations for leisure behaviour have been subject to debate ever since the 1980s, especially after the publication of the much cited studies on this subject by Iso-Ahola (1980) and Beard and Ragheb (1983). Although both papers use a different approach to understand leisure motivations, they agree on the fact that these motivations are multifarious: both internal and external, both seeking and escaping. More recently a scholarly debate has occurred around motivations for live music attendance. Crompton and McKay (1997) were probably the first to specifically measure motivations for attending a festival (only partly dedicated to music), drawing upon earlier work on event motivations in general by Getz (1991), Mohr et al. (1993) and Uysal et al. (1993). Based on Iso-Ahola’s seeking-escaping dichotomy and the general idea of push-and-pull factors, their research uncovers four domains of festival motivations: cultural exploration, regression, known-group socialisation, and socialisation/external interaction. Merged with the findings by Uysal et al. (1993) and Mohr et al. (1993), they suggest “that six domains should be incorporated on a festival motivations instrument: cultural exploration, novelty/regression, recover equilibrium (rest and relaxation / escape), known-group socialization, socialization/external interaction, and family togetherness” (Crompton & McKay, 1997, p. 438). Their work has been influential; multiple scholars enriched the knowledge about live music attendance, and festival motivation has received particular attention. In order to develop a solid foundation for the theoretical framework of this study, a literature review has been conducted. The most relevant contributions to measuring motivations for attending live music events have been mapped and analysed. For this review, all relevant (scientific) contributions concerning motivations for attending festivals in general, (pop) music festivals and pop concerts have been assessed. Relevance was determined based on (1) a primary focus on visitor motivations for festivals and pop concerts; (2) a clear theoretical and methodological framework; (3) a scope including the fields of popular culture, marketing, leisure studies and event/festival studies. The result of this analysis is shown in Figure 1. The analysed literature is structured based on the subject of study (general festivals, music festivals, pop concerts and live music in general) and will be discussed sequentially.

Figure 1. Overview of relevant sources for live music motivations and the types of motivations that they measure. *Also ancillary/event-specific characteristics/event fandom.

General festival – Beside Crompton and McKay (1997) many scholars have determined motivations for event attendance. Getz’s (1991) work on this subject has received particular attention. Several researchers have conducted meta analyses for motivational studies on this topic, e.g. Li and Petrick (2005) and more recently Maeng et al. (2016). In their literature review, the latter analysed 43 research articles of which the majority (22) had been published in tourism journals. This supports the idea that research on events and festivals in the field of popular culture/music is strongly embedded in the field of tourism and hospitality. This also explains why motivations for visiting a (music) event or festival have almost never been related to motivations for concert attendance; events and festivals have often been seen as a means to attract visitors rather than as a stage for artistic performance or for personal development or relaxation. In this context, it is important to note that only 8 out of 43 reviewed articles were based on music festivals. The authors call for the development of a new measure for festival attendance motivation – detached from tourism theory – based on the unique characteristics of festivals. Finally, they conclude that the most important components for festival motivations are socialisation, excitement and escape (Maeng et al., 2016).

Music festival – The literature review conducted for this paper revealed an overrepresentation of measuring motivations for (music) festival attendance. An analysis of the most relevant research relating to motivations to attend music festivals provides a more or less uniform overview: social motivations, novelty/unique experience and concert-specific music are mentioned in (almost) all papers. Furthermore, the motivation to party is mentioned in several cases, while this motivation is not mentioned in the research on festivals in general. Also in this group a review paper was added. Abreu-Novais and Arcodia (2013) analysed 29 empirical studies and found seven broadly present, evidence-based groups of motivational factors: socialisation, family togetherness, escape/relaxation, excitement/entertainment, event novelty, cultural exploration, and specific attributes. As with the study by Maeng et al. (2016) the analysed papers lean heavily on tourism research and there clearly is a need for further empirical research on this topic (Abreu-Novais & Arcodia, 2013, p. 44).

Pop concerts – In the field of (pop) concert motivation less research is available. In her 2012 literature review on this topic, Perkins reported no research on pop concert motivation at all and concluded that “existing studies on motivation have yet to include a specific focus on popular music concerts” (Perkins, 2012, p. 3). Ever since, several studies have tried to fill this research gap. Kruger and Saayman (2015) measured the motivations to visit a U2 concert and found social, artist-related and experience-related motivations – and surprisingly no specific personal motivations. Brown and Knox (2017) extracted four themes of motivations out of their qualitative research: experience, engagement, novelty and practical. They consider the live music experience to be the principal motivator for attendance – and put this factor forward to explain the rapidly growing demand for live pop concerts and the rapidly rising ticket prices – and practical motivations as the least important. Kulczynski et al. (2016) took a quantitative approach in order to measure concert motivations and particular combinations of motivations unique to popular music concert attendance. Based on their analysis they developed the Concert Attendance Motivation Scale (CAMS), a tool consisting of 10 factors for measuring motivations for popular music concert attendance: nostalgia, aesthetics, escape, physical attraction, status enhancement, physical skills, social interaction, concert-specific music, hero worship and uninhibited behaviour.

Live music in general – Finally, even more limited than the research on pop concert motivations is the number of studies with an integrated approach to live pop music. Economist Peter Earl (2001) applied such an approach, although his analysis is non-empirical. It is based on subjective personal introspection, of which he remarks: “The results of extensive introspection are presented in this paper not as an attempt to construct a generally applicable a priori analysis but in order to suggest empirical opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed” (Earl, 2001, p. 340). Trying to understand why people would prefer live music over recorded music, Earl defines six motivations: joy, sampling without commitment, hero worship, uninhibited behaviour, social and ritual.

In conclusion, the twelve relevant papers that were analysed (see Figure 1) presented a total number of 24 motivations for attending live music. In some cases, similar motivations had different definitions (e.g. “non-musical activities” and “event specific characteristics”). In that case they were clustered as one motivation. These 24 motivations can (except a small number of practical motivations) be categorised in four groups: personal (intrinsic) motivations, social motivations, artistic motivations and motivations related to the setting or environment of the live music event. The first three groups are confirmed in the work of Pitts (2014) who distinguishes musical, social and personal rewards of audience membership. Our analysis of existing research on motivational factors for live music revealed that (1) there is a lack of research with an integral approach to attending live music in its different forms; (2) the vast majority of existing research on live music motivations is based on – and as a result limited by – tourism theory; (3) motivations – except for practical items such as distance and price – can be categorised in four groups: personal motivations, social motivations, artistic motivations and motivations related to the setting/environment of the live music event; and (4) existing literature does not provide significant proof of difference in motivations between attending pop music festivals and pop concerts. As Figure 1 visualises, the four categories are all present in research on both festivals in general as music festivals and concerts. Although there are no major disparities between the categories, social and setting-related motivations seem to predominate in attending music festivals and artistic motivations seem to predominate in attending music concerts.

Research question and hypotheses

Based on the goal of this paper and the outcomes of the literature review, the following research questions have been formulated:

1. To what extent do motivations for concert visits correspond to those for festival visits in pop music?

2. What is the value of an integral approach to measuring live music motivations?

The first is a substantive research question: what does the analysis reveal about motivations for live music attendance and to what extent are the differences between concert and festival motivations significant? To be able to answer this research question, the following hypotheses (based on the literature review) have been tested:

H0 There is no significant difference between motivations for visiting pop concerts and pop music festivals

If H0 is falsified:

H1.1 Social and setting-related motivations are relatively important for visiting pop music festivals

H1.2 Artistic motivations are relatively important for visiting pop concerts

H1.3 Personal motivations are equally important to both pop music festivals and pop concerts

The second research question measures the value of the developed measurement scale. Because of the fact that most research on festival motivations is based on a small sample of case studies – an approach that has gained both critique and support – this paper aims to develop and evaluate a broad approach to measuring live music attendance. Subsequently, the validity will be evaluated: is this scale a valid addition to existing research in this field?

Methodology

The research design for this paper is developed based on the literature review (Figure 1) and the underlying analyses applied in the discussed papers. The measurement scale used in this paper is based on the four general types of motivations, with the items more or less evenly distributed among the groups. To define the items and the survey questions, the CAMS (Kulczynski et al., 2016) is used as the starting point. There are several reasons for this choice: (1) This scale has a broad focus but is also well specified; (2) The research design is more or less similar to the one used in this study (CAMS used a sample of the Australian population who had attended a popular music concert within 6 months prior to the survey (n = 502); this study used a sample of the Dutch population who had attended a live pop music event (concert or music festival) within a year prior to the survey (n = 1131)); (3) To be able to measure live music attendance a scale focused on concerts prevailed over one focused on festivals (in general), due to the aforementioned reasons; (4) The CAMS proved to be a relatively valid and reliable measure (Kulczynski et al., 2016, p. 252); and (5) There are clear and easily applicable items available for this scale that apply to both festivals and concerts. The limitations of CAMS are that (1) It does not cover the group of motivations related to environment/setting; and (2) The initial scale of the CAMS consisted of a relatively large number of questionnaire items (38). As a result of these limitations, the scale has been adjusted for this study. First, the items that were already labelled as unreliable by the developers of the CAMS were removed (see Kulczynski et al., 2016, p. 248). The remaining items had an overrepresentation in the groups personal and artistic motivations. For that reason, the items measuring nostalgia (personal) and physical skills (artistic) have been removed because their validity in CAMS was relatively low compared to the other items in these groups. Finally, two items were removed because these items did not appear to be clear to respondents after a first test of the scale. In order to measure and compare the four groups of motivations, items related to environment/setting have been added, based on previous research on event-specific characteristics (e.g. Lee et al., 2004) and novelty/experience (e.g. Kruger & Saayman, 2015). See Figure 2 for an overview of the items.

Figure 2. Items for live music motivation used in the questionnaire. *Text was piped depending on the initial choice of the respondent. **These items were only shown to respondents who initially choose “festival”.

To test the hypotheses and answer the research questions a quantitative survey methodology was applied. The questionnaire consisted of the live music motivation scale and demographic questions (e.g. age, gender). This construction was applied in order to move beyond the criticism on the study of individual events and to explore issues of greater generality. By distributing the survey online, a broad range of visitors of live pop concerts and festivals was reached. This supports the aim of this study to find general motives for visiting both types of pop music events. Before the motivational items were presented, the respondent was asked to make a choice between a concert or a festival. In case the respondent indicated that he or she had visited only one of both during 2019, the choice was not presented. The decision to empower the respondent to choose between concert and festival was made to stimulate the respondent to choose the event that was most top-of-mind and of which they had strong memories. Because the survey was conducted outside the festival season, this design prevailed over forcing respondents to choose their most recent live music experience.

The results of the analysis lead to the Live Music Motivation Scale (LMMS), building on and adapting the existing CAMS (Kulczynski et al., 2016). After a pre-test among a group of academics in social science, and the resulting adjustments, the final scale consists of 28 statements which are relatively equally distributed among the four groups of motivations, based on Figure 1. The final scale can be found in Figure 2. In the questionnaire, the 28 statements were randomly shown in three groups of 9 or 10 statements. Depending on the initial choice of the respondent, the term “concert” or “festival” was included in the statement. In this way, the statements were identical for both types of live music. Two of the statements were specifically focused on festivals and therefore only presented to respondents who choose “festival”.

The questionnaire was created using Qualtrics software, was accessible online from 27 November until 30 December 2019 and was distributed through various live music channels.² After the potential participants had given their consent, a selection question was presented; only people who attended at least one live pop music performance during 2019 were able to participate. The questionnaire was taken offline with a gross response of 1654 participants. After an initial analysis, additional respondents were recruited as a result of the underrepresentation of respondents who completed the questionnaire for festival motivations. This underrepresentation can be explained by the fact that the survey was conducted in the low season for music festivals. This additional recruitment yielded another 45 participants and a total of 1696 respondents. After the deduction of invalid and incomplete entries,³ a net number of 1131 completed questionnaires remained. With 28 assessed items this results in a 40:1 subject-to-item ratio, far above the 10:1 rule for determining sample size in factor analysis (Costello & Osborne, 2005). The sample was relatively evenly distributed across gender, age, education and residence cohorts (in relation to the Dutch population; see CBS, 2020), with a slight overrepresentation of female respondents (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Characteristics of the sample.

To be able to make a valuable comparison between concert and festival motivations, a representative sample of both categories was targeted. In the year prior to 2019, when this research has been conducted, there were 7.7 million visits to pop music venues in the Netherlands (CBS, 2019) and 18.4 million visits to music festivals in general (Respons Market Research, 2019). Despite the fact that the exact number of unique visitors to pop music venues and festivals is unclear, it is likely that both concern several millions annually. In this survey, the total number of 1131 respondents can be divided in 749 respondents in the category concert motivations and 382 respondents for the category festival motivations. Both sample sizes are sufficient within a 95% confidence level and a 5% margin of error.

Results

Based on the outcomes of the survey, analyses were conducted using SPSS v26. Factor Analysis was conducted to find evidence for the four groups of motivational factors for attending live music as presented in the literature review. For the specific analysis of festival motivations, 28 items were used and for the analysis of concert motivations and live music motivations in general, 26 items were used (the two items that were only relevant to festival attendance were left out). The individual item non-response was very low (below 8 for each item), indicating a reliable response for all the items.

To extract the relevant latent motivational factors from the data an analysis for dimension reduction was conducted, applying the principal components method (PCA). The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure and Bartlett’s test indicated the adequacy of the sample, as the scores (KMO = .875; Bartlett’s sig. = .000) are labelled as being between “meritorious” and “marvellous” (Field, 2018, p. 798). The vast majority of the communalities of the items is above .50 and all communalities are above .35. Oblique rotation (Direct Oblimin) was applied because in social sciences in general – and in leisure behaviour in specific – some correlation between factors is expected (Costello & Osborne, 2005, p. 3). Kulczynski et al. (2016, p. 242) also conclude in relation to the CAMS that motivations are not mutually exclusive, supporting the choice for oblique rotation.

Based on the Kaiser criterion (Eigenvalue >1) six components were extracted with a total explained variance of 55.3%, which is in line with similar studies that measure motivations for concert/festival attendance (e.g. Bowen & Daniels, 2005; Crompton & McKay, 1997; Kruger & Saayman, 2015; Lee et al., 2004). All the items have an acceptable component loading (> .50), especially considering the sample size (Hair, 2014, p. 114). From the initial scale, three items were removed (1. quality of the performed music, 2. being a huge fan of the performing artist(s) and 3. the side programme) because they loaded less than .50 on any component and their discriminatory value was too low (<.10). All components consist of at least three items, except component 6 (music specific). To measure the internal consistency reliability Cronbach’s Alpha was determined for all components. The reliability for component 1–4 can be label as good (.80) or acceptable (.76 – .69). Component 5 (uniqueness) and 6 (music specific) show less internal reliability, although the corrected item total correlation of all the items in component 5 and 6 are above the lower limit of .30. The reliability of none of the components improved after deleting any of the items. Consequently, the 23 items presented in Figure 4 were accepted as the measurement scale for six components of live music motivations: the Live Music Motivation Scale (LMMS).

Figure 4. Live Music Motivation Scale based on the outcomes of the principal components analysis.

The first and strongest motivational component is “togetherness”. This component combines different items for both known-group socialisation and external socialisation. Also, atmosphere and uninhibited behaviour (partying, dancing, singing along) loaded in this component. Combined, this motivation can be labelled as togetherness. “Escapism” is the second relatively strong component, consisting of the items that were previously labelled as elements associated with escape and engagement with behaviour that may not be allowed in a normal social setting. The third component is loaded with items related to discovering, enrichment and curiosity. This component is labelled as “discovery” and is strongly related to Iso-Ahola’s (1980) notion of seeking (as part of the seek-escape dichotomy). On the fourth component, which is called “being there”, both items related to status and artist worship loaded. Here we find an important proof of value creation by live music: in the perception of visitors their status is enhanced by seeing and experiencing the artist in person. This motivation involves status-enhancement through the proximity in relation to the artist. This value of being there in relation to live music has previously been described by Radbourne et al. (2014). The fifth component combined items related to the “uniqueness” of the live experience: its unpredictability and once-in-a-lifetime feel. Finally, the sixth component “music specific” is clearly related to the artistic content: to hear new music or other versions than the recorded repertoire.

As not all possible motivations could be incorporated in the LMMS (motivations such as local identity, nostalgia, gregariousness and practical issues have not been included), the respondents in this research were asked to name any missing motivations and/or to provide general comments about the motivation items after completing the items in the survey. A total number of 389 respondents provided input. This input has been coded and classified, leading to sixteen groups of additional and/or emphasised motivations. The vast majority of this input supports the six motivations in the scale. Most frequently mentioned are the live experience in general, the artist/music, the uniqueness of this show (e.g. “because it’s a farewell tour”) and socialisation reasons. A large share of the respondents expresses themselves in a quite emotional way; they talk about belonging, love for music, happiness and all types of emotions that can be stimulated by live music. One of the respondents wrote: “Live music is life, music is a medicine for the soul, is it a form of psychological therapy. It feeds my brain, boosts my body with positive energy and creativity and it makes me happy.” It is striking that a large number of respondents mentions the fact that “they just had to be there”, as if it was not a choice. To them, it was not an option to miss this show. Also, several respondents mention that they wanted to take their kids to a live show, to teach them about a good live experience.

Other groups do not directly match the scale or only just partially. The most mentioned motivation that is not in the scale is nostalgia (including good memories, youth sentiment, tradition of visiting and the idea of coming home at the venue/festival), followed by other/practical motivations (proximity, location, price, won tickets, was asked to come along etc.). Finally, there was an interesting group that was labelled as “psychological motivations” (including: an opportunity to be myself, find meaning, get rid of my fears, an opportunity for coming out). Here, visiting live music seems to be experienced as a medicine for mental health (this statement has also been made by Packer & Ballantyne, 2011). This analysis leads to the conclusion that the four motivations that were not applied in this study could have had a significant impact on the scale, though most of the input by the respondents fits into the LMMS, that was used as the starting point for the test of the hypotheses:

H0: There is no significant difference between motivations for visiting concerts and festivals.

First, six new variables were created in SPSS by computing the means of all the items within a component. An independent t-test for equality of means was conducted to measure the significance in the differences between the two groups festival motivations and concert motivations (see Figure 5). For all six components, a significant difference (<0.05) between both groups was found. Based on this analysis H0 should be rejected: this research found significant differences between visiting concerts and festivals for all six motivations in the LMMS.

Figure 5. Outcomes of the independent samples T-test for the groups concert and festival. *Equal variances not assumed.

After the difference in motivations for concert and festival attendance was determined, hypothesis 1.1–1.3 could be tested. To understand the difference in motivations, the motivational components have been linked to the four main groups of motivational factors that emerged from the literature review (see Figure 6). Escapism is part of the personal motivations, togetherness is a social motivation, music-specific characteristics are part of the artistic motivations and uniqueness can be linked to the live setting. Both discovery and being there appear to be a combination of personal and artistic motivations; these motivations are based on the proximity, interaction and synergy between the artist and the audience.

Figure 6. Outcomes of the PCA combined with the four groups of motivations.

To be able to value the integral approach to live pop music motivations (the second goal for this study), it should be clear to what extent the LMMS should be preferred over separately measuring concert and festival motivations. To answer this question a more specific PCA was carried out additionally, for the separate groups concert and festival (see Figure 7). Based on the outcomes in Figure 7, the two separate motivation scales for visiting concerts and festivals do not appear to be more valuable and reliable than the general LMMS, supporting the value of the generic approach.

Figure 7. Outcomes of the additional PCA for the separate groups festival and concert.

H1.1: social and setting-related motivations are relatively important for visiting festivals

Togetherness is one of the most important motivation factors for visiting festivals and this importance is significantly higher compared to attending concerts. This supports the hypothesis of the social motivations for visiting music festivals. For setting-related motivations, no evidence is found to support this part of the hypothesis. Uniqueness of the live experience is one of the most mentioned motivations by festival visitors but this score is significantly lower compared to concert visitors. This does not imply that the event setting is by definition less important to festivals. In their non-musical activities, a comparison between concerts (in venues) and festivals is difficult to make. A more detailed analysis can be found in the conclusion and discussion.

H1.2: artistic motivations are relatively important for visiting concerts

Music specific characteristics such as the experience of new music or live versions of existing material form an important motivation for visiting pop concerts. This motivational factor scores significantly higher for concerts than for festivals (see Figure 5), supporting this hypothesis. The element of being there relates status enhancement to the presence of the artist, thus combining personal and artistic motivations. Also for this motivation the importance for concert visitors is significantly higher than for festival visitors, supporting this hypothesis. Concerning the partly artistic motivation of discovery there is an opposite effect: discovery is significantly more important to festival visitors. As a result of the fact that the items related to discovery did not literally mention artistic discovery, discovery as an explanatory factor for artistic motivations can be assumed to be less important than music-specific characteristics and being there. Taking that into consideration, this hypothesis that artistic motivations are relatively important for visiting concerts should not be rejected.

H1.3: personal motivations are equally important to both festivals and concerts.

Personal motivations for visiting live music are primarily represented by the component escapism. In relation to the other components in this analysis, the difference in means between festivals and concerts for escapism is relatively low (see Figure 6), supporting this hypothesis. Nonetheless, this difference appeared to be significantly in favour of festival visits, objecting this hypothesis. Also, in this case the components discovery (personal enrichment) and being there (personal status enhancement) are taken into account. Discovery is significantly more important to festival visitors and being there measures in favour of concerts. Given the fact that the scores for all the components related to personal motivations differ significantly, this hypothesis should be rejected.

Conclusion and discussion

The goal of this paper is to answer two research questions: (1) To what extent do motivations for concert visits correspond to those for festival visits? and (2) What is the value of an integral approach to measuring live music motivations? In this section, both questions will be answered and discussed.

1. To what extent do motivations for concert visits correspond to those for festival visits?

For this research, a live music motivation scale (LMMS) was developed, extracted by a PCA based on a sample of 1131 respondents, consisting of six components. For all these components a significant difference is found for pop concert versus pop music festival motivations. Concerts score significantly higher on artistic (music-specific characteristics, being there) factors and the unique experience; festivals are visited more specifically for spending valuable time with others, to discover and to escape daily life. These outcomes support the idea that people undeniably have different reasons for visiting live pop music either in a concert venue or at a festival. Some interesting observations can be added to this conclusion. First, despite the fact that getting a “unique experience” is one of the most relevant factors for visiting festivals, this score is significantly higher for concert visits. Clearly, the idea of experiencing something unique, is more strongly related to concert attendance than to festival attendance. This contradicts the notion that uniqueness is inherent to the ephemeral character of a festival. The explanation could lie in the fact that the unique experience in this motivation is predominantly created by the performing artist (“must have seen this artist”) in combination with the fact that music/artist-related motivations are more important to concerts than festivals. This outcome does not imply that creating an experience environment is less important to festival organisers. Second, the component of "being there" scores relatively low for festival visitors implicating that the presence and proximity to worshiped artists is not an extremely important motivation for visiting music festivals in general. Third, although "escapism" is mostly linked to festivals in existing literature, the difference found between concerts and festivals concerning escapism is only just significant, indicating it is almost equally relevant to concert goers. Fourth: The presence of Iso-Ahola’s seek-and-escape dichotomy is most clear at festivals, where the motivations "discovery" (seeking) and "escapism" score significantly higher (see also Griffin et al., 2018). The outcomes support the conclusion drawn by Crompton and McKay (1997) that for visiting festivals the seeking dimension is of greater importance than the escaping dimension.

This paper supports David Bowie’s prediction about the growing importance of live music in times of (music streaming) abundance. Furthermore, it adds some nuance to Earl’s statement that “much of the demand for live music should be understood as something other than the demand for music itself” (Earl, 2001, p. 354). Notwithstanding the fact that personal and social elements are very important motivations for attending live music events, the music itself is as well. Because of artist worship, the love for the music and the need for live performances of this music, the value of being close to the artist, the curiosity for live versions of the songs and for experiencing the artist in real, the nostalgia that artists call upon and finally the urge for just being there (over and over again), the live music itself as an artistic uniqueness is a driving motivation for visiting concerts. Live music as a product should never be reduced to something that can be substituted by recorded or streamed music or as nothing more than the soundtrack to a leisure experience.

• (2) What is the value of an integral approach to measuring live music motivations?

Our contribution to the academic debate on live music motivations is an integrated approach to understanding the motivations behind the demand for live pop music. One of the goals of this project was to measure the validity of this approach. Is it valuable to measure motivations for attending live music on a generic level? To answer this question, the developed LMMS scale was compared to the CAMS, to the broad range of case-study based scales in Figure 1 and to the supply-specific scales in Figure 7. CAMS was focused on concert visits and similar to this study used a generalisable sample instead of a case study. The LMMS is slightly less powerful than CAMS concerning the explained variance, factor loadings and reliability. This can be explained by the more general approach of the LMMS. Substantively, the analysis did not completely confirm the assumptions that were made based on the CAMS (see Figure 2). The factors "status" and "hero worship" from the CAMS were merged in the factor "being there". Also, uninhibited behaviour – which is a distinct factor in CAMS – is here divided into a personal and a social component; to engage in social behaviour that may not be allowed in a normal social setting is (logically) absorbed in "escapism" and to party, dance, sing along and so on is absorbed in "togetherness". This leads to the conclusion that the inhibited behaviour of partying and going nuts is more of a social thing than a personal thing. This study adds to the CAMS the notion of the "being there" motivation, a component in which status enhancement is connected to the idea of presence and proximity to the performing artist. Compared to the various case studies related to either festivals or concerts, the scale developed in this paper emphasises the differences between both forms of live music. Furthermore, it emphasises the fact that escapism, socialisation/togetherness and discovery are of significant importance in all forms of live music.

In conclusion, the Live Music Motivation Scale as developed in this paper adds relevant insights to the existing literature. The broad approach leads to a relatively reliable measure to better understand the importance of the four general groups of live music motivations and the distinction between concert and festival motivations. Nevertheless, extracting motivations for cultural activities such as live music – in its multitude of manifestations – remains complex.

Limitations and further research

The goal and research questions of this study demanded for a broad approach to live music motivations. However, the analysis revealed some limitations to this approach. In general, the validity of the motivation scale is sufficient. Building on the thoroughly elaborated CAMS and testing before executing the survey, benefit the overall reliability. Nevertheless, there are some limitations in content and construct validity. The final scale is based on 23 motivational items. From the initial 28 items, two only applied to festivals and four were removed from the scale because they did not fit in the construct. Eight items of the initial CAMS were left out of the test. Furthermore, it was not feasible to include all the motivations mentioned in Figure 1 in the LMMS. Motivations not specifically measured include nostalgia, excitement, entertainment, ritual and local identity. Despite the practical necessity of this choice, it could impact the content validity of the scale. Concerning the construct validity, the internal consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha) of two components (uniqueness and music-specific characteristics) is relatively low. Because of the aims of this paper (comparing the groups concert and festival and assessing the value of the measurement) it was decided to retain these components. Finally, in this study visitor motivations were assessed retrospectively, which entails the risk that inaccurate memories could negatively affect the reliability of the outcomes. To minimise this risk, participants were empowered to choose their own case from their recent live music experiences, motivating them to choose their most pronounced recent live music memory. In order to reduce this reliability risk, measuring visitor motivations at the moment of purchasing a ticket would be recommended.

Future research on this subject should ideally include a wider range of motivational elements, although this will likely harm the feasibility of the study. However, additional emphasis on other motivations than the ones elaborated in this study is eligible. Factors as nostalgia and locality appear to be important motivations as well. Furthermore, follow-up research on the psychological effects of visiting live music (both on the short and long term), could help to better understand visitors’ statements that live music makes them happy, they cannot do without, it enhances their mental health and it enriches their lives.

Postscript

The field research for this study was carried out at the end of 2019, months before the forced closure of all live music venues as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. This raises the question to what extent this long-term lockdown will influence motivations for visiting live music in the near future. The first studies on this subject that appeared during the pandemic, signal the importance of the motivations presented in this study. In their study on online raves, Vandenberg et al. (2020) conclude that attendees of such online events specifically lament “lost ritual actions, specifically acknowledging the bereavement of the physical crowd itself. Although many more aspects differentiate the livestream experience from physical concerts […], viewers’ insistence on the social dimension stands out”. The pandemic and its subsequent lockdown of venues and festivals emphasises the need for physical copresence (togetherness, being there), escapism and aesthetic experiences. Taking this into account, consumers will likely be even more motivated to visit pop concerts and festivals after the pandemic than they were before.

Acknowledgements

The authors want to thank Dr Paul Rutten for his critical feedback and also Dr Marc Verboord and Dr Pawan Bhansing for their methodological feedback. Also thanks to the academics who critically pre-tested the scale. We would like to thank Mojo Concerts, VNPF and Festivalinfo.nl for sharing the survey on their channels. Finally, we would like to thank the respondents who made this research possible. The research conducted in this paper is approved by the ESHCC Ethics Review Board of Erasmus University Rotterdam (approval number ESHCC-v-05368 19/29). All respondents have provided appropriate informed consent before getting access to the survey.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported as part of the project Staging Popular Music: Researching Sustainable Live Music Ecologies for Artists, Music Venues and Cities (POPLIVE) by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and the Taskforce for Applied Research (NRPO-SIA) [grant number 314-99-202, research programme Smart Culture – Arts and Culture]. Partners in this project are Mojo Concerts and The Association of Dutch Pop Music Venues and Festivals (VNPF).

Notes on contributors

Martijn Mulder

Martijn Mulder is a PhD Candidate at the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Communication and Culture (ERMeCC) at Erasmus University Rotterdam. As a senior lecturer at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences he conducts research in the field of urban leisure, focusing on music festivals and the value of live music in an urban context. Within the POPLIVE-project he is responsible for the subproject “Staging the live music experience – enhancing the value creation of the live music industry”.

Erik Hitters

Erik Hitters is Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Industries in the Department of Media & Communication of Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has co-founded and is managing director of ERMeCC, the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Communication and Culture. He lectures for the MA programme in Media Studies and IBCoM, the International Bachelor in Communication and Media. He is project leader of the POPLIVE project.

Notes

1 In this study, popular music concerns all music that could be found in general music charts and/or all music that can regularly be experienced live in a pop venue. This includes the genres pop, rock, metal, hip-hop, urban, singer-songwriter, electronic live music, dance (dj’s) and cross-overs between pop and for example jazz, soul or world music. This doesn’t include for example classical music, (traditional) jazz and (traditional) folk music. In this study, the term “pop” is also used as a substitute for “popular”.

2 For example, the weekly Mojo Concerts mailing, the websites Festivalinfo.nl/Podiuminfo.nl, Linkedin groups and the user forums of music websites as Festileaks.com and Musicmeter.nl.

3 Of the initial participants three respondents didn’t agree to the terms in the survey’s consent form, 71 respondents didn’t visit a live show throughout 2019, 50 respondents didn’t answer any question and 444 respondents didn’t finish the questionnaire.