First-time versus repeat visitors to a music festival in South Africa

ABSTRACT

This research segmented visitors to Spring Fiesta, a music festival aimed at the House, Hip Hop and Kwaito music festival market in South Africa, based on the frequency of visits to distinguish between first-time and repeat festival attendees. A research survey was done over four years (2013–2016) and 788 visitor questionnaires were included in the analysis. Independent sample t-tests, two-way frequency tables, and Chi-square tests were used to analyze the data and segment first-time and repeat visitors based on socio-demographics, behavioral characteristics, and overall satisfaction and travel motivations. These differences should be considered when the festival program is designed and marketed.

KEYWORDS:

• First-time visitors
• music festival
• repeat visitors
• South Africa

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance from the National Research Foundation (NRF). The authors are also grateful towards the festival organisers, all the fieldworkers as well as respondents who formed part of the research.