Spectators’ sensory experience and sociability at the American racetrack

ABSTRACT

Rationale: When attending live motorsport events, spectators watch, hear, smell, taste, and touch the multifarious stimuli that permeate their environs. The resulting perceptions would seem likely to facilitate motorsport spectators’ sociability. A systematic attempt has to be made to know how motorsport spectators’ sociability is expressed differently by their perceived sensory stimuli.

Design: This study examines how motorsport spectators’ social interaction, sense of community, and social consumption differ by level of sensory experience. At a local racetrack located in the American Southeast, 237 spectators answered questions via self-administered questionnaires. Collected data were analyzed via a Kruskal–Wallis H test.

Findings: The results suggest that motorsport spectators who are highly stimulated by sensory stimuli tend to interact with other spectators and feel a sense of belonging with them.

Practical Implications: Local racetracks should facilitate spectators’ sensory experiences for creating the social atmosphere of an event. For this aim, the racetrack’s management needs to implement multi-sensory marketing toward their promotional activities.

Research Contribution: The findings provide a platform from which sport consumer behavior scholars may better understand the dynamics of spectators’ sensory experience and sociability.

KEYWORDS:

• Sensory experience
• five senses
• social interaction
• sense of community
• social consumption

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).