Critical success factors for an arts festival in the Northern Cape : attendees’ perspectives

Abstract

AfrikaBurn is the South African version and sister festival to the Burning Man Festival hosted annually at Black Rock, Nevada, USA. Just like Burning Man, AfrikaBurn is a community of participants who come together to create art, burn structures, costume, performance, theme camps, music, mutant vehicles and experiences, to name a few. This is all created through the volunteer culture of the attendees at AfrikaBurn, whereby the creative community chooses to, once a year, live for a week in the extreme climate of the desert. The first AfrikaBurn festival was hosted during 2007 at the Stonehenge Private Reserve, which is adjacent to the Tankwa Karoo National Park, in the Northern Cape of South Africa. It was held from 22–25 November, with only 1 000 attendees participating. Ten years later, the event grew significantly with 13 000 people attending the 2017 festival. Hosting events, such as the AfrikaBurn festival, entails various factors and elements that need to be managed effectively to create and ensure an enjoyable experience for attendees. Paying attendees expect a high standard of delivery of the promised service and experience when attending events. However, an attendee’s experience can be influenced by management aspects regarding the organisation of the event, as some of the attendees will be satisfied by the festival but others may not as the attendees’ needs and expectations can differ considerably. These aspects can be either controlled or uncontrolled by management. Therefore, it is important to ensure that these aspects, also referred to as critical success factors, are implemented effectively and efficiently by management. To ensure that a festival is able to exceed the attendees’ expectations and needs, research should be conducted, as it is imperative that event managers understand the attendees’ expectations. This can be achieved by gathering feedback from attendees at a festival. Furthermore, profiling event attendees is an important tool for event managers to use to maximise the benefits of hosting an event. Knowledge of the attendee profile characteristics and expectations, as well as knowledge of what the attendees regard as important critical success factors, will allow for better planning and ensure that attendees enjoy the event, ensuring overall satisfaction, which may turn into loyalty. It is therefore imperative for event managers to consider the profiles and needs of attendees. The aim of this research was to determine the critical success factors for an arts festival in the Northern Cape from an attendee’s perspective. To address this aim, a profile of the interviewed participants was developed and critical success factors were identified for AfrikaBurn. This dissertation followed a qualitative, phenomenological approach to determine and understand the critical success factors considered by the attendees as important for AfrikaBurn. In this study, non-probability convenience sampling was applied and a semi-structured interview guide was used. Fifty semi-structured interviews were conducted with the attendees at the AfrikaBurn festival from the 23–29 April 2018. However, only 45 completed interviews were deemed usable, to which Creswell’s six steps was applied in analysing the transcribed interviews. The analysed data revealed the profiles of the participants and two main themes were identified, namely important factors for AfrikaBurn and factors for an improved AfrikaBurn. The findings of this study can be used by the industry to improve current aspects identified as important for the event. Apart from this, the findings also contribute to current literature regarding CSFs for managing events as well as identifying the profile of attendees at an arts festival. However, it is recommended to conduct further research at AfrikaBurn to better understand the attendees at this unique event and to continue conducting research on CSFs at other events.