Exploring the audience experience in jazz festivalsStudy case of the San Sebastian Jazz Festival

Resumen

This thesis focuses on the audience experience in jazz festival settings. Drawing from audience development literature, leisure studies, and (jazz) festival research, the main objective of this study is to analyse the audience experience in jazz festivals according to the audiences’ socio-demographic profile and the festival setting. To reach the general objective, a literature review was conducted and empirical research was performed; both of them packed into three articles that form the main body of the thesis. The main findings of the systematic literature review are represented through six thematic groups and the extent to which these fit audience development areas are discussed. After setting the base for empirical research, the Jazzaldia Festival in San Sebastian was chosen to analyse audience experience. The second article explores audience experience as an interactive co-created process between audiences’ profiles and the festival setting. The third article measures differences among participants in terms of their residence area on the one side, and their expectations, experience, festival setting, and the aspects they considered the festival’s best ones, on the other. Both the second and the third articles include the novel adaptation of the Arts Audience Experience Index (Radbourne et al. 2009; Radbourne et al. 2010), which quantitatively measures audience experience. This includes their motivations, expectations, cognitive, emotional, and social engagement with the performance in a festival setting. Articles that form part of the thesis: 1. Bakić, S., Cuenca-Amigo, M., Cuenca, J. (2021). Jazz festivals and their audiences: A systematic literature review. Participations, Journal of Audience and Recepetion Studies, 18, (1), 19-45. 2. Bakić, S., Cuenca, J., Cuenca-Amigo, M. (2021). Measuring the Audience Experience at the Jazzaldia Festival, San Sebastian, Spain. Event Management Journal, available online: 22.12.2021. https://doi.org/10.3727/152599521X16367300695762 3. Bakić, S., Cuenca-Amigo, M. and Cuenca, J. (2021), "Exploring the jazz festival experience amongst local and non-local residents: The case of the Jazzaldia Festival in Spain", International Journal of Event and Festival Management, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 418-436. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEFM-05-2021-0037