Abstract
Abstract
Many festivals originated with community celebrations. Through festivals, their ethnic, historical, religious piety, community pride, culture preservation, social cohesiveness and reconciliation are embodied. The significance of the economic contribution from festivals or special events has been well documented in the past two decades; thus, festival/special event creation is now treated as a strategy for tangible economic development. In addition, research focused exclusively on the relationship between patrons’ perceptions of festivals/special events and economic benefits overwhelmingly dominates this field. Indeed, it is essential to understand the meanings of festivals from the patron’s standpoints since their perceptions are associated with the future direction of festival development. Failure to understand and respond to the diversity of stakeholders’ perceptions can lead to participant dissatisfaction. The purpose of this study was to identify the meanings that participants ascribe to the Lemonade Fair, a local festival in Minnesota, by using two sets of interview data, including a face-to-face, open-ended interview and freelisting interviews. Twenty informants who visited this art fair were interviewed during the 2014 festival period. Most of the informants were middle-aged (average: 46 years old) Caucasian females with college degrees who had lived within a forty-mile radius for more than fifteen years. They were not first-time visitors and fourteen out of the twenty attended this festival with their family members. With their consent, their answers were digitally recorded and then transcribed. Based on the results of the freelisting interviews, the top six terms informants used to describe this art fair were ‘fun’, ‘community,’ ‘gathering,’ ‘art,’ ‘food,’ and ‘music’ (Smith’s S represents the mean salience value range from 0.299 to 0.205). The open-ended interview data were then used to interpret the results. Findings demonstrate that most informants perceive this art fair to be equivalent to art and community. They suggested that it is an important venue for building sense of community and boosting social capital and solidarity among their community members. Findings suggest that intangible social cohesiveness, not the tangible economic benefits, is the most important perception of this local art fair. The festival sponsors should acknowledge the social benefits derived from festival participation in order to plan it better in the future.
An Exploratory Study on the Meanings of a Local Fair from the Perspectives of Locals
Abstract
Many festivals originated with community celebrations. Through festivals, their ethnic, historical, religious piety, community pride, culture preservation, social cohesiveness and reconciliation are embodied. The significance of the economic contribution from festivals or special events has been well documented in the past two decades; thus, festival/special event creation is now treated as a strategy for tangible economic development. In addition, research focused exclusively on the relationship between patrons’ perceptions of festivals/special events and economic benefits overwhelmingly dominates this field. Indeed, it is essential to understand the meanings of festivals from the patron’s standpoints since their perceptions are associated with the future direction of festival development. Failure to understand and respond to the diversity of stakeholders’ perceptions can lead to participant dissatisfaction. The purpose of this study was to identify the meanings that participants ascribe to the Lemonade Fair, a local festival in Minnesota, by using two sets of interview data, including a face-to-face, open-ended interview and freelisting interviews. Twenty informants who visited this art fair were interviewed during the 2014 festival period. Most of the informants were middle-aged (average: 46 years old) Caucasian females with college degrees who had lived within a forty-mile radius for more than fifteen years. They were not first-time visitors and fourteen out of the twenty attended this festival with their family members. With their consent, their answers were digitally recorded and then transcribed. Based on the results of the freelisting interviews, the top six terms informants used to describe this art fair were ‘fun’, ‘community,’ ‘gathering,’ ‘art,’ ‘food,’ and ‘music’ (Smith’s S represents the mean salience value range from 0.299 to 0.205). The open-ended interview data were then used to interpret the results. Findings demonstrate that most informants perceive this art fair to be equivalent to art and community. They suggested that it is an important venue for building sense of community and boosting social capital and solidarity among their community members. Findings suggest that intangible social cohesiveness, not the tangible economic benefits, is the most important perception of this local art fair. The festival sponsors should acknowledge the social benefits derived from festival participation in order to plan it better in the future.