An Investigation into whether an Attendee’s Behaviour Changes at an event due to the Liminoid.

Abstract

The aim of this study is to carry out an investigation into how music festival attendee’s behaviour changes due to the liminoid experience. Upon understanding the reasoning for the liminoid experience, this study will determine any themes that occur within the literature review and the data collection. This study will focus on music festivals based in Europe - however, some of the existing research is not purely based in Europe.

With the experience economy growing into a category of its own (Pine and Gilmore 2011) and an increase in leisure time and disposable income, the events industry has expanded over the past few decades (Arcodia and Whitford 2006; Bowdin et al. 2012). Turner (1974) devised the term ‘the liminoid,’ which is the feeling of otherworldliness one can experience at an event. While there have been studies by scholars on the liminoid experience such as: Martinus et al. (2010), Jenkinson et al. (2014), Taheri et al. (2015) and Dilkes-Frayne (2016), there is a gap in the literature surrounding how the liminoid experience affects attendee’s behaviour during an event. In order to test this, a qualitative approach was taken, through the use of semi structured interviews.

There are key themes that have continued to surface such as: communitas, flow, ecstasy, pleasure and arousal. These will be explored with reference to research carried out previously. From the results gained by the analysed data, it was evident that similar ideas to the themes identified previously were present. The results present the idea that the liminoid experience changes how attendees behave and causes them to act out of character. Relating these findings back to the literature review and the ELC (Experiential Liminoid Consumption) model will show how this could affect the events industry and recommendations will be made for future research projects based on the findings from this one.