Post on 21-Feb-2023
UNIVERSITY
of
GREENWICH
A THESIS ON
“IMPACTS OF THE ORGANISATION CHALLENGESAND CAPACITIES ON ATTENDEES SATISFACTION
AT THE LOCAL COMMUNITY FESTIVALS” Submitted for partial fulfilment of award of
MASTER OF ARTS IN EVENTS MANAGEMENT
By
OZGE ALI
STUDENT ID: 000802210-0
SUPERVISOR
PETER VLACHOS
DEPARTMENT OF MARKETING, EVENTS and TOURISMSCHOOL OF BUSINESS
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
September 2014
ABSTRACT
This study examines the impacts of the organizations’
challenges on the attendees’ satisfaction at local
community events. 255 attendees responded the attendees’
satisfaction survey, four interviews were conducted with
the organisers’ and five community festivals were
observed. The major findings of this study are;
identified the Volunteer organizer constraints and
capacities are not reflecting attendees’ satisfaction.
Conversely, overall enjoyment was correlated with
attendees’ demographic structure. For each festivals
five different activities recognized the responses of
the attendees enjoyed during the event those are
included; the entertainment, children activities,
stalls, food and drink options, and socializing. In
contrast to the most enjoyed activities, the festival
goers made improvement suggestion in seven different
categories. These include; Food and drink options,
entertainment, stalls, children activities, monetary
request, environmental issues and marketing. The
results demonstrate no significant difference for the
attendee’s satisfaction between the two different
locations and the community festival which is run by
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
volunteers and local council. Moreover, while the local
council community festival host 30,000 attendees, the
volunteer organizations hosts between 200 to 7000
festival goers. The responders overall satisfaction does
not reflect the difference in the size of the events. In
depth interviews demonstrated that the volunteer
festival organisers’ major constraints are retain the
volunteers, legal requirements, in sufficient support
for improve organisations capacities. In this study
overall findings provide information for the community
festivals stakeholders regarding managerial constraints
and attendees’ satisfaction at community festivals.
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
Table of Contents
Title Page
Declaration Form
Abstract
List of Contents
Acknowledgements
1.0 Introduction 1
1.1 The Study Aims and Objectives 2
1.2 Background of the Study 3
1.3 Justification of the Study4
1.4 Conclusion of the Introduction 5
2.0 Literature Review 62.1 Community Festivals
2.1.1 Definition of Community Festivals 6
2.1.2 Aims and Powers of Community Festivals7
2.1.3 Impacts of Community Festivals9
2.1.4 Issues Related with Community Festival Management9
2.2 Volunteer Management Constraints11
2.2.1 Definition of Volunteer11
2.2.2 Volunteer Constraints12
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
2.3 Attendees Satisfaction 14
2.3.1 Factors for Attendees Satisfaction14
2.3.2 Importance of Measuring Attendees’ Satisfaction15
2.3.3 Attendees Reasons to Attend Community Festivals16
3.0 Methods Used 17
3.1 Multi-Methods and Analysis Graphs17
3.2 Research Approach 18
3.3 Research Design 19
3.4 Research Methods 19
3.5 Sampling Strategies 20
3.6 Instrument Design 22
3.7 Data Collection Techniques22
3.8 Method Analysis 24
3.9 Discussion of This Study Ethical Consideration24
3.1.1 Limitation of Methodology24
3.1.2 Conclusion of the Methodology Chapter26
4.0 Results and Analysis 27
4.1 Data Results for Attendees’ Satisfaction27
4.2 Discussion of Community Festivals Research Data-
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
2014 - South East London 32
4.2.1 Greenwich PARKSFest (Hornfair Park and Eltham South)39
4.3 Organisers Challenges and Capacity Data40
4.3.1 Discussion of Findings Festival Organisers “A” 43
4.3.2 Discussion of Findings Festival Organiser “B”44
4.3.3 Findings, of the Semi-Independent Volunteer Organiser 44
4.3.4 Findings of Community Festival Run by Council45
4.4 Discussion of the All Festivals Included in This Study45
5.0 Conclusion 48
5.1 Review of the Study Aims and Objectives48
5.2 Key Findings 49
5.3 Key Conclusions and Recommendations 50
5.4 Recommendation for the Future Research50
6.0 References 57
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
I am immensely lucky to work with Peter Vlachos whoencouraged and guided me through each stage of thisresearch as my supervisor and made me believe inmyself, it was a real privilege to work with him. Onceagain thank you Peter.
Also, I would like to add my gratitude to communitychampions for their participation for the communityfestivals; Sarah Parker, Claire Cowen, Terry Powley andJohn Fahy. While I have an opportunity, I would like tosay thanks, the precious benefits that I gained duringmy education; Irem Akin and Weiwei Liu.
This piece of paper demonstrates how festivals areuseful for bringing people together to share the sameexperience with others, regardless of whichorganisation organised the events, regardless of whatthe aims of the organisation. No matter what will be mymark from this research, I do believe next year at someof the festivals, some rides are going to be free forthe children in Greenwich.
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
Dedicated to my Daughters Gozde and Gonul…
1.0 Introduction
Community festivals are rapidly growing in recent years
(Lee and Kyle, 2014; Yoon et. al., 2010; Delamere et
al., 2001; Getz, 1997; Jamieson 2006; Neirotti, 2003;
Prentice and Anderson, 2003; Mayfield and Crompton,
1995; Van Zyl, 2006). The community festivals which were
included in the scope of this study were mainly
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
organized by the volunteers. Because of the nature of
community festivals; the organising committee is
predominantly composed of members of the society (Getz,
1993; Meyer and Edwards, 2007). Local festivals also
described as celebrations of community or “what a
community is all about” (Janiskee and Drew, 1998 cited
in Lee et al., 2009:588). However, the community
festivals management committees face with different
constraints while the events are operating (Meyer and
Edwards, 2007). Moreover, measuring the attendees’
satisfaction is crucial (Lee et. al., 2008), to retain
the attendees (Kim et al., 2010).
Community festivals are aimed at improving community
cohesion, and sometimes authorities organise community
festivals to reach this aim (Jepson et al., 2008). While
local bodies organize this type of event, volunteers
organise independently or semi-independent festivals for
the same purpose. The previous finding in this area is
very narrow (Meyer and Edwards, 2007). However, the
community festival literature mainly investigated
different issues relating to the community Festival;
attendees’ satisfaction which is mainly related with the
marketing and the loyalty (Gursoy et al., 2004; Lee et
al., 2008; Yoon et al., 2010; Kim et al.,2010; Drengner
et al., 2012; Rosenbaum et al., 2005), impacts of
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
community festivals (Delamera, 2001; Delamera et al.,
2001; Small 2007; Wood 2005, 2009; Reid 2007;) and
volunteers (Meyer and Edwards, 2007; Earl et al., 2005;
Cleave and Dorothy 2005; Brennan 2007; Love, 2009;
Downward and Ralston 2005; Baum and Lockstone 2007).
Furthermore, community festivals are recognized by some
of the authors’ within the literature relating to event
tourism because the major driving force for the event
industry is tourism (Getz 2008). Conversely, in the
literature some of the other authors’ such as Clarke and
Jepson (2011) and Meyer and Edwards (2007) researched
community festivals relating to the community
development.
These types of events allow residents to engage with
their community and provide entertainment for a wide
variety of age groups and all community members who have
children or are alone, who are disabled or healthy, and
who are have a religious faith or are atheist. From this
viewpoint community festivals are a way to bring
residents to one place, improve community cohesion,
create an impact on communities while the residents are
entertained and promote governmental or local business
services.
This study focuses on free entry community festival
attendees’ satisfaction and organizers challenges and
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
capacities. In this research there is an emphasis on
volunteer community festival organizer’s challenges and
the study attempts to measure attendees’ satisfaction
related to the organisers’ challenges.
1.1 This Study Aims and Objectives The main aim of this study is to identify impacts of the
organisation on attendees’ satisfaction at the local
community festivals and predict future improvements for
the organisations and on the attendees’ satisfaction.
The hypothesis of this research is sought that
attendees’ satisfaction is dependent on organisers’
challenges and capacity.
Objectives
To determine differences of the aim at the
community festivals dependent on organisation
The community festivals are organised mainly for
community cohesion and promote local services purposes
by the local governments. However, independent volunteer
organisations also organise community festivals. The
community cohesion is main aim. However, there are
variant aims and power of the festivals dependent on
organisations capacities. This study investigated
different organiser’s aims and perceptions of the
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
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community festivals by the organisers, festival goers
and the local authority.
To investigate volunteer management constraints and
capacities at the community festivals
The volunteers’ community festival organisers are
struggle with different challenges related with
organisation capacities. However, there is no obligation
to manage community festivals in the legislations. This
study argued impacts of support and the existing gaps in
the legislations.
To analyse factors of the attendees’ satisfaction
at the community festivals
Measuring festival attendee’s satisfaction is essential
(Gursoy et al. 2004; Lee et al., 2008), as with many
industries, because satisfied customers are more likely
to attend subsequent festivals (Lee et al. 2008; Kim et
al., 2010). The previous researchers’ findings show
there is a strong relation between a customer’s decision
to revisit the event and satisfaction with the existing
event (Lee and Kyle 2014). Segmenting the attendees
provide understanding the attendees attitudes and
perceptions.
To predict future improvement for the attendees
satisfaction
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
A community festival has no wide media coverage and
economic impacts (Getz 2008) and none of the existing
research has been conducted on the impacts of the
organisations capacities and constraints on attendees’
satisfaction. This study examines attendees’ attitudes
and perceptions related to demographic segmentations on
satisfaction, and defined improvement topics for the
future community festivals.
To determine the organizers’ improvement concerns
for the future community festivals
Whether organised by volunteers or local authority,
community festivals face with constraints. This study
analyses the limitations for the organisers depending on
organisational structure. The results suggest ways in
which future community festivals could be improved.
1.2 Background of the studyThis research particularly evaluated and focused on
three free festivals which do not have to be pre-booked
to attend. This provides an opportunity for the
attendees’ and the local residents to watch live
performances, access food stalls, entertainments,
children’s activities, arts and craft stalls,
information stalls and so on at the communal spaces.
These festivals are celebrated annually for members of
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
the community, at the same location and hence attract
mainly local people. Moreover, the festivals open to
everyone (include those from different ethnic
backgrounds and people of all ages), providing a range
of activities for different age groups all day long in
South East London.
For this research, data was collected for the attendees’
satisfaction at three different community festivals in
London in June 2014. The research result was verified by
255 survey respondents at three different community
festivals and four interviews were conducted to identify
the organizations’ constraints and capacities. The
Department of Culture, Art and Leisure, (2007) policy
posed; “A community festival is a series of events with
a common theme and delivered within a defined time
period. It is developed from within a community and
should celebrate and positively promote what the
community represents. Community festivals are about
participation, involvement, and the creation of a sense
of identity and are important in contributing to the
social well-being of a community”.
1.3 Justification of the Study
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
The four community festival organisation’s assignees
were interviewed for the purpose of discovering the main
challenges that organisers experienced in South East
London and measured the factors of attendees’
satisfaction at these local festivals. Those annually
community festivals celebrate and entertain residents.
The reasons to focus on these topics were; these
festivals are also organised by volunteer community
groups. The governmental bodies are promoting grants and
training availabilities for the volunteer community
festivals committee at the London Community Foundation
(2014). Conversely, none of the training is mandatory
for being able to run community festivals in London,
moreover, some festivals are failing. Examining the
impacts of these constraints and capacities of the
organisations on the attendees’ satisfaction becomes
more important for understanding the attendees’
attitudes and understanding the organisers’ desires for
potential improvements at future festivals. Nonetheless,
the overall satisfaction at these events was compared to
identify the attendees overall satisfaction at various
community festivals included in this study.
1.4 Conclusion of Introduction
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
The impacts of the organisational challenges and
capacities factors of attendee satisfaction of local
community events will allow the organisers to predict
future improvement on attendee satisfaction,
strengthening their awareness of ways to overcome
volunteer constraints. Volunteers for the community
events are an important element of the social changes
(Brennan 2007), volunteers give their time, skills and
effort without monetary expectations (Meyer and Edwards
2007). In this study the researcher sought to identify
impact of the organisational challenges on attendees’
satisfaction at the local community festivals and
predicts future improvements for the community
festivals.
The research outline was designed as follow: In the
literature review a critical analyses was conducted for
several of the topics, relating to community festivals,
volunteer management constraints and capacities. The
attendees’ satisfaction reviewed with the different
authors’ arguments. The purpose of this was to
strengthen this study. Methodology chapter summarizes,
detailed research methods, which this study conducted
for meeting the aims. Furthermore, other available
methods are discussed and explained with reasons for not
using these options in this study. The following chapter
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
aims to demonstrate the findings of this research, the
attendees’ satisfaction results and the interviews
presented in this chapter. In the concluding chapter all
previous sections are reviewed and recommendations
offered for the future research.
2. Literature ReviewThe scope of community festivals literature review is
narrow (Meyer and Edwards, 2007). There have been
several researches made about volunteer community
festivals (Meyer and Edwards 2007; Huang et al., 2010;
Clarke and Jepson 2011; Jepson et al., 2008), impacts of
community festivals (Wood; 2005, Delamera 2001; Delamera
et al., 2001; Small, 2007; Wood, 2009; Gursoy et al.,
2004), evaluation of attendees satisfaction at festivals
(Yoon et al., 2009; Lee et al., 2008; Kim et al., 2010)
and Festival volunteers (Meyer and Edwards 2007; Earl et
al., 2005; Cleave and Dorothy, 2005; Brennan, 2007;
Love, 2009; Downward and Ralston, 2005). In this chapter
the literature review enhanced with these authors’ among
many other authors. Literature review consists of the
three main topics; Community festivals included;
definitions of community festivals, aims and perception
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
of community festivals, impacts of the community
festivals and issues related with community festivals.
Next topic investigated the volunteer management
constraints under; the definitions of volunteer and
volunteer constraints. And the last section of the
literature review discussed, attendees satisfaction
under the topics of, importance of measuring attendees’
satisfaction, attendees’ reasons to attend community
festivals and factors for attendees’ satisfaction.
2.1 Community Festivals
2.1.1. Definitions of Community FestivalsCommunity festivals or as O’Sullivan and Jackson (2002)
described “home grown festivals” are not researched yet
(Li et al., 2009). Allen et al., (2007:50) described;
“festivals and events can be identified in every human
society in every age. They are part of how we interact
as humans, and form part of the social fabric that binds
our communities together”.
However, O’Sullivan and Jackson (2002) posed home grown
festivals are been organised in rural or semi-rural
areas. Furthermore, festival is a way to develop
networking between across sectors (Jepson et al, 2008)
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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and promoting ethnic differences in doing so revealing
local cultures, customs and history (Jepson et al, 2008;
Getz 1997). Love (2009:3) posed “festivals are important
part of the overall economic exchange for the arts and
cultures industry”. Nonetheless, Quinn (2005), cited
culture is used for restructuring prosperity and job
creation thorough the use of festival.
Different definitions and perceptions of community
festivals are emerging in the literature about what
about festivals are? However, the common theme among
some authors about the festival is people’s Culture
(Quinn, 2005). Clarke and Jepson (2011) posed; culture is
used for constructing festivals for the societies and
also the main decision maker for the community to
include or exclude the festivals. Moreover, Getz (2008)
classified, festival industry along with carnivals,
commemorations and religious events under cultural
celebrations. Art and entertainment are another
classification on the Getz typology of planned events.
The main distinction between Getz (2008) and Love (2009)
descriptions is Getz classified festivals under cultural
celebrations whereas Love classified the festival
industry under the arts and culture industry.
Jepson et al (2008:7) posed; “festivals and moreover,
community festivals are public themed celebration which
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can act as a catalyst for demonstrating community values
and culture”. It is important to investigate why
festivals are organized; Mayfield and Crompton (1995)
enriched literature with their findings and the authors
classified eight main reasons why festivals are
organized, these are; internal revenue generation,
external revenue generation, community spirit and pride,
culture/education, tourism, agriculture,
socialization/recreation and natural resources.
2.1.2 Aims and Power of Community FestivalsCommunity based festivals have diverse varieties of
themes and aims (Huang et al., 2010). Quinn (2005:6),
stated; “the first festival took a place in Athens as
long as 534 BC, in honour of the God Dionysos, the
patron of wine, feast and dance”. Community festivals
are used for many other purposes, educational,
religious, private, public purposes and so on (Quinn
2005). Furthermore, opens spaces, free spaces or Public
spaces also provide opportunity for the community to
learn from others how to behave, respect and many other
aspects for communal living requirements (Poletta,
1999). Nonetheless, usage of parks is becoming a
phenomenon of increasing neighbourhood quality and
attracting low-income communities and increasingly
middle-income residents (Walker, 2004). Hart (1997)
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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posed adequate parks are environmental educator for
children.
The historic community festivals were used as a
political purpose to control the societies (Jarvis
1994). Wood (2005) highlighted local bodies that
utilised the events and festivals to reach various
ranges of economic and social objectives. While interest
in community festivals is increasing in London and the
main aim is to increase the cohesion between residents,
local authorities used funding for running these events
(Wood, 2005) and these festivals contributed to the
essentially well-being of societies (Arcodia and
Whitford, 2007). Festivals are a place where different
voices represent themselves and it is also a place to
manage the tension of generated differences (Derret,
2005). Moreover, at the festivals, attendees’ celebrated
their society identities (Turner, 1982; Gursoy et al.
2004). Attendees attend particular community festivals
to build up bonds with their society (Wood 2005; Gursoy
et al., 2004; Dalemera, 2001; Turner, 1982). The way of
engender local permanency (Quinn, 2005). Furthermore,
Jamieson (2006) stated Community festivals improve
cohesion between local residents which need to be under
control of their local community; author added;
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community festivals need to give opportunity to the
local residents to represent others in their community.
The governmental body organise these types of festivals
to create consensus between local residents (Mayfield
and Crompton, 1995), increase social pride and for
community well-being. McMillan (1996:322) stated; “to
have experience, the community members must have contact
with one another. Contact is essential for a sense of
community to develop”. Furthermore, the community
festivals increase civic commitments and morale (Wood,
2005). Wood (2009) investigated the local authority
management festivals and posed the need of clarity
within local government and the author proposed the
government needs to focus and be serious about what the
attendees’ expectations are, when they use public funds
as a return of investment to the community.
2.1.3 Impacts of Community FestivalsMany authorities agreed these types of festivals are a
different, valuable approach to improve identification
and commitment-centred, common values (Lee and Kyle
2014). Wood (2005) describes how the importance of scale
impacts of the festivals. The author investigated
attendees’ motivations and attitudes to measure the
economic and social impacts of the festivals. Delamera
(2001) questioned the Local bodies, the local
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communities and the festival organizers perception on
festival is it to predominantly gain on economic
benefit? However the impacts of each event are variable
(economic, environmental, social) depending on the
local, national and international concept (Wood 2009).
Furthermore, Saayman and Saayman (2006) found that the
location and size of the town had a significant
influence on the event. Many studies focused on
economic impacts to measure success of the event and a
few of the researches focused on the socio-cultural
impacts. This is the reason why the success of the
festival is measured by the financial contribution to
the stakeholders (Small et al., 2005). Furthermore,
Jepson et al. (2008) added without community festivals
local communities cannot achieve involvement of the
population.
Small (2007: 45), explored six dimensions of social
impacts of community festivals. The factors listed as a;
inconvenience, community identity and cohesion, personal
frustration, entertainment and socialization
opportunities, community growth and development and also
behavioural consequences. Prentice and Anderson (2003)
and Reid (2007), findings have also raised the
importance of social impacts and consequences of the
local events. Delamera et al., (2001) investigated
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social impacts under social benefit and social cost
which is less tangible than economic impacts of
community festivals.
2.1.4 Issues Related with Community Festivals ManagementConversely social benefits of the community festivals,
there are different issues in the literature that is not
commonly in the scope of the research. Jepson et al.,
(2008) posed festival process; develop organisers’
hegemony over the other shareholders and the author
argued about consistently running festival by the same
organiser is not encompassed within the democracy.
Moreover, it is arguable to identify how community
festivals which are steering with the same committee
over the years can be efficiently to represent multi
ethnic communities. Moreover, festivals are going to be
limited to the views of the steering community’s
cultures over the years (Clarke and Jepson, 2011).
Clarke and Jepson (2011) evolved the hegemony of the
steering group at the community festivals related to the
limited resources, the authors added all supports and
consultation meeting are provided in English Language.
This is not allowing non-English speakers to participate
at the organising committee meetings. Other issue
relating to community festivals management is the
financial difficulties which results in insufficient
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promotion and unproductive marketing research that lead
to events failing to reach target audiences at the
community festivals (Lee and Kyle 2014; Getz, 2008).
However, developing marketing strategies and
coordinating the festival is a responsibility of the
festival expert. Organisers captivate cultural control
of a community festival (Jepson et al., 2008). In
contrast, some event organisers are against the idea of
running community festivals which develop business
approaches at the community based festivals. Because of
reduce the demand from community involvement (Gursoy et
al., 2004). Brennan (2007) suggests investigating to
community resources, enhanced venues for interaction and
increased community capacity building.
The festival and event evaluation kit was developed by
the cooperative research centre for sustainable tourism.
Four sections identified; Demographic Module which is
assessing demographic structure of the area, Economic
module that calculated expenditure and incomes of the
festival, Marketing Module which was scope marketing,
related concerns asking questions for the participants
and getting feedback about motives for attending the
event and the last section is additional questions
module that is collecting data (Allen et al., 2008).
Getz (2008) emphasized the nature of the event that is
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time limited and the author added (2008: 404) “if you
miss it, it’s a lost opportunity” and then the
researcher clarified the importance of satisfying the
goals at the event industry and the author cited, if the
amateurs are run event this is often too risky for
reaching the event goals. Moreover, Jepson et al.,
(2008) defenced successful community events, in other
words community events which reached their targets is a
consequence of organisation, networking and management.
However, Jamieson (2006: 182) explored the importance of
management structure and the author posed “festivals and
events rely on enthusiastic participation, event
planning does not work best with “top down” management
approach that tries to impose practices onto a
community, region, or institution”. Moreover, Wates
(2008) suggested standard organisational structure for
the successful community festival; the author included
local interest groups, consultants and support bodies in
the main organisation framework. Nonetheless, Huang et
al., (2010: 259) posed; “festival organisers, planners
should encourage local people to support community based
festivals and project the image of a friendly community
to the family market”. In contrast Kim et al., (2010)
cited, this type of local community festival success
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depends on the organisers and local residents’ passion
for the event.
2.2 Volunteer Management Constraints and Capacities
2.2.1 Definitions of volunteerBaum and Lockstone (2007) defined the volunteers;
“individual volunteer helping others in sport, informal
organization such as clubs or governing bodies, and
receiving either no remuneration or only expenses”.
However, volunteering.org.uk (2014) definition is
slightly different than the aforementioned definition
“volunteering as any activity that involves spending
time, unpaid, doing something that aims to benefit the
environment or someone (individuals or groups) other
than, or in addition to, and close relatives”. Central
to this definition is the fact that volunteering must be
a choice freely made by each individual. This can
include formal activity undertaken through public,
private and voluntary organisations as well as informal
community participation (Volunteer. Org. UK, 2014). One
of the other definitions cited Du Boulay (1996: 4) “a
volunteer is a person who, on a regular basis,
contributes his or her time and energy”. There are
existing gaps even for the definition of the volunteer
in the literature (Baum and Lockstone 2007).
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Furthermore, in the legislation there is no any
obligation for the employees to pay volunteer expenses
(Volunteering.uk.gov, 2014).
Community festivals are labelled as a community based on
being run by one or a group of volunteers for advantages
of local residents (Huang et al., 2010; O’Sullivan and
Jackson, 2002). Stebbins (1996) posed; volunteering is
more enjoyable and satisfying, however, it does not
require skill or knowledge. However, Baum and Lockstone
(2007: 33) argued against Stebbins definition and the
authors are defined in the Stebbins definition; “the
definition does not sit well with the skills base often
required or acquired as a result of this of
participation”. Furthermore, Stebbins cited, (2004: 7)
“volunteering, considerable planning, effort and
sometimes skill or knowledge, but is for all that
neither serious leisure nor intended to develop into
such”. Davis Smith (1999) recognized five major elements
for volunteering; rewards, free will, benefits from
volunteer activity, organisational brand, the level of
commitment of volunteers. However, emotional attachment
is one of the key motivation factors for volunteers to
work for the particular festivals (M. Thompson & Heron
2005).
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2.2.2 Volunteer constraints and capacitiesIn the literature of the community festival industry
volunteer constraints are not widely scoped (Meyer and
Edwards, 2007). Love (2009) has researched about
community events and volunteer impacts. Moreover,
volunteer constraints at the festivals related
literature investigated by Cleave and Dorothy (2005),
Brennan (2007), Love (2009) and so on. It is important
to understand the volunteer’s needs and expectations
prior to the event to maximise utilisation of a
volunteer’s time and effort (Downward and Ralston 2005).
At the community involved events, individual
contributions create a long term community (Brennan
2007). Cleave and Doherty (2005), research findings
(from 2001 Canada Summer Games) show volunteers
negotiating with the challenges, however, the same
challenges are not overcome by non-volunteers such as
personal cost, lack of skills, language ability and so
on. Earl et al., (2005) urged a capacity of volunteers
at two different levels; as a group and an individual.
The authors increased awareness of the training needs,
how often, and what position festival organisers
utilised from volunteers, in crowd management, campsite
management, entry and exit control and so on. Brennan
(2007) proposed improvement needs of volunteer on
empowerment, training, support and program development.
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Volunteer training, through academic, private and
governmental bases would support enabled local
communities into active community leaders (Brennan 2007)
as well as increase capacity and quality of the events
(Brennan, 2007). Furthermore, Earl et al., (2005)
explored how expanding volunteer capacity through
training had a positive effect on the volunteer service
for the authors’ study of the festival. Within this
frame, training and support increases the capacity of
the organisers and simultaneously, increases capacity
and quality of the festivals. Volunteers have positive
impacts on improving the community, individual
volunteers working together with other community members
and build a social network (Cleave and Dorothy, 2005).
Nonetheless, training increases the confidence of the
volunteers for the potential for recruitment (Downward
and Ralston, 2005).
Brennan identified volunteer needs under enhanced or
increased venues for interaction, broad based local
representation, leadership development and increased
skills based training. Instead of conflicts between
community members, distrust, different interest and
variety of other negative conditions. However, the
differences between community members are still not the
barriers to empowering community development (Brenan
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2007). The aims of the festivals are communities
celebrating a variety of nations and enhanced values of
life (Quinn, 2005). Department for business innovation &
skills defined there is no department in Government
leading and responsible for volunteer events. This site
posed organisers need to review the local authorities
rules and regulations for organising the volunteer event
(Gov. UK, 2014). The site is added, “The value of the
volunteers is in Government big society agenda”.
The community festivals have a real potential to
generate socio-cultural impacts (Small et al., 2005).The
volunteer organising committee serves to community and
have a power to promote what they would like to or
protest during stage performance. The question arises
about whether volunteers are vetted (Baum and Lockstone
2007). Getz (2002) identified the main constraints
perceived by the organisers is the retention of the
volunteer. Love (2009:5) posed “gaining better
understanding of how to improve volunteer retention is
important for the management of non-profit festival
organisation”.
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2.3 Attendees satisfaction
2.3.1 Factors for attendees’ satisfactionLee et al., (2007: 402) posed for the satisfaction; “it
describes a consumer’s experience, which are the end
state of a psychological process”. In growing festival
industry, understanding festival goers will improve
marketing and festival production (Li et al., 2009). The
authors’ explored six motivational factors at the
festivals in their research; escape novelty, nostalgia
and patriotism, event excitement, family togetherness
and Socialization. Between six different factors escape
found most dominant factor. In spite of festival
popularity many festivals failed because of insufficient
marketing and limited budget (Lee and Kyle, 2014). Lee
and Kyle segmented festival goers based on the attendees
commitment degree and then in socio-demographic
characteristics. The authors posed their finding at the
three different segments; age, education and past
experience and the findings were meaningful and had
significant variation. Moreover, the authors added
(2014: 656) the “more committed visitors were to the
festivals, the higher their overall satisfaction was
with the festival experience, and the more likely they
were exhibit loyalty intension toward the festival”.
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Yoon et al., (2010) stated, understanding customer
satisfaction and loyalty is as significant as product
quality. Researchers segmented tangible (food,
souvenir) and intangible benefits (festival quality,
loyalty, value and satisfaction benefits) of the
festivals and segmented gender, age, education level and
marital status. Research findings show (:335) “festival
quality dimensions included program, souvenirs, food,
and facilities affect value, which then contributes to
visitors’ satisfaction and loyalty.” Lee et al., (2007)
emphasized promotion, organization and management of the
value of the festival experiences, and the authors
discovered similar result with Yoon et al., (2010). Yoon
et al., found food quality and program content
positively affects customer satisfaction and is
satisfaction leads to customers being loyal to the
festival. Kim et al., (2010) suggested the importance of
facilitating quality services and valuable experiences
for the perception to repurchase the experience and
researchers categorized socio-demographic structure of
research responders. Moreover, Kim et al., findings
specified “perceived value leads to satisfaction”. Getz
(2008) considered possible measures of value the events
as follow; growth potential, appropriateness, market
share, sustainability, quality, economic benefit,
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community support and image enhancement. The author then
separated these into four divisions; low and high demand
/ high and low value on his evaluation pyramid.
According to this approach local events (periodic and
one-time) are described as a low demand and low value
for the measurement strategy of the “value” for the
event industry.
2.3.2 Importance of measuring attendee’s satisfactionMeasuring the satisfaction of the attendees is crucial
(Kim et al., 2010; Gursoy et al., 2004). Satisfied
customers are more likely to revisit next year events,
in other word, are expected to utilise the same service
(Cronin et al., 2000). In the literature there are
different aspects to engender to attendees satisfaction
factors. Drenger et al., (2012) emphasises that loyalty
is the main driver of the satisfaction; the authors’
research on music festivals explored how the feeling at
being part of a community has a wider influence than
overall satisfactions the authors posed (: 59);
“satisfying the customer is not always the key route to
value creation”. Also the authors added customer
interactions improved the building of positive
experience. Moreover, festival satisfaction indicates
the festival quality (Yoon et al., 2010; lee et al.,
2008). Nonetheless discovering the motivational reasons
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of the attendees was as inefficient way to measure
attendees’ satisfaction (Yoon et al., 2010).
Wood (2005) recognized vigorous data was a necessity for
planning future events and secures funding from funders.
The authors exposed, 100 per cent audience satisfaction,
moreover, the author added (: 48) “responders stating
they enjoyed the festival “very much” and none of the
responders added any negative comments or complaints to
the recorded assessment. On the other hand, demographic
factors analyses who are the attendees’. Mason and
McCarty (2006) posed; a young visitor feels that they do
not belong the organisation institutions.
2.3.3 Attendee’s reasons to attend community festivalsWoodruff (1997) emphasised the importance of past and
present experience of the value of the event and that
expectation is related with experiences. Prentice and
Anderson (2003) findings, define the experience of the
festival, as the most important reason and socialising
with friends identified, as the second most important
reason for the festival experience of attendees. Wood
(2005) discovered “doing something special” was the most
important factors for attending festivals as followed by
“relaxing entertainment”. On the other hand, repeated
visitors had more awareness than the first time
attending attendees. Huang et al., (2010: 259) exposed
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“repeat visitors enjoyed the atmosphere of the festivals
and nice people of the host community, whereas first-
time visitors appreciated the tangible more than the
emotional elements”. The other factors which are described
by Lyon (2000); free events attract the most people and
are more popular than paid events; these types of events
generally include concerts, parades at the open spaces.
Moreover, Drengner, John and Gaus (2012) emphasis on
free events offering loyalty to the attendees.
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3. Methods usedFor this study multi-methods were used to verify most
reliable data and reach the most appropriate result.
3.1 Multi-Methods and Analysis Table
Below table demonstrated methods used for this study Datacollectiontechniques
Theaspects oftheory
Researchapproach
Nonprobabilitysampling
Probabilitysampling
Purposeofresearch
Quantitative
Deductive
Pragmatistapproach
Purposive
Simplerandom
Descriptive
Survey Snowball Exploratory
Observation
Explanatory
Contentanalyses(Photographs,books,newspaperand soon)Semi-structurequestionnairesSPSS
Existingstatisticsresearch
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Secondaryanalysis/DataQualitativeObservation
Inductive
Informal,semi-structureinterviewsOpenendedquestions
The festival attendee’s satisfaction data was collected
at the three study sites to measure their satisfaction.
One of the other main resources of this study was the
four organiser’s assignee interviews. The organiser’s
challenges and capacities emerged in detail during these
interviews. In total five community festivals were
included this study. The Royal Borough of Greenwich
(RBG) Deputy Leader represented the local body community
festivals organiser and this interview allows the reader
to explore aims of the local authority festivals’ and
the attitude of the local authority to the community
festivals. Furthermore, one of the festivals was in the
Lewisham Borough, this enables the reader to identify
differences between the two different Boroughs. This
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research resource includes the many different authors’
academic books, journals, and articles, moreover,
utilised from the secondary data such as census, web-
sites and the photographs taken from the observed
festivals, in addition to primary data from interviewees
and the attendees’ questionnaires.
3.2 Research ApproachThe research was conducted using different approaches
for meeting the most appropriate result of study.
Different perspectives were established during this
study, and allow the reader different views from
different organizational structure. Using multi-methods
refer to pragmatist approach where quantitative and
qualitative data analysed together (Kelemen and Rumens,
2007 and Creswell, 2003). The qualitative approach used
during the interview and part of the attendees’ survey,
when asking attendees most enjoyed activities and
recommendations (Dewhurst, 2006; Berg, 2007). Part of
the survey allows readers to analyse numerically
presented statistical data relating to the attendees’
satisfaction (Neuman, 2007; Bell, 2010). This part of
the research allowed the researcher to develop data
faster with closed questions (Berg, 2007). The overall
findings can be easily compared with different data from
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the other similar studies. In this study, the researcher
was a physical component that might impact on the result
of the research. Moreover, the study used quantitative
research during spontaneous interviews and sought
answers with inductive analyses for the purpose of “…
involving the intensive examination of a strategically
selected number of cases so as to empirically establish
the causes of a specific phenomenon” as Johnson cited in
Cassel and Symon (2004: 165). During the interviews to
uncover fundamental meanings and governments’ judgement,
multi-method analysis connections and the impacts of
interaction searched for dynamics (Walliman, 2011).
3.3 Research DesignQualitative data collection conducted for analysing the
community festivals organiser’s constraints and
capacities. In depth interviews, photographs,
observation provide gathers and analyses data results
and considered correlation among the concepts, at this
part of research inductive method used. Research
conducted mainly quantitative data collection on
attendees’ satisfaction. Quantitative data collections
allow to reach larger population of responders easily
compare with other data’s for attendees’ satisfaction.
Conversely, qualitative data allow to used exploratory
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research and results were difficult to duplicate.
Dependant to the interviewee the researcher easily
changed the direction to find out relevant information.
Neuman posed (2007: 115) “reliability means
dependability and consistency” and the author defined
“validity suggest truthfulness and refers to match
between construct, or the way a researcher
conceptualised definition, and a measure. The author
added; “perfect reliability and validity are virtually
impossible to achieve”.
3.4 Research MethodsThe qualitative method was used for understanding the
challenges of the organisers. The four community
festival organiser’s assignees were interviewed without
the questions being decided before the interview.
Similar questions were asked of the organisers because
of the similarities of their responses. Furthermore, all
festivals included in this study were observed. Finally
secondary data was used such as news and pre-existing
ideas within the local press about the festivals, and
the census results of the area examined for the purposed
of developing the data (Neuman 2007).
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This research was based on survey responses from
attendees of the three local community festivals. The
researcher conducted questionnaires individually within
the attendees who agreed to be part of the research. The
attendees’ questionnaire includes many closed questions
and two open questions, these were; recommendations,
suggestions and what activity during the festival
attendees enjoyed most. That two open questions were not
employs statistical and mathematical concept (Dewhurst,
2006), because of this reason, these questions represent
qualitative methods in the attendees’ survey. The survey
required approximately five minutes of the festival
attendees time. Furthermore, the research required an
interview with the organisers to evaluate organisations
aims and identify challenges, capacities and the
organiser’s experiences during the organisation of the
festival. The interview was conducted wherever the
organiser preferred and voice recorded. The interview
was conducted one week after the festival date. The
primary data reflected on the research from survey and
interview results. The multi-methods data was gathered
to understand different aspects before judging the
responses. Moreover, conducting qualitative data to the
festival goers were vastly difficult because type
recording would not be audible at the festivals. Because
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festivals entertained attendees with live music and
there was dominant background noise from the crowd.
Qualitative researches involve longer time consumption
than quantitative (Dewhurst, 2006). In addition,
conducting the interview with approximately hundred
responders at each festival, in six hours’ time limit
would have been almost impossible.
3.5 Sampling StrategyThe attendee’s satisfaction part of this study was
conducted using the quantitative approach and the
primary goal was to reach large amount of responder
(Neuman, 2007) and simple random probability sampling
was conducted whereas select responders purely random
process (Neuman 2007) for the part of measuring
attendees’ satisfaction. Any festival goer was regarded
as a potential survey responder. Attendee’s population
elements were non-zero or every attendee had an equal
chance of being a responder (Brotherton, 2008).
In contrast to probability sampling, non-probability
sampling was conducted for the interviews during which
the researcher was not able to control who was going to
be interviewed (Berg 2007). The purposive type of sample
was applied; the main principles for this part of the
research "all possible cases that fit in particular
criteria” (Neuman 2007: 141). However, to enhance the
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research, the researcher decided to investigate semi-
independent volunteer festivals aim, experiences,
capacities and constraints after the RBG event team
suggestion. At this part, the snowball samples were
involved and the interview was conducted by referral to
the one interviewee (Neuman 2007). One of the other
possible type of sampling is haphazard sample which is
any cases chosen that is convenient for the research.
However, this is more biased and in this sampling it is
not necessary to fit the particular criteria of the
research.
The four interviews conducted, one of the interviewee
was chosen from Lewisham Borough. Furthermore, one semi-
independent (run by volunteer, however, festival
expenses are paid by the local body) organiser assignee
from the RBG area was interviewed to identify
independent volunteer semi-independent festivals aims,
experiences, constraints and capacities. Finally the
researcher interviewed the Deputy Leader of the RBG
Council to include local authority aims and views to the
local community festivals. The post-festival surveys and
post interviews allow the readers to access the
capacities of the festivals and challenges, which
organisers faced before and during the particular
festival.
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30.000 estimated residents attended the Great Get
Together and Armed Forced Day (GGT) according to The
Telegraphs and Argus (2014), 7.000 people were estimated
to have attended to the Plumstead Make Merry Festival
(PMM) estimated information by local police from
interview with the organiser and Brockley Society Mid-
Summer Fayre (BSMSF) organiser estimated 3000 people
attended their festival. The 269 Festival goers’
responded to questionnaires, 6 responders were under 18
years old and 8 responders did not complete
questionnaire. 255 surveys were accepted as completed of
surveys for this research. This number 255/50,000
considered 0.63% of the total festival goers at the
three included festivals studied.
3.6 Instrument DesignMainly, closed questions were asked of the festival
goers. The attendees’ survey asked some questions to
identify socio demographic population of the attendees
these questions were; age, revisit and residential
status. Latter were asked attitudes and perceptions of
attendees, including community support/ meeting new
people/ meeting old friend /willingness to pay/ do food
encourage to attend/ do feel secure at the environment/
friendly service at the festival. Some of the other
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questions analysed marketing impacts; where attendees
had heard about the festival/ freebies impacts to attend
festival and do know who are the organisers.
Furthermore, three questions asked the purpose of
recognised attendees’ satisfier. Interval scale was used
to identify the overall enjoyment and two open questions
asked to the attendees for their recommendations and
most enjoyed activities they involved with during the
festival. A result of survey generalises with overall
attendee’s satisfaction. Also, deductive methodology was
applied to that part of research. However, open
questions and interviews were inductive, that might lead
the researcher to find new definitions of the community
festivals. Questions from interviews were spontaneous
(Buckingham and Saunders, 2004; Bell, 2010). The
interview structure and the questions were changed
depending on the interviewee response.
3.7 Data Collection TechniquesThe Royal Borough of Greenwich website was used to find
festivals through the organisation events list for the
most appropriate festivals for the study criteria. Two
community events were found which were suitable for this
study at the local body website. The researcher
contacted the organisers, informed them about the
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research and requested to conduct on interview with one
of the organiser. The Plumstead Make Merry (PMM)
Organiser accepted. However, the Great Get Together and
Armed Forced Day (GGT) Organiser; Local Authority Event
Team did not agree to be part of the dissertation
because of having insufficient resources. The GGT
organisers suggested the researcher to communicate with
the PARKSfest organisers for this study. The PARKSfest
organisers agreed to be part of this research.
Furthermore, the researcher asked the GGT organising
team permission for survey, the team did not respond but
the researcher conducted survey with the attendees on
the festival day. Then research was developed wider to
discover volunteer challenges and analysed attendees’
satisfaction in the different Borough in London.
The first surveys conducted on 7th of June 2014 at
Plumstead Make Merry, 101 useable surveys were completed
on the day. The second survey was conducted at Brockley
Mid-Summer Fayre, 100 useable surveys accomplished on
21st of June 2014. Finally festival goers answered the
survey at the Woolwich Great Get Together & Armed Forced
Day on 28th of June 2014, 54 usable attendees’ responded
collected. Before attendees answered the survey the aims
and objectives of the research was explained verbally.
Nonetheless, each survey contained a small explanation
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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about the research. However, research aims and
objectives were provided with more details in written
form on A4 paper for any further information request
from any attendees. The Interviewees received the
consent letter before the interview has conducted and on
the interview day a copy of the consent letter has
provided for the interviewee. All interviews were tape
recorded. The Plumstead Make Merry organiser (on 11th of
June) and Brockley Society Hilly Field Mid-Summer
organiser (on 27th of June) preferred to use their house
for the interview. The PARKSfest organiser (on 13th of
August) preferred the South Eltham Park Cafe where one
of the PARKSfest events was celebrated. Finally the
PARKSfest festivals creator Deputy Head of Council John
Fahy responded the interview request and invited the
researcher (on 19th of August 2014) to the councillor’s
formal office at the Town Hall.
3.8 Method analysisThe results of this study emerged as able to be used
with a variety of research methods. For the festival
goers satisfaction; mean, descriptive, correlated and
frequencies analyses used at the raw data in the
Statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS). For
the quantitative part of the attendees’ surveys two
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different subtitles emerged after analysing the
responders; most enjoyed activities also their
recommendations, comments and suggestions. At the
qualitative part of the research interviews conducted,
similar questions were asked of the organisers during
the interview. However, to identify local body aspects
for the local volunteer festivals different questions
applied to the Councillor. Each answer segmented in a
different topic and analysed the common points and
differences between organisers.
3.9 Discussion of this study ethical considerationThe organiser’s participation was completely voluntary
and a letter of consent was signed before the interview
started. The consent letters contained brief
instructions about the topic, aims and objectives of
this research and the confidentiality was explained in
the consent letter. All relevant documents and raw data
are kept at the researcher’s locked office.
3.1.1 Limitations of MethodologyThere are some limitations to this study; One of the
limitations was responders had answered the questions
for the festival they attended on the day. None of the
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responders were asked questions about their previous
festival experiences or level of satisfactions. The
other limitation of this research; requires the time of
the organiser who takes part of an interview and
discussion about the problems that they encountered
before, during and after the festival. Some of the
organisers refused to being part of this research
because of they didn’t have enough time resources for
the interview. One of the religious festival organiser’s
requested one to one assessment before confirming
availability to be interviewed, and three different
festival organisers did not respond to emails regarding
the survey and interview request. One of the other
limitations was; at this type of festivals, the attendee
profile is more likely to be a local resident who would
like their family to share family experiences (Small,
2007) from where the festival was organised. Because of
this, some of the attendees refused to be part of this
survey for their children safety, even for the five
minutes the survey would take. This could be a barrier
affected children’s safety. Some of the attendees
refused because they were sun bathing, eating or having
conversation with their family or friends.
The attendees’ satisfaction survey was conducted with
anyone, who could communicate verbally in English or in
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Turkish Languages. In contrast community events are a
good way to break isolation and increase socialising
(Small, 2007; Reid, 2007; Wood, 2005) for the whole
community. The people who were not able to speak in
English or Turkish were not represented in this research
result. Also, people with severe mental health problems
were excluded from this research beside people under the
age of 18. The researcher did not ask the responders for
ID, however, at the survey, first question was asked
responder’s age group and any attendee’s under the age
of 18 were excluded from the survey. A Royal Borough of
Greenwich Councillor took a part at this study however,
each local authority has different legislations and
criteria for volunteer community festivals as well as
many similar legislations. The RBG represented their
thought for Greenwich. Moreover, the researcher has not
conducted other interviews with the other borough
councillors.
Finally the organisers’ capacities and constraints
measured through interviews with the organisation’s
assignee, for each festival was included in this study.
However, despite all volunteers’ efforts, these
festivals are created and displayed through committee
members and volunteers’ time, skills and efforts. This
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research did not investigate committee members and other
volunteers’ experiences at the festivals.
3.1.2 Conclusion of the Methodology ChapterThe aim of this study was to seek and identify; the
impacts of the organisers challenges on attendees
satisfaction. A variety of stakeholders were identified
and the most appropriate methodology conducted for the
most reliable results. The study conducted different
approaches for different stakeholders; multi-methods
were applied to this study. First main stakeholders for
this study were attendees and for measuring their
satisfaction the quantitative and qualitative approach
was conducted. Five questions were on nominal scale, one
question was on ordinal and one question was on ratio
scale, 7 multiple questions were on (equal) interval
scale and 2 open questions were asked. Second main
stakeholders were; the organisers and quantitative
approach used; interviews conducted, similar questions
asked and interviews were semi-structured. The
Councillor’s interview identified aspects of volunteer
community festivals. Moreover, secondary data; the
census result, local magazines, website and so on were
explored. Finally two semi-independent community
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festivals were observed to raise reliability and
analysed wide variety of views.
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4.0 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS In this chapter, the results are presented; the 255
responders’ satisfaction surveys and four in depth
interviews with the festival management committee
assignees and some photographs are presented. The
provided information demonstrates efficacy of the data
gathered. Moreover, readers are able to see a discussion
of results supported by existing literature.
4.1 Data Results for Attendees’ SatisfactionCommunity Festivals Research Data– South East London 2014
N = 255
Below tables demonstrate 255 festival goers’ responses
at the three festivals in South East London 2014. 101
useable questionnaire collected at Plumstead Make Merry
(PMM), 100 useable questionnaire collected at Brockley
Society Mid-Summer Fayre (BSMSF) and 54 useable
questionnaire collected at Great Get Together and Armed
Forced Day (GGT).
Demographic Perceptions
Marketing Satisfier
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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Questions & Questions
Questions Attitudes
Result All PMM %(n= 101)
BSMSF %(n = 100)
GGT &(n = 54)
Demographic
Q1. Age? 18-28 years= 43(16.89%)29-39 years= 97 (38%)40-50 years= 67 (26.3%)51-59 years= 31(12.15%)Over 60 =17(6.66%)Totalresponse:255 (100%)
18-28 years =25 (24.8%)29-39 years =36 (35.6%)40-50 years =17 (16.8%)51-59years=15(14.9%)Over 60 years=8 (7.9%)Totalresponse: 101(100%)
18-28 years= 15 (15%)29-39 years= 44 (44%)40-50years=31 (31%)51-59 years=6 (6%)Over 60years =4(4%)Totalresponse =100 (100%)
18-28 years =3 (5.6%)29-39 years =17 (31.5%)40-50 years =19 (35.2%)51-59 years=10 (18.5%)Over 60 = 5(9.3)Totalresponse = 54(100%)
Q2. Areyouresident?
Yes=155(60.8%)No=100(39.2)Totalresponses=255 (100%)
Yes= 71(70.3%)No=30 (29.7%)Totalresponse =101 (100%)
Yes=60(60%)No=40 (40%)Totalresponse =100 (100%)
Yes=24(44.4%)No=30 (55.6%)Totalresponse =54(100%)
Q3. Haveyouattendedpreviously?
Yes=158(62%)No=97 (38%)Totalresponses =255 (100%)
Yes=64(63.4%)No=37 (36.6%)Totalresponse =101 (100%)
Yes=60(60%)No=40 (40%)Totalresponse =100 (100%)
Yes=34 (63%)No=20 (37%)Totalresponse =54(100%)
Attitudes andPerceptions
Q4. Doyouthinkfestivalis a waytoSupportcommunity
Yes=232(91%)No=3 (1.2%)Totalresponses =235 (92.2%)Refused/unknown= 20(7.8%)Total=255(10
Yes=90(89.1%)No=3 (3%)Totalresponses=93 (92.1%)Refused/unknown = 8(7.9%)Total=101(100
Yes=93(93%)No=0 (0%)Totalresponse =93 (93%)Refused/unknown= 7(7%)Total=100(1
Yes=49(90.7%)No=0 (0%)Totalresponse =49 (90.7%)Refused/unknown=5(9.3%)Total=
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0%) %) 00%) 54(100%)
Attitudes andPerceptions
Q5. HowusefulareCommunity eventsto meetnewpeople?
Not useful =53 (20.8%)Slightlyuseful=48(18.8%)Useful=55(21.6%)Very useful= 34 (13.3%)Extremelyuseful=43(16.9%)Totalresponse= 233(91.4%)Refused/unknown=22(8.6%)Total=101(100%)
Not useful =14 (13.9%)Slightlyuseful=19(18.8%)Useful=22(21.8%)Very useful =8 (7.9%)Extremelyuseful=23(22.8%)Totalresponse= 86 (85.1%)Refused/unknown= 15 (14.9%)Total=101(100%)
Not useful= 32 (32%)Slightlyuseful=26(26%)Useful= 20(20%)Very useful= 8 (8%)Extremelyuseful=8(8%)Totalresponse= 94 (94%)Refused/unknown=6(6%)Total=100(100%)
Not useful =7 (13%)Slightlyuseful= 3(5.6%)Useful= 13(24.1%)Very useful =18 (33.3%)Extremelyuseful=12(22.2%)Totalresponses= 53 (98.1%)Refused/unknown=1 (1.9%)Total= 54(100%)
Attitudes andPerceptions
Q6. HowusefulareCommunity eventsto SeeOldFriends
Not useful =29 (11.4%)Slightlyuseful=37(14.5%)Useful=41(16.1%Veryuseful=53(20.8%)Extremelyuseful=67(26.3)Totalresponses= 227 (89%)Refused/unknown=28(11%)Total=255(100%)
Not useful =14 (13.9%)Slightlyuseful=16(15.8%)Useful=18(17.8%)Veryuseful=17(16.8%)Extremelyuseful=20(19.8)Totalresponse= 85 (84.2%)Refused/unknown=16(15.8)Total=101(100%)
Not useful= 7 (7%)Slightlyuseful=12(12%)Useful=12(12%)Veryuseful=29(29%)Extremelyuseful=34(34%Totalresponse=94 (94%)Refused/unknown=6(6%)Total=100(100%)
Not useful =8 (14.8%)Slightlyuseful=9(16.7%)Useful=11(20.4%)Very useful=7(13%)Extremelyuseful=13(24.1%)Totalresponses=48 (88.9%)Refused/unknown=6(11.1%)Total=54(100%)
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Attitudes andPerceptions
Q7. Ifthiseventwas a“paidfestivalhow muchWillingto payfor theentry?
Between £1-£5= 180(70.6%)Between £5-£10 = 9(3.5%)Between £10-£20 =1(0.4%)Not worth topay any fees= 32 (12.9%)Totalresponses =222 (87.1%)Refused/unknown=33(12.9%)Total=255(100%)
Between £1-£5=74 (73.3%)Between £5-£10 =3(3%)Between £10-£20 =1 (1%)Not worth topay any fees= 13 (12.9%)Totalresponse=91(90.1%)Refused/unknown=10(9.9%)Total=101(100%)
Between £1-£5 =70(70%)Between £5-£10 = 2(2%)Between£10-£20 = 0(0%)Not worthto pay anyfees=19(19%)Totalresponse=91 (91%)Refused/unknown = 9(9%)Total=100(100%)
Between £1-£5=36 (66.7%)Between £5-£10=4 (7.4%)Between £10-£20 =0 (0%)Not worth topay any fees= 0 (0%)Totalresponses=40 (74.1)Refused/unknown=14(25.9%)Total=54(100%)
Marketing
Q8. Howusefulfreegifts/freebiestoencourageattendees toattendthisfestival?
Notuseful=68(26.7%)Slightlyuseful = 34(13.3%)Useful=40(15.7%Very useful=41 (16.1%)Extremelyuseful=63(24.7%Totalresponses=246 (96.5%)Refused/unknown=9(3.5%)Total=255(100%)
Not useful =22 (21.8%)Slightlyuseful=9 (8.9%)Useful=18(17.8%)Veryuseful=15(14.9%)Extremelyuseful=32(31.7%)Totalresponse=96 (95%)Refused/unknown=5(5%)Total=101(100%)
Notuseful=40(40%)Slightlyuseful=20(20%)Useful=14(14%)Veryuseful=13(13%)Extremelyuseful=11(11%)Totalresponse= 98 (98%)Refused/unknown=2(2%)Total=100
Not useful=6(11.1%)Slightlyuseful=5 (9.3%)Useful=8(14.8%)Veryuseful=13(24.1%)Extremelyuseful=20(37%)Totalresponses= 52 (96.3%)Refused/unknown=2(3.7%)Total=54(100%)
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Attitudes andPerceptions
Q9. Dofoodoptionsencourage you toattendthisevent?
Yes=181(71%)No=68(26.7%)Totalresponses=249 (97.6%)Refused/unknown=6(2.4%)Total=255(100%)
Yes=75(74.3%)No=25 (24.8%)Totalresponses=100 (99%)Refused/unknown=1(1%)Total= 101(100%)
Yes=75(75%)No=22 (22%)Totalresponses=97 (97%)Refused/unknown=3(3%)Total=100(100%)
Yes=31(57.4%)No=21 (38.9%)Totalresponses=52 (96.3)Refused/unknown=2(1.7%)Total=54(100%)
Satisfiers
Q10.What wasbestactivity
Table IX Table IX Table IX Table IX
Attitudes andPerceptions
Q11. Doyou feelsecureat thisfestivalenvironment
Not at all =1(0.4%)Slightlysecure =4(1.6%)Secure=23(9%)Verysecure=44(17.3%)Extremelysecure=183(71.8)Totalresponses =255 (100%)
Not at all =1(1%)Slightlysecure=1 (1%)Secure=8(7.9%)Verysecure=16(15.8%)Extremelysecure=75(74.3%)Totalresponse= 101(100 %)
Not at all=0 (0%)Slightlysecure = 1(1%)Secure=4(4%)Verysecure=19(19%)Extremelysecure=76(76%Totalresponse=100 (100%)
Not at all =0 (0%)Slightlysecure= 2 (3.7%)Secure=11(20.4%)Very secure =9(16.7%)Extremelysecure=32(59.3%)Totalresponses=54(100%)
Marketing
Q12.Wheredid youheardaboutthisevent?
Localnewspaper=24(9.4%)Socialmedia=21(8.2%)Friend (WOM)=99(38.8%)Leaflets=58(20.8%)Other=53(20.8%)
Localnewspaper=12(11.9%)Socialmedia=11(10.9%)Friend (WOM) = 37 (36.6%)Leaflets=19(18.8%)Other=22(21.8%)
Localnewspaper=2(2%)Socialmedia=5(5%)Friend(WOM)=50(50%)Leaflets=32(32%)Other=11
Localnewspaper=10(18.5%)Socialmedia=5(9.3%)Friend (WOM) =12 (22.2%)Leaflets = 7 (13%)Other=20(37%)
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Totalresponses =255 (100%)
Totalresponse=101 (100%)
(11%)Totalresponse =100 (100%)
Totalresponses =54 (100%)
Attitudes andPerceptions
Q13. HowfriendlyServiceatfestival(staff)?
Not friendlyat all=3(1.2%)Slightlyfriendly=4(1.6%)Friendly=28(11%Veryfriendly=62 (24.3%)Extremelyfriendly=140(54.9)Totalresponses= 237(92.9%)Refused/unknown = 18(7.1%)Total=255(100%)
Not friendlyat all=1(1%)Slightlyfriendly=1(1%)Friendly=11(10.9)Veryfriendly=26 (25.7%)Extremelyfriendly=58(57.4%)Totalresponse=97 (96%)Refused/unknown=4(4%)Total=101(100%)
Notfriendly atall=0 (0)%Slightlyfriendly=1(1%)Friendly=10(1%Veryfriendly =25 (25%)Extremelyfriendly=51(51%)Totalresponse=87 (87%)Refused/unknown=13(13%)Total=100
Not friendlyat all=2(3.7%)SlightlyFriendly=2(3.7%)Friendly=7(13%)Veryfriendly=11 (20.4%)Extremelyfriendly=31(57.4%)Totalresponse= 53(98.1)Refused/unknown=1(1.9%)Total=54(100%)
Marketing
Q14. Doyou knoworganiser?
Yes=97(38%)No=158 (62%)Totalresponses= 255 (100%)
Yes=19(18.8%)No=82 (81.2%)Totalresponse=101 (100%)
Yes=34(34%)No=66(66%)Totalresponse=100 (100%)
Yes=44(81.5%)No=10 (18.5%)Totalresponses= 54 (100%)
Satisfiers
Q15.Overallenjoyment of theevent?
Veryunlikely= 1(0.4%)Unlikely=8(3.1%Enjoyed=45(17.6)Verylikely=114(44.7%)Extremelylikely=87(34
Veryunlikely=0(0%)Unlikely=4(4%)Enjoyed=21(20.8%)Verylikely=39(38.6%)Extremelylikely=37
Veryunlikely=0(0%)Unlikely=2(2%)Enjoyed=15(15%)Verylikely=52(52%)Extremelylikely=31(3
Veryunlikely=1(1.9%)Unlikely=2(3.7%)Enjoyed=9 (16.7%)Verylikely=23(42.6%)Extremelylikely=19
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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.1%)Totalresponses=255 (100%)
(36.6%)Totalresponses= 101 (100%)
1%)Totalresponses=100 (100%)
(35.2%)Totalresponses=54(100%)
Satisfiers
Q16Suggestions
Table X Table X Table X Table X
4.2 Discussion of Community Festivals Research Data–South East London 2014
Plumstead Make Merry Brockley Society Great Get Together
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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Mid-Summer Fayre Armed
Forced Day
Q1. Discussion – Age
At the three festivals the highest number of responder’s
age group was 29-39 years old. The lowest amount of
responder’s age group was over 60 years old. The
Brockley Mid-Summer Fayre responders were represented by
the older age groups than the PMM festivals. The other
significance of the GGT result was demonstrated by “18-
28 years old” attendees and “overall satisfaction” is
correlated, 18-28 years old were less overall satisfy
than any other age groups (0.05 < .276)
In the aforementioned literature, some of the authors
segmented attendees’ with their age groups (Li et al.,
2009; Lee and Kyle, 2014; Yoon et al., 2010; Kim et al.,
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
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2010). Kim et al., (2010), Yoon et al., (2010), Lee and
Kyle (2014), indicated importance of segmenting
attendees for the future events satisfaction, associated
to the authors’ findings, except Kim et al., the PMM
responders represent younger population than the
authors, and older attendees profile than the Kim et
al.,(2010). Segmenting age groups provides advantages to
the organisers for future events for activities related
to the age variants.
Q2. Are you resident?
In total (60.8%) 155 festival goers were Borough
Residents and (39.2%) 100 festival goers were not
residents. Only at the GGT festival dominant number
(55.6%) of responders were out of the location. However,
the GGT hosted 30,000 and it represented Greenwich
Borough residents. Furthermore, at this study the most
significant finding evolved as a correlation between
“being resident” and “overall enjoyment” (.165>0.01).
Simultaneously, Delamera (2001) research identified
resident attitudes, positive expectancy and positive
importance for the community benefit from festivals.
Nonetheless, target markets are typically segmented with
basic descriptions; gender, geography, age, and
frequency of visit according to Dwyer et al., (2013).
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
Q3. Have you attended previously?
In total of the three community festivals 62% festival
goers’ attended festivals on previous years. Some of the
attendees did not respond this questions, as a reasons
they posed they were not sure if they attended the
festival or different festival at the same venue.
However, the SPSS correlation analysis found significant
for the three festivals between; “revisit” and “overall
satisfaction” (-.185> 0.01). Moreover, Huang et al.,
(2010: 257) posed repeated visitors enjoyed more than
the first time visitors. Cronin et al., (2000) verified
satisfied customers expected to revisit again the event.
This finding supports the author’s findings.
Simultaneously, Kim et al., (2010) emphasise quality
service and valuable experiences one of the factors to
repeat the same experience. Nonetheless, Woodruff (1997)
highlighted past and the present experiences for the
value of the event.
Q4. Do you think festival is a way to support your
community?
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
92.2% attendees responded in total of three festivals
and 98.7% festival goers’ responses demonstrated
festival is a way to support their community. Moreover,
the SPSS correlation found significant with this
question and overall enjoyment (-.157 > 0.05). Attendees
attend festivals for different reasons and they found
something to attract them. However, communities exist
within multi-ethnics groups in London. While three
hundred different languages are spoken in London, and
people describe their ethnicity and religion different
from each other (London councils, 2014), it is very
important to get response for “event is a way to support
your community”. The result supported the literature,
Gursoy et al., (2004) and Turner (1982) posed at the
festival attendees’ celebrated their society identities.
Nonetheless, Jamieson (2006), Derret (2003) and Delamere
(2001) among the many other authors described community
festivals as bridges to build for improve cohesion
between residents.
Q5. Meeting new people?
The BSMSF “overall satisfaction” has a significant
relationship that “the festival was useful to meet new
friends”. Li et al., (2009) explored socialization as
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
one of the motivational factors to attend the community
festivals.
Q6. See old friends?
89% attendees did respond this question, when the
researcher asked “why not responded this question?
Responders explained reasons as a recently moved to the
area or not leaving in the area. However, attendees’
responses demonstrated majority of the festival goers
found community festivals “extremely useful to see old
friend”. Also correlation found significance between
“how useful are community events for you to meet old
friend”, “overall enjoyment” (0.05<.146), “friendly
service at the festival by organisers” (0.05 <.158). Lee
et al., (2008) emphasized the consumer’s satisfaction is
psychological state. The attendees found useful the
festival to meet new people and meet old friends
Q7. Willingness to pay
222 responders out of 255 responded this question, 81.1%
responders willing to pay between £1-£5 and have least
responses from festival goers. Many responders who did
not respond to this question, argued “community events
need to be free”. One of the festival goers at the PMM
stated for this question “that shouldn’t be paid, children have
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
opportunity to entertain themselves if we need to pay this is discrimination
of the kids. This is for common”. One of the other responder’s at
the GGT posed “Don’t charge for the entry, as people can come here
gather all the information, they need for so many aspects of their lives and
their family’s life. This event is so valuable to the residents of Greenwich”.
This statement demonstrated the festival is a place to
network (Jepson et al., 2008). Moreover, Lee and Kyle
(2014) simultaneously, indicated community festivals are
an approach to improve identification. On the other
hand, Lyon (2000) defined; free events are more popular
than paid events.
Q8. Do freebies encourage attending?
The SPSS correlation found is significant, between this
question and variables of; “overall enjoyment”
(.226>0.01), “friendly service at the festival” (.172>
0.01), and “being resident” (.150 >0.05). At this
question the differences between perceptions of two
locations emerged, 33.3% at the PMM and 37% of the GGT
attendees found “freebies extremely useful to encourage
attendees to attend festival”. Conversely 40% of the
BSMSF attendees found not useful at all. The main
demographic differences between the PMM and the BSMSF
were age and education level. The BSMSF attendees were
older than the PMM attendees’. Moreover, at the
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
literature, young visitors feel that they do not relate
to the organisation institutions (Mason and McCarty,
2006). The other important difference between the RBG
and the Lewisham Borough which was the researcher did
not asked festival goers at the survey but identified at
London’s Poverty Profile was education level. The
Greenwich is included in “the worst four Boroughs” in
low education attainment in London and Lewisham Borough
is listed in the “next 8 boroughs” in the same category.
Between two regions there is a salient education
differences. Segmenting attendees is major scale to
understand attendees’ perceptions and attitudes (Lee and
Kyle, 2014; Yoon et al., 2010; Kim et al., 2010).
Q9. Do food options encourage you to attend?
249 attendees respond (97.6%) and 72.7 % responded
attendees found food options encourage them to attend
festival. Kim et al., (2010) discussed about the
importance of food quality and program content.
Furthermore, Lee et al., (2007) and Yoon et al., (2010)
stated is crucial to provide appropriate program
souvenir, food and facilities which leads to
satisfaction and loyalty.
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
Q10. What was the most enjoyed activities?
Five dimensions were analysed as most enjoyed activities
at the three community festivals, below table
demonstrates the results;
ENTERTAINMENT CHILDREN
ACTIVITIES
STALLS FOOD &
DRINK
OPTIONS
SOCIALISING
Plumstead
Make Merry
36 24 8 10 5
Brockley
Society
Mid-Summer
Fayre
26 11 18 19 8
Great Get
Together
and Armed
Forced Day
21 11 8 None 8
Total (the
figures
show how
many times
attendees’
mentioned)
83 46 34 29 21
The entertainments were described as most enjoyed
activities the attendees mentioned this 83 times,
followed by children activities, stalls, food and drink
options and socialising (Detailed reflected at appendix
on Table I, III and V).
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
Children activities were more popular at the PMM than
other two festivals. During the interview organiser
confirmed the PMM is for mainly families. Moreover,
adequate parks are environmental educators for children
(Hart, 1997).
Stalls options found more enjoyed activities at the
BSMSF than the other two festivals. The organiser
confirmed 160 stall owners hired from organisation at
the BSMSF. These findings support MacLaran et al.,
(1999:304) “target audience may aspire through
consumption of a particular product or service”. Food
and Drink options were other dimension that festival
goers identified. However, one of the interesting points
evolved at this question, none of the responders enjoyed
food and drink at the GGT festival whereas other two
festival goers enjoyed the food and drink options.
Conversely, Food and drink is identified as an
improvement suggestion which this research discusses in
the last question recommendations and suggestions.
Socialising was another dimension that festival goers
identified at the three festivals. Small (2007) findings
analysed six dimensions of the social impacts. At this
study the attendee’s responses indicated similarities
with Small (2007) discoveries with the entertainment and
socialising results. Prentice and Anderson (2003)
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
defined, the attendees’ most popular reason to attend
festival was socialising. However, most popular reason
opposes to Prentice and Anderson was the Entertainments
in this study. One of the other point, emerged at this
study people recognized community festivals as a stage
to represent their community identity and values (Jepson
et al., 2008; Turner, 1982; Gursoy et al., 2004; Wood,
2005; Dalemera, 2001).
Q11.Do you feel secure at this festival environment?
Over 80% responders felt very secure and extremely
secure to the three observed community festivals. Dwyer
et al., (2000) emphasized environmental negative factors
such as overcrowding, crime, vandalism, resident
lifestyle. Conversely, the authors finding, none of the
festival goers identified any environmental security
difficulties.
Q12. How you heard?
At the two festivals, responders mainly heard about the
festival from their families and friends (WOM),
moreover, social media option was answered by the least
number of responses. At the GGT, most popular answer was
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
an option was not offered. However, at the GGT, the BBC
was one of the festival’s sponsors. Considering number
of people (30,000) that attended and while other two
festivals attendees’ suggested better marketing, at GGT
responders made few comments about improvement in
suggestions. The RBG did use marketing instruments on
wide variety of population, all primary schools, all
houses in Greenwich and so on. Mayfield and Crompton
(1995: 37) defined “use of instruments is likely to lead
to better targeting of programs and better matching of
programs to the needs of particular clienteles”. The
resulting suggestion is not different than the previous
studies, many festival goers are informed by their
friends or families of the festival (Lee and Kyle 2014;
Grunwell et al., 2008).
Q13. How friendly is it service at festival (staff)?
The attendees responses result for this question
indicated organisers at the three community festivals
were extremely friendly (descriptive statistic mean 4.43
out of 5). Even attendees not aware who organised the
festival, they found organisers “extremely friendly”.
Moreover, Pearson correlation defined significant
relation between this question and “overall
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
satisfaction” (0.01< .312). This finding support Kim et
al., (2010) research; perceived value leads to
satisfaction.
Q14. Do you know who the organiser is?
One of the other questions that identified marketing
factor was this question. At the PMM and the BSMSF more
than 60% attendees do not know who had organised the
events, while PMM celebrate 39th and BSMSF 40th years in
2014, this was showing paucity of the marketing
Conversely the GGT attendees’ knew who the organisers
were. Smith and Roy (2011) emphasized, organisation
culture play a substantial role for customer
satisfaction and customer loyalty. Furthermore, the
authors defined organisation culture is one of the
factors that motivate attendees to attend. Within this
point this research finding does not support the
author’s findings, because all three festivals
attendees’ overall enjoyment was very similar. The bias
emerged at this point between capacities of the
different festival organisations. One of the other
limitations of this study while all events aims were
similar, each festivals potential was different for
comparing. Interestingly at the PMM many festival goers’
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
answered this question as RBG, while organiser was a
non-profit organisation.
Q15. Overall enjoyment
Nonetheless, the variety of services is not an indicator
for the attendee’s positive satisfaction. The SPSS,
descriptive statistics mean value for the overall
satisfactions were;
Plumstead Make Merry; 4.08 (out of 5),
Brockley Hilly Field; 4.12 (out of five),
Great Get Together Armed Forced Day; 4.06 (out of 5)
During survey many attendees’ not responded to the
questions of “how much would you be willing to pay for
entry if this event was paid festival?” One responder
stated “community festival is for the community and it should be free for
the community member” at the PMM and others responded
similarly as aforementioned. These responses are showing
the value of the events for the residents and these
festivals responders represented feeling that community
has a superior impact on loyalty intensions as Drengner
et al., (2012) modelled.
At the annually repeated community festivals, attendees
feel, event is a part of their own community. Reid
(2007:89) defined; “the event provides the opportunity to bring
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
people together within a social environment to celebrate their achievements;
thus, events are integral for individuals as well as communities as a whole”
Most mentioned recommendations and suggestions
Multi-
cultural
Food &
Drink
options
Entertainm
ent
Stal
ls
Childre
n
activit
ies
Monetary
request
Environmenta
l issues
Marketin
g
Plumste
ad Make
Merry
19 20 22 10 13 7 8
Brockle
y
Society
Mid-
Summer
Fayre
21 11 5 9 6 5 3
Great
Get
Togethe
r and
Armed
Forced
Day
7 2 1 2 1 - 1
Total 47 33 28 21 19 12 12
(details reflected at appendix table II, IV, VI);
Most improvement suggestions were for the more varieties
of food and drink options; followed by the
entertainments, the third made for more variety of
stalls, following dimension identified by festival goers
was improved children activities and safe guarding
issues. Following suggestions and recommendations were
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
for the monetary requests included free rides tickets
for the children, reducing cost of the foods and
activities. Next suggestion and recommendation were for
marketing include better advertising and environmental
issues these include more toilets, more bins and
environmental cutlery request where food and drink were
sold. Other comments were excluded from any
classifications which were more volunteers requested,
renaming the festival, better public transport to the
venue and so on.
Attendees’ survey analysed impacts of attendees’
demographic structure, perceptions, and attitudes on the
attendees’ satisfaction. However, more research is
needed to understand improvement of community festivals
on attendees’ responses.
4.2.1 Greenwich PARKSFest (Hornfair Park and Eltham Park
South)
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
Hornfair Park Eltham Park South
The attendee’s satisfaction survey did not conducted at
the Hornfair Park and the Eltham Park South. These two
festivals were part of Greenwich PARKSFest. The
Researcher observed these two semi-independent community
festivals and interviewed the organiser. (Details are in
appendices table IX).
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
4.3 Organisers Challenges and Capacity DataThis study conducted interviews with the organisers to
identified organisations committee aims, experiences,
challenges and the capacities. Two volunteer independent
community festivals organisers were interviewed, one
semi-independent volunteer organiser was interviewed and
the Royal Borough of Greenwich (RBG) Deputy Head of
Council was interviewed for recognized the political
aspects in the community festivals.
ISSUES;
Volunteer “A”
independent
organizers
at Greenwich
Borough
Volunteer “B”
independent
organizers
At Lewisham
Borough
Semi-
independent
Volunteer
organizers
Local
authority
Feedback from
attendees
n/a n/a Questionnaire
or/and verbally
feedback taken
Random
attendees
questionnaire
Segmenting
attendees
n/a n/a yes n/a
Variety of
activities
Sufficient Yes but there
is always room
for improvement
Yes Yes
Involvement
opportunity
at the
management
committee
Always
publicized for
volunteers and
people for the
management
committee
Always
publicized for
volunteers
They need to be
member of
another
organisation*
N/A
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
Providing
freebies
No No Yes Yes
Financial
support
No Organisation
arranged
sponsors
Government
funding
N/A
No. of
attendees
7000 3,000 250 30,000
Organisation
structure
Non-profit
volunteer
organisation
Charity Charity Local authority
Number of
people in the
mgmnt
committee
7 7 6 6
Security
arrangements
Volunteers Volunteers Volunteers Paid staff
Any incident
history
Not recorded Not recorded Not recorded Not recorded
Marketing Local newspaper
Posters,
Leaflets,
Social media
(facebook,
twitter, web-
sites)
Local newspaper
Posters
Leaflets
Web blog
Emails
Organisation
newspaper
Venue promotes
events
celebrated
there
Big banner
Local newspaper
Posters
Leaflets
Web pages
Social media
Local
newspapers
Posters
BBC TV& Radio
Big banner at
several
location
Leaflets to all
primary schools
All council
services
Community
centres
Social media
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
(twitter)
History of
the event
Celebrate 39th
years in 2014
Celebrate 40th
year in 2014
Celebrate 6th
year in 2014
n/a
Education of
the committee
Under graduate
not related
with event
industry
Some of the
members
educated on
event
management
Some of the
members
educated on
event
N/A
Committee
experiences
Only organiser
has experience
Some members
are
experienced
Yes some
members
experienced
Actively
working on
event
management
Training
opportunities
n/a
insufficient
budget for the
training
expenses
n/a Local authority
provide
necessary
training
They are
receiving
relevant
training
Number of the
volunteers at
the event
25 50 50 -
Venue for
committee
meeting
n/a n/a Charlton House Local body
Communication
between
committee
member
Easily, some of
the members
meeting in
their social
life
Easily, some of
the members
meeting in
their social
life
Easily, some of
the members
meeting in
their social
life
n/a
Main problems
before,
during and
after the
Finance,
licence
requirements,
recruiting
staff, in
Legal issues,
event notice,
first aid,
inform police
etc., retaining
Communication
problems,
retaining
volunteers
Retaining
volunteers
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
event sufficient
support from
local authority
volunteers
Aspects for
Food
varieties
Very important Very important Important
(however some
organisers do
not allow food
seller at the
festivals)
Extremely
important
Motivation
factor
Motivated by
success of the
event
Every volunteer
self-motivated
Motivated by
success
n/a
How long
event is
running by
same
organiser
7 years 4 years 6 Years n/a
How long you
are in the
management
committee
7 years 18 years 6 years n/a
How you cover
your expenses
Income from
stalls, café
and donations
Stalls
Sponsors
Council funding n/a
Aims of the
festivals
Something to
keep community
spirit alive
Strengthening
the community,
giving to self-
awareness,
getting to know
your neighbours
Raising
awareness,
getting know
your
neighbourhood.
Promote
services, crate
cohesion
between
resident, build
a bridge
between gaps(*Because of the confidentiality organisation name is not shown)
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
Every organiser answered the questions of “What is
community festival definition for you?”
The volunteer independent organisation A answered;
“Something the gives people in the community and opportunity together, in
one place to enjoy the same things and experiences at the same time and a
kind of being as one”. Wood (2005), Gursoy et al., (2004),
Dalemera (2001), Turner (1982) also defined as
aforementioned, community festivals are a stage to
improve society bonds.
The Volunteer independent organisation “B” answered; “one
that involves the community where the community fells they have an inputs
in to it and they have some ownership but they feel it belongs to them. It
does have so much involvement of local people somebody isn’t doing it for
you also do in it or also you can doing it.” Jamieson (2006) also
pointed community festivals need to be under control of
the local residents.
The semi-independent volunteer organisation answered;
“local events run by local people for local community”
The Local authority answered; “it varies to each individual
organisation, it is about supporting diversity, it is about encouraging people
to share with each other their own cultural offer so cultural events bring a
great sense of community, a great sense of participation which helps to build
strong community” Moreover, interviewee added local council
responsible for well-being of the society and facilitate
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
festivals for promoting local activities. This
definition is similar with the definition of Arcodia and
Whitford (2007), Wood 2005, Mayfield and Crompton
(1995).
4.3.1 Discussion of Findings Festival Organiser “A”
During the interview the volunteer’s passion emerged for
running the festival, the organisation committee put
their own money in order to run an annual festival in
2014, Kim et al., (2010) discoveries embedded with
importance of local resident’s passions for running the
event. However, at the literature volunteers definitions
such as “a volunteer is a person who, on a regular
basis, contributes his or her time and energy”. (Du
Boulay 1996: 4) are not sufficient to describe committee
members commitment for this volunteer committee. In
contrast, to committee member’s passion for the event,
for participating at the committee, the members do not
need to have qualifications, skills or experiences in
the event industry as organisers indicated, and Stebbins
(1996) posed at the literature.
The Organiser “A”, located at the Greenwich Borough and
steering the festival committee since 2007. The
organiser posed she is the only one in the management
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
committee present since 2007. Jepson et al., (2008)
posed negative impacts of festivals who are steering by
the same organisers over the years and the authors
emphases developing hegemony of the organisers after
running event long term. The organiser “A” describes
financial constraints as an organisation main
constraint, which is reflecting to entertainments,
marketing and recruiting. At the literature Lee and Kyle
(2014) and Getz (2002), were identified tight budgets
and lack of marketing as common constraints for the
community festivals. Moreover, Clarke and Jepson (2011)
indicated relation between hegemony of the steering
committee and limited resources. Nonetheless, the
organiser stated difficulties to reach other ethnic
groups. The Clarke and Jepson (2011) posed consultation
language is English and that is not conducive to new
non-English speakers to support the organisation.
4.3.2 Discussion of Findings Festival Organiser “B”
The volunteer organiser “B” described legal procedures
as a main problem as the organisation challenged. The
organiser stated, “This is becoming greater problem if one organiser
deals with everything” and furthermore, the organiser “B”
stated one person dealt with everything on previous
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
years. Moreover, Department for Business Innovation &
Skills (Gov.uk, 2014) defined there is no department in
Government leading and responsible for volunteer
events, this site posed, the organisers need to review
the local authorities rules and regulations for
organising volunteer events. The site added, “The value of
volunteers is in Government big society agenda”. This statement
shows the gaps at the legislation for event organisation
and volunteer involvements. The question “are volunteers
receiving any training or not? The organiser’s response
was “we throw them into the deep end and gain the experience”. The
following question identified the importance of training
as Brennan (2007) stated. “Have you experienced any
accident, injuries, and fights during the event?” and
the response was “No. We never had any serious problems, one day
something will happen, but it is never happened yet”. As Brennan
(2007) and Earl et al., (2005) stated, the volunteers
need support to enable them to be active community
leaders to increase the capacity and quality of the
event. Also, the organiser was reassured about how
committee will react if any unexpected incident happens.
This statement supported Downward and Ralston (2005)
research result; training increase confidence vice versa
if training is insufficient there is a decrease
confidence.
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
4.3.3 Findings, the Semi-independent Volunteer Organiser
The events are run by volunteers, the volunteers have
complete control over the festivals programme; however,
the festivals are funded by the council and the same
person has been leading the committee since the festival
started. At these festivals, organisers are aware of the
importance of measuring attendee’s satisfaction at the
literature Yoon et al., (2010); Lee and Kyle (2014); Li
et al., (2009); Getz (2008); Wood (2005), were
emphasises benefits of measuring attendees satisfaction.
One of the other interesting findings was; the
organiser, who leads the committee, published a book
(appendix table IX) about the venue where the one of the
festival is held. This is shows passion of the volunteer
and emotional connection to the work.
4.3.4 Findings, Community Festival Run by Council
For the community festivals interview, the researcher
contacted event team of the RBG, the event team decided
to not take part in this study. However, the Deputy Head
of RBG kindly agreed to take part and answer questions
in this study. Moreover, this interview allows readers
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
to understand political perspectives of the community
festivals as well as social perspectives. This study
clearly shows the impacts of each festival are variable
as Wood (2009) and Huang et al., (2010) stated, and also
Mayfield and Crompton (1995) identified different
purposes of the festivals and the authors posed that
local authorities organised events help create consensus
between the residents and increase wellbeing.
Nonetheless, at the literature Wood (2005) explored
local bodies facilitated from festivals to reach several
economic and social objectives.
4.4 Discussion of the all festivals included in this
study
This study result shows there is no straight relation
between attendee’s satisfaction and the organiser
challenges. Retaining volunteers is a common constraint
at community festivals, the organisers constraints were
diverse and depended to the structure of the organiser
committee and capacities. Moreover, there is no
significant impact between who organised the festival
and the attendees overall satisfaction.
Two of the independent volunteer management organisers
indicated constraints for the legal requirement. In this
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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study the independent volunteer festival organisers did
not receive financial and non-mandatory support in local
councils. However, the main reason behind this is it was
evolved as a legal requirement to apply for funding. The
local council is investing the community funds and
resources for the existing cultural community festivals
and new community festivals by providing relevant
documents. The Local authorities should find a way to
invest financially and non-monetary the existing
annually celebrating festivals which gained value by
recognition of the attendees, to empower community and
volunteers. One of the main reason for this suggestion
is marketing cost more for the new or unrecognized
community festivals than the existing celebrating
festivals (Bilgili et al., 2012), Additionally, in the
literature Wood (2005) stated, funds are available for
running these events. However, there are requirement to
apply funding (The London Community Foundation, 2014)
and if the organisers not gathered relevant document
they are not able to apply available funds which they
are entitled.
Getz (2008) stated running events required many
different skills and moreover, Jepson et al., (2008)
posed, successful events are consequences of
organisation, networking and management. With the
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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financial and non-mandatory support the volunteers are
able to access information and provide better
organisation, management and marketing. If the event is
for community, community should be part of steering
groups, however, not independently. Otherwise, the
community festivals do not represent dominant social
groups and festivals become mono-ethnic celebrations as
Jepson et al., (2008) indicated. As Jamieson stated,
structure does not work “top down” management approach,
the volunteer festival organisers need to support by top
management of local authority and run by community.
The volunteer independent organising committee struggle
to find a venue to meet on a regular basis. At both
independent community festivals organiser’s interviews,
the organisers addressed their own home for the meeting
point with the committee or they used online
communication by emails (Brockley Mid-Summer Fayre) or
through the Skype (Plumstead). During the interviews
both independent volunteer organisers clarify,
organising committee has no legal building to arrange
their meeting and follow ups. Volunteer committees need
a venue for improve or increasing their capacity as
Brennan (2007) stated.
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
5.0 CONCLUSION
One of the growing industries in London is Festival
industry, and there are different organisations which
organise Community Festivals. However, the different
structure of the steering committee is challenging to
the different constraints those are related to
management, marketing, experiences, finance capacities.
As this particular research, impacts on the organisation
challenges on attendees overall satisfaction is tested
and any impacts did not found at the local community
festivals in South East London.
5.1 Review of the Study Aims and Objectives
The main aims of this study were to analyse the impacts
of the organization challenges on attendee’s
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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satisfaction at local community festivals. Moreover this
studies objective was set by,
To determine that the differences of the aims at the
community festivals depended on organisations; the aims
are variable depending on organizers. However, common
aims of the community festivals are to create cohesion,
bring residents to one place and giving opportunity to
share the same experiences. The volunteer’s organizers’
main aims are to create positive social impacts for the
community. Moreover, the local authorities organise this
type of event to promote their services, improve health
and wellbeing of the residents and create positive
social impacts.
To investigate volunteer management constraints and
capacities; volunteer management constraints are mainly
related to retaining volunteers, legal issues, funding
and follow-up procedures. Moreover, the volunteer
organisers are limited to expand their capacity because
of not having enough support and existing legislations
is not clear about volunteers and supports.
To analyses factors of the attendee’s satisfaction at
the community festivals; to improve future community
festivals, analyse the success of the festivals and
understand attendees’ behaviour, measure the attendees’
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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satisfaction are major key points. This study finding
demonstrated; the attendees satisfaction is not
correlated with the organizers constraints. The
attendees overall enjoyment related with demographic
structure (age, revisit, being resident and education).
Also this study identified; entertainment, children
activities, food & drink options, socialising,
information and selling stalls as most enjoyed
activities at the festivals. Moreover, attendee’s
improvement recommendations were on most issues as
aforementioned at most enjoyed activities, except
socialising.
To predict future improvement for the attendees
satisfaction; the results demonstrated attendees
expectations at the community festivals related with
attendees demographic structure. The study would be used
as a reference for improvement of attendees’
satisfaction through segmentation of attendees’ and
improvement suggestions, comments and also most enjoyed
activities..
To determine the organisers improvement concerns for the
future community festivals; the community festivals
organisers’ interviews captured the organisers’
limitations, this study can be utilised for the
development of the organisers’ aims.
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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5.2 Key findings
Major findings were organisations constraints is not
reflecting attendee’s satisfaction. Many of the festival
goers were not sure who organized festival even for the
festivals celebrated 39th and 40th years in 2014. As this
study finding shows there was no significant difference
for the attendee’s satisfaction between different two
locations and no significant differences between those
run by volunteer and the local authority for the
attendee’s satisfaction. However, demographic
differences were identified as a factor for the
attendees’ satisfaction. The overall finding provides
information for the community festivals stakeholders
about managerial constraints, capacities and attendees
satisfaction. The festival goer’s satisfaction survey
identified; entertainment, children activities, food &
drink options, information and selling stalls and
socializing as a most enjoyed activities during the
event. In contrast, the most improvement suggestions
made were for the food & drink, entertainment, children
activities and stalls. However, three different
dimensions; environmental concerns, monetary request and
marketing suggestions emerged at this part with the
attendees comments.
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
The volunteer organisers have constraints mainly on
funding, recruiting volunteers, legal requirements,
marketing, training, venue for meeting and inefficient
support from the local authority for legal procedures
and monetary supports. The volunteers’ need more support
to improve organisations capacities. However, there are
some gaps for the volunteer community festivals in the
legislations which are not embedded organisers needs,
such as between, expected legal requirement for
volunteers by local authorities to apply funding and
organisations’ capacities.
5.3 Key Conclusions and Recommendations
The physical events are the tools to bring residents
together, and building community spirit, without this
type of event it is difficult to build up community
cohesion. The organisers depend on the structure of the
steering committee to organise these events. The common
aim is community togetherness, there were different
purposes between the organisers; such as local authority
organised community festivals for community togetherness
and to promote services and differences on organisers
capacities related with organisations. Nevertheless, the
attendees’ satisfaction does not rely on organiser’s
constraints. The community festivals attendees’
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
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expectations were associated with the attendees’
demographic structure and the entertainer, children
activities, food & drink quality, stalls and socialising
in this study. However, the attendees’ expectations at
the community festivals need to be the scope of future
research.
5.4 Recommendation for future research
The communities flourish with people who care about
others in their community (McDermott, 2000). The
volunteer community festival organisers’ inputs for the
community cohesion are invaluable. All the festivals
management committees which were included this study
have at least one member from the event industry.
However, even committee’s with the members from event
industry have many constraints and furthermore, there is
no legislation for the community festival organizers and
if amateurs run these events this is often too risky for
reaching the event goals (Getz, 2008).
The questions which were discovered whilst doing this
study for future research are;
“Is local authority putting under risk attendees with giving permission to
volunteers to organize events without training and support them?”
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
C o m m u n i t yF e s t i v a l s
“As volunteer festivals organiser’s capacity limited to apply for funding?”
either;
“Are independent volunteers receiving value from local government which is
value for creating cohesion with their skills, knowledge, time and sometimes
with their own money?”
“Are community festivals reflecting the multi-cultural communities or
cultures of the steering groups?”
This study finding could be used as references to
improve organizers capacity and attendees’ satisfaction
and identify organisations aims at the local community
festivals. However, this research reflected results of
the surveyed attendees at the particular community
festivals and the interviewed community festivals
organisers’ assignee’s in South East London. The study
finding has some similarities with the existing
literature with this scope. This study with the above
questions revealed necessity of in depth research for
the attendees’ satisfaction and organizers constraints.
I m p a c t s o f t h e O r g a n i s a t i o n C h a l l e n g e s a n dC a p a c i t i e s
O n A t t e n d e e s S a t i s f a c t i o n a t t h eL o c a l
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