Modeling event attendees’ experiences during customer-customer encounters (CCEs)

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore how event attendees experience interactive encounters in the most competitive segment of the business sector of events – conferences. Design/methodology/approach A total of 26 in-depth personal interviews was conducted with previous conference attendees. Line-by-line open coding, axial coding and selective coding are performed. Findings This study develops a framework for experiences during customer–customer encounters (CCEs), which presents a dual motivational structure that explains one’s participation in CCEs, a classification of typical CCEs, four processes that one experiences during CCEs and three levels of situational factors that influence experiences during CCEs. Originality/value This study makes one of the first attempts to propose a multidimensional conceptualization of CCE experiences using an attendee perspective. Beyond the utilitarian and social benefits, this study suggests that it is important for event studies to explore the psychological and emotional meanings of CCE experiences through an experiential lens and that the competitive battleground in event industry should lie in staging memorable experiences during CCEs.