Service-dominant logic and the festival experience

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the process of value co-creation by examining festival attendees’ perspectives of their festival experiences. Service-dominant logic (SDL) is used as a framework to understand the how value is co-created in the festival setting. Design/methodology/approach Using a SDL approach and personal meaning mapping methods, this research offers insight into how value is co-created by the attendee, festival, and influential others. Findings This research found that personal, social, cultural, physical, place, and arts presentation domains come together to add value to the festival experience. Research limitations/implications This research adds insight into the value co-creation process if festival settings. SDL is examined in relation to findings and re-conceptualized based on findings. This research was not intended to generalize all performing arts festivals but instead provided a detailed descriptive account of the experiences offered by performing arts festivals examined. Practical implications These findings contribute to the understanding of how co-created experiences can be developed, marketed and managed and provide insight into areas of future research to better understand the co-creation process in event contexts. Originality/value By providing a framework for understanding the festival experience, employing SDL, and using of experiential assessment methods across festivals, this research fulfils an identified need for an in-depth understanding of the co-created meanings of festival experiences.