Open Conference Systems, Nordic Geographers Meeting 2011

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Picturing Experiences – the case of the Storsjöyran Music Festival in Östersun
Malin Zillinger

Last modified: 2011-02-11

Abstract


The visitor experience is an important factor for the success of an event. Positive experiences or negative dittos do not only impact on the visitors’ satisfaction, but also on their intention to return to the place in question. It is therefore of importance to study experiences in the space and time they take place. This study departs from the question on how an event like the Storsjöyran Music Festival in Östersund is experienced from the visitor point of view. For this, visitors have been asked to picture their experiences as they take place. In addition to this method, visitors carried a GPS device showing the individual route of the visitor. The respondents pressed a button each time they had a positive or negative experience, respectively. At this moment, they were also instructed to take a photograph of the experience. In a second step, these pictures are compared to the official pictures of the event, which are published on the Internet. This is a study aiming to test the compatibility of the combination the mentioned methods. Being based on a rather small number of respondents, it is still tried to draw some conclusions from it. It is concluded that personal and official pictures of the event are differentiating from each other considerably. While the official photos very much display the main theme of the event, i.e. music, visitors’ photographs focus on personal experiences taking place apart from the more official program.