Exploring the jazz festival experience amongst local and non-local residents: The case of the Jazzaldia Festival in Spain

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the jazz festival experience at the Heineken Jazzaldia Festival in San Sebastian, Spain. It focuses especially on the relationship between participants’ area of residence and their experience of the festival, concert expectations, preference for different festival settings and perception of the best aspects of the festival. Design/methodology/approach This study modifies and applies the Audience Experience Survey (Radbourne et al. , 2009) to the Heineken Jazzaldia Festival in San Sebastian, Spain. A total of 406 valid questionnaires were obtained. A quantitative analysis technique was used for the area of residence, on the one hand, and for concert expectations, audience experience and venue setting, on the other. A qualitative approach was applied for identifying the best aspects of the festival. Findings The results suggest that the audiences’ festival preferences differed according to their area of residence. Audience members who lived in Spain outside of the Basque Country were more motivated to attend the festival, had higher concert expectations and greater indoor venue concert attendance, and considered music diversity to be one of the most important aspects of the festival. Local participants were more likely not to have expectations prior to concerts, had higher outdoor venue concert attendance rates and preferred ambience compared with residents from outside of the Basque Country. Practical implications Findings could be relevant to festivals’ organisers for management and marketing purposes in terms of their audiences’ needs and preferences. One of the main results obtained is that local residents were more likely not to have expectations prior to concerts. They also equalised music diversity, artists, stages and atmosphere as the best Festival’s aspects while participants from outside of the Basque Country prioritised music diversity aspect. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature regarding residents’ behaviour in the Spanish music festival context. Our findings add to the body of knowledge around local audiences’ and non-local audience’s experience in jazz festivals.