Interview Synthesis, Part I

In this round of research, I explored some of the areas I’d learned about in my survey in more depth. I conducted some interviews with individuals I’d consider festival experts of sorts, meaning people who have been to many music festivals, are enthusiastic, active music festival attendees, have been attending music festivals for many years, or who are already engaged in producing or supporting music festival experiences and services.

By exploring certain areas that I learned about from my survey in a more focused way, I’ve developed a better understanding of some of the intricacies of music festival experience – notably, from the point of view of people who fundamentally understand and seek out these events.

On sharing music festival experiences

 One area that I focused on was what people do after a music festival, and the sharing of music festival experiences. Interestingly, there is a high desire to share music festival experiences for personal reasons, and also high motivation for seeking media and content related to a music festival experience. That is – people want to share their own experiences, photos, and media, but they also are highly interested in other people’s sharing.

Many groups are attempting to unify the space around a festival by collecting images, fan-sourced media, posting to Facebook pages and groups, and blogging about festivals. Hashtagged photos and video snippets on apps like Vine readily come to mind – but the space is still open for innovation. The high desire to share about music festival experiences in my survey indicated this as well.

I looked at why people share, the meaning of sharing a music festival experience with others and the possible benefits and drawbacks of sharing. A crucial distinction that emerged was between the need to share experiences for personal versus socially-motivated sharing. Sharing content of any kind will have different motivations. Sharing content to your personal social networks, for instance, is about sharing meaningful experiences. It is a personal experience, one about reflection and the inclusion of others.

Sharing content to wider networks or more public (online) places would be about educating others, attempts at making the festival experience vivid for people who weren’t there – whether to share why people were excited about it, or simply to explain why it mattered so much to the individual doing the sharing. Any attempt to share the ‘feeling’ of being there, or the meaning of having been there seems worthy, though most people agreed most sharing does next to nothing to approximate the actual music festival experience. Simply put, words and pictures, and even video clips rarely capture the true nature of a music festival. One person mentioned how even professional videos of music festivals are ‘totally clinical’ and fail to capture much.

Interestingly, nearly everyone I spoke with is inherently interested in hearing about other people’s music festival experiences – whether or not they were also at the specific festival. There seems to be a common understanding of why these experiences are important, and an eagerness to share them, and a happy openness to hearing them from other people (I at least feel this way…). I think it indicates a deep understanding between people of sorts – even if the music festival experiences are not the same, they provide instant sympathy and intensely common ground.

There is a desire to ‘see the festival’ through other people’s eyes – as everyone’s music festival experience is deeply personal and unique, but naturally, they are centered around the same basic activities and musical performances.

In summary, sharing music festival experiences is about two things:

Personal satisfaction: about you making meaning, expressing feeling, love, enjoyment
Social sharing: sharing for other people: knowledge, for fun, common understanding

 Other areas I explored, which I’ll attempt to write up later, were:  

Music festival strategy and expertise – that is, the information and knowledge you need to make the most of each specific festival, as is one is unique and presents unique challenges and opportunities – in addition to your own personal knowledge about how to manage your own music festival experiences (especially when camping, or surviving a multiple-day event, for instance)  

The wisdom and knowledge of the crowd or the masses - self-policing, learning how to operate ‘together’ in a space, and function as a crowd (there is a nuanced understanding of things like moving in lines, not cramming in to locations, avoiding bottlenecks, and simply logistics and spatial issues negotiated by crowds)

The unique experience of music at a festival, and also live streaming – we like live streams, for the most part, for different reasons. I will explain more later.

Satisfying and growing yourself as an individual (at music festivals over time) – and how knowledge accrues at festivals

Your closer/small friend group vs. the larger festival social experience