WHAT IS THE INFLUENCE OF A MUSIC FESTIVAL AND WHAT MAKES IT GREAT?

When a music industry is going through so many changes, the directions of growth of potentially main future offering - live music - has to be investigated. In order to organize a successful festival, it is important to recognise and meet customers expectations. For every culture manager with the aim of shaping culture, it is essential to find out how a festival affects culture, society, and artists. The following research will attempt to answer what the influence of a music festival is and what makes it great. For that purpose in 2013, at three Polish pop-music festivals: Heineken Open’er Festival, Woodstock Station, and Coke Live Music Festival, 541 surveys were collected. The most important variables were the ones investigating the levels of satisfaction in relation to expectations and experiences, and the influences of music festivals on musicians and on increasing cultural competencies of festivalgoers. To solve the research problem both desk research providing definitions of relevant key words and the analysis of trends, developments, and models explaining processes influencing satisfaction as well as secondary research with data collection and analysis were conducted. The analysis shows that festivalgoers are not satisfied with sanitary facilities, conditions or quantity, food offer, access to electricity, Wi-Fi, or the line-up. At two festivals the needs for transportation and friendliness of security guards are not met. The customers are pleased with an extensive non-musical offer, eco-friendly solutions, friendliness of the staff and the atmosphere. However, some things should be improved, number of regular attendees should be increasing. The research proves that indeed festivals positively influence musicians and the cultural abilities of attendees and that music festivals are important influencers providing the society with a lot of benefits and helping to create a more aware creative class.