This document presents a measurement model for assessing visitors' experiences at festivals and special events. The model uses Pine and Gilmore's framework of four experience realms: entertainment, education, esthetics, and escapism. Each realm represents a different combination of visitor participation and absorption. The model aims to capture the holistic outcome of events from the visitor perspective, focusing on creating memorable experiences rather than just assessing tangible attributes. It could provide event organizers a more effective way to understand and evaluate the success of their events based on visitor experiences.

1. Ayob, N., Wahid, N. & Omar, A. (2011). A measurement model of visitor’s event experience within festivals
and special events. Proceeding of the 5th International Conference of the Asian Academy of Applied
Business (AAAB), 9-10 June 2011, Phhom Penh, Cambodia.
A MEASUREMENT MODEL OF EVENT EXPERIENCE WITHIN FESTIVALS AND SPECIAL
EVENTS
Norazirah Ayob
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, 94300 Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia
anorazirah@feb.unimas.my
Nabsiah Abd. Wahid
Azizah Omar
Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia
nabsiah@usm.my
ABSTRACT
Festivals and special events are unique experiential products that able to produce ranges of
sensations, imaginations, emotions and involvement within visitors. Hence, event
organization are suggested to change their view events using a much more contemporary
approach based on experiential concept. Moreover, an evaluation approach based on the
experiential concept is useful for the event organization to measure achievement or
effectiveness of the outcome of their events and further understand the nature of visitor
experiences within festival and special event settings. The objective of the paper is to
present a measurement model of visitor’s event experience that might be valuable to
measure the total outcome of the event from viewpoint of the visitors’ personal event
experiences. Five dimensions (or realms) of experiences namely, entertainment, educational,
esthetic (sic), escapist, and festivity were suggested to engage visitors at events. Each realm
is posited to intermingle with each other to form a visitor’s unique, memorable and desirable
personal event experience onsite of events.
Keywords: Experiential; Festival; Special event; Event experience; Measurement
INTRODUCTION
Festivals and special events are big business for area retail and tourism industries (Lee et al., 2007).
The substantial increment in the number and types of events being produced all over the world clearly
indicates that they are operating in an exceedingly competitive market (Hede, Jago & Deery, 2002). In
general, the unique appeal of event, namely its atmosphere of fun and celebration, and its unusual ambiance
different from everyday experience are able to catch the attention of numerous types of visitors (Hong,
2003). Thus, festivals and special events are increasingly regarded as tourist attractions that potentially bring
about advantageous impacts to the host community (Frisby & Getz, 1989). Moreover, the popularity of
festivals and other type of special events as tourism attractions are reported to increase tremendously in
numbers, diversity and popularity in recent years (Gursoy, Kim & Uysal, 2004; Thrane, 2002).
Even though originally the majority of festivals and special events started because of non-touristic
reasons, there is now a trend to develop new and unique events or celebrations for the purpose of attracting
tourists. As stated by Stokes (2007), various mixes of events are continuously hosted by tourist destinations
including events that acquired through competitive bids, events especially for tourism and various local-
originated community events. Certainly with these kinds of events and celebrations, visitors have the chance
to gain unique and personal experience of leisure, social and cultural beyond their everyday routines (Getz,
1997; Jago, 1997); hence, making their trip worthwhile and memorable. For this reason, festivals and special
events are now rapidly growing into an important and exclusive segment of attraction within the tourism

2. 2
industry. And as the tourist market is constantly changing and growing, competition among the tourism
destinations is becoming very fierce and intense.
Festivals and special events are one the most important experiential products that based heavily on
its ability to produce ranges of sensations, imaginations, emotions and involvement within the consumers. As
suggested by Berridge (2007), festivals and special events provide experiences of pleasure to people,
business, culture, fun, imaginations, entertainments, desire and nostalgia. Consequently, these types of
events require special consideration when conceptualizing and understanding event outcome. It is suggested
by Carbone (1998) that competitive businesses need to refocus business strategy and embrace the total
experience management methodologies beyond tangible attributes of products and services by managing
their positive subconscious sensory and emotional elements. Additionally, event organizers need to view
their production in a broader term of the creation of the overall outcome created out of staged event products
and services instead of focusing only on traditional product offering based on physical aspects of a products
and services such as quality, functionality, accessibility, delivery, and price (Mascarenhas, Kesavan &
Bernacchi, 2006). By using experiential approach as the foundation of the whole event delivered would
substantially help event managers to understand the totality of what really comes about a celebration that
form visitors’ event experience and consequently their satisfactions and loyalty.
Generally, the idea of experience is acknowledged by event researchers, organizers and marketers as
a component within the field of event (Berridge, 2007). Many references have been made regarding the
concept of experiences in various aspects of the festivals and special event. Many would agree the
experiences at these types of celebrations are basically rich with sensations and full of emotions. The unique
characteristic of festivals and special events primarily as celebrations would essentially indicate its heavy
foundation on unique, special and beyond everyday social experiences, which are also the basis of the
concept of experiential economy. Moreover, references to experience has been highlighted again and again
in definitions and discussions related to festivals and special events. Fundamentally, majority agrees that an
event is defined as ‘special’, ‘one off’, ‘unique’ and ‘beyond everyday experience’ (Berridge, 2007).
Researchers concur with the idea that an event is ‘a unique special moment or experience’. Berridge (2007)
stated that events are special occasions that meet certain needs, and thus creating an opportunity for certain
experience.
However, reviews have revealed that application of the concept of experience in the context of
festival and special event is still insufficient and not thoroughly explored unlike some areas. Empirical
researches looking specifically into the experiential concept per se as the foundation upon which the entire
event is delivered is rarely found. As Berridge (2007) stated usage of the experiential paradigm in event-
based publications is still somewhat limited and under-developed. In general, prospect of the concept of
experience within event settings have not been scrutinized in detail despite the fact that reviews on
applications of the experiential concept especially in context of hedonic products were indeed very
encouraging. Basically, events is most fitting to be described experientially as what have been done to group
of services like theater, arts, culture and music (Edvardsson, 2005; Sandström et al., 2008), since event’s
nature is very similar to these type of services. Thus, the experiential is suggested to be most fitting to be
applied to further understand and evaluate visitors’ experiences in the event environment.
Currently, there seems to lack of systematic and reliable evaluation means that able to measure
achievement or effectiveness of an event. Event View (2006) reported, “79% of event marketing agencies do
not have specific tracking or measurement systems for evaluating their programs” (Wood & Masterman,
2008, pp.15). Hence, the probability to have a mismatch between a belief in the effectiveness of the event
outcome by the organizing party and proof of that effectiveness is indeed very high. Moreover, the
conventional supports that are commonly used by event organizations (i.e. attendance of visitors, achieved
sales volume, return on investment, coupons distributed) as proof of their event’s success are somewhat
doubtful. The event organizations might even exaggerate the numbers purposely to achieve certain
objectives, for example to attract sponsorships and to influence certain decisions of the government or
politicians. Besides, the method used to evaluate event may also be questionable and not reliable. As Getz
(1991) pointed out, the statistic of events may have not been systematically documented and properly
collected. Gnoth and Anwar (2000) had mentioned about the greatest challenge to event tourism is
determining how to measure it’s success. At some events, the outcomes are not even evaluated for some
reasons. Roythorne (2006) reported reasons of the low levels of evaluation are due to lack of understanding
on how to measure, lack of agreement between event organizers and clients regarding measures, and lack of
funds to undertake the evaluations.
Succinctly, it is the aim of this paper to offer an alternative way of understanding and evaluating
effectiveness and survival in context of festival and special events based on the experiential paradigm. This

3. 3
paper is proposing a measurement model of event experience that may able to capture the total outcome of
the event from viewpoint of the visitors’ personal event experiences. The model of visitor’s event experience
was founded on the framework of experience realms introduced by Pine and Gilmore (1998). Pine and
Gilmore had suggested a conceptual framework that is practical and effective for to understand the nature of
customer experience (Oh, Fiore & Jeoung, 2007). Oh et al. (2007) further demonstrated the measurement
model of the framework to have strong internal validity and strong structural consistencies. Most
importantly, the distinct advantage of viewing and examining festivals and special events via event
experiential model over those of service quality models or satisfaction models is that the focus here is on the
memorable experience experienced by the visitors (Oh et al., 2007).
EXPERIENCE REALMS
Pine and Gilmore (1998, 2004) suggested that a contemporary “experiential economy era” has
started to take over the world from the conservative agricultural, industrial and service-based economy eras.
In the experience economy, consumers are posited to avidly searching for unique and memorable
experiences beyond simply purchasing products and services (Pine & Gilmore, 1999). Ultimately, the
consumers in the emerging experience economy are demanding “a distinct value-added provision for
products and services that have already achieved a consistent high level of functional quality” (Oh et al.,
2007). Sandström et al. (2008) asserted that experiences able to provide an extraordinary value to the
customers. A business is believed to have a strong competitive advantage if it were founded based on
consumer experience (Wang, 2008). Primarily because according to Carbone (1998), studies had revealed
that consumers are more likely influenced by subconscious sensory and emotional elements derived from the
experience than tangible attributes of products and services.
Purchasing an experience is not the same as purchasing goods and services. According to Berridge
(2007), the key differentiation between experiences and goods, services and commodities is that experiences
are memorable and engaging consumers in a personal way. Other than that, Pine and Gilmore (1998) claimed
that experiences are generally full of emotions. Berridge (2007) had mentioned about the richness of
experience with sensations created within consumers. O’Sullivan and Spangler claimed that experiences
address the “psychic needs of a society” (1999, pp.4). According to this, what is actually offered to the
consumers is beyond mere goods and services. Primarily, “remembrance” is the aim of purchasing not the
product itself (Wang, 2008). In addition, the experiences would require personal engagement from the
consumers (Pine & Gilmore, 1998; Berridge, 2007). O’Sullivan and Spangler (1999) agreed that experience
required more involvement from the consumers. Berridge claimed the experience providers or stagers would
create a specific environment that would engage consumers on an “emotional, physical, intellectual, or
spiritual level” (2007, pp.122). Pine and Gilmore (1998) asserted that the product or service would act as the
experiential stage to the customers. Eventually, the consumers’ interactions, participation or direct
observations (Wang, 2008) within the staged environment would produce experiences.
According to Pine and Gilmore, there are a number of dimensions (or realms) experiences engaging
customers. These dimensions or realms are term as ‘Experience Realm’. Pine and Gilmore (1999) further
suggested these experiences to be viewed in terms of bi-polar constructs depending on its level and form of
customer involvement in business offerings. Subsequently, four realms were created within the circle, which
they termed them as four Es of experience, namely entertainment, educational, esthetic (sic), and escapist.
Pine and Gilmore illustrated the four Es as “mutually compatible domains that often commingle to form
uniquely personal encounters” (1999, pp. 31). Each experience may contribute to consumers’ consumption
experience (Oh et al., 2007). Subsequently, all four experience realms may co-mingle with each other
forming the most desirable ultimate experience as termed the ‘sweet spot’ by Pine and Gilmore.
Pine and Gilmore (1999) posited each four dimensions of experiences to have different combination
of absorption-immersion and passive-active participation experiences. On the horizontal axis, customer
participation in the experience is separated between active participation on one end and passive participation
on the other. Simply put, active participation is when a customer personally affects the event and the
experience as in network meeting, while passive participation is when the customer does not have a direct
effect on the event and the experience as in art exhibition. According to Pine and Gilmore (1999), active
participation characterizes the educational and escapist dimensions; meanwhile passive participation
characterizes the entertainment and esthetic dimensions.
On the other hand, the vertical axis illustrates environmental relationship that connects customers
with the events. Pine and Gilmore (1999) defined absorption as “occupying a person’s attention by bringing
the experience into the mind”, and immersion as “becoming physically (or virtually) a part of the experience

4. 4
itself” (Pine and Gilmore 1999, p. 31). In other words, absorption is to be more of a mind experience such as
in music festival, and immersion is inclined to be more towards physical experience such as sport
competition. According to Pine and Gilmore (1999), consumers normally ‘absorbs’ entertainment and
educational dimensions of an offering, and would inversely ‘immerse’ in the esthetic and escapist
dimensions.
Pine and Gilmore strongly believed the experience economy as a new way of thinking able to
enhance business performance across a wide range of industries (Oh et al., 2007). Oh et al. (2007) maintain
that the conceptual framework proposed by Pine and Gilmore is practical and effective for us to understand
the nature of customer experience. According to Oh et al (2007), the 4Es of experience economy is
conceptually fit to be applied into tourism setting because the realms cover various aspects of tourism
experiences. Oh et al. (2007) claimed previous discussions on the experience economy were largely
conceptual in nature and lacked of measurement scales for practical applications and theoretical
advancement. And despite excessive researches assessing destination performance, not many measurement
models published able to concisely capture all elements experienced by a tourist at a destination (Oh et al.,
2007). Hence, Oh et al. (2007) had developed a measurement scale to measure consumer experience based
on the four realms of experiences of experience economy concept. The initial measurement scale was
operationalized and tested in tourists’ destination lodging experiences with rural bed-and-breakfasts.
Subsequently, the scale was adapted by Jeong et al. (2009) in a study of online shopping. Oh et al. (2007)
maintained that the experience economy concept offers a practical and enhanced outlook for destination
management to effectively interpret tourist experience. Furthermore, tourism researchers and also practioners
have long been concerned with the staging of tourist experience. As Sternberg stated, “tourism primarily
sells a ‘staged’ experience…tourism’s central productive activity [is] the creation of the touristic experience”
(1997, pp.952, 954).
VISITOR’S EVENT EXPERIENCE
For the purpose of this paper, event experience from a visitor’s perspective is viewed as ‘enjoyable,
engaging, memorable encounters on-site of event’ adapted from Oh et al. (2007). Primarily, this measuring
model focuses more on the importance of examining effectiveness of event from visitor’s personal
perception and experience rather than organizer’s assessment. O’Neill, Getz & Carlsen (1999) suggested that
a look at a festival product experience from the perceptions of the customers is the one that matter the most,
not the festival organizers. Most importantly, the aim of the visitor event experience is about creating
favorable personal experience (Edvardsson, 2005) by putting highest importance on managing visitors’
positive subconscious sensory and emotional elements Carbone (1998) beyond what tangible attributes of
products and services can do. The model of event experience is essentially the result of visitor’s interactions
with various stimuli within the staged environment (Berridge, 2007). Consequently, it is expected that the
visitor’s event experience would be rich with sensations and full of emotions. O’Neill, Getz & Carlsen
(1999) argued the importance of evaluating tangible service elements together with experiential elements of
a service. Thus, the concept of event experience would offer the visitors’ personalized special experiences
and unforgettable memories to meet today’s consumer demand (Pine and Gilmore, 1998). Oh et al. (2007)
maintained that the primary focus on memorable experiences is the distinct advantage of the experiential
paradigm over other similar existing models, such as customer satisfaction and service quality.
Fundamentally, the measuring model of event experience would be using the framework of
experience realms proposed by Pine and Gilmore (1998). The experience realms are reported to be practical
and effective to be applied to other fields (Pine & Gilmore, 1998) as in this case the context of festivals and
special events. The four dimensions, that are suggested to be compatible with each other and may commingle
with each other to form a unique and desirable experience for each individual, are entertainment,
educational, esthetic (sic), or escapist realm. The details on the four realms are provided in TABLE 1. Oh et
al. (2007) had demonstrated the framework to have strong internal validity and strong structural
consistencies. Accordingly, each experience realms may contribute to the visitors’ event experience on-site
of events. For this, the measuring model of event experience would adopt the measuring scale for the four
realms developed by Oh et al. (2007).
In addition to the four experience realms, another realm is added to the concept of event experience.
Since, the other four realms are quite general and applicable to any type of consumption experience, a
special realm termed as ‘festivity’ is included to exclusively illustrate the visitor’s personal experience
within a festival or special event setting. Compared to other experience realms, the nature of festivity
is collective, shared, communal, and not individualistic. As well known, festivals and special events

5. 5
are normally social events or occasions where certain groups of people gather for a certain purpose.
As Heenan (1978) described, festival as community-based phenomenon. Similarly, Rao (2001) and Turner
(1982) mentioned that festivals are generally viewed by sociologists as events that are shared culturally
within a social group. Hence, the festivity realm is more on visitor’s sense of connection to the
communal spiritual celebration on-site. Specifically, festivity could be depicted as shared feeling or
spirit. Surely, it is an emotional aspect of a celebration that event organizers normally try to achieve
at any event. In fact, the festivity realm may able to effectively achieve the aim of the concept of event
experience regarding creating favorable and memorable visitor experience by relating visitors’ positive
subconscious sensory and emotional elements to the surrounding community’s sentiment on-site.
TABLE 1 – DESCRIPTIONS OF THE EVENT EXPERIENCE REALMS
Dimension
Entertainment  Keyword: “sense”
 Passively absorbing events through senses
Source: Jeong et al. (2009)
 “Being entertained”
 Involve passive observation of activities and/or performances of others
 Able to attract and engage consumers attention and readiness
Source: Oh et al. (2007)
Educational  Keyword: “learn”
 Actively engaging their mind for knowledge development
Source: Jeong et al. (2009)
 Learning something new”
 Involve absorption while actively participating in the experience
 Actively engaging the mind and/or the body
Source: Oh et al. (2007)
Esthetic  Keyword: “be”
 Engaging passively but with immersive manner
Source: Jeong et al. (2009)
 “Indulged in environment”
 Involve immersion without active participation
 Passively appreciating the product offerings
Source: Oh et al. (2007)
Escapist  Keyword: “do”
 Affecting the event
Source: Jeong et al. (2009)
 “Diverging to a new self”
 Involve immersion and active participation from consumers
 Greatly affecting actual performances or occurrences
Source: Oh et al. (2007)
Festivity  Keyword: ‘shared feeling or spirit’
 Key ingredient for a celebratory experience (Getz, 1991)
 Emotional aspect of celebration
 Best portrayed as a communal spiritual experience
 The sharing of community spirit as important aspect
 Nature of festivity is collective, shared, communal
 Described with terms such as “gaiety”, “conviviality”, “cheerfulness” (Falassi,
1987); “joy”, “celebration”, “joyfulness”, and “liberation” (Getz, 1991).
Getz (1991) pointed out that festivity is one of important key ingredients of a celebratory
experience. In order to describe the emotional aspect of celebration namely festival spirit, Falassi
(1987) introduced the terms “gaiety, conviviality, and cheerfulness”. Other terms that can be used to

6. 6
describe festival spirit are “joy”, “celebration”, “joyfulness”, and “liberation” (Getz, 1991).
Moreover, Abraham (1987) had implied that experience of anticipation and preparing oneself for
celebrations with openness, fun, and playfulness are key elements of festival spirit. Another
description of festival spirit is related to the sharing of community character (Getz, 1991). Thus, the
terms “devotion” and “affirmation” may also suitable be used to describe this aspect of festival spirit
(Getz, 1991).
The five realms of event experience may be simply illustrated as a star as shown in Figure 1.
The researcher believes for a festival or special event to be a ‘star’ event, event organizers need to
meet all the five realms of event experience. In other words, meeting the ‘sweet spot’, the most
desirable experience in the middle of the axis of the star. Similar to the 4Es concept of experiential realms
of Pine and Gilmore (1998), there are five dimensions (or realms) of event experience (EE) engaging event
visitors. Thus, an event visitor may experience festivity even when he or she is involved in other
realms. For example, a visitor may emotionally relate to the celebration of the community while
actively participating in a contest or competition. A visitor may certainly share the festive spirit while
passively watching and listening to a singer in a local music festival. In short, the researcher believes
the visitors need to feel certain level of communal celebration spirit in what ever they are doing or
feeling (i.e. sense (entertainment), learn (educational), be (esthetic), do (escapist)) in order for a
festival or special event to successful realizing its key characteristic as a social celebration event.
FIGURE 1 – FIVE REALMS OF EVENT EXPERIENCE
Sweet
Spot
Entertainment
Educational
Esthetic
Escapist
Festivity

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In addition, as recommended by Carbone (1998), the application of the experiential concept may
effectively help event organizers to avoid total focus only on the traditional functional event features; for
example, event programs, settings, facilities, amenities and information. Because of its complex nature (i.e.
celebration, social, communal), festivals and special events especially need to be viewed via event
experience that may include impact of functional dimensions together with impact of emotionally social
environment consumed by the visitors within the staged environment. Only then, the organizers can
understand the totality of what really transpire on-site of a festival or event. This understanding would help
them to anticipate and manage the visitors’ needs and desires for an improved and satisfying event
experience in the future. As claimed by Berridge (2007) the concept of event experience is essentially the
result of visitor’s interactions with various stimuli within the staged environment. For that reason, examining
events on the basis of the visitors’ experiential may include a wider view of stimuli that previously ignored
by organizers yet still might be significant in forming the visitors’ event experience.
MEASURING VISITOR’S EVENT EXPERIENCE
In the questionnaire, the respondents would be asked about their personal event experience at the
event. The measurement items of event experience are measured originally based on measurement scales
from Oh et al. (2007). There were four initial dimensions of experience – (1) education; (2) esthetics; (3)
entertainment; and (4) escapism. Else known as the 4Es of experience realms that were initially proposed by
Pine and Gilmore (1998). Pine and Gilmore intended the experience realms as a framework to understand
and evaluate experiential consumptions across various industries and products. Since the concept has both
conceptual and practical relevance to the tourism industry, Oh et al. (2007) have develop an initial
measurement scale of tourists’ destination lodging experiences based on experience economy concepts (four
realms of experience). After grueling qualitative phases of constructing and refining the measurement scales
through reviews of related literature, numerous discussions, even directly with Pine and Gilmore themselves,
brainstorming sessions and personal interviews, 24 experience dimension items were finalized. Then, Oh et
al. (2007) operationalized and tested the scales in a field survey conducted with guests of rural bed-and-
breakfasts facilities in a midwestern state of the United States.
As a result, 16 experience measurement items with four items for each of the experience dimensions
were confirmed as having strong internal validity. Furthermore, the each of the four scales boasted
Cronbach’s alpha coefficients above 0.70; alpha = 0:95 for entertainment, alpha = 0:94 for educational, alpha
= 0:85 for escapist, and alpha = 0:77 for esthetics. The scales demonstrated that Pine and Gilmore’s
framework of 4Es has structural consistencies as proposed and both conceptual fit and practical to be used as
a practical measurement framework to study tourist experiences. Consequently, Oh et al. (2007) strongly
recommended the measurement scales to be used in actual operations in order to understand customer
evaluations of experiential offerings of various other tourism settings. Moreover, they maintained that the
dimensional structure of the measurement scales would likely to be stable regardless different subjects and
settings (Oh et al., 2007).
As for the festivity realm, it depicts a dimension that exclusively captures visitor’s personal
experience at a festival or special event. For this, reviews of related literature and discussions on the
unique embodiment and role of festivals and special events were the first earlier step done by the researcher.
Then, a series of personal interviews and observations at events were conducted to help generate
understanding of festivals and special events and also to develop measurement dimensions and items. As a
result, four items were developed for the realm of festivity. Together with the items of the other four
realms, it is hope that the scales are proficient to measure event experience. Consequently, there are a
total of 20 items measuring event experience under the five dimensions (See TABLE 2). The items
would be operationalized on a 7-point Likert-scale with “strongly disagree” as 1 and “strongly agree” as
7.
Finally, in order to determine the reliability of the measurement scale, the responses of a pilot test
on-site of a festival were tested by Cronbach’s alphas coefficient. 74 subjects who have finished their outing
at the festival were invited to complete self-adminitered survey questionnaires. In general, reliability
coefficients of all measures were above 0.6, thus were deemed to be acceptable in this study. Cronbach’s
alphas for the event experience subscales were: 0.95 for education, 0.85 for entertainment, and 0.89 for both
escapism and festivity. As for esthetics, its Cronbach’s alpha was a very low 0.29. However, after removing
an item “The setting was pretty bland”, the corrected score of Cronbach’s alpha for esthetics was improved
to be 0.75. Meanwhile, the Cronbach’s alpha for the overall visitor’s event experience was identified as 0.93.

8. 8
Hence, the result indicated that the measurement scale of event experience is reliable and feasible to be used
in a future full-scale research study.
TABLE 2 - ITEMS TO MEASURE EVENT EXPERIENCE
Education
1. My experience here has made me more knowledgeable.
2. I learned a lot.
3. It stimulated my curiosity to learn new things.
4. It was a real learning experience.
Esthetics
1. I felt a real sense of harmony.
2. Just being here was very pleasant.
3. The setting was pretty bland (reverse coded).
4. The setting was very attractive.
Entertainment
1. Activities here were amusing to watch.
2. Watching others perform was captivating.
3. I really enjoyed watching what others were doing.
4. Activities here were fun to watch.
Escapism
1. I felt I played a different character here.
2. I felt like I was living in a different time or place.
3. The experience here let me imagine being someone else.
4. I completely escaped from reality.
Festivity
1. Environment here was full of joy and cheerfulness.
2. People at the event seemed to be in high spirits and festive.
3. This event was a meeting point for community to enjoy.
4. I felt the celebration at this event.
CONCLUSION
Festivals and special events are becoming an important element in the tourism industry, especially in
strategic destination marketing. Festivals and special events could be an excellent and powerful travel
motivator for tourists. And tourism destinations worldwide have always tried to expand event tourism as part
of its important tourism attractions. Like any other businesses, event organization must refocus their business
strategy on a much more contemporary approach based on ‘experience’ concept if they were to compete
effectively in today’s competition. Clearly, festivals and special events are unique experiential products that
able to produce ranges of sensations, imaginations, emotions and involvement within visitors.
All in all, it is very fitting to employ the experiential approach into the study festivals and special
events. With an evaluation approach based on the experiential concept, event researchers and organizers is
able to measure achievement or effectiveness of the outcome of an event. Hence, the measuring model of
event experience was proposed in order to help event organizers to understand the nature of visitor
experiences within festival and special event settings. Specifically, the model was developed to measure the
total outcome of the event from viewpoint of the visitors’ personal event experiences and thus, stressed on
the importance of the memorable experience experienced by the visitors. The model of event experience was
initially developed based on the framework of experience realms introduced by Pine and Gilmore (1998) and
measuring scale constructed by Oh et al. (2007).
Accordingly, there are five dimensions (or realms) of experiences engaging visitors at events, which
are entertainment, educational, esthetic (sic), escapist, and festivity. Each realm may co-mingle with each
other and contribute to form a visitor’s unique, memorable and desirable personal event experience. The
result of a pilot test had revealed that the measuring model of event experience could serve as a valuable tool
to empirically evaluate and measure effectiveness of an event. As Oh et al. (2007) suggested, it is strongly
recommended the measurement model to be used in actual operations in order to understand visitors’
evaluations of event experiential offerings. And as they suggested, the dimensional structure of the

9. 9
measurement scale of event experience that is based on experiential realms is found to be stable and
consistent within the event settings.
Hence, the experiential evaluation mechanism might be very expedient to managerial purposes. The
event organizers could use the results to assist their decision-making processes regarding design and staging
of future events. In the long run, this can help to develop continuous visitors’ brand awareness and loyalty
towards the events. In addition, the model could also serve as a foundation for future research applications
within the festivals and special event field. Moreover, it is strongly suggested that the model be refined and
further tested empirically. Its relationships with other important variables such as consumer satisfaction
might also be viable to be examined for more understanding of the event field.
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