Festivalgoers’ perception about the quality of products and services at Aardklop

Abstract

The Aardklop National Arts Festival (Aardklop) is an arts festival held in Potchefstroom during the September-October school holidays each year. Aardklop went through very turbulent times when it was announced that the Aardklop directorate wanted to terminate the festival. Various role-players within the arts festival community and the community of Potchefstroom made a huge effort to ensure that Aardklop will be hosted again. However, the value proposition of Aardklop should constantly be revised and tweaked where needed to ensure that the festival provides products and services which festival goers perceive as good quality and will generate sales in order to ensure the sustainability of Aardklop. From the literature review, it became apparent that all festival goers, whether first time or repeating Aardklop festival goers, are prospective festival goers each year. Each year prospective festival goers will decide if they want to attend Aardklop, based on how well Aardklop’s product offering can satisfy their need of belonging to a group and their culture. The Aardklop directorate needs to understand the intrinsic and extrinsic factors which play a role in the decision-making process of festival goers. This will ensure that Aardklop marketing initiatives can market Aardklop as a good quality and value for money arts festival. By doing this, the Aardklop directorate keeps reinforcing a positive perception among festival goers about the quality of the products and services provided by Aardklop. The empirical research showed that the respondents are satisfied with the quality of products and services at Aardklop. However, one does not know if respondents are satisfied with Aardklop because Aardklop provides the same product offering each year, or if respondents are dissatisfied with Aardklop due to that fact that respondents might feel they are not satisfied with the product offering provided by Aardklop, the festival might be terminated. Based on the information obtained from respondents, a market segment for Aardklop could be established. The market segment of Aardklop can be defined as 25–34 years old, from the North West and Gauteng provinces and attending Aardklop for two days. Interestingly, the age groups 35–44 years old and the 45–54 years old were among the lowest of the respondents, and perhaps these respondents feel that the value proposition of Aardklop is not necessarily something that drives them to attend Aardklop. The Aardklop directorate might need to look into the possibilities of attracting more festival goers from these age groups to ensure the sustainability of Aardklop. The biggest limitation with regards to this study, is that most of the academic viewpoints available about Aardklop, focuses on the tourism aspect. Limited research is conducted on Aardklop from a business perspective. Aardklop, even though it’s an arts festival, should be managed as a business where certain key business principles should be applied. In the recommendations, based on the findings from the literature review and the empirical research, practical recommendations are made as to how Aardklop can adapt its value proposition and implement a Best-Cost provider strategy.