MUSIC FESTIVAL TOURISM IN FINLAND

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1 1 August 11, (11) 13th Nordic Symposium in Tourism and Hospitality Research November 4-7, 2004, Aalborg University, Denmark MUSIC FESTIVAL TOURISM IN FINLAND Irma Tikkanen University of Kuopio Department of Business and Management P.O. Box 1627, Kuopio, FINLAND tel , fax irma.tikkanen@uku.fi ABSTRACT Music festivals, both local and international, are playing a growing but still a marginal role in the Finnish tourism industry. In 2002 was the share of music festivals' visitors of all tourists in Finland only 5,8 %. However, Finnish music culture is living its best period. Export markets are actively searched for music artists, bands, choirs and their CD records, and foreign world-class artists and visitors are attempted to Finland to various music festivals. Also many kinds of efforts, such as public financial support, local and regional development projects, and university level education in the form of master's programs with professorships and researchers (e.g. Sibelius Academy) have been established in order to develop music entrepreneurship, music festival tourism and music exports in Finland. This paper attempts to describe the music festivals in Finland from tourism viewpoint. Also one international music festival - Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival and its components - is described. The theoretical basis is established on the discussion of tourism (Burns & Holden 1995, Mill & Morrison 1992, Brunt 1997, Witt & Moutinho 1994), activity approach (Jones 1990, McNally 1997, Ettema & Timmermans 1997), music festivals (Walle 1998), and event marketing (Erickson & Kushner 1999). The secondary empirical data consist of Finland Festivals' statistics. The illustrated seven types of music festivals - chamber music, concert and vocal music, folk music, jazz music, light music and rock music, multi-arts, and dance, theatre, and literature - have the various characteristics from the point of view of the event marketing, i.e. service package conceptualization, market segmentation, and marketing communication, according to their type and visitors. The value of the description is that those organizing music festivals can try to determine the dates of festivals so that the festivals are run successively, because there is expected to be an overlap with the visitors to various festivals (see Fisher & Preece 2002). The public tourism promotion organizations, sponsors and partners can benefit from the description so that they can actively try to plan and build the supporting resources, capabilities, and services for music festivals from the international tourism perspective. The academic audience may have a deeper insight into the nature of music festivals as a form of tourism by the type of music. KEYWORDS. Activity approach, Event marketing, Festivals, Music festivals, Music tourism, Tourism.

2 2 INTRODUCTION Music festivals, both leisure-oriented and culture-oriented special events, emerge as a growing sector in the Finnish tourism industry. Music festivals are targeted to both local, national and international consumers as well as business-to-business customers. Generally, the number of the music festivals has increased in Finland during 1980's and 1990's, and also the number of visitors has increased. The trend is still strengthening in 2000's. There are many demand and supply side reasons to this phenomenon: people's income has increased during the second period of 1990's after the deep economic recession; people appreciate leisure time spend with the family and friends; and people want to decrease and avoid the work stress by participating in music festivals, especially in summer time and in the natural environment. Cities and municipalities are eager to promote their tourism during the season by organizing and supporting financially music events. Also local and regional development projects have been established to promote tourism in the form of music festivals. The lack of studies on music festival tourism is compounded further by the absence of commonly accepted definitions as to what constitutes music festival tourism. This paper tries to increase understanding of that phenomenon. OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER The purpose of this paper is to find the answers to the following research problems: What are tourism, activity approach to tourism, and music festival tourism? What is event marketing and what it is especially in music festival tourism? What is the music festival tourism by sectors in Finland? What are the components of an international chamber music festival? The research design is both deductive and descriptive. Cross-sectional approach is applied, and secondary data is utilized. The perspective is a music festival organizer's viewpoint. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND The paper is theoretically positioned on music festival tourism from event marketing viewpoint. (Figure 1) Tourism Activity approach to tourism Music festival tourism Event marketing Event marketing in music tourism Figure 1. Theoretical positioning of the paper Tourism There are generally accepted to be three aspects to define tourism. The first one concerns the purpose or motivation of the visit. The second element concerns time, making the important differentiation between day trips and voyages that involve overnight stays. Thirdly, a definition should take into account the particular situations enabling categories that may or may not be counted as tourism (such as migration, transit, sea cruises). (Burns & Holden 1995, 5) Mill and Morrison (1992, xiv) see tourism as an activity that takes place when people cross a border for

3 3 leisure or business and stay at least twenty-four hours, but less than one year. Brunt (1997, 4) adds that tourism is about people, their movement to destinations away from home and their activities on holidays. It is also about traveling to and staying in places outside people's usual environment for business as well as leisure purposes. As such, research into tourism has its roots in the principles and practices of social sciences. The study of tourism as a set of interrelated service industries links it closely with several important strands of research. Several important sub sectors of tourism have spawned their own research tradition that often transcends even the broad confines of the tourism sector; transport research, research on leisure and recreation, including attractions management, and hotels and catering research. (Witt & Moutinho 1994, 131) In marketing, consumer behavior school of thought and marketing management school of thought discuss e.g. buyer behavior of tourism, tourist motivation studies, and marketing management in the tourism industry (e.g. life style and benefit segmentation, buying process, service product, marketing communication, distribution channels, market potential, market demand, etc.). Research on consumer behavior in tourism has a largely private market research provenance. Tourist motivations are often treated as a "black box" response to an external stimulus (advertising). In the short run, such models predict tourist behavior with a reasonable degree of accuracy but longer-term understanding is limited - hence the failure to predict large swings in demand patterns and the impact of the large destabilizing events. (Witt & Moutinho 1994, 133) Veal (1997, 16-17) writes that a leisure/tourism studies framework consists of people, organizations, services/facilities/attractions, linkages between these three, and the physical environment within that everything takes place. Mill and Morrison (1992, xv-10) describe tourism as a system. The tourism system consists of four parts: market, travel, destination, and marketing. Marketing in the tourism system is an examination of the process by which the destination area and individual suppliers market their products and services to potential customers with an emphasis on the effective use of distribution channels. Activity approach to tourism Activity-based approaches share a common philosophical perspective, in which travel is analyzed as daily or multi-day patterns of behavior, related to and derived from differences in life styles and activity participation among the population (Jones 1990, 34). An activity analysis faces two important challenges. The first one covers theoretical and methodological issues: to clarify concepts, refine methods and simplify the approaches so far developed to make them more accessible to the other analysts. The second one is to demonstrate the practical usefulness of these approaches with particular emphasis on the improved ability to understand and predict travel behavior. (Jones 1990, 36) In order to gain deeper understanding of the activity-based approaches to travel analysis, it requires the integration of concepts from several disciplines, such as psychological theory, sociological theory, economic theory, and geography. Psychological theory contributes to a greater understanding of the perception of constraints and the nature of activity participation needs. Sociological theory provides a basis for understanding the roles, the power structure in households and the interdependencies in the social networks. Economic theory, on the other hand, provides clearer understanding of the role of time and money in the activity participation and travel, the role of the household as a producer and a consumer, and the composite utility derived from the activity participation. Moreover, geography provides a clearer understanding of spatial aspects of travel and activity participation. (Jones 1990, 45)

4 4 Characteristics of activity-based approaches are: 1. travel demand is derived from activity participation; 2. activity participation involves activity generation, spatial choice, and scheduling; 3. activity and travel behavior is delimited by constraints; 4. linkages exist between activities, locations, times, and individuals; 5. and alternate decision paradigms are probable. (McNally 1997, 38) An activity approach describes which activities people pursue, at what locations, at what times and how these activities are scheduled, given the locations and attributes of the potential destinations, the state of the transportation network, aspects of the institutional context, and their personal and household characteristics (Ettema & Timmermans 1997, xv). Music festival tourism Music festivals here refer to leisure-oriented and culture-oriented tourism. Cultural tourism is tourism that is concerned with cultural phenomena. Early cultural tourism tended to involve "high" or "elite" culture whereas much contemporary cultural tourism concerns hinterland or folk culture as well. (Walle 1998, 9) Cultural festivals can be viewed as a circumscribed segment of the larger festival and special events industry. It is important for cultural tourism professionals who are involved in festivals to expand their knowledge beyond cultural festivals in order to understand better the festival/special event industry as an entity. (Walle 1998, 139) The production of cultural festivals is a growing component of cultural tourism. Producing cultural festivals in the contemporary world is a sophisticated activity directed by talented staffs that are comfortable working with large organizations as well as municipalities. (Walle 1998, 140) Cultural tourism events, such as festivals, are potentially attractive to sponsors because they can provide opportunities to interact with a distinct target market and to simultaneously communicate with a broad general audience. (Walle 1998, 138) In recent years, cultural tourism professionals have typically embraced a strong public sector identity. (Walle 1998, 17) This is a result of the public funding in the form of projects and grants. The types of music are numerous: e.g. baroque music, blues, chamber music, choral music, concert and vocal music, country music, folk music, jazz music, light music, opera music, religious music, rock music, etc. In this paper, the music festival tourism is classified into seven types of music due to the availability of secondary data: chamber music festivals concert and vocal festivals dance, theatre, literature festivals folk music festivals jazz music festivals light music and rock festivals multi arts festivals Figure 2: Types of music festival tourism Music festivals are targeted to local, national, and international market segments. Hughes (1996; ref. Prentice & Andersen 2003, 9) classified cultural tourists into those of whose primary consumption style is cultural, incidental, or accidental. Fisher and Preece (2002) examined the overlap of performing arts audience. They found that there is a significant degree of audience overlap between the types of performing arts events; opera-goers are the most likely and theatregoers the least likely to attend other types of performing arts events; and audience members who most frequently attend one type of event represent a disproportionately large share of those who most frequently attend other types of events.

5 5 In the case of a music festival, the consumers' principal reason for attending is the content of the event - the live shows. (Bourdeau et al. 2001, 40) Bourdeau et al. (2001) explored the satisfaction of music festival goers between tourists and residents. No difference was found between the two groups in overall satisfaction. However, a difference was found on the question of festival content with residents showing a higher degree of satisfaction than tourists. Frey (1994, 30-31) states that music festivals can best be understood from the demand side both as the result of an increasing demand for culture and as an increasing availability of time for leisure and holidays. From the supply side the explanation given is 1.) an evasion of the restrictions imposed on high artistic activity in concert halls and opera houses, and 2.) the possibility of gaining high rents by exploiting the comparatively low marginal cost of producing festivals. Also music festivals have benefited from the fact that the cost of attending such a performance has decreased relative to expenditures for comparable activities. Event marketing in music festival tourism Next we describe what event marketing is and what it is especially in music festival tourism. In the definition of an event there is a celebrated view: "a special event recognizes a unique moment in time with ceremony and ritual to satisfy specific needs" (Goldblatt 1990, 2; ref. Shone & Parry 2001, 4). Shone and Parry (2001) categorize special events into four groups: leisure events, personal events, cultural events (ceremonial, sacred, heritage, art, folklore), and organizational events. Music festivals belong to both leisure and cultural events. In leisure, tourism and related fields, events are extremely diverse, such as artistic performance, art displays, music festivals, etc. Each event has its own characteristics and requirements to be identified and met. (Watt 1998, 1-2) The possible motives for attending events are classified into social motives, organizational motives, physiological motives, and personal motives (McDonnel et al. 1999; ref. Shone & Parry 2001, 34). The characteristics of special events as a service are uniqueness, perishability, ambience and service, labour intensive, fixed time scale, intangible, ritual or ceremony, and personal interaction. (Shone & Parry 2001, 17) The bigger and the more international the event is the more complex and uncertain it is (Shone & Parry 2001, 7). In an event, there are multiple parties, such as facility owner, local and national sponsors, local and national media, local and national government, local and national interests, and promoter, (Erickson & Kushner 1999, 352), in addition to domestic and foreign visitors. Local and national sponsors have their own goals for the events, such as increased sales, increase a brand awareness, brand image, positive organizational associations, new customers, new distribution channels, event as a media to selected customer segment, etc. The targeted implications of special events in the community are social/community implications, economic implications, political implications, and developmental implications (Shone & Parry 2001, 61). From the tourism viewpoint, the implications are related to attractions, places to visit and events; transport, access to and within the area; infrastructure, support services; and accommodation and hospitality (Shone & Parry 2001, 66). Gursoy et al. (2004) developed an instrument that utilized 12 items to measure the festival and special event organizers' perceptions of the impacts of festivals and special events on local communities. Four domains - community cohesiveness, economic benefits, social incentives, and social costs were included. Findings suggested that while the festival and special event organizers see festivals and special events as community events that contribute to community

6 6 cohesiveness and create social incentives for the local community, they do not see them as major contributors to the local economy. Results also suggested that the festival and special event organizers believe that festivals and special events create more social benefits than the social costs. Music events in the form of music festivals and concerts are service occasions and public events. Each of the above seven types of music festivals has its own special events targeted to visitors. Activities are directly linked to those festivals, because activities are the elements in the service product. EMPIRICAL RESULTS: MUSIC FESTIVAL TOURISM IN FINLAND Next we discuss the music festival tourism in Finland. Finland Festivals' 65 attractions belong to music festival tourism. In Finland, the total number of visitors to tourist attractions in 2002 was 32,6 mill., and 1,9 mill. of them visited Finland Festivals' attractions, i.e. 5,8 %. (Santasalo 2003) The number of foreign visitors to Finland Festivals' attractions in 2002 was only visitors, i.e. 3 %. Most of the Finland Festivals' 65 music festivals are organized in June and July (40 events), but also in other months, such as in August (12 events), in April (4 events), and in March (3 events). The entrance charge to music festivals varies from 3 to 150. (Santasalo 2003) So the music festivals are concentrated on summer time, and their visitors are mostly domestic. But in some music festivals the rate of foreign visitors is higher, such as in Savonlinna Opera Festival and in Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival. Table 1. Number of visitors per music festival by the type of music festival Type of music festival Number of festivals according to the number of visitors More than visitors visitors visitors visitors or less visitors Total number of festivals and number of visitors (median) Chamber Music Festivals visitors Concert and Vocal Music Festivals visitors Dance, Theatre, Literature Festivals visitors Folk Music Festivals visitors Jazz Festivals visitors Light Music and visitors Rock Festivals Multi-Arts Festivals visitors Total Some cities in Finland, such as Kuhmo, Savonlinna, Kaustinen, Pori, and Seinäjoki, have become well-known music tourist destinations due to their musical heritage. In the course of years they have created positive attractions drawing visitors from around the world. Chamber music festivals

7 7 Most of the Chamber Music Festivals are local and national by nature. The average size of them is visitors. The biggest and oldest one is Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, which has been organized since 1970, but during the first years in a smaller scale. In 2002 the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival lasted two weeks with 80 concerts. (Kuhmofestival 2004) In 2002 there were visitors Concert and vocal music festivals Concert and vocal music festivals are middle size festivals having visitors per event. Savonlinna Opera Festival is the biggest and oldest one. Figure 2: Savonlinna Opera Festival in Olavinlinna Source: Olavinlinna The first opera festival was held in 1912 and it took place through the next four years. In 1967 the festival came to life again in the form of Music Days, which was as the start of the present festival. The festival lasts now a month collecting yearly about visitors. An estimated quarter of visitors come from abroad. The Savonlinna Opera Festival has become an event with the greatest international significance in the Finnish cultural calendar. (Operafestival 2004) Dance, theatre, and literature festivals Dance, theatre, and literature festivals collect visitors per event. They are targeted to various cultural areas, such as dance, literature, music, theatre, etc. The biggest event is Tampere International Theatre Festival collecting visitors. Folk music festivals Folk music festivals collect visitors per festival. The oldest and biggest event is Kaustinen Folk Music Festival which has been organized since In 2004 there will be over 200 concerts and ensembles, and the festival will last 9 days. The number of performers is about (Kaustinen 2004) The number of visitors in 2003 was Jazz festivals Jazz festivals collect visitors per festival. In Finland Pori has been known as a jazz center since the 1960's. Earlier it was mainly the young and culturally aware people who took an interest in jazz. The first Pori Jazz Festival was held in The concerts and other events, held during one weekend, were attended by altogether about people. During the years the duration of the festival was increased. Since 1985 the festival has lasted nine days with

8 8 audiences numbering from and for the last few years over At the moment, the Pori Jazz Festival is one of the biggest jazz festivals in Europe and it is known throughout the world through radio and TV programs. In 2002 about people visited Pori Jazz Festival. (Porijazz 2004) In 2003 there were 96 performing groups, 617 individual artists, 11 stages, 104 concerts of which 53 admission free, 500 journalists (national and international, and voluntary workers. 75 % of the music played was jazz and 25 % other styles of rhythm music. (Porijazz 2004) Light music and rock festivals Light music and rock festivals are the biggest festivals on average, collecting visitors per event. The Seinäjoki Tango Festival is the biggest light music festival in Finland. It has been organized since The festival lasts 5 days. The festival has affected greatly to the Finnish popular music. People from almost all the European countries and all over the world have come to Seinäjoki to be amazed and astonished by the passion that the Finns have for the tango. (Tangomarkkinat 2004) In 2002 there were visitors to the Seinäjoki Tango Festival. Multi-arts festivals Helsinki Festival is the biggest multi-arts festival, and it has been organized since Before that, Sibelius weeks were organized during The event includes music, theatre, dance, pictorial art, movies, and city events. Artists are both domestic and foreign top artists. In 2002 there were visitors. The event has had a permanent organization since Helsinki Festival lasts 17 days. (Helsinkifestival 2004) COMPONENTS OF AN INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL: CASE KUHMO CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL Next we describe the components of an international chamber music festival by using one case - Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival - as an empirical example. Figure 3. Peter Csaba conducting the Virtuosi di Kuhmo. Copyright Arto Tulima. (Kuhmofestival 2004)

9 Table 2. Components of Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Location Kuhmo city, Finland (Rural city next to Russian border) Organized since 1970; i.e. 33 years Length June 14-28, 2002 (15 days) Facilities Kuhmo house, school buildings, churches, 2 private rural houses Promotor Kuhmon Musiikkiyhdistys ry. (registered association) Local government Kuhmo City, Art board of Oulu region National government Ministry of Education Core services World-class artists and bands 80 concerts World-class music and composers: Bach, Dvorák, Haydn, Kurtág, Mendelssohn, Sallinen, Schonberg, Stravinsky, etc. World-class themes of the event Student concert: band scholarship Music courses Music courses and student concerts Weather Summer weather, sunshine, hot weather, rain Audience Domestic and international visitors Art exhibition International level art exhibition Media Local and domestic media: YLE International media Internationally distributed concerts: BBC, FUJI, RM Associates, YLE Sponsors 5 local sponsors, 9 national sponsors, 3 international sponsors Budget Visitors visitors Source: Kuhmofestival The economic implications are local, national and international: traffic companies (air flight, railroad, travel agencies, buss companies, petrol stations), accommodation companies (hotels, hostels, private accommodation), restaurants, food and apparel retail shops, handicraft shops, local organizers from tickets, facility owners (rents), and other retailers all benefit from the festival. The local and national cultural implications emerge in the form of increased cultural service offerings and strengthening city's cultural imago. The social/community implications result from the increased interaction within local, regional and national people and organizers. The developmental implications are related to increasing local and regional cultural tourism. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Based on the above descriptions, the theoretical and empirical investigations taken together lead to the following conclusions. Music festivals in Finland have many similar characteristics, such as: They are mostly organized during the summer holiday season, in June-July; The location of the festival is close to natural environment; The length of the festival varies from a week up to a month; There are world-class artists and concerts in the biggest music festivals; Composers are world-class and well-known in the biggest music festivals; Local, national, and international media in the form of journalists, radio and TV are present in the biggest music festivals. TV and radio are used in broadcasting the concerts nationally and internationally in the biggest music festivals; Visitors are local, national, and international. The costs of participating the festival are low, because there are also free concerts.

10 10 The sponsors are both local, national, and international; The music festivals are funded by public sector, either national, regional or local. Large amount of voluntary workers are needed when organizing the activities; A permanent organizer is needed when the size of a festival increases; A national umbrella organization is needed for promoting the music festival nationally and internationally. There is also an evolution of a music festival from a local music event to an international music festival: in the beginning, the festivals are domestic, but year by year they will become more international when the number of world-class artists and visitors increases. As the contribution, this paper illustrates the music festival tourism, its volume, its events and seasonal distribution in Finland. Also the components of one type of music festival - chamber music festival - were illustrated. As to managerial implications, the festival organizations have to be encouraged cooperation in order to increase the number of visitors, because the visitors frequently attend a variety of different types of performing arts offerings (Fisher & Preece 2002). BIBLIOGRAPHY Bourdeau L. & De Coster L. & Paradis S Measuring Satisfaction Among Festivalgoers: Differences Between Tourists and Residents as Visitors to a Music Festival in an Urban Environment. International Journal of Arts Management, Vol. 3, No. 2, Winter, Brunt P Market Research in Travel and Tourism. Butterworth Heinemann. Burns P. M. & Holden A Tourism. A New Perspective. Prentice Hall. Erickson G. S. & Kushner R. J Public event networks: an application of marketing theory to sporting events. European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 33, No. 3/4, Ettema D. F. & Timmermans J. J. P. (ed.) Activity-Based Approaches to Travel Analysis. Pergamon. Fisher T. C. G. & Preece S. B Evaluating Performing Arts Audience Overlap. International Journal of Arts Management, Vol. 4, No. 3, Frey B. S The Economics of Music Festivals. Journal of Cultural Economics, 18: Goldblatt J. J Special Events: The Art and Science of Celebration. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Gursoy D. & Kim K. & Uysal M Perceived impacts of festivals and special events by organizers: an extension and validation. Tourism Management, 25, Hughes H Redefining Cultural Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 23, Jones P. (ed.) Developments in Dynamic Activity-Based Approaches to Travel Analysis. Oxford Studies in Transport. McDonnell, I. & Allen, J. & O'Toole, W Festival and Special Event Management. Brisbane; Jacaranda Wiley.

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