Seven Different Countries, Seven Different Festivals, One Brand : A Global Music Festival’s Adaptiveness and Globalness

Abstract: Background: Globalization and localization are constantly clashing, collapsing, and transforming one another, and many studies have investigated how various global companies deal with the balance in between these two opposite strategies. However, little does research reveal about how music festivals adapt and operate using globalization or localization in the global market. Further, studies have shown that the globalness of a brand adds value for customers, but this effect has not been investigated in the global music festival industry. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to deep understand a global music festival’s adaptiveness and how its adaptations are perceived by its attendees from different countries. Further, this study also aims to analyze how the globalness of a music festival affects and influences its attendees.   Method: A case study focusing on the music festival Lollapalooza and its editions in Brazil and Sweden. The study follows a deductive approach using a mixed-method by collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. An online survey, interviews, and an email questionnaire are the main primary sources of data collection. Conclusion:   The results show that adaptations are important for attendees as well as for the festival itself. Many adaptations were noticed by attendees, but it is still unsure what other ‘’invisible adaptations’’ were done in order to meet the market demands. The globalness of the festival makes customers assign additional positive attributes to the festival brand, while also local adaptations such as food, beverages, and artists were appreciated by the attendees. Thus, it appears that some aspects of a music festival should be globalized, while others should be localized, or that even glocalization should be utilized in global music festivals. To conclude, festival’s managers can use the findings to better understand that global cues can be used to raise the brand value of a festival, but more importantly, that globalization and localization should be applied in different aspects of a festival.