Festival fever - exploring consumer preferences for in-person events globally
In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, festivals present a unique opportunity for brands to connect with potential consumers to showcase new products and enhance brand visibility. Recognizing the significance of this trend, YouGov has conducted a survey across 18 international markets to uncover the most anticipated types of in-person festivals that consumers expect to attend in the coming 12 months.
Our data reveals that food and drink festivals lead the way, with two in five consumers (43%) likely to attend such events. This is followed closely by film and theater festivals (41%). Music festivals also show considerable appeal, with over a third of global consumers (37%) likely to attend in the coming year. Meanwhile, sports (28%) festivals rank fourth, with slightly more than a quarter of consumers expressing interest.
Book and literature festivals, as well as comedy festivals, share the same level of interest, with a quarter of consumers (26% each) likely to attend either type of event. Tech festivals and gaming festivals come in next with approximately one in five consumers showing interest in these events (21% and 18% respectively).
Auto festivals draw the attention of slightly less than one in six consumers (17%). Finally, e-sports festivals register the lowest expected attendance, with slightly over a tenth of consumers globally expressing interest (13%).
Our data further reveals preferences for different types of festivals among global consumers of various age groups. Food and drink, music, and film/ theatre festivals are the most popular across all age groups. The 25-34 age group is most likely to attend comedy (34%) and books or literature festivals (31%) with a third of them expressing interest but percentage for these categories decline to 16% and 22% respectively among the 55 plus age group.
The interest in sports festivals remains relatively stable across all age groups with roughly one-third of consumers (34-30%) likely to attend except 55 plus aged adults where the interest falls to one-fifth (19%). For tech festivals 18-44 aged adults share the highest likelihood of attendance, with a quarter (26-27%) of consumers expressing interest. As for gaming and esports festivals, the likelihood expectedly decreases as age increases.
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 512 and 2034 or each market. All surveys were conducted online in February 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.