June 9th, 2023, Bhavika Bansal
Festivals and in-person events provide unique opportunities for brands to not only engage with current and potential customers but also showcase their offerings and enhance brand visibility. In today's evolving global business landscape, their allure cannot be ignored. A recent YouGov Surveys: Serviced poll uncovers the demand for such in-person events, amongst global consumers in the next 12 months – and in this piece we focus on food and drink festivals.
Data from the survey reveals that these festivals are the most popular of all options, with more than two out of five global consumers likely to attend one of them in-person in the next 12 months (43%). Following closely behind are film and theatre festivals (41%) and music festivals (37%).
On the other hand, less than two out of ten consumers are likely to attend gaming events (18%), auto festivals (17%) and E-Sports events (13%) in -person over the next year.
Given the high demand for in-person food and drink festivals, this analysis also explores their popularity across 18 key international markets.
Significantly outpacing the global average, more than seven out of ten consumers in India (73%) register their likelihood of attending such events in the next year. Except for Australia (41%) and Singapore (49%), more than half of consumers across all other polled APAC markets say the same.
Consumers across North America, on the other hand, share a wider variety of attitudes. While a majority of consumers in Mexico (55%) are likely to attend food and drink festivals in-person over the next year, this proportion falls to approximately two-fifths of consumers in the US (38%) and Canada (41%).
Interestingly, the popularity of in-person food and drink festivals drops considerably when it comes to European markets. While more than two-fifths of consumers in Poland (45%) and Italy (42%) consumers say they are likely to attend such festivals or events over the next 12 months, less than a third of consumers in Great Britain (29%), Germany (28%) and France (27%) say the same.
Much like their counterparts in India, more than two-thirds of consumers in the UAE (67%) indicate that they are likely to attend an in-person food and drink festivals in the next year.
Data from the study also reveals that the younger cohort is more likely to attend in-person food and drink events in the next year. Almost half of 18-34-year-old global respondents (48%) register their interest compared to less than two out of five respondents aged 55 and above (35%).
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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 2,034 for 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.