Conference Report Digital Engagement Conference: A Roadmap for the Future of Festivals, July 9-11 2014, Bournemouth University, Talbot Campus, Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Purpose – The Digital Engagement Conference was an event designed to provide an academic roadmap that suggested future areas of research in the study of digital engagement within festivals by consulting with academics and practitioners with a range of skills and expertise. Presentations and discussions were led by experts in the fields of marketing, tourism, computer science and the arts. This paper summarizes the presentations and discussions of the three-day conference and highlights their potential to shape the future use of social media platforms for festival marketing, management and evaluation. Design / methodology / approach – Summaries of the presentations, research papers and discussion arising are presented. Findings – The conference highlighted the challenge and tremendous opportunities which arise from festival audiences engaging with events online. Presentations from academics, practitioners as well as students all confirmed that this phenomenon is here to stay and that festival organizers and other festival stakeholders need to understand its implications in order to develop effective digital engagement strategies. The resulting roadmap for the future indicates that increasing knowledge should be the priority in the short term, whilst in the long-term integrating data and leveraging digital engagement by festival audiences by developing new funding models ought to be the focus. Originality / value – The Digital Engagement Conference was unique not only because of its focus on the future but also because of the platform used for conference participation. Live streaming via Ustream was the principle means by which attendees participated in the conference rather than visiting the conference venue. Live streaming, instead of being used to augment attendance, as the in the case with many academic conferences, was the default attendance mode. The conference also came close being 100% digital. The majority of the pre event communication, registration, signage and delegate conference packs were in digital form. Additionally, the three days did not end with providing participants with the papers presented as proceedings but with a road map for future research.