Target marketing of small-scale festival attendees: a scoping study

Targeting festival attendees based on key criterion can provide a greater return on investment for festival organizers. Despite considerable insight into festival attendee segmentation, studies have failed to validate targeted segments, which provides the impetus for this research note. This research segments and targets attendees to six small-scale festivals across three countries by applying Kotler's target marketing criteria (measurability, substantiality, accessibility, actionability). Results suggest that regardless of the country or event type, a targeted small-scale festival segment, labeled as satisfied, involved experience attendees, exists. Implications are outlined and opportunities for future research are considered.