Changing audience behaviour: festival goers and throwaway tents

To translate theory into a practical tool, the purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for the development of social marketing strategies to modify event attendee behaviour in a sustainable direction.

Consumer value is synthesised with social marketing and consumer behaviour theory to develop the framework. A major problem for festivals (throwaway tents) and current pro-environmental practices are used to determine the framework's applicability.

The conceptual framework suggests that achieving desired behaviour(s) within an audience requires consideration of the added value at the downstream level, strategies that recognise offsite/onsite behaviour settings, engagement of upstream advocacy and more attention to the evaluation of success.

A single low-involvement behaviour example is used to validate the conceptual framework suggesting further work is needed to widen tests of its applicability.

This paper synthesises theory into a framework that has significant potential as a tool to develop behavioural change strategies at events.