ON THE GREEN: CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS OF RETURNING TO GOLF SPECTATORSHIP AMID THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the sport industry has contended with stoppages of play and interrupted revenue streams. With sport beginning to "return to normal,” there is uncertainty about the safe return of spectatorship and how live-event attendees perceive safety and precautionary measures amid a serious health emergency. The purpose of this study was to assess golf consumers' perceptions of following COVID-19 preventative measures at a small-scale professional golf event in Canada, and how these perceptions may influence their future event attendance. The results from a multiple linear regression analysis indicated that perceived benefits of COVID-19 vaccination and self-efficacy of following preventative measures significantly and positively influenced golf spectator's consideration of attending an event where these measures are enforced, while the perceived barriers of mask wearing significantly and negatively influenced attendance consideration. This has several practical implications for event management practitioners planning and hosting an event amid the COVID-19 pandemic. © Copyright 2023 Cognizant, LLC.

FESTIVAL ATTENDEES: A MOTIVATION AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF A YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE FESTIVAL

This research, with data collected pre-COVID-19, provides insight into an interesting and rarely studied event, the young adult (YA) literature festival. Survey research conducted at a YA festival, with attendees generally from middle school through university age, provided useful insight into the motivations for visiting the festival, determination of the person making the decision to attend (surprisingly, the YA and rarely his/her parent), and the satisfaction and dissatisfaction factors that affected the attendee's attitude toward the festival. In addition, significance performance analysis (SPA) is introduced as an alternative to the widely used importance performance analysis (IPA) model. © 2022 Cognizant, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Social identity processes associated with perceived risk at pilot sporting events during COVID-19.

Previous research suggests that shared social identification and expected support from others can reduce the extent to which attendees of mass events perceive that others pose health risks. This study evaluated the social identity processes associated with perceived risk at UK pilot sporting events held during COVID-19, including the government Events Research Programme. An online survey (N = 2029) measured attendee perceptions that other spectators adhered to safety measures, shared social identity with other attendees, expectations that others would provide support, and the perceived risk of germ spread from other attendees. Results indicate that for football attendees, seeing others adhering to COVID-19 safety measures was associated with lower perceived risk and this was partially mediated via increased shared social identity and expected support. However, the sequential mediations were non-significant for rugby and horse racing events. The decreased perceived risk for football and rugby attendees highlights the importance of understanding social identity processes at mass events to increase safety. The non-significant associations between shared social identity and perceived risk and between expected support and perceived risk for both the rugby and the horse racing highlights the need to further research risk perceptions across a range of mass event contexts.