🎪 What matters most to young festivalgoers?

Insights from a Cross-Generational Analysis Conducted in Germany 🎧

That was the question we explored in our presentation at this year’s Connected Audience Conference in Berlin—and we’re thankful for the opportunity to contribute to such an inspiring and dialogue-driven event. 🙏

Based on a large-scale secondary analysis of more than 3,500 festival visitors in Germany, we presented the following key findings:
– Gen Z and Gen Y prioritize entertainment, immersive atmosphere, and cost-efficiency 🎶💸
– Baby Boomers, by contrast, value infrastructure, hygiene, and cleanliness more strongly 🚿
– Sustainability plays only a minor role for all age groups—even less so among the young 🌍
– The price-performance ratio is particularly important to Gen Z, reflecting a more conscious approach to spending 🎟️

These results echo the Experience Economy concept by Pine & Gilmore (1998) and Rivera et al. (2015) and suggest that festivals are perceived not only as artistic events, but as immersive, emotional, and often escapist cultural spaces.

🙏 Huge thanks to Institut für Kulturelle Teilhabeforschung | IKTf Berlin for hosting such a well-curated and welcoming conference.

👋 It was a real pleasure to meet Prof. Dr. Vera Allmanritter in person—and a big thank-you to Dr. Adrian Scholz Alvarado for a truly engaging panel discussion together with Barbora Werner, Petra Paterno and Andres del Alamo.

🤝 This study was developed in collaboration with Lea Sophie Michel and Tom Naber (IST-Hochschule für Management)—thank you both for your brilliant contributions!