Analysing the Impact of Festival and Event Attendance upon Family Quality of Life (QOL) - A Qualitative Inquiry Approach

The search for Quality of Life (QOL) has gained momentum and become a growing concern for individuals, families, communities and governments as a result of a rapidly changing world and a desire to find, and sustain satisfaction, happiness and belief in the future (Compton, 1997; Eckersley, 1999; Mercer, 1999; Lloyd & Auld, 2002). Researchers generally agree that leisure contributes to well-being and QOL, but that this interrelationship is a complex one (Lloyd & Auld, 2002; Brajsa-Zganec et al., 2011). Agate et al. (2009), for example, argued that engaging in leisure activities can enhance and improve family relationships and a healthy family life – important elements of family QOL. It is thereby not necessarily the amount of time that families spend together engaging in leisure activities, but how meaningful they are to individual family members and the family as a whole (ibid). Life satisfaction is also closely related to leisure satisfaction, particularly when participating with other people with whom one has more intimate relationships, such as families or close friends (Cummins, 1996). Socialisation and family togetherness have been identified in numerous festival studies (Uysal et al., 1993; Mohr et al., 1993; Backman et al., 1995; Scott, 1996; Schneider & Backman, 1996; Formica & Uysal, 1996, 1998; Crompton & McKay, 1997; Faulkner et al., 1999; Lee, 2000; Tomljenovic et al., 2001; Nicholson & Pearce, 2001; Lee, Lee, and Wicks, 2004; Bowen & Daniels, 2005), but studies so far have not connected quality of life. This conceptual paper seeks to propose a research agenda for investigating the impacts of festivals and events upon individual and family QOL. The paper will make a contribution to knowledge within the increasing movement of Critical Event Studies (CES) research as it seeks to understand events from a sociological and psychological underpinning to ascertain how community festivals and events impact upon individuals and families QOL. This paper will propose the use of an exploratory mixed methods design incorporating three stages of data collection: focus groups, semi-structured interviews (pre and post festival), and the development of a measurement scale to test QOL quantitatively and qualitatively within community festivals and events.