ABSTRACT
Music festivals have become an important element of cultural and touristic programmes in Western cities. These events have several intangible impacts, including sociocultural and emotional effects, which could be related to personal identity and subjective well-being. Following this perspective, we establish two research aims: firstly, to propose a model for assessing the emotional outcome of music festivals on the cultural construction of attendees’ identity; and, secondly, to test out this model at three different music festivals. The proposed model is the first attempt to combine several existing models based on the psychological identification of emotions and the assessment of events’ cultural impact. Moreover, it allows us to observe attendees’ experiences, in terms of how emotions affect participation in music festivals, as well as to understand the role of emotions in constructing their personal cultural identity. Our findings confirm the relationship between experiencing intense emotions and the creation of several items of personal cultural identity; namely a sense of community, city pride, consolidation of music preferences and the creation of new aesthetic interests.
