Going…Going…Going…not yet gone! Enhancing Small-scale Festival Survival

Festival service quality is a precursor to competitive advantage and survival, delivering a positive influence on attendee satisfaction and intentions to repatronise again in future. Evidence has been built in large-scale festival settings with mixed constructs and findings reported. Less is known about small-scale festivals, which operate within more limited human and financial resource constraints. This study aims to confirm the service quality, satisfaction and behavioural intention relationship for small-scale festivals. Five hundred and twenty-nine respondents attending four different small-scale festivals participated in an in-person or online self-administered survey. Structural equation modelling confirmed that service quality performance influences behavioural intentions directly and indirectly. Satisfaction and perceived professionalism directly influences behavioural intentions. Environment directly influences repurchase intentions but not when it is mediated by satisfaction. Focusing on delivery of service quality is essential for small-scale festival survival, given its influence on attendees’ satisfaction and behavioural intentions. Ensuring festivals are delivered in good environments featuring professional staff is the key to ensuring small-scale festival survival.