‘Tomorrowland’: identity construction and expression through flags and costumes in a music festival

ABSTRACT

Tomorrowland is a unique electronic music festival where most attendees are showing up with flags, accessories, and costumes. This research investigates consumers’ identity construction and expression through the experience of such a festival, focusing on the material possessions that are used there. Through a naturalistic interpretive approach, using interviews, observations and projective material and following a grounded theory analysis, we propose a typology of seven profiles of festivalgoers based on their external appearance and behaviours. We also describe seven functions fulfiled by the material possessions of festivalgoers. Finally, we discuss our findings along four interpretive dimensions related to the (re)creation and expression of private and collective selves and we provide some implications for festival and event managers.

KEYWORDS:

• Music festival
• material possessions
• identity
• naturalistic interpretive approach
• grounded theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julie Masset

Julie Masset, Ph.D. in business administration, Julie Masset is a lecturer in marketing at the Faculty of economics, social sciences and business administration at the University of Namur (Belgium). Her main research interests are consumer research and qualitative methods with applications to tourism and leisure.

Alain Decrop

Alain Decrop is full professor of marketing at the Faculty of economics, social sciences and business administration at the University of Namur (Belgium). His current research interests focus on decision-making processes and contemporary consumption phenomena. He published a large number of books, chapters and articles in top-tier journals around these topics.