Adelaide Show - Seeking and Escaping Motivational Theory - Case Study Example

A Reflective Report on the Adelaide Show Professors Name, Name of School, The city and State, The Date, A Reflective Report on the Adelaide Show As per my course requirements, I had to engage myself in the events company that hosts the Adelaide show. The purpose of me doing this was mainly to observe, analyze and experience the event itself. Upon doing that, I was to come up with two recommendations and further support my ideas with relevant information. I have dissected the event and analyzed it using the various methods learnt. The Adelaide show is an agricultural event that is organized by the Royal agricultural and cultural society of South Australia. The show was first inaugurated back in the year 1840 and was a huge success. People grew fond of it and various entries began to take part in the show. These include the egg laying competition that was introduced in the year 1904, the sheaf throwing competition that took place for the first time in 1914. As the years kept on passing, more entries took part in the show making it one of the biggest shows that drives a large traffic of people currently. It is estimated that close to half a million people visit the show each year. It is in fact the largest show in South Australia with more than 25% of the population attending the event. Hundreds of volunteers show up in order to help with the setup of this massive event. The show covers over 24 hectares of land with more than 650 animals being paraded in front of the masses. The show is an important revenue source for the country with a gross economic contribution of about $165.1 million. The amount of food sold out throughout the period taken by the whole show contributes highly to the revenue made by the event. The event is set to run for ten days having a total of 33,784 entries. The show tends to introduce something new every year with more than 350 different show bags being presented every year. The show has held on to its initial mission which is to push for the advancement in the agricultural sector and increase in pastoral knowledge in order to promote the development of natural resources of Australia. Having first been staged in the yards of the Grenfell hotel the show has largely grown while still holding on to its goals and mission. While beginning my project, I noticed that the Royal agricultural and cultural society of South Australia had come up with a comprehensive marketing strategy that was very effective in getting as many people to the event as possible. Their main strategy was tapping into the motivations that drive people to do certain things. As seen in the Adelaide show, numerous amounts of people who attended the event had their own reasons in attending. Motivation is the force within someone that leads them to perform an action. We can note that the three motivation theories were at play here. These are; the seeking and escaping motivational theory, the push and pull motives theory and the event-tourism career trajectory theory. Seeking and Escaping Motivational Theory The decision to attend an event is usually pushed by the desire to fulfill a specific need. This need may either be towards a certain goal or away from certain things. While looking at a specific person, the need may either be one that will be satisfied by personal rewards or by interpersonal rewards. At the same time, the need might as well be one that requires an individual to escape personal environments or even interpersonal environments. An individual may have the need to interact with family members which is often interrupted by his personal environment and thus the Adelaide show offers a nice environment to facilitate that. The Adelaide show on the other hand also provides a good platform for business networking hence some of the people showed up to meet new people and create lasting business relationships. The Push and Pull Theory The push motive theory is explained when someone throws themselves toward a certain goals in order to achieve it. Internal forces are at work here. The pull theory on the other hand is the direct opposite of the push theory. Here we are attracted towards an incentive. The Adelaide show provided a very god place for those people that needed relaxation away from their busy schedules. At the same time, some people that attended the show were attracted to several things or people that were present. Event-Tourism Career Trajectory theory Some of the people that attended the trade show were tourist from other countries who are highly involved in trade shows from all over the world. Due to how their business is interconnected worldwide, their travel patterns can be noted to rotate around the biggest world trade fairs. As noted above, different visitors may attend the Adelaide show and each derive a different advantage to another. This is all based on the motivations that drove them to the event. The Adelaide show has not drawn a line on a specific target market. This can be noted with the diversification and inclusion of art and other business categories such as photography into the show. Even if it is an agricultural show, they have embraced all other types of business and one can easily sign up and exhibit his or her business at the event. With the long traditional amusement games that take place at the event people of all age groups are certain to attend and take part in the fun. There are various motivations that either push or pull someone to attend an event. They also smartly took part in the spread of information about the event through word of mouth by making use of the many volunteers that sign up in order to help out at the event and ensure the smooth running of the event. Not only that, but their well-developed website acts as an incredible marketing tool to all the online fanatics. The show was also advertised through online articles as well as print media. Social media was highly employed in their marketing campaign with many people having seen the event posted on social media. By utilizing platforms such as YouTube, the message got to very many people with the highest number of people being digitally savvy and YouTube being one of the biggest search engines online. The Best Experience While defining an experience, we have to understand that experience can be achieved through three ways. A cognitive approach to experience can be taken. The mind highlights and identifies the experience in a certain event. Another way to experience is by engaging in the tasks taken in an event. This is also known as conative experience. Where the activities in an event define how the experience is. The last but not the least is through an emotional approach. Also called affective experience, this is where fun or pleasure dictate the experience you have in an event (Getz, 2007). Everybody is different and will therefore gain their experience differently depending on how engaged they are in the events activities both mentally and physically. The Adelaide trade show has enjoyed success for a number of years and is continuing because they offer all the possible ways to obtaining an experience in their event. They understand that the society is slowly transforming from a service economy to an experience economy (Pine and Gilmore, 1999). Thus my experience in the event was one that never lacked in any form of excitement. The Adelaide show focuses on four main areas of experience; that is entertainment, education, aesthetic and escapism in what is consumed. Through focusing on these four areas of experience, the event allows participation in both passive and active forms of involvement. The best part of it all is that the Adelaide show has also engaged in experience marketing. The show acts as an enhancer and provides services to the various manufacturers who present their products at the exhibit. What the Adelaide show does is use experience to heighten the satisfaction levels. This is done by focusing to assist the attending clients through a value creation process by utilizing tools such as conversations and interactions. They also provide a space from the everyday life where some passionate and extraordinary moments can be made and shared. This experience was arranged by the event management company by making sure that everybody despite of age-group or professionalism can attend the event and still get a good experience. This can also be attributed to diversification and proper marketing techniques that already in place. The worst Experience Despite having the best experience ever, we still cannot dispute some instances where the experience is not good enough to be offered to a client. This is mostly especially when we group the type of experiences offered. You tend to find that some experiences offered will not really give a positive response. This is because of the changing needs and motives that each person has and the expectation is never really the same. It is really difficult to assimilate all the needs and wants of all the people attending the event and therefore this leads to specialization in several areas. With this specialization several other people will definitely lose track and focus and hence will become bored by the event. There is a good reason in trying to understand the event visitors. First it is a good marketing platitude. The client does only buy the tickets to enjoy the goods and services being offered on sale in the event but they paid to enjoy the expectation of a need being satisfied. Therefore the enhancement of the visitor’s motivations should be the main goal by event managers. Though with the constantly changing needs and wants of each clients it may be really hard to keep track of all the wants by all the clients. Therefore this becomes a big hurdle for event companies as someone can as easily change their expectation in an instance and finding a way around that may be a problem especially with the number of people targeted to be attending the event. SWOT Analysis Table Strengths Experienced Team- having arranged the event for more than a decade, the team has leaned the ropes on how to do it well and effectively Well motivated - the team indeed is well motivated to handle any tasks brought to them Good marketing - the team has indeed done a good job in the marketing of the event which has seen even foreigners getting to visit the show. Reliable - the team is very reliable in the production of giving of the required service Weaknesses Poor crowd maintenance - with the staff in place being so busy and having to rely on additional volunteers to help, the team may be shorthanded to be in a position to control that a large crowd. Poor waste disposal- a lot of work is left after the event in relation to clean up due to the poor waste disposal behaviors that people engage in. Security - theft is a huge concern especially when people from all sorts of backgrounds congregate Protests- the bigger an event is the more likely it is to be targeted by protestors. Opportunity Support from local authorities- the Royal Agricultural and Cultural Society of South Australia is one of the oldest societies in the town and therefore has an old relationship with the local authorities Available volunteers - there is a large number of volunteers applying daily to help out with the daily running of the event. Available Sponsors- the event has a number of good and helpful sponsors Good booths - for the exhibit, good booths will be provided to all those who was to display their products. Threats Poor Weather- this can be ranged among the biggest threats to the event as bad weather will lead to the poor attendance of the event Inactive Volunteers - some volunteers may decide not to be fully active hence increasing the work load and lowering the productivity. Lack of program Items - this may be due to poor planning and can totally affect the whole event giving it a negative image Poor Communication- this is especially between the boundary spanners and the clients Recommendation With the changing times, the experience economy is slowly taking over the social economy and with this so does the long traditional precepts of event management need to be changed. By expanding the social and cultural phenomenon and incorporating the experience economy in all the event management jobs, considerable interests will then be spiked in everyone around the area the event is being held. The diversity on perspectives being taken on events that have undertaken the experience economy is pretty impressive. Therefore, I totally recommend the embracing of this method of marketing where the experience to be had at an event is all that matters. Additionally, the volunteers need to be given tasks that won’t affect the overall running of the event in the case that they don’t offer the tasks full concentration. This is so in order to prevent any embarrassment that may be brought upon the institution due to the negligence of a single volunteer. They should also avoid giving the volunteers jobs that require them to be the boundary banners. The boundary banners are those people who represent the company by associating with the clients on a first hand basis. They include people like waiters and waitresses. This is so as to avoid any mishap that may happen in the coming future leading to the company being branded badly. The events management company should also consider the investment in security so as to be prepared in situations where there are protesters who want to break into the event as well as catching the sly thief that keeps tormenting the guests. Additionally, the event company can as well tap into the long lasting friendship with the local authorities and ask for help in areas such as security and in the provision of important requirements such as water and medical amenities during the running of the 10 days show. In concluding my report, I would like to point out that even with the recommendations listed above, the Royal agricultural and cultural society of South Australia have done well for themselves in the creation of a show that has grown from a small meet-up of farmers to a large congregation of businesses from all over the world. This show which has seen several years pass, has grown to be a marvel all over the world with people travelling from so far away only to attend it and not only to interact and discuss business but have still maintained a light touch to it enabling anyone to have fun. By continuing in the direction of the experience economy, the business has surely taken a leap into the future where only experiences matter in an event. REFERENCES Allen, J., O'toole, W., Harris, R. and McDonnell, I., 2012. Festival and Special Event Management, Google eBook. John Wiley & Sons. Berridge, G., 2007. Events design and experience. Routledge. Bowdin, G., O'Toole, W., Allen, J., Harris, R. and McDonnell, I., 2006. Events management. Routledge. de Almeida, C.R., 2014. Key Concepts in Event Management. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. Getz, D. and Page, S.J., 2016. Event studies: Theory, research and policy for planned events. Routledge. Getz, D., 2008. Event tourism: Definition, evolution, and research. Tourism management, 29(3), pp.403-428 Van der Wagen, L., 2010. Event management. Pearson Higher Education AU. Van der Wagen, L., 2010. Event management. Pearson Higher Education AU.. Read More