Mining and chamber music: terra nova, exploring new territory in the development of music-tourism networks

Conference Contribution ResearchOnline@JCU
McCarthy, Breda;Moscardo, Gianna;Murphy, Laurie;Pearce, Philip
Abstract

Purpose: the explore music tourism networks. This article traces the development of three music festivals and looks at the way in which management use weak ties to develop an innovative and diverse festival program which helps them attract and retain sponsors and develop new audiences. Methodology: Qualitative, case-based, exploratory research. Findings: The study suggests that festivals that are enmeshed in dense networks with weak ties are more innovative and more adaptable to change than those with a sparser network. The importance of weak ties (Granovetter, 1973) for innovation is illustrated here, together with the importance of weak, lasting ties that help retain the support of the local community without whom the event would not function. Weak ties connect the artistic director with people from a different world, such as mining, food, marine science, sport and tourism, and that leads to the requisite variety in festival programming. Research limitations: limited number of interviews conducted, inability to generalise. Originality/value of the paper: To date there has been little analysis of tourism from a social network perspective. This paper contributes to a key debate in the literature on networks, notably the density sparseness of networks and strength/weakness of ties thesis (Granovetter, 1973).

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ATMC 2007: Advances in Tourism Marketing Conference

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978-84-370-6867-1

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1

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Valencia, Spain

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Publications de la Universitat de València

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Spain

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