Part C

According to Anton Shone (2001), an event experience describes ‘an opportunity for leisure, social or cultural experience outside the normal range of choices or beyond everyday experience’. In order to describe the event’s experience, this quote is quite helpful. In terms of experience, an event should get the visitor out of everyday life. It should provide the participant a new and exciting world in order to create a unique experience. Coming to the event, it can be said that the escape out of the real world worked rather good. The event provided a lot of targets with which an exclusive experience could be formed. Coming to the actual event, the Groniger festival gave visitors the opportunity to experience many different things on many different places. The experience was formed due to the variety of happenings and the diversity of spectrums. People as well as our group could not have the chance to be bored or uninterested due to many the locations. As soon as something turned to be tedious, people changed to the next place.
The event provided the chance to feel highly involved. The reason for this was the interaction with the audience. In comparison to other happenings like this, the ‘Nach van kunst en weterschap’ gave people the chance to actively try things, experiment with science and art and be involved as an individual. To give an example for this, a group of scientists offered the opportunity to create and see your own DNA. You had to wash your mouth with salt water for a minute in order to lose old particles of your inner mouth skin. Afterwards you had to mix the water with soap and alcohol. After a while your DNA formed and became visible. The person who explained you how the procedure worked just focused on every group individually and explained a lot about the procedure. She created a very unique experience and gave us the feeling to be a part of this festival. It did not seem that those trainees started to get bored or apathetic due to the high number of participants in this try-out.
Another example to illustrate the personal touch of the festival that forms an experience is the so called star tent. The star tent was an exclusive presentation that took you as a visitor into space and gave you some views about how a glance would look like from the moon to the earth or how many stars there actually exist in the universe. About 20 people were sitting together in a small tent that was formed as an igloo. A beamer in combination with absolute darkness provided the audience a spectacle of never seen views from very unique perspectives. The whole happening took place every hour and visitors needed to get a card for it in order to enter the tent. To be part of this experience gave us a feeling of exclusivity and for one of the top experience in the festival. Due to many more situations where we were involved in try-outs and performances, the conclusion can be drawn that the event offered a high chance of involvement, self-performance and particularly real experience.
However, it was not clear in advance where people could find the highlights of the event. When interviewing some participants and asking them about their highlights and if they could find our great activities, they unfortunately denied their answer. They obviously had fun, but were to a certain extent disappointed to miss these actions. It was more a coincidence that we found the light show in the tent and that we could participate with the DNA creation. To give a point of improvement for this part, a top ten list should be provided in advance in the program of the event so that people can all participate in those special offers. This pull strategy obviously would attract many more people which would result in an overflow of people. To avoid this, the attractions could be broaden up or build up twice. The DNA example could easily become bigger if more stuff and more equipment would be afforded. The light show in the tent would have had enough space in the same room for another tent where the same show can be shown. The chance of an overflow of people could be prevented easily and would result in an even higher positive impression for the festival. To finally grade the point of real experience, 8 out of 10 points can be given. To sum the reason up, a full amount of points would have been given when the top attractions would have been more promoted and if more people would have had the opportunity to attend in those. For the rest, the event was a great and real experience.
Introducing the part if visitors had the same experience as the research group, the following research method will be chosen. In order to prevent a personal judgment on observation of visitors, the group decided on the systematic observation method. ‘To qualify as systematic as possible, procedures should be public (…) and explicable (…); thus personal characteristics of observers are ordinarily not an issue for systematic observation’ (Reis & Judd). Systematic observation contains a preparation on terms of measurement and criteria. The chosen criteria for observation were chosen in form of the following questions:
1. Do people equally attend to performances or are there any preferences for acts/ performances/ museums/ places?
2. How do people behave concerning the acts? (smile, neutral disappointed)
3. What is the impression concerning the atmosphere at a certain point of the festival?
Those prepared questions gave some answers on which a conclusion can be drawn. To the first question if people equally attend on performances, the observation results in the fact that there were popular and less popular performances or exhibitions. People tented to go to parts of the festival where they could see a lot, where much music was played or were things were arranged as a show. It is always easier to just watch something and enjoy it instead of doing it yourself. To that it needs to have a broad spectrum of special effects or any kind of effects. To give an example, the star tent can be taken again where one guy was making the entertainment in form of a presentation and where people just needed to sit around. This part of the festival was totally overcrowded since everyone wanted to see the show. However, parts which had the same surprising factor like finding your own DNA, were not so crowded due to a lower factor in entertainment and the fact of self participation. A tip for the organizers could be that they can support the rather uninteresting things more with some simple special effects like music or special light and promoting it in a different way. You can use simple banners like ‘Find out what you have never seen before’ in order to promote the DNA creation and support like this the rather forgotten parts of the festival. To sum it up, people did not equally attend to certain attractions.
Coming to the second question how people behaved during performances it can be said that they mostly seemed very relaxed and happy. Some were afraid of missing something and jumped around in order to catch a better view, but most of the people just enjoyed what they saw. To give an example, there was a small comedy show for children, where people stood around. Even tough the performance was meant for children, the parents showed their self supportive and laughed and clapped hands etc. No one actually could be indentified who seemed disappointed or sad. It occurred that visitors seemed a bit lost due to the mass of options they had to chose for. Anyway, the general picture showed happy and relaxed people.
Coming to the impression at a certain point of the festival, the situation can be taken where many people stood together in one room forming a circle. In the middle of the circle a young boy group performed a dance with some comedy. Usually people show become motivated through the performance since it was very entertaining and funny. However, people seemed shy and unsure what to do. They first had to wait some minutes in order to see the performance. Within this minutes no one really talked with each other. During the performance the acting group missed some enthusiastic people and clapping hands. In the end people showed a small appreciation in form of applause but that was it. In order to avoid those situation to have a good performance and a bad audience, organizers should make sure that there are no gaps in the program so that people won’t have to possibility not to know what to do and finally become bored. Nevertheless, people still obviously enjoyed the performance otherwise they would have left. The feedback measured in form of chatting people after the performance showed that many actually like the happening.
To sum it up, people seemed all in all happy, sometimes a bit irritated and lost but generally very happy about the given things on the event. Objectives

To start with the objectives, no official ones can be found on the internet or somewhere else. However, it is possible to name at least three objectives based on the experience and impression gained from the festival. The following objectives should describe the general aim of the organizational group of ‘De Nacht van Kunst & Weterschap’ as well as what they thought about gaining from the event:
1. To entertain people in a challenging, unique and diversified way.
2. To give a wide-ranging impression of Groningen’s art and science scene.
3. To stimulate people coming back to the city.
Coming to the first objective, the organizational group definitely reached their objective. People sometimes felt very challenged with some tasks they had to solve. It was obvious that they enjoyed what there were doing and it occasionally took a while till they reached their goal. Providing an example, there were two guys sitting on two bikes that needed to be moved in order to produce energy to a certain point where the guys could stop. It seemed to be a pretty easy task. However, after almost two minutes giving full power on those bikes, the guys had obvious problems to reach the certain point of time. After they stepped down from their bikes, they were highly and seriously exhausted. This gives an idea on how challenging some tasks were experienced.
Coming to the second objective, the uniqueness was definitely given due to the broad spectrum of possibilities and the big variation in presented samples. To name an example, a church was rebuild and new designed especially for this night. It was a very unique and new location that supported the exhibits in a very pleasant way. People seemed to be very impressed due to their first awed reaction that was tracked by taking a picture of the location. To that many unique things were build and presented on the streets like sudden street performances with artful input, unique decorations, unique role plays and disguised people. To draw a conclusion, the festival formed a very unique impression and performance due to the above mentioned things.
Presenting the last but not least objective that is about making people coming back to the city, the result can just be guessed. There are no statistics yet if Groningen experienced more tourism since the ‘Nacht of kunst & weterschap’ took place. However, building on the conclusion of the outcomes and observations of this report, it can be said that many people were very enthusiastic and motivated to attend on the event. This shows a likelihood of returning either next year for the festival or already this year for the city. To sum it up, all the three objectives were fulfilled and the event can be called a great success.
Our own expectations were pretty high due to the ‘Straatfestival’ in Leeuwarden which was already a great happening. We expected the festival in Groningen to be bigger, better and more entertaining. Due to the size of the city and the possibilities and resources they have in Groningen of art and culture, the expectancy was very high. The expectancies however could unfortunately just be fulfilled partly. The variation in art and science as well as locations was more then enough. They had a broad variety of locations and the science and art factor was given with every exhibit. Anyway, what we were missing were some special targets which were easy to solve but funny to make. There should have been something which is highly modern and not yet on the market, but already accessible through the event. We experienced many ‘wow factors’, but the very ‘wow factor’ was missing. To that some technique was not really modern and sadly destroying some performances. Speaking of bad technique, the star tent can be taken again as an example. The idea was very unique and good, but what they did out of it was only satisfying but not very special. The sound was missing at all and the quality of the projector was to bad for nowadays. Special effects could have been placed into the presentation to make it a very special happening, but the presentation was more held like an unprofessional school presentation that is interesting but missing it’s possibilities to become extraordinary. However, the event was better then expected but to less to be called astonishing.
Speaking of bad impressions and things to be improved, the following paragraph will present some points to be made superior for the next time. Nevertheless the event was a great success, there are always things to be improved. To give the organizers some tips for the next time, the following point could help to improve their performance. If they have so many acts to show and things to present, they should present their positive points in a more structured way. As already said, people were very challenged to find their right happening and missed to the same time things they also would have liked to see. In order to make it easier for them, a top ten list of the greatest or most popular performances could have been given in the program. We as research group missed some tips and insiders to where we actually should go and what we could have avoided.
The next point of improvement is the technique. If you as organizer have such a great line up and so many great things to show, make sure to deliver a 100% good quality. Think about some more special effects and make people feeling fascinated. Unfortunately people are to spoiled nowadays with special techniques and extreme special effects. In order to keep up with this competition, some improvements concerning the technique must be ensured.
The last point of improvement that our group can give is the point of overview. Unfortunately people needed already to long in order to understand the program and make a decision what they want to do. If they finally did that, they also needed to know and find the way which can lower their experience. It would be wise to highlight some museums or building more so that people can directly see that those belong to the festival. Moreover it would be great to have something like a guideline through the city. When it is your first time in Groningen and you are a bit lost with cards, it makes it very complicated to reach your wanted destination. Some guidelines in form of arrows or any other kind of markers could helped there.

Conclusion

The ‘Nacht van Kunst en Weterschap’ was a very exciting and spectacular night. There were many things to discover and to take part in. The broad variation of the program gave many people the opportunity to discover Groningen in a new and unique way. The festival formed an experienced for every age group. Children could enjoy their selves the same as elder people, adults or teenagers. There were many practical things to do and others to just look at and enjoy. The observation of people supports the statement that they had fun and experienced something unique. The objectives of the festival were fulfilled and the newspapers praised the event as a great success. Next to this great success there were some points to be improved which were mainly about the technique and missing special effects, the bad overview in the city and the missing knowledge for visitors about great acts. If those improvement points would have been implemented in the spectacle, the Groniger festival can be called a truly high-quality event.

Bibliography
Reis, H. T., & Judd, C. M. Handbook of Research Methods in Social and Personality Psychology. 2000.