Internationalization Strategies in Music Festivals

Abstract

The internationalization of music festivals is a very recent and very complex process – due to the subjectivity of the theme – that encompasses the areas of management, internationalization, and culture, and has intensified in recent years. This paper investigates the ways in which music festivals are currently internationalized and the internal processes prior to this decision. Its primary objective is to identify the main strategies of internationalization used by companies owning cultural goods, such as music festivals. Another goal is to fill an academic gap between internationalization theories and cultural management, contributing with the compilation and description of the main techniques employed by the market through a qualitative approach to the methodology and content analysis on decision-makers’ interviews. The results can confirm the internationalization model mostly used by the sector, which prefers a phased method. Main entry strategies, territory-choosing process, and motivations and reasons behind this process are also investigated.