“The Impact of Services Elements on the Artistic Experience - The Case of Classical Music Concerts”

Experiential marketing is about producing positive effects on the consumer immersion in the experience. In this sense, experiential marketing of the arts could be dedicated to ease the consumer immersion in the artistic experience even – and especially – in the case of non connoisseurs facing a ‘difficult’ piece of art. This paper concentrates on the understanding of the artistic experience phenomenon. In order to achieve this goal, the concept of appropriation is introduced and developed through the cycle of appropriation. An empirical research based on introspective reports of consumers attending classical music concerts is used. Results highlight that rather than a single immersion, the artistic experience seems to be more a question of repeated paddling which sometimes leads progressively to full immersion and sometimes does not. The results suggest recommendations to manage services elements that impact on the enactment of consumers’ artistic experience throughout the sequence of appropriation operations.