Ticket to intoxication: Exploring attendees' motivations for attending craft beer events

The growth of festival and event tourism requires an understanding of what motivates people to attend events and the characteristics of their motivation to choose particular events to attend. The current study identified a measure to (1) accurately and reliably measure the motivations of beer tourists to attend a craft beer festival and (2) identify the different motivations among subsamples of beer tourists. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) identified a nine-factor structure that accounted for 71.12% of the total variance. Three groups of beer tourists were also identified (i.e. frequent craft beer drinkers, casual craft beer drinkers and infrequent craft beer drinkers). A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and a structural equation model (SEM) confirmed the quality of the measure and different motivations among beer tourists. Results showed that frequent craft beer drinkers (people who drink craft beer more than once per month) demonstrated greater motivation to attend craft beer events to become intoxicated, compared to casual and infrequent craft beer drinkers. Frequent craft beer drinkers were also less motivated to attend craft beer events for the following reasons: to try new things, socialise, or attend an event that is novel/unique.