Temporary communitas and willingness to return to events

Attending sport, music and cultural events is a favorite leisure activity, thus creating multi-billion dollar markets. Existing research on what drives repatronage of such events has focused on individual-based variables such as satisfaction. This research highlights the relevance of consumer-consumer interaction for attendees' willingness to return to an event in the future. Results from two field studies show that temporary communitas-a temporary sense of closeness and camaraderie among event attendees-is a driver of willingness to return and that, surprisingly, its impact on willingness to attend the event again even surpasses that of satisfaction with the event. The positive effect of increasing temporary communitas disappears, however, when perceived crowding at an event becomes too high.