Business School awarded grant for research into children’s wellbeing at festivals and events

Dr Hugues Séraphin (Senior Lecturer Tourism, Hospitality and Events), Dr Christian Ehrlich (Reader in Organisational Behaviour) and Dr Robert Van der Veen (Research Fellow) at Oxford Brookes Business School have been awarded a Purple Guide grant.

The grant of £2,880 from the Events Industry Forum is a contribution towards the development of a wellbeing guide for children at festivals and events and builds upon Dr Séraphin’s previous work on 'Events Management for the Infant and Youth Market' by Emerald Publishing (2023).

Investigators said: “Festival and event literature, and industry guides focus on managing and supporting the wellbeing of adult visitors through engaging them and thus co-creating value and enhancing their experience. While they represent one key target audience, an increasing number of festivals and events cater for families with children. However, children are rarely considered in the development of visitor guidelines covering engagement and experience enriching activities, yet they are an important part of society, and are potential future visitors. This creates an opportunity to develop guidance on engagement of children which focuses on the specific needs for children which could be considered when organising festivals and events.”

The funding will support the next stage of research which will involve extensive interviews with events managers in the industry with reference to enhancing their event attendance experience that could inform successful event design, planning and delivery.

The team will then interview carers and other childcare experts to understand the needs of children and initiatives to support their experience and wellbeing.