Information and communication technology and the festival experience

Developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have transformed communication across the world (Poushter 2016). ICT can include hardware, software, netware (networked operating systems) and humanware (hardware or software built around the users’ needs) used to facilitate communication across time and space (Buhalis 2003). Increasingly, festivals are integrating new ICTs into the attendee experience (Van Winkle & Comer 2011), and technology can mediate festival experiences or become the experience itself and transform the festivalscape (Neuhofer, Buhalis, & Ladkin 2014; Robertson, Yeoman, Smith, & McMahon-Beattie 2015).