Despite the cost of tickets to events and booking fees being two of the main barriers to consumers attending events in Ireland, the events tourism sector is estimated to grow by 1.2% to €198.5 million on an all-Ireland basis between 2013 and 2014.

The staging of global music concerts, increasing consumer confidence and a generally more positive economic outlook are helping to drive growth as consumers are now more willing to increase their leisure spending on tickets to events after years of post-crisis austerity.

This report examines the importance of the events sector to the overall tourism industry in Ireland, and highlights the types of events that Irish consumers are attending and the factors that would encourage or prohibit consumers from attending events taking place in Ireland.

• Which types of events are Irish consumers most likely to attend? – Is the events industry dominated by concerts, or do family and kids events hold greater appeal to Irish consumers? Do Irish consumers attend arts and film festivals? Are food festivals popular among Irish consumers?

• Does the weather impact attendance at events taking place in Ireland? – Does Ireland’s generally wet and cold weather deter Irish consumers from attending events? Will this help to drive demand for more indoor events?

• What are the main barriers preventing Irish consumers from attending events? – Is the cost of ticketing to events negatively impacting Irish consumers’ attendance at events? Does the distance to travel to events impact attendance? Are booking fees an issue for Irish consumers?

• How can event promoters encourage Irish consumers to attend more events? – Are cheaper ticket prices the main factor that would encourage attendance at events in Ireland? Would a family-friendly zone or crèche facilities boost attendance from Irish families? Are consumers looking for bigger headline acts at concerts?

• How has the growing consumer confidence in Ireland impacted the events tourism sector? –Are ticket sales to events increasing? Have Irish consumers’ personal finances improved? Has secondary spending at events in Ireland increased?

Other Mintel reports of relevance include:

• Online and Mobile Retailing – Ireland, March 2014

• Culture and Heritage Tourism – Ireland, January 2014

• Spectator Sports – Ireland, November 2013

• Short Breaks – Ireland, October 2013

• Short/City Breaks – UK, September 2013

• Music, Concerts and Festivals – UK, August 2013

• Arts, Festivals and Concerts – Ireland, July 2013

This report examines the events sector of the Irish tourism industry. The term ‘events’ includes all types of concerts, festivals and shows taking place in Ireland, including:

• Music

• Food

• Arts and theatre

• Film

• Countryside and traditional events

• Family- and children-based events

This report excludes exhibitions, such as those taking place at museums for example. Furthermore while spectator sports is examined within this report, it is not included in market size information. For an in-depth analysis of this sector, please refer to Mintel’s Spectator Sports – Ireland, November 2013 report.

While other areas of the Irish tourism sector, such as accommodation and travel services, are discussed in this report, they are not explored in-depth. For a more complete analysis of these sectors of the Irish tourism industry, see Mintel’s upcoming reports Accommodation – Ireland, August 2014 and Domestic vs Overseas Tourism – Ireland, November 2014.

Although many events throughout Ireland are free of charge, the Market Size and Forecast section of this report only considers fee-paying events such as music concerts and theatre festivals for example, to determine the value of the events industry in Ireland.

For the purpose of this report, Mintel commissioned exclusive online research into the types of events that Irish consumers have attended in the last 12 months, the factors that would encourage them to attend more events in the future and the barriers that have prevented them from attending events in the past. The research was carried out by Toluna on behalf of Mintel in July 2014.

A total of 750 internet users aged 16+ in NI and 1,250 internet users aged 16+ in RoI were asked the following questions:

“Which of the following types of events have you attended in Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland in the past two years and which would you consider visiting in the future?”

“Which of the following factors would help encourage you to attend more events/concerts/festivals?”

“Still thinking about events, which, if any, of the following reasons have stopped you attending events in the past?”

The results from this survey are discussed in The Consumer sections of this report.

Mintel also draws consumer insight from other sources:

• Mintel’s trend database and previous Mintel reports from the UK and Ireland.

In compiling this report, Mintel has gathered data from separate NI and RoI sources (eg NISRA and CSO). In some cases, therefore, it has not been possible to provide comparable data for each region.

For the purpose of this report:

• IoI refers to the island of Ireland.

• NI refers to Northern Ireland.

• RoI refers to the Republic of Ireland.

Therefore, ‘Irish consumers’ refers to both NI and RoI consumers.