Elmarie Slabbert, Ph.D, School for Business Management, North-West University, Hoffman Street, Potchefstroom, 2521, South Africa and Melville Saayman, Ph.D, Institute for Tourism and Leisure Studies, North-West University, Hoffman Street, Potchefstroom, 2521, South Africa.
The Grahamstown National Arts Festival is the oldest National Arts Festival in South Africa and was founded in 1974. This arts celebration runs over a period of eight days which also makes it the longest (in terms of number of days) arts festival in the country. The literature review revealed that high spenders at arts festivals are also the visitors who buy the most show tickets. The success of these events is determined by ticket sales and not necessarily by the number of visitors. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to determine the high spenders at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival. Data obtained during the festival in 2008 by means of a questionnaire survey (N=446) will be statistically analysed by means of regression analysis and ANOVA’s. The profile of these high spenders can assist event organisers and marketers to focus their marketing efforts in order to attract the high spenders and this should have a positive impact on the total number of show ticket sales at the festival.