Measuring and Improving Audience Experience in Online Electro-Acoustic Concerts Through Interaction Design

Abstract

Online concerts and music events are increasingly needed, especially for genres such as electro-acoustic music. But the perceived levels of social experience and overall satisfaction for online audiences have been low. Recent literature on online concerts indicated that the low audience satisfaction could be caused by the lack of social experience, but the audience experience construct is multifaceted, and it could be influenced by many underlying factors. Audience in online electro-acoustic concerts can be viewed to carry several roles: as concert audience, as consumers of performing arts, as participants in an online social environment, and as end users in an interactive system. This study aims to understand the construct of audience experience in online electroacoustic concerts, examine the influence of underlying factors, and develop an instrument to assess online audience experience by adapting existing tools that separately measure each of the factors from the online audience experience construct. The design of online concert system could also have significant influence on online audience experience. Based on the resulting instrument, this study examines the influence of online concert system design on audience experience and attempts to improve audience experience through system design. The findings will generate strategies to enhance audience experience in future online electro-acoustic concerts.