Phenomenological psychology & descriptive experience sampling: a new approach to exploring music festival experience

This paper provides in-depth discussion of a methodological approach to researching music festival experience. Grounded in existential phenomenology (Heidegger, 1927/1962. Being and time (J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell) it argues for the adoption of an interpretative phenomenological perspective (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962. Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.). New York, NY: Humanities Press) to more fully understand the live music festival experience. Phenomenological psychology (Smith, Harre and Van Langenhove, 1995. Ideography and the case-study. In J. A. Smith, R. Harre, & L. Van Langenhove (Eds.), Rethinking psychology (pp. 59-69). London: SAGE Publications) contextualises the music festival experience within the attendee's Lifeworld. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith, 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications Ltd) provides a robust process for analysing the music festival experience ideographically. Participants used Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) (Hurlburt & Heavey, 2001. Telling what we know: Describing inner experience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(9), 400-403) to record their Green Man music festival experiences, this data was then explored during phenomenological interviews. DES and IPA provide a contrasting conceptualisation of experience, with findings that contribute to Ashworth's (2003b. The phenomenology of the lifeworld and social psychology. Social Psychology Review, 5(1), 18-34) theories of Lifeworld and Krueger's (2014b. Varieties of extended emotions. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 13(4), 533-555) Hypothesis of Individual Extended Emotions and his Hypothesis of Collective Extended Emotions. Lastly, building upon the application and adaptability to the music festival context allows a consideration of future studies.