Crowding at an arts festival: Extending crowding models to the frontcountry

The purpose of this study was to compare existing crowding models and extend the concept of perceived crowding to the frontcountry environment. Models based on three theories, expectancy theory, stimulus-overload theory and social interference theory, were tested using path analysis. Specific hypotheses tests enabled comparison between traditional and new models which added some theoretically relevant variables. Overall, theory-based variables were significant and showed more explanation of variance than the traditional model based on density measures alone. The results of this study show that, as in backcountry settings, perceptions of crowding among frontcountry visitors in a festival setting are more dependent on situational and environmental factors than on physical use levels. Expectancy theory and stimulus-overload theory contributed the most relevant explanatory variables for perceived crowding in this study.