Effects of Environmental Experience on Audience Experience of Street Performance (Busking)

Street performance (busking) is a historically and culturally important topic. This article focuses on street audience experience (SAE) and highlights the environmental factor of street environment, which has not been fully acknowledged in SAE research. The current study examines how street audience's experience and satisfaction of busking performances can be influenced by street-environment suitability, which refers to the street audience's evaluation of the street environment as a preferable "venue" for street performances. Furthermore, the current study examines the antecedent of street-environment suitability, street-environment experience, which is captured by the street audience's evaluation of the street environment in terms of visual aesthetics, acoustic comfort, and perceived crowding. We staged a musical busking performance as a field experiment across four locations in Hong Kong and surveyed a total of 201 respondents. Structural equation modeling analyses established two lines of findings. First, a street environment that is considered as more suitable for street performance is associated with higher SAE and overall satisfaction with the performance. Second, a street environment that is perceived as more positive in terms of visual aesthetics, acoustic comfort, and perceived crowding is considered as more suitable for street performance. Our results validate the importance of street environment in understanding the experience of street performances.