Social dimensions of community festivals : an application of factor analysis in the development of the Social Impact Perception (SIP) scale

The increasing popularity of festivals and events, coupled with their positive and negative impacts on host communities, has led to a growing body of research on the social impacts of festivals and events. To date, work by several authors represents research in impact scale development specifically related to the social impacts of festivals and events. This article reports on the scale developed by Small and Edwards in 2003, now known as the Social Impact Perception (SIP) scale, which measures residents' perceptions of the social impacts resulting from community festivals. The aim of this study was to test the SIP scale using a larger sample, allowing for further refinement of the scale using exploratory factor analysis. This research represents development of the SIP scale, and is in line with the refinement of other event impact scales, to which factor analysis has also been applied. This represents the most recent stage of this research, which has the aim of refining the SIP scale and identifying the underlying dimensions of the social impacts of community festivals. Factor analysis identified six underlying dimensions of the social impacts of community festivals: inconvenience, community identity and cohesion, personal frustration, entertainment and socialization opportunities, community growth and development, and behavioral consequences.