When volunteers are also consumers: Exploring volunteers’ co-consumption experience in leisure contexts

Volunteers might function like partial employees, but in leisure contexts, they also consume the experience to which they contribute. The additional benefits, relative to those attained by a typical consumer, achieved through volunteers’ insider status remain unstudied though. The current qualitative study, conducted at a French music festival, reveals that volunteers’ experience involves three new consumption dimensions: community, privilege, and pride. Previous research on co-creation identifies situations in which consumers take the role of producers; the current study contributes to this literature stream by adopting an opposing, “co-consumption” perspective, in which producers (here, volunteers) take the role of consumers. Because they are producers in the first place, they are insiders with behind-the-scenes access, which ultimately defines their experience.