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The current research presents a case study on how COVID-19 has influenced event attendees' attitudes toward safety procedures, venue capacity, purchasing tickets in advance, type of events (e.g. theatre, music and art) and the mode of the event (i.e. live vs online).

In two timeframes (i.e. during and after COVID-19 lockdowns), data were collected via a self-completed online survey from a regional Western Australia (WA) town, Geraldton. In total, 94 event attendees were recruited in Wave 1 (during lockdowns), and 126 respondents were recruited in Wave 2 (after lockdowns). The naturalistic data collection examines how COVID-19 has influenced attendees' attitudes.

The findings suggest that attendees have adapted to the new normal of COVID-19. If safety procedures are followed, most respondents are comfortable attending an entertainment event during and after the lockdown (Wave 1 and Wave 2). Furthermore, respondents exhibited comfort following COVID-19 safety precautions at events even after COVID-19 lockdowns, except for mandatory mask-wearing. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted event attendees to prefer lower seating capacity at events, while the gradual easing of restrictions reduces their discomfort toward higher seat capacity.

Although some research has examined the financial and economic impact of COVID-19 on the event industry, there is limited research on consumers' or attendees' perceptions and attitudes toward events, particularly entertainment events and festivals, as the world emerges from the pandemic. Thus, the current case study is the first to examine event attendees' attitudes toward entertainment event management and operation during and after COVID-19 lockdowns. The finding provides significant theoretical and managerial implications surrounding the reaction of event attendees toward entertainment events (i.e. festivals) during health crises such as COVID-19.

The paper aims to examine whether (1) deviation of design (i.e. objective design newness) is distinct to consumers' perception of design newness (i.e. subjective design newness) and (2) subjective design newness rather than objective design newness evokes the emotion of interest and enhances product evaluation.

In total five sets of quasi-experiments were conducted on the natural manipulations of design newness. Specifically, the first four studies examine consumers' perception of design newness, feeling-of-interest and product evaluation toward old and new Apple's iOS (i.e., iPhone OS) icons when a new Apple's iOS is released. The fifth study generalized the findings to the new design of XiaoMi MiPhone.

Across five quasi-experimental studies, the authors found that (1) consumers do not necessarily perceive an objectively new design to be subjectively new; (2) subjective design newness, but not objective design newness, evokes interest and (3) interest, in turn, enhances product evaluation and behavioral intention toward an innovation.

The current finding extended the current literature on design newness by demonstrating that subjective (vs objective) design newness provides a more holistic account of consumers' interest and positive product evaluation toward the innovations.

The research showed that simply updating or altering the design of a product does not evoke consumers' perception of design newness and positive product evaluation. Instead, designer and managers must explore ways to evoke consumers' perception of novelty, complexity, unfamiliarity, atypicality and difference. Furthermore, the current finding demonstrated that subjective design newness can be used to evoke consumer interest and, therefore, result in positive purchase evaluation.

The current research is the first to examine (1) the difference between objective and subjective design newness, (2) the emotional response toward design newness and (3) the emotion of interest as a mediator that explain the strong relationship between design newness and positive product evaluation.