EVALUATING THE 'SPECIALNESS' OF EVENT TOURISTS WITH MOBILE POSITIONING DATASETS Laura ALTIN & Rein AHAS University of Tartu, Estonia, laura.altin@ut.ee & rein.ahas@ut.ee Importance of events in tourism has increased in recent decades. Recent studies have mostly focused on aspects of marketing, analyzing the impact on one particular special event (e.g. Olympic Games, FIFA world cup). General events like concerts of one artist are rarely investigated (Getz 2005, Moravcik 2013). Earlier studies have shown that events with low place attachment (as concerts of megastars are) attract more and more tourists, though main target group is locals (Allen et al 2008; Getz 2005, Quinn 2013). The aim of this paper is to evaluate how differently behave visitors of concerts of megastars compared to regular tourists and visitors to other events. Passive mobile positioning data has been used to analyze behavior of foreign visitors in Estonia during 8-year-long period (2006-2013). This paper provides new information about events’ visitors: character of general events (concerts of megastars) and their difference from other events (festivals, celebrations, cultural celebrations, traditional celebrations). The results show that megastar concert visitors tend to generate tourism from nearby countries (Latvia, Finland) while traditional Estonian events are also attractive for tourists from distant countries. Duration of visits also tend to be longer in megastar concert visitors than other segments under investigation. Organizing concerts in Tallinn helps to attract new segments of tourists.