Substitute major events include live sites, event celebrations and viewing parties that are held at the same time as the actual major event, but away from the actual major event site. These events are becoming increasingly used by stakeholders to counteract venue and destination capacity concerns, and in leveraging the social value connected with major sporting and non-sporting events. They are also becoming frequently used by consumers as a way of feeling a part of the major event, particularly when spectatorship to the actual event venue may not be possible. However, little is known about how consumers arrive at the decision to attend a substitute event rather than spectatorship at the actual major event. Research on event spectatorship behaviour has begun to identify the main constraints experienced by attendees and non-attendees to special events. However, a lack of research has focused on the constraints encountered by substitute attendees. In addition, research has yet to identify the main ways in which consumers overcome or alleviate the effects of constraints on spectatorship towards major and substitute events. Furthermore, event research has yet to examine the relationships between motivation, constraints, negotiation and participation, including substitution, in consumers’ spectatorship decisions. Similarly, research within the frameworks of leisure constraint theory and the theory of substitutability has yet to investigate this “constraint negotiation process” with the outcome of substitution. As such, this study builds and examines a structural model that assists in predicting and understanding the constraint negotiation process in consumers’ decisions towards spectatorship at substitute major events. Hubbard and Mannell’s (2001) constraint-effects-mitigation model was adapted and extended through incorporating components of Jackson’s et al (1993) leisure constraint negotiation and Iso-Ahola’s (1986) substitution outcome behaviour propositions...