Event Policy

From Theory to Strategy

Malcolm Foley, David McGillivray, Gayle McPherson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415548328
• eBook ISBN: 9781136655197
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

As the event management field expands, there has been an emergence of a distinctive 'events' policy field of study and a need for more advanced texts that look at this subject with a multidisciplinary research and theoretical orientation.

Events Policy: From Theory to Strategy is the first text to embrace this new direction in the field of events management. Its main aim is to locate the phenomena of events (and festivity) within a theoretical and strategic framework and, in doing so, demonstrate the links between the development of events in policy-making and the theoretical exploration of the role of events as policy. Building on a strong coherent framework, the book explores the conceptual terrain in which events and festivities are located, evaluates the range of theoretical perspectives pertinent to the study of events policy, appraises the socio-economic and socio-cultural implications of event-led policies internationally and draws together the main theoretical and event policy issues for the future. It utilizes a good range of international cases, from Dubai, Singapore, New Orleans and Glasgow, to help demonstrate the relationships between theory and strategy, and includes useful features to help students understand the subject and deepen their knowledge of the events policy terrain.

This groundbreaking volume will be essential reading for students, researchers and academics of events and other related disciplines.

1 Event policy An Emerging Field of Study

DOI: 10.4324/9780203806425-1

Introduction

Events are of local, national and international importance. They are important signifiers of personal, community, national and globalised identity. They represent opportunities for celebration and commiseration, for rejoicing and for resisting. They are political and politicised, ritualistic and regenerative. They come in both commercial and charitable forms, contributing to the logic of capitalism while simultaneously acting as vehicles for contesting it. They not only are written into history but can also be utilised to alter it. They are planned and unplanned, small and large, sporting and cultural, hallmark and special. Events touch everyone in one way or another, yet understandings of their impacts and outcomes remain underdeveloped. A lot is known about how they can be organised more efficiently and effectively, how they can be marketed, how they can be managed safely and how appropriate venues can be selected for their delivery. Much less is known about how ownership of events might be evaluated, about who should resource them, about choosing among competing claims for support, about which other public investments should be curtailed at their expense, about how they can best be used to assuage social and economic problems, and so on. These are questions of policy – of choices about how public funds should be allocated to address an identified problem, whether that is political, economic, social or environmental. This book asks these difficult questions and attempts to provide guidance upon how they might be answered effectively.

The Growing Significance of Events

Whereas the study of events and festivities is a relatively recent phenomenon dating back a decade or two, their celebration has been long recorded. This chapter considers the development of the academic consideration of events in some detail. Before that task is undertaken it is prudent to illustrate their growing contemporary significance across a number of levels, from global to national to local, in order to provide both a context and a counterpoint for the rise in interest of ‘the academy’. At a global level, the significance of events is almost beyond dispute. Few people on the planet were unaware of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Billions of the world’s population tuned in to the 2010 FIFA World Cup Finals in South Africa. Over a decade ago Maurice Roche coined the term mega-event (Roche, 2000) to reflect events that were of short duration but produced long-term impacts; events that contained dramatic effect, changed whole economies and transformed national and international ideas of cultural citizenship, consumerism and collective identity. Alongside such wide-ranging powers to affect, these events were also said to generate mass popular appeal, culminating in increased inbound tourism to the host destination in both the short and long term. Perhaps most crucially, Roche argued that these were ‘public’ events whose impacts reverberated throughout the world. Since Roche committed his thoughts to paper a decade ago, the significance of mega-events has, if anything, grown. The competition to host peripatetic, ‘footloose’ (Getz, 2007) or ‘ambulant’ (Gold and Gold, 2008) events is more intense than ever, with some of the world’s greatest cities competing with one another to secure, or maintain, their position as global leaders (Shoval, 2002). The 2012 Olympic Games in London, UK, the millennium event (recognised as one of the best ever) in Sydney and other events in recent years in Tokyo, New York, Paris, Madrid and Moscow mark these destinations as current, or future, Olympic candidate cities. The act of bidding for an Olympic Games requires a decade or more of planning, and the ensuing legacies, whether positive or negative, can last much longer.

Mega-events have been credited with the potential to change perceptions of host cities and nations, generate significant economic value, catalyse physical and social regeneration, reposition a destination and provide opportunities for the celebration of local and national identities. The 2008 Beijing Olympics is a useful exemplar of these professed benefits. A cursory glance at the media coverage before, during and after the event reinforces the success of the People’s Republic of China in driving an image against a backdrop of political protest over China’s relationship with Tibet and international outcry with respect to its record on human rights and environmental degradation:

• ‘Beijing Olympics Set to Improve West’s View of China’
• ‘Beijing Olympics Will Strengthen Investors Perceptions of China’
• ‘Global Media Coverage of Olympics Avoids Politics’
• ‘With Olympics Over, China’s Self-Confidence Soars’
• ‘China’s Winning Olympic Spirit’
• ‘Magnificent Olympics Earned China Global Respect’
• ‘China’s Public Relations Success’
• ‘The Opening Ceremony: What the media said’
• ‘A Victory for China’

Not only did China appear to win the public relations (PR) wars, but the Beijing Olympics also produced remarkable television audience viewing figures. Reuters estimates that between 63 per cent (393 million) and 69 per cent (842 million) of the Chinese population tuned in to the opening ceremony alone. The official website for the Olympic Games claimed that nearly 4 billion people worldwide tuned in. The scale of interest in broadcasting the event was illustrated by the USA’s NBC network paying $450 million for exclusive rights and securing 34.2 million viewers, the most viewed and highest rated non-US Summer Olympics opening ceremony ever. In terms of overall viewing figures for the Games, the Nielsen Company claims that over 4.4 billion viewers tuned in during the first ten days alone. China Daily claims that 96 per cent of the population of China watched the games at some point. The opening and closing ceremonies, opportunities to showcase the host nation on a global scale, were universally acknowledged as spectacular events that provided the host government with a valuable communications vehicle. As Tom Shales of the Washington Post put it:

Eye-poppers gave way to jaw-droppers, stunners were followed by dazzlers, and if the absence of a big emotional catharsis was a little disappointing, the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics from Beijing still added up to one of the most visually beautiful evenings of television ever seen.

While the extent of long-term change attributed to mega-events remains open to debate, it is widely acknowledged that events on the scale of the Summer Olympic Games can transform entire nations and act as a catalyst for change, both internally and externally. Commentaries on the Beijing Olympics suggest that perceptions of China improved as a result of its hosting of the Games. The nation’s competence in delivering an awe-inspiring Games – architecturally, organisationally, culturally and in sporting terms – produced a narrative that spoke of its ‘coming out’ and its forward march into modernity. China’s confidence about itself and the merits of its one-party system – dubbed socialism with Chinese characteristics – were reinforced in hosting the 29th Summer Olympic Games. Political and economic commentators were unanimous in their view that China’s position in the world order had been strengthened by the manner in which the Games had been delivered and the tacit support that visiting world leaders gave to the event (both the US President and the British Prime Minister were in attendance, among others). The power of the Olympic Games was illustrated in the way that pre-Games doubts over internal dissent, human rights and pollution were wiped from the media agenda in favour of glowing praise for spectacle, hospitality, friendship, harmony, supermodern architecture, culture and heritage. China’s ‘soft power’ (Nye, 2004) offensive produced an Olympic Games that were both a sporting and political success.

The world’s other foremost mega-event, the FIFA Soccer World Cup, also has significant global appeal and has been utilised by host nations for the last seventy years to achieve wider political, economic, social and cultural objectives. The South Africa 2010 World Cup was built on a developmental agenda (Bob and Swart, 2009), addressing issues of poverty, inequality, crime, race and infrastructural capacity in the country. Its predecessor, the Germany 2006 World Cup, was also heralded as a great success, not only in terms of media audience figures and the number of inbound visitors to Germany, but also in terms of the perceptual dimension. Again, a cursory glance at media reports demonstrates the significance of the event for national and international stakeholders alike:

• ‘Trying to Be German as the World Watches’
• ‘National Patriotism in Black, Red and Gold’
• ‘League of Nations Allows Germans to Fly Flag with Pride’
• ‘We Want to Be Loved by You …’
• ‘Klinsmann Keen to Show Germany’s New Identity – On and Off the Field’
• ‘World Cup Kicks off New German Patriotism’
• ‘Changing German Identity Revealed at World Cup’
• ‘Germany’s Fairytale Comes True’
• ‘Bringing Germany’s Turks into the Family’

Here, a mega-event initiated an international review of German national identity and, perhaps even more importantly, it enabled an internal conversation about history, identity, new and old, pride and hope, to take place. This event had a national importance that reached beyond the global rewards that every mega-event craves. At its heart was the concept of identity. The German hosts deliberately sought to alter perceptions of their nation through the vehicle of the World Cup. They did this by developing an outward-facing strategy that had at its heart the slogan ‘A Time to Make Friends’. This visionary ideal governed the organisation of the tournament itself while talking directly to the German public about the impressions of nation being portrayed. These impressions were built on the concepts of tolerance, diversity, friendship, openness, good humour, joy and unity. Strategically, the identity problems that the German people had struggled with between 1945 and the fall of the Berlin Wall were placed at the forefront of people’s minds. The World Cup became a stage on which to display a ‘new’ Germany – a nation at ease with itself, accepting of difference, liberated from its past and demonstrating a playful engagement with its (previously tarnished) national symbols. This was as much a process of internal reunification as an external one. The German population in its diverse totality – young and old, rich and poor, immigrant and indigenous, east and west – finally felt sufficiently confident to participate in patriotic expression (e.g. flag waving) on a global stage via the mechanism of a mega-event. Such expressions of identity via state-endorsed public spectacle had previously held associations with a period of oppression, aggression and brutality. While there is a need for caution over the sustainability of these regenerative effects, there can be little doubt that few other media provide the sort of catalyst for change, or opportunities to mobilise support, that these mega-events represent. That said, while these two examples illustrate the global–national significance of sporting events, this should not undermine the importance of national and local events in addressing policy objectives.

As one example of the national-to-local reach of events, the Liverpool European Capital of Culture (ECoC) in 2008 is worthy of some discussion. The ECoC title is awarded annually following two rounds of competition. First, the national candidate city is selected from within the host nation. Second, a specially convened cultural commission awards the ECoC title to the national candidate that best meets the criteria set out by the European Union (EU). The Liverpool 08 ECoC case is interesting both because of its successful bid process and for the subsequent approach to delivery adopted. First, with respect to the original bid process, Liverpool was an unexpected victor in both the national (UK) and European ‘rounds’ of competition. Suffering from significant economic and social deprivation brought to the fore by de-industrialisation, the narrative of Liverpool in the British media had, in preceding decades, invariably been negative – a narrative of crime, social inequality and negative cultural stereotypes. Even the original bid committee had acknowledged that they were underdogs when compared with their respective British and European competitors. Nevertheless, Liverpool’s strategy to emphasise the economic, social and cultural regenerative transformations that the ECoC title could bring to the city placed it in a unique position in comparison with other candidate cities. Liverpool made the case for becoming a city of culture rather than for being one. It stressed the need to secure the ECoC title as a catalyst for regeneration rather than as a showcase for cultural excellence per se. For the awarding committee this represented a persuasive argument and Liverpool was (surprisingly) awarded the title in 2005.

Having won the ECoC title on a manifesto for change, Liverpool 08 embedded this vision via its delivery in ways that demonstrate the growing significance of events as a mechanism to achieve wider social, cultural and economic policy objectives. First, the organisers struck a delicate balance between policies for the democratisation of culture and those promoting cultural democracy. While the ECoC title represents a platform for cities to showcase their nationally and internationally recognised cultural assets to a wider audience (the democratisation of culture), in Liverpool 08 the title was also used to mobilise resources to facilitate community arts and cultural projects that supported and celebrated ‘local’ forms of cultural expression (cultural democracy). Liverpool 08 was deemed a success for the way in which it engaged locally with the culturally ‘uninitiated’ while generating positive media exposure nationally and internationally for its ‘signature’ cultural events, exhibitions and artworks. Part of this success was owing to the way in which it evaluated itself and projected a unique identity to a wide range of stakeholders. Its trailblazing research programme, Impacts 08 – The Liverpool Model, was unique, acting as an independent voice recording the successes and failings of the year from which ‘impacts’ were measured. Chapter 4 of this volume addresses the growing importance of evaluating event outcomes and the need for more longitudinal, action-based research such as that epitomised by the Impacts 08 programme. Liverpool 08 had national, European and, perhaps, international pretensions with respect to putting the city on the cultural map, but, like the 2006 World Cup in Germany, it was its role in opening up new possibilities that made it meaningful in the longer term. It generated discussion of a new narrative for Liverpool, one liberated from engrained negative regional and national stereotypes. The Creative Communities Manager with the Liverpool Company sums up the feeling well when reflecting back on the successes of the ECoC year:

I think culture has reached people on many different levels … You can see the difference in the people just by walking around the city. Everyone has a new found pride in the city. We have been able to dispel stereotypes that have been attached to Scousers [a negative colloquialism for residents of the city] in recent years.

(Liverpool Echo, 3 December 2008)

Above and beyond the feelings of civic pride generated by the ECoC year of celebrations, the event also posted some ‘hard’ outcomes from this culture-led regeneration programme. Impacts 08 reported (Impacts 08, 2010) that the ECoC had a significant positive effect on visitor figures to Liverpool, with an increase in first-time visitors to the city and in those influenced to visit by the Liverpool ECoC. Furthermore, the city benefited from an increase in the number of references to Liverpool’s cultural system in the lead up to and duration of the ECoC and the positive tone of the coverage of the year’s activities. In the context of this book, what this selection of coverage from the ECoC event demonstrates is that by following an eventled strategy, Liverpool made significant strides forward in addressing its economic and social issues as well as its sense of itself as a city.

As powerful symbo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Event policy An Emerging Field of Study
• PART I Event policy rationales
• PART II Event policy formations
• PART III Event Policy Implementations
• reference
• Index