Special Event Production: The Process

Doug Matthews

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317664291
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

This must-have guide to special event production looks deep behind the scenes of an event and dissects what it is that creates success. It analyses the process - the planning and business aspects - to provide a unique guide to producing a variety of events from weddings to festivals. It explains thoroughly budgeting and resource concerns, planning and cost projections and the role of the well-crafted proposal.

This new edition has been significantly updated to include:

• Three new chapters: Event Design, Information Technology and Sustainability and Event Production.
• Updated and new case studies from USA, Canada, India, Russia and Malaysia.
• New Industry Voice feature, including an interview with industry experts from around the world commenting on their experiences of event planning and production.
• New content on: technology, volunteers, venues and PR and marketing.
• Enhanced online resources including: PowerPoint lecture slides, checklists, glossaries, additional questions and challenges, web links, sample contract templates, production schedule templates, and evaluation forms.

Incorporating pedagogical features, this easy-to-read book is packed with photographs, diagrams, flow charts, checklists, sample forms, and real-life examples. It steps through the whole process from the creativity and proposal at the outset, to budgeting, the contract and risk management with event follow up to conclude. A must have resource for event planners, managers, caterers and students.

This text is part two of a two book set - also available is Special Events Production: The Resources (978-1-138-78567-0). This book offers an in - depth guide to the technical aspects of a big event such as lighting and audio systems, visual presentation technology, special effects and temporary outdoor venues.

Chapter 1

An introduction to special events and special event production

LEARNING OUTCOMES

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

1. Understand what special events are.

2. Understand the categories of special events.

3. Understand who the key stakeholders in a special event are and how they relate to each other.

4. Differentiate between the reason for an event and the message to be delivered by the event.

5. Differentiate among the different jobs that exist within the special events industry and where the event producer fits.

6. Understand the skills and personality traits that make a good event producer.

7. Understand and explain the different phases of the event organization process.

8. Understand and explain the different responsibility areas of event organization.

9. Determine exactly where in the event organization process the event producer works.

Special events have been around for a long time.

In 2006, in the remote Tsodilo Hills of northwestern Botswana in the Kalahari Desert, archaeologist Sheila Coulson of the University of Norway and her team uncovered ritual objects in a hidden cavern known as Rhino Cave. These objects included a carved rock outcrop resembling the head and body of a huge snake. Along with this, they excavated over 10,000 stone artefacts considered to be more than 70,000 years old, the time of the Middle Stone Age (Coulson et al., 2011). This included an unexpectedly large number of elaborately made spearheads found directly beneath the massive carved outcrop. The majority of these had been brought to the cave for manufacture from over 50 km away. Following completion, they were either abandoned, intentionally smashed, or deliberately burned to the point where they could no longer be used, all of which was abnormal and indicated some form of ritual usage.

Coulson et al. (2011, p. 49) speculated that the cave was indeed an important one for ancient rituals:

Obviously it is impossible to determine how the carved outcrop was interpreted in the distant past but to modern eyes, even without the carvings, it can be seen as a zoomorphic form, such as a snake. The ‘head’ of this figure ‘rears up’; there is an elongated crack for a ‘mouth’ and a natural circular depression for the ‘eye.’ The ‘eye’ is not particularly distinct in daylight but is prominent in firelight. The configuration of carvings, with their varying shapes and depths, combined with the natural color variation of the formation, created the effect of movement in the flickering light.

Figure 1.1 depicts the carved stone outcrop during the day and at night, as it may have appeared during ritual practice. If this archaeological interpretation is correct, then this is convincing evidence for one of the world’s oldest special events, one that even incorporated special effects!

Once historical records began to appear some 5,000 years ago in the form of hieroglyphics and early writing, they provided even more extensive evidence of entertainment and religious-political ceremonies across most civilizations: Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indian, Roman, Greek, Chinese, and others. Strange as it may seem, however, the “profession” of special events has really only been present for approximately the last 30 years. It has only been in this time period that the demand for commercially driven special events has been strong enough to enable a growing body of event organizers to actually make a living out of doing what they love.

What exactly are special events and what is special event production? What is the difference between an event producer and an event manager—or between an event planner and event coordinator for that matter? How are events organized and where in the process does production fit? There are confusing terms in the industry today as well as some misunderstanding about the function of the various players. The goal of this introductory chapter is to make sense of the confusion.

Figure 1.1 Carved stone outcrop of Rhino Cave in Botswana

Courtesy of Sheila Coulson, Institute of Archaeology, Conservation and History at University of Oslo, Norway

1.1 What is a special event?

Before we can really explain what special event production is all about, we need to start at the beginning.

1.1.1 Definition of a special event

Dr. Joe Jeff Goldblatt was one of the first to attempt a definition in his first book (Goldblatt, 1990) and again in all his subsequent ones up to the present (Goldblatt, 2014). He states, “A special event is a unique moment in time celebrated with ceremony and ritual to satisfy specific needs” (ibid., p. 8). Getz (1997, p. 4), on the other hand, offers two definitions, from the event organizer’s and the guest’s point of view, respectively:

• “A special event is a one-time or infrequently occurring event outside normal programs or activities of the sponsoring or organizing body,” and

• “To the customer or guest, a special event is an opportunity for a leisure, social or cultural experience outside the normal range of choices or beyond everyday experience.”

Bladen et al. (2012, p. 3) are more succinct, with the definition, “Events are temporary and purposive gatherings of people,” but add four characteristics:

• “They are temporary in nature.

• They are gatherings of people.

• They are often displays of ritual.

• They are, in some sense, unique occurrences.”

Jago and Shaw (1998) offer up individual definitions of events that have been categorized as to size and their impact on tourism (e.g. minor events, major events, hallmark events, mega-events, festivals) based on surveys of current literature and the use of specific terms. They go on to say that “it is unlikely that a single, all-embracing definition of special events can be developed.” I believe it can. My belief is based on extensive research of historical and modern rituals, celebrations, ceremonies, and spectacles across a wide variety of cultures and time periods. However, it cannot be done by simple definition alone. The definition must be accompanied by a further examination and breakdown of the characteristics of “specialness.” Therefore the following is offered up as a modified version of my first similar statement (Matthews, 2008, p. 2): “A special event is a gathering of human beings, generally lasting from a few hours to a few days, designed to celebrate, honor, discuss, sell, teach or learn about, encourage, observe, or influence human endeavors.”

I believe this definition has several advantages over previous attempts. First, it places general boundaries on the duration of a special event, from a few hours to a few days. Certainly there are exceptions to this if one considers that such events as a World’s Fair can last for up to six months; however, the norm is a duration of no more than two weeks or so in the case of large, modern festivals, fairs, or conferences. Second, it acknowledges that special events are not restricted to festive celebrations but can encompass a variety of gatherings, serious or happy, and religious or secular, including meetings and conferences, expositions and trade shows, private and public special events, and events of various sizes. In so doing, it eliminates a direct relationship to tourism—which tends to be what many event management researchers concentrate on—while still allowing its use in that industry, and it thus also recognizes the legacy of historical special events from a multiplicity of cultures. Finally, it allows for the wide disparity of reasons for organizing and attending special events, without defining these from the restricted and specific viewpoints of organizer or guest.

As is obvious from the definition, the primary categorization method for special events that is suggested to be the most logical is that of type rather than size. Why is this? Because organizing by size does not allow for the logical application of individual specialties within the industry. For example, if a hypothetical major event (defined by Jago and Shaw as “a large-scale special event that is high in status or prestige and attracts a large crowd and wide media attention”), such as the American Super Bowl football game, is organized by a person with a professional special event certification, that does not mean that the same person is qualified to organize a major conference of similar proportions. Perhaps the best way to further illustrate the point is by way of examples from other professions. A civil engineer who has developed a reputation for designing bridges is not necessarily the right person to design a 70-storey skyscraper. A neurosurgeon who performs a 3-h operation on someone’s brain is definitely not the right person to perform a 3-h operation on another person’s heart, and so on. The more logical approach to categorizing special events, therefore, appears to be by type, as this method follows the rapidly expanding division of responsibilities and certifications in the industry. It also permits the breakdown of different types into sub-categories based on size without any loss of their relationship to tourism. Before we discuss this method of categorization, however, we need to put the final touches on the definition of a special event.

1.1.2 The characteristics of specialness

The word event is overused. In our society it has come to mean almost anything that happens to us in going about our daily lives, and may include as diverse possibilities as an argument with our spouse, the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, a birthday party, or even a terrorist attack. Only some, though, are “special,” and they are special in ways that differ according to our individual points of view. Getz recognized this in his definition of special events. The organizer, participant, or attendee/guest/spectator is each going to see a given event differently. Guests might very well consider an event special because they have planned on attending it for a long time. The key, however, is that the simple act of attending is the special part and not the event itself. Participants and organizers might not consider the same event special because it is simply their daily job. An example here might be a family going on holiday to Disneyland for two days. They consider the holiday to be a special event. However, for the organizers and participants of the daily parade at Disneyland, it is merely a job and it is done exactly the same way every day, thus making it a daily event, or more accurately, an attraction, but not a special event. To make this absolutely clear, let us attempt to add some more bounding characteristics to our previous definition of a special event, based on how the present industry perceives the events on which they work and also based on what history perceives as significant events. These, then, are what turn an or...