Evaluating the Role of Public Relations in Event Planning

The provided content includes various articles and studies on the theme of sports, events, and management. The topics covered include concussion risk factors and prevention strategies, sustainable event management, and estimating the economic impact of business tourism. Additionally, there are two appendices - one for an evaluation form and another for a risk assessment plan. There is also a financial budget for the current year, broken down into different categories such as local authority funding, public funding, sponsorship, etc.

EXHIBITION AND
CONFERENCE MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
STAKEHOLDERS AND ROLE OF PROFESSIONALS..............................................................2
SPONSORSHIP EVALUATION....................................................................................................4
FINANCIAL PLANNING...............................................................................................................4
RISK ASSESSMENT .....................................................................................................................5
PUBLIC RELATIONS....................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
APPENDIX 1.................................................................................................................................11
APPENDIX 2.................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Here, the main purpose of this report is to develop awareness regarding handball as a
sport and encourage youth and adults to participate in the exhibition. The target audience for
handball exhibition is school students, children, adults and youth etc. It is essential to provide
them proper information about the specific sport so that they can be influenced towards physical
and outdoor activities.
Organizing handball event assists in developing sportsperson at local and national level in
order to develop the brand image of handball sports in market. Here, retired professional coaches
will help in selecting talent from both school and college and provide them training improving
their skills in handball sport. Further, report describes involving different stakeholders and
professionals so that they can participate in handball event and make it successful. Here, event
organizers are also required to develop financial planning so that they can easily formulate the
budget that from where they are able to receive funds and what actual amount they require
conducting the sports program (Whitfield and et. al., 2014). Further, encouraging youth by
adopting different public relations channels such as social media websites so that they can
encourage them to participate in handball event.
Objectives:
 Specific- To promote handball sport among young and adult children and encourage
them participate in more numbers. The objective specifically states that handball sport
would like to enhance its youth engagement by promoting the event and through
improving market share. For instance, enrolling around 35% of high school students in
the handball sport.
 Measurable- To determine different methods which can be analyzed in regard to
measure the effectiveness of handball sport with other sports (Masterman, 2014). Such
objective specifically states that sport organization would like to enhance its market share
to 3%. Through stating the percentage it helps in identifying the desired goals which
needs to be attained. It can be measured that out of 100 students visiting out handball
camp, 30 of them are enrolled in sport event.
 Achievable- Promoting the handball sport by motivating school students to participate by
28% till 2020. It is essential that not only the objective should be achievable but they are
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likely to accomplish it. Here, handball organizers should be confident that they would be
achieving the stated goals.
 Realistic- Handball event can be promoted through involving different handball
professionals and select young children from the age group of 13-25 years. The objective
is related to the goals of company.
 Timely- Handball sport can be recognized as a national event within the time frame of 4
years (Center and Rosemont, 2015). It means that organizers create a time line that
defines the beginning and end of the period in which goals can be measured. It involves a
start and stop point and thus, organization can measure the change among these two.
STAKEHOLDERS AND ROLE OF PROFESSIONALS
There are varied stakeholders and professionals involved in organizing handball event. It
is essential for the event organizers to make sure that stakeholder needs to be satisfied with their
role. These are as follows-
 Players- It involves school students, children, youth and adults who are encouraged to
participate in handball event. It is essential for event organizers to encourage and
influence players to participate in large numbers so that event can be successful. Thus,
through participating in such type of sport activity, individuals can enhance their skills
and knowledge towards physical exercise. Such type of sport also helps in delivering
proper mental and physical exercise to players (Qiang, Min and Bing, 2014). It is
significant for government to expand upon the handball activity so that it assists young
people to encourage and participate in physical activity as obesity is increasing day by
day in UK. There are around 67% of men and 57% of women overweight in UK (Wang,
2015).
 Government- Both local and national government of the country has the responsibility to
prevent health diseases among community in particular school children and youth as they
are moving towards diseases such as obesity, drug addiction etc (Arnold, 2013).
Therefore, it is their duty to encourage sports activity in the society and provide funding,
relaxation in payment of taxes and also promote health. Through encouraging people to
participate in handball activity it helps in improving the sports activities and thus
individual people are relaxed from paying heavy taxes. Thus, they play potential role in
promoting handball event through exhibitions and different campaigns to motivate youth
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and adults to participate in such event ad make it successful (Hautbois and Bouchet,
2015). Hence, government plays a crucial role in regard to promote the sports' activity
and developing activeness among people to overcome their diseases therefore, it is
essential for individual to support each and every individual by participating in such
sports activities.
 Clubs- Event organizers need to be engaged with varied local clubs and leagues so that
they can get the best skilled sportsperson involved. As there are varied players who are
connected with the local clubs and play the national level championship. For instance, it
involves Charlotte Leblanc and Christopher McDermott that are the players which are
involved in promoting handball among school children. However, it is the duty of the
club to recognize the talent and potential of player and encourage them to participate in
such type of handball exhibition so that they can be selected for world championship and
continental championship (Jones, 2014). Through participating in such championship that
can showcase their talent as well as they can influence school children to indulge in
playing handball sport.
 Sponsors- They also plays a critical role as stakeholders in organizing any event. Event
partners and sponsors are essential for making the event successful and popularize. They
provide funding to the sport in order to create a brand image of their firm in market. For
instance, the logo of their company can be printed on players t-shirt or commercials can
be played on the screen ever moment (Aguiar-Quintana, 2015). It involves Pepsi, Nike
and local businesses of England sponsors the event.
Role of professionals- The role of professionals such as sports coaches or retired
sportsperson can give their valuable services in order to provide training and mentoring to young
and adult people (It’s My Party: The Role of Public Relations in Event Planning, 2012). It also
assists in motivating them and enhancing their talent and skill to play different national and
continental championships. Thus, sports professionals also play a major part in the selection
committee in which they select the suitable candidates for playing handball sport (Weldon,
2015).
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SPONSORSHIP EVALUATION
It can be stated that event planners are required to provide effective environment to
sponsors so that they can attain desired objectives. Proper aims and objectives need to be
developed for sponsors so that best environment can be provided to them to watch the event.
Effective corporate hospitality can be provided to sponsors that helps them to attain maximum
satisfaction and thus they are encouraged in order to participate more and more in organizing
event. However, they are important source of providing investment in event therefore, sponsors
should be given appropriate hospitality services that helps in improving the relationship between
organizers and sponsors.
FINANCIAL PLANNING
Overall preparing and planning a financial budget and risk assessment budgeting are the
methods that help in forecasting income and expenditure so that event can be executed in a well
manner based on plans made and information gathered. Preparing an event budget is a financial
projection of the income and expenditures that the event will incur. However, it is a crucial part
of preparing the budget that helps in managing the event successfully. This financial projection
of the income and expenditures that the event will incur helps in managing the event successfully
to the financial plan given in Appendix 2 predicts with reasonable accuracy of whether the event
will result in profit, loss or break even (Simpson and et. al., 2014). Also, it is essential for event
committee to decide their budget in advance so that they do not face any contingency at the time
of launching the event. Hence, budget enables them to involve promotion, staffing and
equipment involvement so that surplus or deficit can be analyzed. It involves varied rules
relating to basic event budgeting. These are as follows-
 Budget gap- Here, it can be assessed that budget enables event organizers to focus on
planning the event in order to fill the budget gap. Therefore, it is essential for event
planners to effectively plan their budget in order to carry out best results. However, such
gap arises at the time when the estimated amount exceeds and thus it results in budget
gap. Hence, it is the main issue faced by event organizers therefore, it is essential for
them to forecast upon mitigating such risk and avoid issues.
 Lack of budget sources- Further, it is another major financial issues faced by event
organizers and thus they faces issues of getting budget from different sources so that it
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affects planners to plan the event. Therefore, it is essential for budget planners to identify
the sources of budget in advance and use that to make the event successful.
 Budget helps in avoiding loss- It is essential for event to forecast its budget so that they
can plan accordingly in order to make the event achieve at least break-even.
 Developing realistic incomes from event- The event organizers need to be realistic
regarding incomes from the event such as sponsors, ticket sales etc. They need to make
optimistic predictions regarding income from event as it often causes financial loss
(DeMatteo and et.al., 2015).
 Developing contingency plan- It is essential for the event planners to think that what
could go wrong within an event. Thus, through analyzing the good idea in order to
analyze the consequences regarding what must go wrong. For instance, there can be
contingency regarding if sponsors pull out themselves at the last time from event (Sheard,
2014).
RISK ASSESSMENT
There are varied risk factors that can be identified in order to manage and mitigate the
risks and also provide an initial risk assessment so that set objectives can be attained. Different
types of risk assessed within handball event are as follows-
 Financial risk- The event organizers may face the risk of availability of finance in order
to make the event successful. The directors need to encourage financers to fund the
handball event. For instance, if allocation of fund is not possible then executing the
activity may face financial risk (Cassim, 2014).
 Reputation risk- Handball sport faces risk of reputation as it is not popular event which
is famous among sportsperson. Therefore, it faces risk of funding from sponsors in order
to ascertain financial loss before investing money in the event. Hence, sport director’s
faces reputation risk of executing such an event. Therefore, it is essential for such
individual to promote the event so that it can help others to know regarding the benefits
of such event and sport and enhances the popularity of sport.
 Legal risk- Handball sport may face legal risk as there may be varied issues that can be
faced by sport organizers relating to legal laws and regulations. Such type of risk required
proper involvement of rules and regulations so that handball can be promoted effectively.
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For instance, if handball business faces legal risk then they need to determine it in
advance and thus promote the sport effectively (Kumar and Hussain, 2014). However, it
is essential for the sport organizers to develop the event effectively so that it would help
people to learn more about the specific sport and thus, to enhance the sales and
profitability. It also encourages people to learn the sport and play more to make it
famous.
 Audience risk- It is another crucial risk that event organizers may face i.e. they need to
attract large number of audience to view the game. Thus, it is essential for organizers to
encourage and motivate audiences by attracting them towards handball event and provide
information about the sport to make it successful.
 Health and safety risk- It is essential for event organizers to manage and mitigate the
health and safety risks so that they can ensure that players and audiences should be
safeguarded at the time of handball event. Proper health and safety measures need to be
maintained so that individual can be protected from any type of hazard occurred in the
event (Kerr, 2014). Risk Assessment has been drawn in Appendix 2.
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Event organizers are required to promote the sport through developing its target audience
and thus maintaining relation with people. It is the best way through which relation can be
developed and thus handball can be effectively promoted within target audience. Moreover, it is
essential for event organizers to maintain their public relations with different organizers and
players so that popularity of sport can be attained. Developing public relation is crucial as it
helps in enhancing the market share of event and generates more awareness. Thus, public
relations help in effectively generating sale of tickets, securing sponsors and advertisers so that
more and more people are excited to join the event. It is important form of marketing which
helps manager of event to develop public relations in order to keep the audience in touch.
However, a proper HR planning is required to be carried out through outlining different
strategies for communication so that message can be conveyed effectively. In PR plan it involves
different channels such as social media, e-mail marketing and website updates. It is a crucial
marketing effort that helps event organizers to connect with sponsors as well as target people to
connect to the game and popularize it in order to achieve results.
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There are different types of public relations processes that involve in order executing the
variety of activities of an event. It is as follows-
 Advertising- It is essential for handball event organizers to prepare advertisement for
their handball event so that they can attract a lot many audiences. Further, it also assists
in executing a message which can be presented to public as an acknowledged appeal. It is
a paid form that assists in encouraging the target audience to gather at one place and play
handball sport (Wang, 2015).
 Corporate sponsorship- It provides support to handball event in order to build corporate
sponsors so that they can sponsor the event and in exchange possess the opportunity to
improve goodwill, product image and sales.
 Promotion- Big corporate houses can use handball events in order to promote their
products and services. It can be done through creating and stimulating interest in a person
or product and sponsor the event (Masterman, 2014). For instance, Pepsi and Nike such
big brands use handball sport to promote their brand.
 Publicity- It is critical for directors of handball event to provide information to others
through publishing or broadcasting messages through news media because it helps in
enhancing the value of the event.
CONCLUSION
It can be assessed that the aspect of organizing handball event is to make it popular so
that the best results can be attained. Sports organizers are required to identify the youth and need
to encourage them to get involved in such sport activities so that they can improve their mental
and physical health. From the above research it can be articulated that organizing exhibition or
conference can help in displaying the product and providing useful information or knowledge to
potential audiences. Thus, promoting handball event among students, youth and adults is an
effective sports' activity. By this more number of people can be informed about the physical
exercise executed through participating in handball event. However, in order to properly manage
the handball event it is essential for organizers to choose the venue nearby local community so
that large number of audiences can be reached. It helps them to effectively visit the place through
buses, trains and ferry.
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Furthermore, sport organizers need to identify different stakeholders of the event and
satisfy their needs that help them to indulge and participate in the handball event. Also, proper
financial planning is required to be carried out so that income and expenditures of the event can
be assessed. Here, amount received from sponsors and ticket sales are the major source of
income while cost of venue and marketing cost are the main expenses incurred by the event
organizers. Also, risk assessment is essential through which organizers can identify the potential
risk and try to mitigate and manage it in order to attain results.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aguiar-Quintana, T., 2015. Under-researched Areas of Event Management in the Past 15 Years.
J Tourism Hospit. 4(160). pp. 2.
Arnold, C., 2013. The new danger of synthetic drugs. The Lancet. 382(9886). pp.15-16.
Cassim, F., 2014. 'Make a plan'-Design Policy Conference: conference report. Image & Text: a
Journal for Design. 24. pp. 166-169.
Center, O. L. and Rosemont, I. L., 2015. RegistRation and Housing open foR aossM 2015 annual
Meeting. the american journal of sports Medicine. 43(4).
DeMatteo, C. and et. al., 2015. Post-concussion return to play and return to school guidelines for
children and youth: a scoping methodology. Disability and rehabilitation. 37(12). pp.
1107-1112.
Hautbois, C. and Bouchet, P., 2015. Segmenting the spectators of national team sports: the case
of a pre-competition match. International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship.
16(4).
Jones, M., 2014. Sustainable event management: A practical guide. Routledge.
Kerr, H. A., 2014. Concussion risk factors and strategies for prevention. Pediatric annals.
43(12). pp. e309.
Kumar, J. and Hussain, K., 2014. Estimating the economic impact of business tourism: a review
of issues and methods. In Breaking Barriers Y Shifting Gears-Proceedings of the 12th
APacCHRIE Conference.
Masterman, G., 2014. Strategic sports event management. Routledge.
Qiang, S., Min, Y. W. and Bing, L. X., 2014. Forecast of Beijing city exhibition industry
development trend based on grey theory. Special Zone Economy. 4. pp. 007.
Sheard, R., 2014. Sports architecture. Taylor & Francis.
Simpson, A. and et. al., 2014. Australia’s first university sporting museum. International
Committee for University Museums and Collections (UMAC) Proceedings. 6.
Wang, C. W., 2015. 2015 International Joint Conference on Physical Activity, Exercise Science
& Sport Sociology.
Weldon, K., 2015. Impact of Sports on Economic Development in Kenya. International Journal.
3(5). pp. 1427-1436.
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Whitfield, J. and et. al., 2014. Attracting convention and exhibition attendance to complex MICE
venues: Emerging data from Macao. International Journal of Tourism Research. 16(2).
pp. 169-179.
Online
It’s My Party: The Role of Public Relations in Event Planning, 2012. [Online]. Available
through: <https://smpsboston.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/its-my-party-the-role-of-public-
relations-in-event-planning/>. [Accessed on 29th October 2015].
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APPENDIX 1
Evaluation form
This is a checklist form which involves different tasks-
Prior to the activity (24 house) Tick
Print the name tags of the players
Food and beverages
Sound and video check
Decorations/lighting
Functional electronic equipment
Take photos and videos
Compile data for the event
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APPENDIX 2
Risk Assessment plan
High Reputation risk Financial risk
Medium Audience risk
Low Legal risk Health and safety risk
Low Medium High
Financial budget for the current year-
PARTICULARS AMOUNTS
Local authority funding £12000
Public funding £8000
Trusts/Foundation £7000
Sponsorship £12000
Trusts/ Foundations £15000
Collection from ticket sales £4000
Staff salaries and fees (£7000)
Travel and accommodation (£4000)
Management fees (£6000)
Venue costs (£7000)
Event insurance (£8500)
Promotion (£3000)
Trophies/awards (£5000)
Postage and telephone (£1500)
Stationery and photocopying (£700)
Equipment hire (£2000)
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Surplus/Deficit £13300
Live Event Budget Income
Grants/Underwriting/ Public
Funding (list all)
1 projected (£) 2 income to date (£) Variance (1-2)
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