Diversity of Global Events Industry

This report discusses the diversity of the global events industry, including the different types of events based on size, form, and purpose. It also explores the factors influencing the development of the industry and the value, impacts, and legacy of global events. Additionally, management strategies for event development and the impacts of the macro environment on the industry are discussed.

Global Events
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Part A...............................................................................................................................................3
Task 1.....................................................................................................................................3
P1 Diversity of Global Events Industry........................................................................3
P2 Factors influencing development of events industry ..............................................5
Task 2.....................................................................................................................................6
P3 Value, impacts and legacy of global events.............................................................6
P4 Management strategies............................................................................................6
Part B...............................................................................................................................................6
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................6
P5 Impacts of macro environment on global events industry................................................6
Task 4...............................................................................................................................................6
P6 SWOT analysis for a specific event..................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
Event Management is a type of project management. It involves studying the brand and
developing a concept to strike a connection with its target audience and then launching an event
based on the concept. Events can be formal like conferences, concerts, etc. and informal like
weddings, festivals, etc. Initially a low key concept, events industry now stands globally on a
huge scale. It involves events of many sizes from a simple concert to mega event Olympics (Veal
and Burton, 2015).
This report involves discussions on structure in event management companies and
various types of events grouped together by on the basis of size, form and content. Various
factors which influence activities in events industry at both global and local level along with the
role they play in society have also been discussed. Various management strategies used for event
development are also touched upon. Just like every other business, events industry are also
effected by positive and negative of both internal and external environment. These effects have
also been taken into consideration and discussed in the report.
Part A
Task 1
P1 Diversity of Global Events Industry
Like all other industries, event industry has also become digital and global. From small
events like a business conference to mega events like FIFA World Cup, it is on roll and is
growing rapidly. Event industry is constantly improving its technologies and is producing
innovative concepts to develop and deliver an event (Raj, Walters and Rashid, 2017). An event
here can be described as an assembly of people for some specific purpose like education,
celebration, sports, music, etc. Although there is no clear demarcation on the classification of
events yet popularly they are classified on the basis of size, type(form) and purpose.
On the basis of purpose, it can be classified into commercial and non-commercial.
Commercial events includes those events which are organised with the purpose of marketing and
promotion such as trade shows, product launches, award shows, etc. while non-commercial
events includes those events which are not related to any commercial activity. They are either
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related to charity/ fundraising or are private functions such as weddings, festivals, charitable
auctions, etc.
On the basis of type, they can be divided into corporate and private. Corporate events
are those event which are organised by or for corporates. These events can comprise both
commercial and non-commercial events. Commercial corporate events include product launches,
business dinners, networking events, etc. while non-commercial corporate events includes events
such as conferences, meetings, seminars, etc. Private events includes all events other than
corporates. Guest lists of these events are specified and targeted. Most of them are celebrated
live and thus, are also called live events. These events can include events related to individuals
such as weddings, birthday parties, school, etc. (Matthews, 2015) They can be cultural events
such as festivals, entertainment, art and culture events, etc. Festival includes celebrations of age
old traditions such as Halloween, Christmas, etc. while music concerts include events such as
musicals, dramas, theatre, museum, etc. Live events also include sports events. Sports events
such as Olympics, Commonwealth Games, World Cups, etc. have become so huge that they
deserve separate mention.
On the basis of size, events can be divided into local, hallmark, major and mega events.
Local events are those events which are organised at a community level and are targeted to
entertain local audience. These events are primarily targeted to develop and promote peace,
harmony and brotherhood among community. It aims to develop a sense of belonging with their
roots, history, culture and traditions. For example, St. George's Day. Major events are those
events that are organised at large scale and attracts a large number of participants. These events
brings a lot of revenue and business opportunities for lot of people. For example, New Year's
Day Parade, London. Hallmark event are those events which become synonymous to a particular
place or culture. Such events get identified by the name of that place and plays an important role
in image branding of the host destination. For example, Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race,
London (Viehoff and Poynter, 2016). Mega events are those events which attracts attention from
people and media all over the world. They are able to provide a good boost to the economy. For
example, London Olympic Games.
No event can be organised by a single individual. Events are a result of effective and
efficient arrangement by a team. Community events are organised by participation from local
community people. And, other events are usually organised by teams from event management
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organisations. These organisations may be specifically created to arrange the event only or are
large organisations such as The Events Company, Clearwater Events, etc. that comprises of
multiple teams that organises many events at different places. For example, Event Management
Companies comprises of a management group which are professionals who specialises in
multiple skills such as art direction, music, cinematography, etc. Under these people work their
team which help them in organising those events. Teams pitch ideas according to their
specialisation and then a comprehensive plan is developed comprising the ideas of all teams.
Then, under a professional a team is created comprising of people of all specialisations. This
team then prepare and organise an event. Structure of an event management company does not
involve its internal stakeholders only. Its external stakeholders are equally important. These
stakeholders include those people which assist the planning team in stage production, lighting,
decoration, production, music, sitting, security, logistics, supply chain, marketing, etc (Parent
and Chappelet, 2017). All these stakeholders together create an event. Some events are organised
by different organisers coming together to create a mega event.
P2 Factors influencing development of events industry
Mention of events being organised are dated as earlier as mankind exists. Initially when
mankind learned to live in association of family, community. They started having small
celebration events with their associated ones. Scale of events kept on increasing with increase in
wealth of people. Unlike earlier when events were meant for enjoyment, they started becoming
means and symbols of bragging their social status and wealth. This marked commercialisation of
events and later it developed into an industry. Around 19th century, government realised the
economic benefits such as job creation, increase in tourism, development of allied industries out
of events. UK is known for its sporting events and sports have always been patronised by rulers
in UK. For example famous Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race was first held in 1829 and
Wimbledon was held in 1877 (Preuss, 2015). These events brought lots of benefits for local
economies of UK and made sports events a highlight in UK's governance planning. Various local
and national government now pursue major event strategies to organise various types of events
today. It has helped this industry turn itself into a billion pounds industry and is now a significant
part of national economy. Events have a spillover effect on related industries, closest being the
hospitality and tourism industry.
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With the rise in globalisation, it is both an opportunity and threat for organisations in
event management industry. While, it opens plethora of new clients and business opportunities
for companies to grow and develop, it also invites many new players and MNCs in UK event
management industry. Global concerns already have specialisation in understanding the needs of
their clients and brings new ideas for them accordingly.
Task 2
P3 Value, impacts and legacy of global events
Events are social program. They have huge value since they impact and get impacted
from all aspects of a society – economical, political, cultural, environmental, etc. They provide a
boost to the economy by bringing harmony among different types of industries and work
environment. Global events not only give a great boost to the economic conditions of the host
city but also provide a chance to the host city to show its cultural and traditional legacy to the
world. Therefore, they are provided whole hearted support by government. Government provide
land for infrastructure on concessional rates, subsidies on electricity and other bills,
technological and manpower assistance, etc (Higham, 2018.). Since, government spending is all
taxpayers' money, it keeps a tight vigilance on the economic studies of events and returns it
would be getting from the event.
Impacts of Global events are high on its environment. Success of it can make the host
city, its organisers and government shine at global platform with so much positive media
coverage but even a small failure is not just an embarrassment to organisers but also to
government as it could bring so much negative publicity and political and legal embarrassment to
it. For example, in 1985 Bradford City Stadium fire, that unfortunate incident not only costed so
many people of their lives but was also a major question mark on the arrangements by the
organisers for a very long time. It can be seen that event can have both positive and negative
impact on its stakeholders. Stakeholders of an event are not only its organisers and government
but also the other allied businesses and local community of host city. A global event acts as a
catalyst for other businesses in the city as well. For example, when Olympics were held in
London, it attracted spectators and tourist from all over the world. This gave a strong boost to the
business of hospitality industry, food & beverages industry, tourism industry, transportation
industry, real estate industry, clothes and others shoppers, etc (Poynter, Viehoff and Li, 2015).
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This image and identity expansion did not help London in only 2012 but it still reaps the positive
results of media exposure to date. It has strengthened brand image of London stronger than ever.
Value of a global event is not only limited to its economic and social impacts that it
creates for host city but also, is also for the lasting legacy it creates. Continuing the example of
London Olympics, it can be seen that for it, London had developed world class sporting facility
for so many sports within the area which is now being used to train new sportspersons that can
represent UK worldwide in future. It has been that with world-class sporting facility available
near by, many new people including women had taken up wide variety of sports which were not
popular earlier (Werner and Ye, 2020). UK had given so many sports to this world and now
government is also promoting sports education to realise its aim of getting Britain recognised as
a successful sporting nation.
P4 Management strategies
An event impacts both the products and service based economy, it is primarily a service-
based industry. At minor level, communities organise stage events according to their local
culture and traditions and are able to arrange these events with community participation. On the
other hand, global events are covered by global media. They provide a chance to highlight local
economy, traditions, culture, communities, etc. at a world level. Therefore, they are to be
organised at a grand level. To arrange an event on grand level, it takes a lot of strategy on the
part of government and organising committee to decide on the scale of operations, level and
source of funding, environmental impact assessment, economic impact assessment, etc.
Most important aspect of an event is economic impact assessment. Domino effect
created by a single event creates multiplier effect to change economic conditions of host city.
Right from planning an event to launching it, promoting an event to managing it requires a lot of
funds at all levels. Cost benefit analysis needs to be undertaken for returns needs to be greater
than expenditure for an event to be financially successful (Getz and Page, 2016). Many
companies now take help of innovative technologies to assess the event management process to
improve event through optimized digital experience. Organisers have to incur substantial part of
their capital expenditure on arranging the physical infrastructure. It is important part of strategy
to decide on the right sponsors to provide funds since relationship between organisers and
sponsors is a two way process. While sponsors provide funds, they want organisers to promote
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and market them in return. So, an appropriate marketing strategy for sponsors shall also be
needed to devised. These strategies not only develop relationship for a particular event but open
the door to a long term relationship for organising future events as well as stimulating growth
and development of allied industries such as industries of sponsors, industries of event property
providers, food industry, tourism industry, etc.
Another important aspect that management strategies has to look is environmental
impact assessment. An event is made successful by the participation and satisfaction of people.
A global event attracts attention of tourists from all the over world. This has two types of
environmental impact. One is on ecological environment and other is on sociological
environment. To organise a global event, a large area has to be clear and developed. This takes a
lot of toll on ecological environment of that area. How to create minimum impact on ecological
environment forms a good part of management strategy as well as how that development can be
used post event also has to be designed (Dwyer and Forsyth, 2017). Another impact is over
social fabric of the host city. Perception and acceptance of event by local communities matters a
lot for it success. It is the localities whose participation makes arrangements successful and who
brings most of the revenue in the event. For it is the expenditure made by visitors which form
crucial part of the revenue of event in form of tickets, foods and accessories, etc.
Part B
(covered in PPT)
Conclusion
Events were once personal and privately managed. Now, event management has
developed into multi-billion dollar industry. Globalisation has presented it plethora of
opportunities while also posing same challenges in its way. Events industry can be classified into
various groups although there is no universally accepted differentiation in its structure. Events
can be local which are aimed at community development or global which aim to bring focus of
everyone around the globe to the local community. Global events create a high value and leaves
a long lasting legacy on the environment.
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References
Books and Journal
Dwyer, L. and Forsyth, P., 2017. Event evaluation: Approaches and new challenges. The Value of
Events. pp.105-123.
Getz, D. and Page, S.J., 2016. Event studies: Theory, research and policy for planned events.
Routledge.
Higham, J., 2018. Sport tourism development. Channel view publications.
Matthews, D., 2015. Special event production: The resources. Routledge.
Parent, M.M. and Chappelet, J.L. Eds., 2017. Routledge handbook of sports event management.
Routledge.
Poynter, G., Viehoff, V. and Li, Y. eds., 2015. The London Olympics and urban development:
The mega-event city. Routledge.
Preuss, H., 2015. A framework for identifying the legacies of a mega sport event. Leisure studies.
34(6). pp.643-664.
Raj, R., Walters, P. and Rashid, T., 2017. Events management: principles and practice. Sage.
Veal, A.J. and Burton, C., 2015. Research methods for arts and event management.
Viehoff, V. and Poynter, G., 2016. Mega-event cities: urban legacies of global sports events.
Routledge.
Werner, K. and Ye, D. eds., 2020. Events-Future, Trends, Perspectives: An International
Approach. UTB GmbH.
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