Analysis of the 2018 Winter Olympics: Event Management and Planning

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the 2018 Winter Olympics, also known as the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, focusing on event management and the event life cycle. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the importance of planning in event execution, particularly emphasizing the bidding process, venue selection, and promotional strategies. The report then delves into the event life cycle, outlining the formation, growth, and staging stages of the Olympics. The formation stage covers the bidding and election of Pyeongchang as the host city, while the growth stage details the establishment of the organizing committee and the planning of sports venues. The staging of the event includes the torch march, the opening ceremony, and the execution of various sports events. The report concludes with recommendations based on the successful planning and execution of the event, emphasizing the importance of following the established event planning process. The report references various academic sources to support its findings.

Running head: THE 2018 WINTER OLYMPICS
The 2018 Winter Olympics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The report throws light on the process of event management and discusses the event life cycle
focusing on the development and execution of an event. The 2018 Winter Olympics which is
also known as the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics is the event that the following report throws
light on. In order to execute an event successfully, planning is the most crucial part. The same
was with the Olympics which took place in the city of Pyeongchang in South Korea. The
formation or the planning of the event started from the year of 2011 with the bidding process and
the selection of the hosting city. Later on, the venues, the sports and the design of the medals
were decided along with the spreading of the news of the occurrence of the event through the use
of news articles as well as through different social medias.

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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
DISCUSSION..................................................................................................................................4
THE EVENT LIFE CYCLE........................................................................................................4
THE 2018 WINTER OLYMPICS...............................................................................................5
The Formation Stage................................................................................................................5
The Growth Stage....................................................................................................................6
The Staging of the Event.........................................................................................................7
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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INTRODUCTION
The term “event management” refers to the effective combination of innovative and
professional skills that are essential for the establishment and distribution of any organized
events. Kim and Feamster (2013), defines the term as the application of the project management
in order to create and develop massive occasions such as festivals, wedding and the like. The
practice involves identification and gathering knowledge of the brand, targeting the audiences,
designing the event and the arranging other aspects before the actual event has been launched.
The following report focuses on the steps involved in the planning an event or the event life
cycle, the planning of the 2018 Winter Olympics.
DISCUSSION
THE EVENT LIFE CYCLE
The term “event life cycle”, not only refers to the program that has been arranged on site
and the hard work of the people who are making the program or the event successful but refers to
the whole experience. The time taken for the preparation of an event and executing the same
depends totally on how complex the event is (Quinn 2013). Less complex and small events
require a couple of months of preparation as compared to the larger and more complex events of
which the preparation time ranges from six months to around a year. All types of events require a
time to prepare before it can be executed. Every successful event has to be planned by
considering several key steps (Eddleston et al. 2013).
The event life cycle starts with the introduction of the event and planning of the goals and
the budget incurred. The next step involves in the finding and selection of the destination where

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the event is going to take place. After the destination has been selected, a structure or draft of the
event and the costs is framed. Then the designing of the event is done on website and the
registration forms are set. The next step involves rehearsing the event so as to ensure that nothing
has been missed out and improvements can be made as required. After the details of the event
have been determined, invitations are sent to the distribution lists via emails and are made alert
that the registration has begun. This is done so as to ensure the number of people who are going
to attend the event. After this, all the schedules regarding the vent are finalized and final emails
are sent to the people who are invited which generally act as the reminder. This is done to
determine the exact number of people who are about to attend the event and to ensure that there
are no confusions (Oakil et al. 2014). On the day of the event, surveys are conducted and the
people are handed some forms to fill. The survey is considered a part of the planning and data
and feedback regarding the event are collected. Lastly, the planners to create a report based on
the feedback of the attendees of the event. The feedback is shared with the other staffs and
decisions are taken while conducting future events.
THE 2018 WINTER OLYMPICS
The 2018 Winter Olympics is officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games and
commonly as Pyeongchang 2018. It was a multi-sports event held during the winter in
Pyeongchang County in South Korea. South Korea was elected first time as the host for the
Winter Olympics and hosted the Olympics for the second time after the 1988 Summer Olympics
which was hosted at Seoul (Essex and de Groot 2016).
The Formation Stage
Bidding and election of the host city is the first step towards the formation of the
Olympics. In the year 2010 and 2014 the city of Pyeongchang bid to become the host of the

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Winter Olympics but failed in the final round in the voting of Vancouver and Sochi respectively.
The process of bidding and election of the host cities started from 2011 (Muller 2014).
Pyeongchang received the final election at the 123rd IOC Session that was hosted in Durban in
2011 and earned at least 48 votes more than the other bidders. It was the third Asian country to
host the Winter Olympics after Sapporo and Nagano in Japan in the years 1972 and 1998
respectively. Three cities, Annecy (France), Munich (Germany) and Pyeongchang (South
Korea), applied in the bidding process to be elected as the host city of the 2018 Winter
Olympics, among which the city of Pyeongchang won the bid (Choi and Kaplanidou 2015). Two
websites, named gamesbid.com and around the rings, are specialized in featuring the results or
the ratio of the bidding process. These two websites analyses the bidders periodically and
accredits them on a score of ranging either from 0-100 or 0-110 respectively.
The Growth Stage
The formation of the Pyeongchang 2018 was announced by the International Olympic
Commission (IOC) on 5th August, 2011 (Thompson, Schlenker and Schulenkorf 2013). After a
time period of about four months, on 4th of October, 2011, the IOC declared that Kim Jun-Sun
would be heading the event. Another organizing committee, the “Pyeongchang Organizing
Committee for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games” was inaugurated on 19th of
October, 2011 (Gold and Gold 2016). The first and the foremost task that were undertaken by the
committee were to put forward a master plan for the sports and selection and designing of the
venues where the sports were going to take place. The members of the committee visited the city
of Pyeongchang for the first time in the month of March in the year 2012, when the construction
on the “Olympic Village” was already aloof. After a few months of the visit of the members of
the committee, in the month of June, 2012, it was reported that the construction started in a fully

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fledged way and the connecting rail between Seoul and Pyeongchang had already been
established. The committee made the winners in the year 2014 by recruiting the students from
different universities of the country of South Korea. The committee also took help of these
students to spread the news of the event of the 2018 Winter Olympics through various social
networking sites and through the news articles. The designs for the events were finalised and
were displayed in the month of September, 2017.
The Staging of the Event
The torch march of 24th October, 2017 gave the signal of the staging of the event which
started in the European country of Greece and came to an end on the opening day of the event.
The relay of the torch marchers entered the country of South Korea on the 1st of November, 2017
and lasted for 101 days. There were about 7500 bearers that represented about the 7.5 million
populations of the country and the 2018 runners who acted as the messengers of the arrival of the
torch bearers (Davies and Mackenzie 2014). The opening ceremony of the event was staged on
9th of February 2018 at the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium. Maximum numbers of the outdoor as
well as the snow sports were held the county of the city of Pyeongchang (Arnold and Foxall
2014). The indoor events and the skiing event were held in the nearby cities of Gangneung and
Jeongseon respectively.
RECOMMENDATIONS
It can be recommended that the steps of the process of event planning have been followed
while designing the event of the 2018 Winter Olympics. There were different steps starting from
the bidding process to the final staging of the events which was planned and executed in a
smooth way. There was a grand opening and closing ceremony in relation to the event. Even the

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medals which were given to the participants as a token of appreciation were designed in the
Korean fashion. This shows the respect of the people towards the country.
CONCLUSION
The execution of an event involves a lot of effort and several steps. The complexity of the
events determines the time required to plan the event. The simple and less complex events
require less time to plan, whereas the more complex events require much more time. The 2018
Winter Olympics were planned some years before the actual occurrence of the event. This is
because the event involves the people of all the nations of the world to participate in it. The
formation of the event started with the bidding and selection of the hoisting city and ends with
the actual staging of the event where people of different nations participate.

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References
Arnold, R. and Foxall, A., 2014. Lord of the (Five) Rings: Issues at the 2014
Sochi Winter Olympic Games: Guest Editors' Introduction. Problems of Post-
Communism, 61(1), pp.3-12.
Davies, A. and Mackenzie, I., 2014. Project complexity and systems
integration: Constructing the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics
Games. International Journal of Project Management, 32(5), pp.773-790.
Eddleston, K.A., Kellermanns, F.W., Floyd, S.W., Crittenden, V.L. and
Crittenden, W.F., 2013. Planning for growth: Life stage differences in family
firms. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 37(5), pp.1177-1202.
Essex, S.J. and de Groot, J., 2016. The Winter Olympics: Driving Urban
Change, 1924–2022. In Olympic Cities (pp. 84-109). Routledge.
Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. eds., 2016. Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning,
and the World’s Games, 1896–2020. Routledge.
Kim, H., & Feamster, N. (2013). Improving network management with software defined
networking. IEEE Communications Magazine, 51(2), 114-119.
Müller, M., 2014. Event seizure: The World Cup 2018 and Russia’s illusive
quest for modernisation. Social Science Research Network.
Oakil, A.T.M., Ettema, D., Arentze, T. and Timmermans, H., 2014. Changing
household car ownership level and life cycle events: an action in anticipation
or an action on occurrence. Transportation, 41(4), pp.889-904.
Quinn, B., 2013. Key concepts in event management. Sage.

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Thomson, A., Schlenker, K. and Schulenkorf, N., 2013. Conceptualizing sport
event legacy. Event Management, 17(2), pp.111-122.