University Report on Pyeongchang Winter Olympics Event Management

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018, focusing on its formation, growth, and staging phases. It details the extensive preparations, including venue construction and infrastructure upgrades, and highlights the involvement of key stakeholders such as international federations, national Olympic committees, and commercial partners. The report examines the opening and closing ceremonies, the use of artificial snow, and the challenges encountered during the event. It identifies several shortcomings, including inadequate optics, inconvenient event timings, and inappropriate award ceremonies, offering recommendations for future events to improve spectator experience and athlete satisfaction. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for better planning and execution to ensure the success of similar mega-events in the future.

Running head: ATTRACTION AND EVENT MANAGEMENT
Attraction and Event Management
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

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1. The formation stage of the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics
The winter Olympics 2018, also known as PyeongChang 2018, is referred to an
international winter multi-sport event which was held between 9 the February an 25 the February
2018. The event was held in Pyeongchang Country, Gangwon Province, South Korea. The vision
of the mentioned event was to offer the Olympic movement a new horizon, a new growth that
has not been seen before. The mission of the event was to offer a unique stage to the performer
where they would be able to achieve superior performances. The event managers had bid to host
both the 2010 and 2014 winter Olympics but had lost to Vancouver and Sochi respectively
(Essex and de Groot 2016). However, in the year 2018, Pyeongchang was elected host of the
123rd winter Olympic with a majority of 48 votes. A great deal of preparation was involved for
hosting the Winter Olympics. On October 2011, the Pyeongchang Coordination Commission
was formed for coordinating all planning associated with the mentioned event. The chief aim of
the mentioned committee was to put together a master plan for designing the Olympic venue. On
March 2012, the construction of the venue was started in the Olympic Village (Kim, Choi and
Kaplanidou 2015). The venues for the 2018 Winter Olympics was consist of the Coastal Cluster,
located in Gangneung, the Alpensia Cluster located in Daegwallyeongmyeon and finally the
Jungbong and Bokwang Phoenix Park, both of which was stand-alone venues. The clusters
included the bellow mentioned buildings:
1. In the Coastal Cluster the Union Hockey Center, Gyeongpo Ice Hall, Gangneung Indoor
Ice Rink and the Gangneung Sports Complex Speed Skating Facility were constructed.
2. The Alpensia Cluster included Olympic Park of Hoenggye, Alpensia Biathlon Centre,
Alpensia Sliding Center, Alpensia Ski Jumping Stadium, Alpensia Nordic Center,
Yongpyong Resort and Olympic Village.

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Apart from preparing the above-mentioned building for housing the games and providing
residence to the athletes, the infrastructure of the Pyeongchang stadium was also updated. For
instance, in order to provide a smooth and hustle free travel for both the participants and the
audiences, from June 2012, a high-speed rail line was constructed which connects Pyeongchang
with Seoul. Considering the fact that the preparation of winter Olympic 2018 was the huge
undertaking not only for Pyeongchang but also for South Korea, the expense for the mentioned
event was several billions of dollars. The projected expansion of the event was 7 billion dollars,
however, according to the Council of Foreign Relations, the total expanse of the Winter Olympic
2018 was 13 billion dollars (Brittain and Beacom 2018).
3. The growth stage of the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics
After the formation of the organizational committee and initial planning of the event
venue, the second step of the mentioned event was to arrange the event with the help of active
participation of the stakeholders. The major stakeholders of the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics
2018 include the international federations, the national Olympic committees and the commercial
partners who play a major role in sponsoring the event (International Olympic Committee.
2018). During the growth stage of the event, the event organizers were helped by the experts
from the International Federations. These experts had provided assistance to the event
coordinators in organizing an outstanding test event as well as sporting competitions along with
preparing fantastic venues. The National Olympic Committees had ensured that athletes will
have a fantastic experience. Moreover, they were also responsible to ensure that spectators from
different parts of the world were able to attend the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics 2016
without any types of difficulties (International Olympic Committee 2018). The commercial
partners had promoted the event along with bringing a huge amount of operational expertise as

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well as innovative product to the tale that helped the games to run smoothly. The opening and the
closing ceremonies had taken place at the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium which was a
temporary venue constructed to accommodate 35000 spectators.
The staging of the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics
The opening ceremony of the mentioned event took place at the Pyeongchang Olympic stadium
on 9th February 2018. It began at 20:00 KST and ends at 22:00 KST (The Japan Times 2018).
The official inauguration of the game was done by Moon Jae-In, the President of the Republic of
South Korea. The site of the Opening Ceremony was built in a pentagonal shape (Craig and
Bauman 2014). The stage was torn down after the completion of the opening and closing
ceremonies so that no Olympic or Paralympics games are held at that venue. More than 98
percent of the snow in the mentioned event was fake. According to the project manager Ian
Honey, the management has taken the decision due to the scarcity of snowfall in some of the
locales (Hoeger et al. 2018). As a result of the scarcity of snowfall, the outdoor winter sports had
come under threat.
Recommendation
Several loopholes have been detected with the planning and organization of the Pyeongchang
Winter Olympics 2018. The 1st mistake that can be encountered was the inadequate provision of
appropriate optics to the skaters as well as to the television views across the world. Moreover,
the skating competition had begun at 10 A.M. in the morning in order to televise the event in
prime time in US (International Olympic Committee 2018). This had resulted in a nearly empty
stadium as it was difficult for a majority of spectators to arrive within the stipulated time after
going through several rounds of security. Moreover, the Exhibition Gala on the last day started at

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9.30 a.m. Hence, it is recommended that in future, the timings of the games should be decided,
keeping in mind the convenience of the spectators so that the view of the empty stadium can be
avoided. Moreover, the organizers should invest money for implementing better optical
technologies so that a better quality of view can be provided to the skaters as well as to the
global audience sitting in another side of the television.
Another issue that was found with the mentioned event was the prize offered to the
athletes. During the medal ceremony, instead of providing the winners to the gold medals, they
were given a stuffed toy. This has left several athletes like Yuzuru Hanyu feeling offended.
Hence, it is recommended that in order to avoid the issue, the event management committee
should invest on traditional gold, silver and bronze medals instead of handling event mascots in
the form of soft toys to the winners (McBride 2018).
The medal ceremony was held at night whereas the competition was held during the daytime. As
a result of that, a majority of seats were empty since several spectators were too reluctant to
come for the award ceremony after returning to their hotels or home. Hence, in order to avoid
such issue, the management should organize and plan the events understanding the concerns of
the spectators. The event should be organized at least after the 12 pm so that spectators who are
travelling from abroad can arrive within the stipulated time (Kim and Baker 2018). It is expected
that with the help of the above-mentioned recommendation, the mentioned event will gain grad
success in the upcoming year.

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Reference List
Brittain, I. and Beacom, A., 2018. Introduction. In The Palgrave Handbook of Paralympic
Studies (pp. 1-11). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Craig, C.L. and Bauman, A.E., 2014. The impact of the Vancouver Winter Olympics on
population level physical activity and sport participation among Canadian children and
adolescents: population based study. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and
Physical Activity, 11(1), p.107.
Essex, S.J. and de Groot, J., 2016. The Winter Olympics: Driving Urban Change, 1924–
2022. In Olympic Cities (pp. 84-109). Routledge.
Hoeger, W.W., Hoeger, S.A., Hoeger, C.I. and Fawson, A.L., 2018. Lifetime of Physical
Fitness and Wellness. Cengage Learning.
International Olympic Committee. 2018. “The stage is set for excellent Olympic Winter
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