Critical Analysis of Sydney New Year Celebration Event Management

This essay provides a critical analysis of the Sydney New Year's Eve celebration, focusing on the external contextual factors that influenced its success. The introduction highlights the importance of event planning and the impact of factors such as political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental influences. The essay then delves into the specific case of Sydney's New Year's Eve, examining the economic and technological factors that presented both opportunities and threats. The analysis covers the high costs, commercialization, and technological errors, including a typing error and weather-related event cancellations. The paper discusses how these issues affected the event and its public perception, including criticisms from the Lord Mayor and environmental activists. The conclusion summarizes the findings, emphasizing the need for event organizers to consider external factors and develop contingency plans. The essay highlights the importance of balancing economic gains with social and environmental considerations to ensure the long-term success of events.

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Title: Event Management
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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Critical Analysis of Sydney’s New Year Celebration................................................................2
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
For a successful event, every organization has to conduct different process and
activities, to ensure the success of the event. For event management, the most important thing
that has to be kept in mind is event planning. This event planning is the core base, which
determines the success of the event. There are also several internal and external contextual
factors which have to regularly examine. While some of these factors can be controlled, but
the external factors do not possess the same attribute. These external factors include political,
social, economic, technological, legal, and environmental. In this assignment, these external
factors will be identified and analyzed in the huge event conducted for the New Year’s
celebration in Sydney, Australia.
Critical Analysis of Sydney’s New Year Celebration
In Australia, the New Year’s Eve celebration is conducted on a large scale. With
millions of people coming together to witness the magical event of fireworks, music, and
animation, there is a huge responsibility that is imposed on the organizers of the event. This
time the state government has gone overboard in making the event extravagant for the people
(Deutrom, 2018). In comparison to the former New Year’s celebration, this year the scale at
which all the preparation were planned is massive. With 1.5 million people waiting eagerly to
become a part of this massive celebration, the city was struck by a strong thunderstorm,
affecting the events major shows and also ruined the enthusiasm of the people. Though the
event happened as the weather improved, still the event was affected by a few external
contextual factors, which include economic and technological factors (Balasubramanian et
al., 2017).
This year the New Year Eve show has garnered huge criticism due to the enormous
amount of financial resource which has been invested in organizing the event. The show

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estimated cost has been approximately $5.78 million. These massive expenses have been
incurred on 8.5 tons of fireworks, 35,000 shooting comets, and 100,000 individual
pyrotechnic effects. Also, the people were charged with high ticketing charges, which ranged
from $355 to even higher (Gleeson, 2019). This commercialization of the New Year Eve’s
celebration has achieved huge criticism, stating this extravagant celebration as “outrageous”.
Many of the locations which were previously free for the public, were also highly charged.
This commercialization was criticized by the city’s Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, who stated
that these celebrations is for community togetherness and by charging people for this
celebration, the state government has conducted an atrocious act. Also, this event has affected
the socio-cultural factor, as this simple event which is for community togetherness was
scandalized and the main motive of the event was killed (Gjestsen, Wiig and Testad, 2017).
Though this celebration has contributed to the Australian economy, still the huge
charges of the ticket did not allow many people to enjoy the New Year celebration, as the
cost of the ticket was equivalent to three month’s home rent of many people (Koubaridis,
2019). Also, in the current circumstances of the Australian economy, which is experiencing a
downfall in their economic growth, this type of extravagant celebration will present a bad
image of the country to foreign investors. The other aspect which has got more backlash is
that for a 12-minute show, the state government spent such a huge amount of fireworks. In
addition to this, these fireworks are bad for the environment by polluting the air and
damaging the environment (Hamilton et al., 2018).
The other external factor which has affected this event is the technology factor. This
New Year Eve celebration event, committed a huge technological error, as there was a failure
by the management in stating the correct year. There was a typing error, as the management
team wished 2018 in case of 2019. This technological error also received huge trolling on the
social media, which affected the image of the state government and the other organizers.

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Also, the other technological error, which happened huge to the thunderstorm was that the
show, which was scheduled for 8:30 have to be cancelled as the management team did have
an alternative plan to manage any failures (McGowan, 2018).
This technological error could have been managed appropriately if the organizers
would have planned the event in more detail, keeping in mind the natural calamities and other
technological errors. Due to this technological error people who have spent their hard earn
money to witness the complete show was a bit heartbroken too, as they could not enjoy music
and animated show. Though it was with the use of technology that the other events were
successfully conducted still, the biggest miss by the management was stating the year wrong.
It is a known fact that external factors have very few chances of getting control, but many of
the aspects associated with it can be conducted appropriately if they are conducted with a
focused approach. Thus, the same should have been done by the organizers of New Year’s
Eve celebration (Nellist, 2018).
In the same way, the management should have thought about the different positives
and negatives of different aspects associated with the event. For instance, does the
commercialization of the event and charging the people for an event which should be
available free of cost. The social and cultural factor that an event which is for community
togetherness should not exclude people, just because they cannot afford it. The technological
factor that the magical event which is for the people should be available for all. Also,
especially due to the technological and economic failure which happened in this event, the
country Australia has received a huge backlash from the local and international people
(Tidström, 2012).
In addition, to this one factor which should have been the main focus of the organizers
is the environmental factor. Global warming is increasing which has also exhibited many

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alarming signs for the environment. With the huge amount of fireworks that have been
utilized in the 12-minute show increased the level of pollution massively, affecting the health
of the people and the environment. With so many initiatives taken by the Australian
government to preserve the environment, this event conducted by the New South Wales
government has attracted huge backlash for damaging and destroying the environment
(Zardo, Collie and Livingstone, 2014). According to the current environmental conditions in
the world, such events are touted as huge failures as they promote wrong practices and,
especially, even more, when the organization who is conducting it is governmental.
Therefore, this misses by the state government has been hugely criticized by many
environmental activists of Australia and also from different parts of the world.
Conclusion
Thus, from this entire analysis, this can be formulated that though the event helps the
Australian economy in earning huge profits, in the current economic condition, this was not
the correct move. On the other hand, this event was against the socio-cultural norms as this
event did not bring together the community and also the damage to the environment affected
the different environmental factors. Thus, this can be stated that though the main approach
while organizing the event is to ensure that the event is a hit, but the planning committee
should always ensure that they do not strike any external contextual factors which brings
backlash to the event. In addition to this, it is the duty of the management team to ensure that
they always have an alternative plan in case of any failure like the cancellation of the 8:30
animated show in the New Year’s Eve celebration show.
Word Count: 1250

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References
Balasubramanian, B., Heurtin-Roberts, S., Krasny, S., Rohweder, C., Fair, K., Olmos-Ochoa,
T., Stange, K. and Gorin, S. (2017). Factors Related to Implementation and Reach of a
Pragmatic Multisite Trial: The My Own Health Report (MOHR) Study. The Journal of the
American Board of Family Medicine, 30(3), pp.337-349.
Deutrom, R. (2018). Sydney’s most outrageous NYE parties that will leave you broke.
[online] NewsComAu. Available at:
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/dont-waste-your-money-stay-home-
and-order-takeaway/news-story/6f6d23bfc25d5fa43f0e1838ff947109 [Accessed 11 Apr.
2019].
Gjestsen, M., Wiig, S. and Testad, I. (2017). What are the key contextual factors when
preparing for successful implementation of assistive living technology in primary elderly
care? A case study from Norway. BMJ Open, 7(9), pp.10-15.
Gleeson, P. (2019). Internal & External Factors That Affect an Organization. [online]
Smallbusiness.chron.com. Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/internal-external-
factors-affect-organization-16641.html [Accessed 11 Apr. 2019].
Hamilton, A., Mittman, B., Campbell, D., Hutchinson, C., Liu, H., Moss, N. and Wyatt, G.
(2018). Understanding the impact of external context on community-based implementation of
an evidence-based HIV risk reduction intervention. BMC Health Services Research, 18(1),
pp.5-10.
Koubaridis, A. (2019). ‘Severe’ storm before midnight. [online] NewsComAu. Available at:
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/natural-wonders/storm-warning-as-up-to-

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one-million-people-gather-at-sydney-harbour/news-story/
6f04b40d139c3839e9450b7b10347bef?from=rss-basic [Accessed 11 Apr. 2019].
McGowan, M. (2018). New Year's Eve: Sydney lord mayor says ticketed events for fireworks
'outrageous'. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
news/2018/dec/31/new-years-eve-sydney-lord-mayor-says-ticketed-events-for-fireworks-
outrageous [Accessed 11 Apr. 2019].
Nellist, T. (2018). Awkward moment Sydney's new year fireworks show gets the year
WRONG. [online] Express.co.uk. Available at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1065580/australia-news-sydney-harbour-bridge-
fireworks-show-year-wrong-2018-new-year-2019 [Accessed 11 Apr. 2019].
Tidström, A. (2012). Conflicts in business relationships in light of the external
environment. International Journal of Business Environment, 5(2), p.122.
Zardo, P., Collie, A. and Livingstone, C. (2014). External factors affecting decision-making
and use of evidence in an Australian public health policy environment. Social Science &
Medicine, 108(1), pp.120-127.

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