Vivid Sydney: An Analysis of Event Management, Marketing & Impact

This report provides an analysis of the Vivid Sydney light and music festival, examining its event management, marketing strategies, and impact on the host community. The festival, a 23-day event held annually, aims to boost the economic and social vitality of the New South Wales region. It attracts tourists and serves as a forum for exchanging business ideas. The report highlights the event's marketing methods, including digital technology and social media engagement, and discusses its positive consequences, such as enhancing Sydney's reputation and promoting economic sustainability. Methods used to evaluate the event's success, such as empirical evidence, media coverage, and audience surveys, are also examined, along with recommendations for addressing issues like crowd management and transportation disruptions. Desklib provides this and many other solved assignments for students.

Running head: EVENT MANAGEMENT
Event Management
Name of the student
University name
Author’s note

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Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................2
Part one-.................................................................................................................................2
Description of the event.............................................................................................................2
Goals and objectives of the event...............................................................................................3
Overview of the event-marketing methods................................................................................3
Part two-.................................................................................................................................4
Possible impact of the event on the host community.................................................................4
Methods used to evaluate success and impact produced by the event.......................................5
Recommendations about the impacts and identification of issues relevant to the event
organisers...................................................................................................................................5
References..............................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The current study focuses on the aspect of festival and special event management.
Event management is one of the important disciplines which require a lot of precision and
planning. Most of the times, the special events are symbolic of a cultural history and are
extremely important for maintaining the heritage and cultural identity of a place. The amount
of money collected from some of these events is used in philanthropic activities. However,
the success of any major event is dependent upon correct amount of advertising and planning.
For the current study, the Sydney based light and music festival have been taken into
consideration known as VIVID SYDNEY. The assignment had been undertaken in order to
discuss the goals as well as the nitty-gritty which goes in the planning and management of the
event.
Part one-
Description of the event
It is a 23 days festival which is supposed to run from 25th may to 16th june , 2018. It
also features as one of most important creative forum of the world. The cutting edge
contemporary music programs and free public exhibition of outdoor lighting sculptures
makes it an instant hit. VIVID SYDNEY is an event where art, technology and commerce
intersect (vividsydney.com 2018). It serves as a forum for public talks from some of the
creative leaders of the world. The event attracted more than 800,000 visitors in the year 2013,
which contributed to more than $20 million to the New South Wales economy (afr.com
2018).

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Goals and objectives of the event
The goals and objectives of the lighting and musical festival have been described
further.
Objective 1: economic vitality
Goal 1: to ensure a vibrant, strong and sustainable local economy
Objective 2: social vitality
Goal 2: promotion of diverse, dynamic and connected local communities
The 23 days festival is organised with the aim of restoring the economic and social
vitality of the region. The festival invited some of the world class business leaders with
creative ideas and innovation skills. As mentioned by Haeusler (2014), the fruitful
collaboration between organizations across different nations leads to successful job creation,
which helps in the development of a sustainable economy. The event also results in
assemblage of people across different communities and region, which further helps in the
development of a strong social and community.
Overview of the event-marketing methods
The VIVID SYDNEY was aimed to act a magnet for invirting greater number of
tourists from Asia Pacific. As mentioned by Walters and Insch (2018), the goal is to reinforce
tourism along with also acting as an important forum for the exchange of crucial business
ideas. The marketing methods used by the event also serve as a crucial factor for inviting
tourists. VIVID SYDNEY has been using digital technology to give the best in class
experience to its target audience. This could be explained on the basis of the 2017
collaboration with snapchat, which served as the social media partner of the event. In here the
snapchat users will have the option to choose from a set of five geofilters, which help the

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attendees to explore many precincts in order to collect the full set of VIVID SYDNEY
(dailytelegraph.com.au 2018). Additionally, the exclusively provided VIVID SYDNEY lens
over can be used capture augmented version of the face of a user. The VIVID SYDNEY 2018
promise to maintain the feature it has provide since the last year. It will continue to provide
audio files though its app, which will provide the audio description regarding each key venue
and light sculpture. The Smartphone app of the VIVID SYDNEY offers features such as
improved navigation, push notifications, calendar and event ticket integration. As reported by
Herezniak and Florek (2016), the vent ticket integration resulted in an 11.1% increase in the
overall purchase quantity of the tickets of the event.
Part two-
Possible impact of the event on the host community
The event VIVID SYDNEY can have mixed effects upon the host community. Some
of these have been discussed further with reference to plausible impact upon the society and
the economy. The event was followed by a huge number of positive consequences, which
was further evaluated though face-to face interview with the attendees. The survey conducted
highlighted several themes which could be further discussed over here. Some of these include
good use of community funds along making the region economically more sustainable. 89%
of the respondents surveyed mentioned that the event of enhanced the reputation of Sydney as
a creative region (Parmenter 2011). A large part of the attendees of the survey agreed to the
fact that the event made the local community economically sustainable. As reported by
Herezniak and Florek (2016), the additional funds generated could be used for the promotion
of philanthropic activities.
The event calls for the participation of a large number of world class leaders who are
there to share their take entrepreneurial ideas. The event also acts as an annual mega job fair

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where companies come and advertise their marketing objectives (Hespanhol et al. 2013). As
mentioned by Lamond and Spracklen (2016), the event gives a push to start up entrepreneurs
as they get to choose from a wide display of entrepreneurial ideas. Additionally, the event
also calls for the participation from a number of local musician bands and talents, which
results in rich mixing of cultures; as many people come and participate from tribal areas. As
mentioned by Haeusler (2014), the tourism along with job development aspect results in the
generation of extra funds.
Methods used to evaluate success and impact produced by the event
A number of methods could be used to evaluate the success of the event. Some of
these have been evaluated over here such as empirical evidence, media coverage, organiser’s
report and audience survey. Since the event is large-scale, a number of mixed methods have
been used to measure the success of the event. An empirical data collected from a survey
with the last year attendees of the VIVID SYDNEY showed that almost 78% wished to return
(afr.com 2018). Some of the reasons cited by them were as follows- closeness to residence,
less crowd, variety show, family friendly etc. As reported by the organisers of the event the
return on investment was around $1.8 million and $2.0 million for the event, which gave the
economy a huge push (huffingtonpost.com.au 2018). It led to an increase of 37% in the local
business profit since the last year, as the event increased the number of people visiting the
area three fold times (vividsydney.com 2018). The integration of the event with social media
platforms such as snapchat and facebook calls for huge target audience.
Recommendations about the impacts and identification of issues relevant to the event
organisers
A number of issues were faced in organising and conducting the VIVID SYDNEY
event. One of the most dominant issues which are faced over here is the management of the

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large crowd. The large crowd calls for stricter measures to be taken by the Sydney based cops
such as putting crowd barriers to facilitate safe viewing. One of the effective measures which
had been used by the police since last year is using social media pages to keep crowd
movements up-to-date and announce important festivals or events. It has been identified by
one of the event organisers that the road closures may hinder bus and public vehicle
movement through normal routes. The information regarding each event is put up on the
website so that people can check that in advance and plan accordingly. For additional safety
the organising committee has decided to put ID wristbands on the hands of the children
where the parents can put down their phone numbers so that it is easy to locate the child in
case they get lost (vividsydney.com 2018). Additionally, the VIVID SYDNEY app is a good
way of connecting with the audience as well ensures that the attendees are kept up- to-date.

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References
afr.com 2018, afr.com , Available at :
http://www.afr.com/news/special-reports/vivid-2017/sydney-becomes-the-creative-hub-of-
the-region-20170517-gw6mty [Accessed on 17 April 2018]
dailytelegraph.com.au 2018, dailytelegraph.com.au , Available at:
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/vivid-sydney-2017-the-essential-guide/news-
story/a0fa64a8b44851703d7d6eb546b51654 [Accessed on 15 April 2018]
Haeusler, M.H., 2014. The Sydney Vivid Festival: From Place Branding to Smart
Cities. Cities of Light: Two Centuries of Urban Illumination, p.144.
Hereźniak, M. and Florek, M., 2016. Citizen involvement, place branding and mega events:
insights from Expo host cities. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, pp.1-12.
Hespanhol, L., Bown, O., Cao, J. and Tomitsch, M., 2013, November. Evaluating the
effectiveness of audio-visual cues in immersive user interfaces. In Proceedings of the 25th
Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference: Augmentation, Application,
Innovation, Collaboration (pp. 569-572). ACM.
huffingtonpost.com.au 2018, huffingtonpost.com.au , Available at :
https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/05/21/planning-on-going-to-vivid-heres-what-you-
should-know_a_22102585/ [Accessed on 16 April 2018]
Lamond, I.R. and Spracklen, K., 2016. Critical Event Studies, pp.56-85.
Parmenter, G., 2011. The city branding of Sydney. In City Branding (pp. 199-205). Palgrave
Macmillan, London.

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vividsydney.com 2018, vividsydney.com , Available at :
https://www.vividsydney.com/about-vivid-sydney [Accessed on 16 April 2018]
Walters, T. and Insch, A., 2018. How community event narratives contribute to place
branding. Journal of Place Management and Development, (just-accepted), pp.100-159.