Eventful Cities: Cultural Management and Urban Revitalisation

Eventful Cities: Cultural Management and Urban Revitalisation Greg Richards Robert Palmer AMSTERDAM BOSTON HEIDELBERG LONDON NEW YORK OXFORD PARIS SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO SINGAPORE SYDNEY TOKYO Butterworth-Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier. Butterworth-Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier. The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, UK 30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA Copyright Ó 2010 Elsevier Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, E-mail: [email protected]. 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ISBN: 978-0-7506-6987-0 For information on all Butterworth-Heinemann publications visit our Web site at www.elsevierdirect.com Printed and bound in Great Britain 101112 10987654321 Preface The aim of this book is to analyse the ways in which events help cities become more dynamic and liveable places, and how cities can develop and manage eventfulness to achieve a wide range of cultural, economic and social objectives. This is not a book about event management, or the operational management of events, but about making cities eventful and utilising events to help ‘make’ places. It is not simply a book about cities with events; it is above all about the practice of eventful cities. The structure of this volume follows the process of conceiving, developing, staging, managing, marketing and assessing events. Hopefully these analyses will provide a greater understanding of the relationship between events and their host cities – how events shape cities, and how cities shape events. In order to illustrate these processes, this book draws on the experiences of cities as hosts for the European Capital of Culture (ECOC), an event held annually in different Euro- pean cities since 1985. It is also based on the authors’ experience of directing, advising and analysing different ECOCs, but also many other major events and festivals. Because ECOCs have been held in a range of different cities, and each city has interpreted the concept in different ways, the ECOC provides a fascinating comparative laboratory for studying the relationship between cities and events: a laboratory the authors have been following for many years. The unique insights into urban eventfulness provided by the ECOC and other examples from events around the globe provide an in- depth coverage of the major issues and opportunities facing eventful cities. The decision to focus primarily on culture is based on a gap in current publications in this field. In doing so, we have vii viii Preface decided on a wide conception of culture, of course encom- passing the arts, but also focusing on other forms of cultural production and consumption. There are many studies of events, but these tend to focus on sport and popular enter- tainment, and particularly international sporting events such as the Olympic Games. This is not surprising, as major sports events tend to generate significant economic and media impact, which appear to make their role in specific host cities more noteworthy than most cultural events. However, rela- tively few cities will have the opportunity to host mega events of the scale of the Olympic Games, whereas every city has the ability to attract or create its own cultural events. This volume begins a consideration of the reasons why cities might want to develop events. Chapter 2 considers the process of event creation, what ‘events’ are, how they are created and how cities choose which events to celebrate. For the eventful city, individual events are the building blocks used to construct a vision and create a cultural programme, which is the focus of Chapter 3. Programming the city also requires the collaboration and coordination of a wide network of stakeholders, an issue covered in Chapter 4. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from stakeholder theory and network theory, the chapter analyses issues of leadership, collaboration, partnership and coordination in bringing an event programme to fruition. Chapter 5 considers the management and organisation of the eventful city, examining the relationship between strategic and tactical management issues, the methods of dealing with crisis management and the functioning of management and information systems. Chapter 6 considers the problems of raising money from different sources to fund event pro- grammes, including public sector financing and sponsorship. Once the event has been created and finance secured, it needs to be marketed. Chapter 7 explores marketing, communica- tions and the role of the media. The chapter considers the role of marketing and promotion, both as events in their own right, and their wider role in creating an image for a city or region. The audiences and publics of the eventful city are the subject of Chapter 8. The profile of visitors to different events, their motivations and experiences are discussed. This Preface ix information is vital when deciding how to reach the audience, and what kind of events to stage. Chapter 9 focuses on the outcomes and impacts of events. Events are increasingly designed to deliver a complex range of cultural, social and economic impacts. In most cases, the estimation of impacts prior to staging the event is an important consideration of whether or not to stage an event. Impact assessments are therefore being used as tools for advocacy, as well as for directing and evaluating policy. Chapter 10 considers different aspects of event programme sustainability, examining how the eventful city can be programmed and managed to ensure long-term success. The issues covered include environmental, cultural, social and economic sustainability, and the balance between these different aspects. Additional critical reflections on the ‘keys to success’ for the eventful city follow in Chapter 11. Many people involved in conceiving, supporting and organising events, including political leaders, city officials, sponsors, event managers, urban planners and cultural policy makers, are interested in learning from experience in their own and other cities about how to make eventfulness work. The chapter outlines many of the key concepts that underpin successful events, drawing on the experience of the authors and others, and the analysis of specific events across the world. The concluding chapter looks at major key global trends and their implications for the development of eventful cities in the future. Key environmental, socio-economic, political and cultural trends are analysed, and some of the emerging event ‘models’, which are having a growing influence on the way cities think about their events are considered. This volume intends to provide guidance for those involved in designing, running, funding, evaluating and studying cities and their events, for those who are interested in the board processes both of cultural management and urban revitalisation, as these relate to events in cities. Although we have tried as far as possible to cover a range of cities across the globe in terms of size and geography to illustrate different issues in eventful cities in an international context, prudence dictates that we concentrated largely to our experience and the availability of reliable and objective x Preface analysis. Although there is a particular focus on European cities, we have used many examples from different conti- nents, when appropriate, to convey that most of the principles derived from the volume are applicable to a wide variety of cities in different geographical locations. Nevertheless, the way in which these principles are applied, are always acutely sensitive to the local context. What works for cities such as Barcelona or Glasgow or Montreal will not automatically work elsewhere in precisely the same manner. There is always a profound need to evaluate proposed action against the particularities of context and place. We are grateful to a great many people for contributing to the knowledge contained in this book, and we apologise in advance for not being able to mention all of them. But a few people stand out in terms of their contribution to critical thinking about the ECOC and to our thinking about eventfulness in cities, including Carlos Fernandes, Robert Garcia, Luis Herrero, Erik Hitters, Dragan Klaic, Charles Margue, Mary Miller, Ilie Rotariu, Myriam Stoffen and many others. We are also grateful to Charles Margue (TNS ILRES), Leiden University, the European Festivals Research Project and Dieter Hardt-Stremayr (Graz Tourismus) for permission to use data, tables and figures for this volume, and to the European Commission that supported the Palmer-Rae study on European Capitals of Culture. This book is dedicated to those whose commitment to the adventure of creating eventfulness is helping to make cities great places to live, for ourselves and the generations that follow, and this includes some special children – Eva, Megan, Melissa, Micole and Ryan, who are events in themselves inspiring the world with joy and spirit. About the Authors Robert Palmer is the Director of Culture and Cultural and Natural Heritage of the Council of Europe, based in Stras- bourg, France.

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