The Future of Events and Festivals

The growth of events and festivals has been significant over the last decade and a wide range of skills are essential to ensure those events are successful. This requirement has been instrumental in stimulating the creation of more tertiary education opportunities to develop events management knowledge. As the discipline develops, knowledge requires direction in order to understand the changing advances in society.

This is the first book to take a futures approach to understanding event management. A systematic and pattern-based understanding is used to determine the likelihood of future events and trends. Using blue skies scenarios to provide a vision of the future of events, not only capturing how the events industry is changing but also important issues that will affect events now as well as the future. Chapters include analysis of sustainability, security, impacts of social media, design at both mega event and community level and review a good range of different types of events from varying geographical regions. A final section captures the contributions of each chapter through the formation of a conceptual map for a future research agenda.

Written by leading academics in the field, this ground breaking book will be a valuable reference point for educators, researchers and industry professionals.

Ian Yeoman is a specialist tourism futurologist who believes in Star Trek, an eternal optimist, Sunderland AFC mad and enjoys cooking. Ian is a Trainee Professor at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) who commutes and holidays around the world and studying towards a higher doctorate.

Martin Robertson is a Lecturer in Event Management at Victoria University, Melbourne (Australia). His research and publications focus on festivals and destination image, socio-cultural impact, development and evaluation, and event leadership and professionalism. He has co-edited several books and special issue peer-reviewed journals. He is a passionate about tourism and events.

Una McMahon-Beattie is Head of Department for Hospitality and Tourism Management in the University of Ulster (UK). Her research interests include tourism and event marketing, revenue management and tourism futures. She is an editor/author of a number of books, book chapters and journals articles in these areas.

Karen A. Smith is Associate Professor in tourism management at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research areas include event and tourism volunteering, event ticketing and distribution, and the future of events and festivals. Karen has also co-edited Event Volunteering in the Routledge Advances in Event Research Series.

Elisa Backer is a Senior Lecturer in tourism at Federation University, Australia (formerly called University of Ballarat). She previously lectured at Southern Cross University; and prior to academia worked in industry. Elisa is considered a leading world expert in the field of Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) travel.