Strategic Event Leveraging: Models, Practices and Prospects

By Vassilios Ziakas

This book comprehensively describes, explains, critiques and refines our current perspectives of event leveraging and, in so doing, provides an analytic account of the subject area as a whole, as it concerns the strategic pursuit of attaining and magnifying benefits that derive from events. Encompassing all events including sport, cultural and business, it also covers all kinds of benefits that can be leveraged and lead to sustainability through triple-bottom-line assessment. The book takes an interdisciplinary approach to cross boundaries and creates linkages among the parent disciplines (sport management; events, hospitality and tourism; leisure studies, parks and recreation) and general disciplines (management, marketing, sociology, anthropology, urban and regional planning).

Written by an experienced author well-known in the field of event management and leveraging, this book:
- Examines the art of event leveraging and contributes to the literature by refining pertinent theory.
- Presents and explains theoretical models of event leveraging and emergent derivative frameworks.
- Reveals major practices, issues and lessons from literature and case studies.
- Integrates disciplinary applications of event leveraging to further refine the theoretical perspective through an interdisciplinary lens.
- Develops a comprehensive outlook of event leveraging as a means to sustainability.

Building a truly global and transdisciplinary framework, the author provides direction and possibilities that can lead to new forms of leveraging, making this an excellent resource for researchers, practitioners and students interested in event management and policy, sport management, recreation and leisure, and hospitality, tourism and festival management.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CAB International
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781789247879

Vassilios Ziakas

Vassilios Ziakas is Associate Professor in Sport and Event Management, Honorary Faculty, University of Liverpool, UK. He is editor-in-chief of the book series Event Management Theory and Methods (Goodfellow).

Book preview

Strategic Event Leveraging

Models, Practices and Prospects

Strategic Event Leveraging

Models, Practices and Prospects

Vassilios Ziakas

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© Vassilios Ziakas 2022. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronically, mechanically, by photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library, London, UK.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ziakas, Vassilios, author.

Title: Strategic event leveraging : models, practices and prospects / Vassilios Ziakas.

Description: Boston, MA : CAB International, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: This book comprehensively describes, explains, critiques and refines our current perspectives of event leveraging and, in so doing, provides an analytic account of the event leveraging subject area as a whole, as it concerns the strategic pursuit of attaining and magnifying benefits that derive from events-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021024105 (print) | LCCN 2021024106 (ebook) | ISBN 9781789247855 (hardback) | ISBN 9781789247862 (ebook) | ISBN 9781789247879 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Special events--Planning. | Special events--Management. | Strategic planning.

Classification: LCC GT3405 .Z53 2021 (print) | LCC GT3405 (ebook) | DDC 394.2--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021024105

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021024106

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.

ISBN-13: 9781789247855 (hardback)

9781789247862 (ePDF)

9781789247879 (ePub)

DOI: 10.1079/9781789247855.0000

Commissioning Editor: Claire Parfitt

Editorial Assistant: Kate Hill

Production Editor: James Bishop

Typeset by Exeter Premedia Services Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

Printed and bound in the UK by Severn, Gloucester

Dedicated to the memory of my mother Artemisia and my uncle Nikolaos Bazakas

Αϕιερωμέυο στη μητέρα μου Αρτεμισία και στον θείο μου Νικόλαο Μπαζάκα

Contents

List of Tables and Figures

Foreword by Laurence Chalip

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Grasping Event Leverage

1. Foundational Grounds of Event Leveraging

1.1 The Study of Event Leverage: Integral Reasoning and Cross-boundaries

1.2 Foundational Premises

1.3 From Grandiose Unfulfilled Promises to Modest Down-to-earth Pragmatism

1.4 Cultural Underpinnings of Event Meanings

1.5 Social Networks and Relationship-building

1.6 Synopsis

2. Models and Practices

2.1 Overview

2.2 Economic Leverage

2.2.1 Dissecting the economic leverage model

2.2.2 Scholarly applications and allied practices

2.3 Social Leverage

2.3.1 Unpacking the social leverage mechanisms

2.3.2 Inquiries and extensions

2.4 Sport Participation Leverage

2.5 Tourism Leverage

2.5.1 Events as tourism attractions and catalysts

2.5.2 Outline of the tourism leverage model

2.6 Derivative Models and Contexts of Practice

2.6.1 Olympic tourism leverage

2.6.2 Heritage leverage

2.6.3 Bid leverage

2.6.4 Parasport leverage

2.7 Progress and Outlook

3. Issues and Challenges

3.1 Problematizing Event Leveraging

3.2 Ontological and Conceptual Presuppositions

3.2.1 Pragmatophilia and empiricism

3.2.2 Temporality, transience and vain labels

3.3 Contextual Disciplinary Perspectives

3.3.1 Singularism, fragmentation and insularity

3.3.2 Misapplication, legacy and gigantism

3.4 Structures and Processes

3.4.1 Political interference and over-commercialization

3.4.2 Uneven distribution of benefits and stakeholder disengagement

3.4.3 Missing linkages and cross-sectoral gaps

3.5 Organizational and Operational Issues

3.5.1 Lack of strategic vision

3.5.2 Insufficient capacity and knowledge exchange

3.5.3 Scarce resources and funding

3.5.4 Ineffective governance

3.5.5 Stakeholder mismanagement

3.6 An Interdisciplinary Agenda for Critical Inquiry

3.6.1 Synopsis of challenges

3.6.2 A critical research perspective

3.6.3 Towards holistic event leveraging for sustainable development

3.6.4 Broadening the theoretical lenses

3.7 Theoretical Demarcations and Postulations

3.7.1 Event strategy-making

3.7.2 Synergistic community assets and event value

3.7.3 Event-based placemaking in the network society

3.7.4 Events network and inter-organizational relationships

3.7.5 Community capacity-building for events

3.7.6 Popular culture and events

3.7.7 Value co-creation in events

3.8 Probing Cases for Comprehensive Event Leverage

3.8.1 Authentic Big Blue in Amorgos

3.8.2 Manchester

3.8.3 Sunshine Coast

3.8.4 Didactic case

4. Tenets of Cross-leveraging

4.1 Nature and Types of Cross-leverage

4.2 Event Portfolio Origins and Evolution

4.2.1 Beginnings and foundations

4.2.2 Emerging scholarship

4.3 Fundamentals of Event Portfolio Theory

4.3.1 Affinities and discrepancies

4.3.2 Eventfulness and event portfolio defined

4.3.3 Portfolio planning, networks and community capacity

4.3.4 Portfolio design and generic strategies

4.4 Sustainability and Resilience

5. Prospects and Avenues

5.1 Field Diagnostics and State of Play

5.2 Phenomenology of Event Experiences and Meanings

5.3 A Comprehensive Event Leveraging Framework

5.4 Key Prospective Areas for Event Leverage

6. Archetypes and Patterns

6.1 Epitomes of Strategic Event Leveraging

6.2 Monothematic Leveraging

6.3 Multipronged Leveraging

6.4 Concept Leveraging

6.5 Proximal Leveraging

6.6 Analogies and Disparities

References and Further Reading

Index

List of Tables and Figures

List of Tables

Table 2.1. Questions towards fostering the social utility of events (Permission granted for re-use of author’s own table).

Table 3.1. Synopsis of major challenges in event leveraging.

Table 3.2. A critical research agenda for the study of event leverage (Permission granted for re-use of author’s own table).

Table 4.1. Event portfolio strategies (Permission granted for re-use of author’s own table).

Table 5.1. Research questions for phenomenological issue areas in event management (Permission granted for re-use of author’s own table).

Table 6.1. Analogies and disparities.

List of Figures

Fig 1.1. Impact vs. leverage.

Fig 1.2. Event strategic master plan.

Fig 2.1. Social leverage of events (Permission granted for re-use by CABI).

Fig 2.2. An integrative framework for fostering the social utility of events (Permission granted for re-use of author’s own figure).

Fig 2.3. Model of event portfolio tourism leverage (Permission granted for re-use of author’s own figure).

Fig 2.4. Post-Olympic tourism leverage.

Fig 2.5. Principal forms of event leverage.

Fig 3.1. Convergence of alternative perspectives.

Fig 4.1. Defining the event portfolio.

Fig 4.2. Event portfolio planning and leveraging (Permission granted for re-use of author’s own figure).

Fig 4.3. Event portfolio network and inter-organizational relationships (Permission granted for re-use of author’s own figure).

Fig 4.4. Events network and community portfolio capacity (Permission granted for re-use of author’s own figure).

Fig 4.5. Event portfolio design for leveraging (Permission granted for re-use of author’s own figure).

Fig 5.1. Towards a phenomenology of event experiences and meanings (Permission granted for re-use of author’s own figure).

Fig 5.2. A comprehensive event leveraging framework.

Fig 5.3. Key prospective areas for event leverage.

Fig 6.1. Strategic scope of event leveraging approaches.

Foreword

Laurence Chalip

George Mason University

There are many reasons that the events industry enjoyed so much growth over the past few decades. Communities found that events can promote community pride and a sense of well-being. Properly chosen and implemented, they can generate new revenues. As attractions, they can bring visitors, even during periods otherwise unattractive to tourists. If they are popular enough, they can bring attention to the host community, thereby serving as a tool for place marketing. Politicians find them to be a source of political capital. Meanwhile, organizations use events to build teamwork, promote products and services, and thereby produce revenue.

Growth of the event industry has rendered increasing competition as attendees and media need to be attracted. People are unlikely to attend two events at once, and media attention is finite. So, timing events has become increasingly important so that competition is managed. Meanwhile, each event must remain interesting, which makes it necessary for recurring events to be improved each year.

As events became increasingly ubiquitous, the number of firms offering services to event organizers also grew. Businesses offering to design events, produce events, or provide logistic support became increasingly numerous. The value of the industry grew. In March of 2021, Allied Market Research reported that the event industry generated almost $1.5 trillion globally in 2019, and that it would continue to grow by approximately $6 billion annually during the subsequent decade.

For a time, widespread enthusiasm for events seemed to make hosting them an end in itself. It was as if the mere act of hosting would bring economic, social, and political benefits. So, new events were created, and the costs of bidding for existing events escalated.

Yet throughout the industry’s growth, there have been undercurrents of critique and dissent. Events often fail to yield the volume of benefits sought or claimed. Events can be income transfers through which some businesses and taxpayers subsidize others. Events can be disruptive to host community routines. Events pull monies away from other investments, both public and private. So, it has sometimes been argued that events might not be worth all the effort and expense they require.

Nevertheless, events can be fun, and promises made for them remain attractive. The industry has momentum. If there are things we want events to do for us, then maybe it’s time to examine what we have to do to make events efficient and effective economic, social, and political engines. Perhaps we need to worry less about what we attain through events, and more about how we choose and optimize what we achieve through events.

That simple insight has been transformative. Events are increasingly understood to be tools that must be integrated with the product and service mix in the host marketplace in order to render the benefits we seek. Events become policy tools, rather than standalone interventions. Like any tool, each event is something we need to learn how to wield fruitfully. Events must be strategically leveraged.

As straightforward as that insight may sound, it is not routinely welcomed. After all, leveraging requires effort and encompasses stakeholders in new ways. Further, when leveraging is advocated, event stakeholders may interpret it as a challenge. So, for example, when a professor at a Canadian university suggested mildly that her town might consider how to use an event it had obtained, event advocates attacked her in the local media. Later, when asked by the media about her idea, local officials sought to have her disciplined and possibly removed from her job. Paradigms change slowly. It is easier to pretend that events don’t need to be leveraged than it is to leverage them.

The need to leverage highlights other challenges. In particular, if we are seeking to have events build a sense of community or to promote the host community in its source markets, doing one event or doing the same event once is never enough. Events take place over short periods of time, so benefits can wear off quickly. Events typically appeal to narrow psychographic segments, so their effects may not be widely distributed. If we are going to use events as tools to promote our communities, then having only a few events is inadequate. We need a portfolio of events so that multiple interests and interest groups are reached. We need a portfolio of events to optimize effects throughout the year. The classic dictums about reach and frequency of marketing communications apply. If we are going to use events as policy tools, then we need an adequate number and variety to enable them to become effective for their intended purposes.

A portfolio of events yields additional opportunities. By thinking beyond a single event, we can formulate tactics to cross-leverage events. Whereas research and contemporary models of event leverage typically consider how to leverage each event, the presence of a portfolio enables us to consider how to complement one event’s leverage with another’s. It may be feasible to cross-promote and cross-leverage events.

One obvious way that events can help each other is through the learning that takes place during each. Event organizers build skills and capabilities each time an event is hosted. So do event volunteers. The learning can enable efficient, effective, and constantly improved event design and implementation across the portfolio. As skills strengthen, the magnitude of events that can be created or bid for is also enhanced. A suitably managed event portfolio retains and builds event expertise. The trick is to lock that into vision and management of the portfolio.

Clearly, then, the event portfolio evolves. It is not stagnant because learning enables enhancement. In order to assure that events complement one another and enable optimal leverage, each event must be evaluated for its potential within the context of the portfolio. Benefits are most readily accrued when each event adds reach, frequency, and leveragability. Choosing and integrating events is an ongoing challenge.

It’s a challenge that is not met solely by event organizers. Leveraging requires that the product and service mix available from the host community, region, and/or nation be brought into the effort. Partnerships and alliances are formed and maintained to assure that the tactics necessary to optimize effects desired from the portfolio can be formulated adequately and implemented realistically. Multiple stakeholders need to be coordinated.

There is a great deal to be learned about creating, managing, and leveraging event portfolios. In order to do so, it is necessary to collate, integrate, and build upon what we know. This book undertakes that task. It is the first to do so. It makes an essential contribution.

Acknowledgments

This book is the product of work spanning across more than 15 years. It basically started during my doctoral student years and has been evolved, formed, synthesized and crystallized the following years in line with the development of event leveraging thinking and research. Therefore, there are a number of people who have contributed, directly and indirectly, to this work. First and foremost, from my early times in the States, I am intellectually indebted to Laurence Chalip, Carla Costa, Christine Green and Heather Gibson who significantly shaped my thought and initial versions of my writings on the subject. In the following years of my academic career, I have been fortunate enough to interact and work with colleagues from different disciplines who have encouraged and influenced my interdisciplinary take on research. This angle makes up the backbone of this book. My deep appreciation goes to Donald Getz, Christine Lundberg, Nikolaos Boukas, Sylvia Trendafilova, Vladimir Antchak and Aaron Beacom for their precious insights, ideas and diligence while working with each of them; elements of this work are evident in the book. Last, but not least, I am immensely thankful to the following friends and colleagues: Kostas Alexiou, Christina Karatzaferi, Giorgos Sakkas and Rodanthi Tzanelli for a productively generous exchange of ideas and perspectives, which has enabled me to expand my intellectual horizons going beyond disciplinary silos. That is the quest for learning, a never-ending journey with no destination!

Vassilios Ziakas, Leeds, August 2021

Introduction: Grasping Event Leverage

© Vassilios Ziakas 2022. Strategic Event Leveraging: Models, Practices and Prospects (V. Ziakas)

Why Study Event Leveraging?

The growth of events is driven by their ability to generate public value and serve policy ends. Despite the high expectations set out by event organizers and other stakeholders, the application of strategy to derive benefits from events is often not systematic or consistent. Traditionally, conventional wisdom suggested that the hosting of events automatically generates expected benefits. Accordingly, there was a lack of long-term planning, and event management practice was characterized by ad-hoc efforts. As a result, repeated experiences of host communities dealing with unmet expectations and unintended deleterious impacts of events overturned this belief and raised the need for strategic planning. Leveraging is the strategic response for proactively planning to craft initiatives and tactics tied around events in pursuit of generating desired outcomes. Nevertheless, strategic applications are still found frequently to be haphazard, lacking sufficient pre-emptive depth and embeddedness of event strategies within their community contexts. Consequently, it is common for events to end up being missed opportunities. Understanding how leveraging works – and how it may better work – can facilitate the creation of positive outcomes, thereby reinforcing community engagement and wider support for events, adding credibility to the professional domain of event management as well as upgrading the position of events in the policy realm.

The early phase that event leveraging is currently at as an area of practice explains to a large degree its weak or incomplete applications. Yet, scholarship is growing fast and has already shaped a nascent body of knowledge with elaborated principles and techniques for leverage. This emerging knowledge needs to be consolidated in a comprehensive manner so that further testing, verification and theory-building can take place to inform evidence-based policy and practice. It is this mission that underlies the writing of this book. In this fashion, the book seeks to contribute to the literature by refining pertinent tools and theory. It does so by applying a relational analysis at the core of the leveraging perspective. The focus, thus, rests on interrelationships and potential for synergy among the spectrum of diverse events, different stakeholders, allied industry sectors, policy spheres and compound outcomes. A relational analysis nurtures the interdisciplinarity that is necessary for integrating the fragmented landscape of festivals, cultural, business, sport and other types of events (e.g., political, educational, religious, etc.). Overall, this book wants to make a twofold contribution: first, to fill the gap in the literature, which does not yet have comprehensive texts on the subject; second, to advance theory and practice on event leveraging. Ultimately, it is hoped that the book will help spread theoretical ideas and best practices on event leveraging.

Inquiry Aims and Scope

This book provides an analytic account of event leveraging as a distinct area of scholarship and praxis. Simply put, it is concerned with the strategic pursuit of attaining and magnifying benefits that derive from events. Although over the last ten years a burgeoning literature has emerged in this area, a comprehensive text has not yet surfaced that describes, explains, critiques and further refines the perspective of event leveraging. This book fills the gap. Its inspective aims are the following.

•Present and explain the theoretical principal models of event leveraging (economic, social, sport participation, tourism) and emergent derivative frameworks.

•Review literature and case studies that examine substantive contexts of event leveraging to reveal major practices, issues and lessons.

•Integrate disciplinary applications of event leveraging (e.g., sport management, tourism and events, etc.) to further refine the theoretical perspective through an interdisciplinary lens.

•Develop a comprehensive outlook of event leveraging as a means to sustainability and provide directions as well as possibilities that lead to new forms of leveraging.

The thematic scope of the book encompasses all types of events with an emphasis on the ubiquity of cultural, sport and business events. It also concerns any kind of benefits that can be leveraged and lead to sustainability through a triple-bottom-line assessment. An interdisciplinary approach is employed to cross boundaries and create linkages among the parent disciplines concerned with event leveraging (i.e., sport management; events, hospitality and tourism; leisure studies, parks and recreation) and general disciplines (e.g., management, marketing, sociology, urban and regional planning, anthropology, cultural studies, etc.). As such, the intent is to infuse an ethos of interdisciplinarity and comprehensiveness in the study and praxis of event leverage. Comprehensiveness is about applying the leveraging techniques to multiple events of any type and scale in order to maximize their aggregate value. In this way, multiple purposes can be pursued and leveraged outcomes magnified through the implementation of joint synergistic strategies among an array of events. That is the core matter for event leveraging and the next step forward, as applications to date have been focused predominantly on single events.

The geographic scope is a reflection of the extant literature on the subject, primarily using events from Europe, North America, and Australasia; however, some examples from Latin America and South Africa are also used. This enables building a global and multicultural perspective on strategic event leveraging as much as possible, traversing the confines of applied leveraging research across the world. At the same time, this perspective is mindful of the different strategic contexts within which events are embedded and the need for adapting tailored leveraging to the needs and characteristics of each host community.

Structure and Subject Matter

Chapter 1: Foundational Grounds of Event Leveraging

This chapter outlines and explains the foundational premises of event leveraging as a comprehensive strategic paradigm. This marks a changing mindset on managing events strategically in order to obtain and magnify intended outcomes. Event leveraging is defined in this chapter and its discrepancies and overall antithesis with the legacy framework(s) are highlighted. The conceptual underpinnings of the leverage concept are also traced. It is emphasized that a relational analysis lies at the core of leveraging, seeking to integrate events and the host community product mix, foster relationships among stakeholders, as well as enable collaboration and coordination through cross-leverage. The particular makeup of event strategy is clarified, combining event delivery and leveraging into a master plan. The role of an event portfolio is brought forward as well as the shift of focus from mega-events to small-scale events that the perspective of leveraging entails.

Chapter 2: Models and Practices

This chapter delineates the extant models and practices of event leveraging. In so doing, it discerns between principal and derivative forms of leverage. Principal forms are presented, comprising the models of economic leverage, social leverage, sport participation leverage and tourism leverage. Derivative frameworks and practices are also outlined, including leveraging of Olympic tourism, heritage, bidding and parasport events. The need for a common interdisciplinary approach on event leveraging is established as currently different disciplines have produced its conceptual underpinnings (i.e., sport management and event tourism management). An interdisciplinary approach can inform efforts for more systematic and methodical application of comprehensive leverage. A common approach can enable the much needed holistic outlook in integrating and synergizing different types of events in joint leveraging strategies and tactics.

Chapter 3: Issues and Challenges

In this chapter, the major issues and challenges of event leveraging are discussed. These include, inter alia, the innate fragmentation of events and disjointed landscape of stakeholders, lack of host community capacity for leveraging, uneven distribution of benefits and ineffective coordination. The range of challenges are identified and classified into categories. A conceptual and pragmatic context for resolving these challenges is offered, synthesizing essentially a network perspective with Service-Dominant Logic in order to practically manage the host community events network and service ecosystem respectively. Along these lines, an interdisciplinary agenda for undertaking critical inquiries is put forward to help deal with challenges and issues. For improving conceptual clarity, intelligibility and analytical rigor, theoretical demarcations are made to clarify basic concepts, which are taken for granted to date, followed by pertinent theoretical hypotheses that progress leveraging thought. Last, cases of host communities are used to illustrate critical aspects of comprehensive leverage.

Chapter 4: Tenets of Cross-leveraging

This chapter extends the relational analysis of leveraging to the types of cross-leverage that can be applied within an event portfolio context. Portfolio development enables joint strategy-making and comprehensive applications of leverage. The nature and premises of the event portfolio concept are spelled out and integrated with the perspectives of destination capitals and eventfulness. They are brought together as conceptual heuristic devices to optimize the potential for cross-leverage. Within this context, the chapter finally considers how event sustainability and resilience can be nourished.

Chapter 5: Prospects and Avenues

This chapter outlines the current state of play of the event leveraging field. On this basis, it envisions the prospects and future avenues of the field. To build a firm ground, it provides a phenomenological agenda for understanding event experiences and meanings and a comprehensive event leveraging framework. The potential for new forms of leverage is considered that needs to be built upon the premises of integrating economic with social leverage and tourism, creating synergy among cultural, business and sport events, and achieving multipurpose portfolio leverage. New priority areas for leverage are identified alongside their linkages for enabling synergistic cross-leverage.

Chapter 6: Archetypes and Patterns

The final chapter provides a succinct conclusion that delineates the different approaches whereby communities may engage with event leveraging. Based on the preceding analysis undertaken in this book, the following focal trajectories are distinguished and expounded: monothematic (single event) leveraging; multipronged (event portfolio) leveraging; concept (event bid) leveraging; and proximal (non-host) leveraging. These principal courses of action constitute the structural archetypes and patterns that epitomize the strategic scope of event leveraging and the main options for its application to different strategic contexts.

The Bottom Line: Progressing a Cross-cutting Agenda and a Comprehensive Analytic

As highlighted above, event scholarship in general is diverse and fragmented. It is characterized by two predominant discourses: functionalist and critical. The functionalist discourse is primarily concerned with practical or tactical matters, operational ‘how-to-do’ manuals and problem-solving guides, while the critical one focuses on causes and consequences of broader socio-cultural issues and pathogenies. Clearly, there are different disciplinary traditions feeding each discourse, derived mainly from perspectives in management, business and economics, in parallel with insights drawn from sociology, cultural studies and anthropology. Diachronic tensions between these polarized traditions perpetuate a divide in the way events are viewed and treated. The leveraging paradigm cannot holistically grow and flourish on this disjointed ground. For this reason, the ontological syllogistics that guided the writing of this book are integrative, based upon a holistic perspective of the events’ strategic roles or potential and informed evenly by both functionalist and critical angles. These integrative logics attempt to bridge antithetical ideas, values and perspectives by moving forward to link the underlying disciplinary realms they come from. The effort in realizing an interdisciplinary synthesis is no doubt an ongoing struggle, an ever-evolving project, and its fruits will take time to grow. But it provides a clear path, a way of thinking and a comprehensive analytic for strengthening the premises of the event leveraging paradigm and optimizing the derived benefits of implemented strategies in practice. The present book pushes towards this direction and the subsequent advancement of a cross-cutting agenda on event leveraging.

1

Foundational Grounds of Event Leveraging

© Vassilios Ziakas 2022. Strategic Event Leveraging: Models, Practices and Prospects (V. Ziakas)

DOI: 10.1079/9781789247855.0001

1.1 The Study of Event Leverage: Integral Reasoning and Cross-boundaries

Event leveraging as a distinct theoretical framework was conceived and introduced by Laurence Chalip in his pioneering model published in 2004 that prescribed the economic leverage of sport events (Chalip, 2004). The model was inspired by, and based on, research that examined the Gold Coast IndyCar race (Chalip and Leyns, 2002) and the experience of the Sydney 2000 Olympics (Chalip, 2002; Faulkner et al., 2000). In fact, the Sydney Olympics was one of the first mega-events to implement a concerted set of strategic actions and programs to obtain and optimize intended benefits (Brown et al., 2004; Morse, 2001). The conceptualization of strategic leveraging was a reflection of the need to move away from the impact studies which dominated the field of events at that time. These studies, besides often serving political expediency (Crompton, 2006), were focusing merely on impacts without explaining how and why these impacts occurred. Specifically, Chalip (2004, 2006) argued that although impact studies provided useful post hoc information, they were insufficient for event planning and management because they did not explain how these lessons would be applied and how the lessons from previous events could be readjusted to future events in different contexts. Even worse, the association of impact studies with the unfulfilled promises of high-profile events, such as the Olympics and the FIFA Football World Cup that did not deliver the expected well-advertised returns to the host regions (Burbank et al., 2001, 2002; Giatsis et al., 2004) obfuscated the complex landscape of their actual effects with suspicion. Skepticism and disbelief was (and still is) inextricably linked to the boosterism of mega-events’ political legitimizing rhetoric (Hiller, 2000; Waitt, 2001), leading inevitably to exaggerated benefits and underestimated costs (Hall and Hodges, 1996; Whitson and Horne, 2006). As such, there was a pressing need to develop sound analytical insight and know-how of the ways that event benefits could be produced (Bramwell, 1997; Jago et al., 2003; Ritchie, 2000).

Since 2004, a burgeoning literature on event leveraging has emerged, forming a new vibrant subfield primarily within the sport management discipline. Scholarship has also been gradually extended, beyond sport, to festivals and business events (e.g., Duignan et al., 2018; Foley et al., 2014). This demonstrates the robustness, versatility and pervasiveness of leveraging thinking to the different contexts that the wide variety of event types entails, ranging across genres, scales and purposes. At the same time, however, as the literature expands with the diffusion of leveraging ideas spreading throughout the event sector, this may complicate the development of a coherent common body of knowledge capable of maintaining and reinforcing the spectrum of its underlying and diversified strands of inquiry. Thus, it is important to bring together the rapidly growing lines of literature in order to identify emerging themes, cross-disciplinary trajectories and managerial priorities across the event sector, but also to delineate their interrelationships. In this vein, the osmosis of ideas and practices originating from the contexts of sport, cultural or business events can be more effectively enabled to cultivate and flourish event leveraging as a comprehensive interdisciplinary field of practice.

The concept of event leverage was defined by Chalip as those activities which need to be undertaken around the event itself, and those which seek to maximize the long-term benefits from events (2004, p. 228). This perspective constitutes an ex ante and strategic mindset focusing on a systematic analysis set to explain why and how intended outcomes can occur, thereby revealing the processes that can enable