ABSTRACT
Photo 3.1 The Olympic Park in London in October 2011 with less than a year to go before the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
■ understand the importance of following a planning process for the organization of sports events
■ understand the need for the process to consider short-to long-term objectives ■ understand the need for a staged and iterative process that allows continuous
alignment with objectives
INTRODUCTION
The importance of sports events in terms of their impacts and benefits, particularly major international events, is well documented and also well covered in the media. In the main, it has been the economic benefits that have received the most attention, mainly because they are more easily quantified (UK Sport, 1999; Jones, 2001). However, it is the other, less quantifiable benefits, those that involve regeneration, physical legacies, cultural, social, environment, tourism and sports development, which may be of more significant value over the long term. Indeed, these more subjectively viewed benefits received significant coverage during the London 2012 Olympiad. In order to provide context to the focus of this chapter, it is useful to look back to 2001, when a lack of planning led to the loss of the 2005 World Athletic Championships for the United Kingdom. The government promised a London venue in its bid with Picketts Lock, intended as a long-term legacy for the sport. Upon discovering the costs would be too high, the government tried to offer an alternative location away from London. This resulted in the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF ) deciding to put the event out to bid again. While it is commendable that an uneconomic project was aborted, a potentially beneficial event and its stadium legacy might have been better planned for. Alan Pascoe, who ran Fast Track, the organization responsible for UK Athletics’ commercial activities, estimated at the time that the loss for athletics was £15-£20 million but recognized that it was not just about the financial loss. While London, and UK Athletics, have recovered from this loss and have won the bid to host the 2017 World Athletics Championships, the 2005 world championships could have helped the development of the sport as well as creating the legacy of a national stadium for future athletics events (Hubbard, 2002). This is a pertinent point when we consider the lack of planning undertaken for the London Olympic Stadium and the length of time for which its after-use remained undecided, either as a football, athletics or a multi-use venue. Much of the theory that underpins the teaching of event management in higher education is centred on how important the event planning process is for organizers of events. Allen et al. (2002), Bowdin et al. (2011), Getz (2005), Shone and Parry (2011) and Watt (1998) propose that event planning is a staged process. Westerbeek et al. (2006) provide an event ‘life-cycle’ approach that encompasses basic stages of pre-, event and post-event stages. Others, such as Catherwood and Van Kirk (1992), Goldblatt (2010) and Graham et al. (1995: chapter 1), propose a less formal approach to event planning. These processes and models generally accept that event organizations should strategically plan for the long term and that they should include responsibility for the ongoing and longterm management of the financial and physical legacies of major events. Getz (2005) maintains that long-term gains and losses should be assessed at the feasibility stage of the planning process. Allen et al. (2002) and Bowdin et al. (2011) follow a similar approach. Westerbeek et al. (2006) have much detail on the importance of feasibility testing and a comprehensive process for going about it. Hall (1997) stresses the importance of long-term planning, with the acceptance that it is the long-term legacies of an event that have the most consequence. Several of the processes also consider wind-up or shutdown (Catherwood and Van Kirk, 1992; Getz, 2005; Allen et al., 2002; Shone and Parry, 2011). Shone and Parry (2010)
recognize that some thought should be given to intended legacies in the formation of objectives at the beginning of the planning process. The planning theory that is generally on offer in the literature appears to cater for the short-term benefits that events can bring, rather than the long-term value that major international events can be strategically planned to provide. What the planning models tend not to cover is where the development of strategies for successful long-term legacies should sit in the process. In particular, there is a need for the inclusion of specific long-term strategies when planning major international sports events – strategies that will extend beyond the end of the event itself. Since the first edition of this book, only a small number of sports events management-related texts have been published, but at least recognition of the importance of strategically planning for long-term benefits is gathering momentum. Preuss (2004), for example, recognizes that major international sports events, and Olympics in particular, can act as catalysts for fast-track urban development and that they can therefore be viewed as opportunities for more than just the staging of an event. He maintains that for them to do this successfully, however, it is necessary, first, to compare any existing longterm development plans with any Olympic plans for structural development and, second, to do so prior to submitting any bid. In addition, Preuss acknowledges the importance of planning the post-Olympic utilization. Westerbeek et al. (2006) acknowledge the importance of the potential role that sports events can have in their strategic involvement in long-term regeneration but focus on the short-term planning process for staging sports events and the management of facilities rather than on the planning of the ‘where’ and ‘how’ of that longer-term role. It is therefore important to identify a comprehensive process that can encompass the specific needs of sports event planning, can accommodate sports events of all scales and intentions, can accommodate those events that require bidding processes and can include stages where benefits in the longer as well as the shorter term can be planned for.
