ABSTRACT
Bidding contests for major sporting and cultural events increasingly attract mainstream media and public attention. At the international, or global level, some commentators argue that event bidding is one part of a place war, whereby entrepreneurial cities engage in inter-urban competition to ensure they are visible to potential residents, visitors and investors. This introduction also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book fills a gap in the literature by drawing together existing knowledge on the subject of event bidding, combining this with historical and contemporary examples to enable a critical commentary on the bidding process itself and the struggle for power that it represents. Having made the case for the development of a discrete area of study called event bidding, it is now necessary to articulate the guiding research questions that provide direction for the remainder of the book.
