ABSTRACT
Even though the events management literature has grown in recent years, significant research gaps remain. Indeed, while academics have made considerable inroads into understanding the sociological, cultural and economic role and consequences of events and festivals, there has been much less progress on researching their effective management. Scholarly output to date on events management – as opposed to events studies (Getz 2007) – has tended to consolidate knowledge and disseminate it in the form of textbooks (see for example Yeoman et al. 2004; Tum et al. 2006; Bowdin et al. 2011). It is no less valuable for this but, as the field matures, it is appropriate that more effort is made to research aspects of management relating to events. This chapter seeks to make a modest contribution to this process by shifting academic attention towards some of the operational issues that are relevant to those engaged in the practice of events management. Producing events precipitates a number of managerial challenges. Their often peripatetic or
transient nature stimulates, for example, the need for particular kinds of approaches to the management of employees (including the high incidences of temporary or voluntary staff; Shone and Parry 2004), to crowd control (Still and Draper 2010), to ticketing (Smith 2007), to risk and stakeholder management (Leopkey and Parent 2009) as well as reflection on a range of consumer and marketing issues (Bowen and Daniels 2005; Tkaczynski and Rundle-Thiele 2011). Silvers et al. (2006) have attempted to encapsulate these dimensions of management by developing an event management body of knowledge (EMBOK). EMBOK contains a range of domains, values, phases and processes that enable the effective development of event managers and event management. If such an approach is to flourish, it requires ongoing research to enhance understanding within each category of effective management practices so that training and development may be appropriately informed. This chapter aims to create a means of responding to one of the central challenges of events
management, namely uncertainty. It introduces a matrix as a possible framework to help managers deal with the inherently uncertain environment within which they operate. More specifically, the matrix takes into account eight characteristics, four of which are traditionally offered as being the main differences between manufacturing and service management (Shostack 1977; Walker 1995; Kandampully 2002; Stevenson 2005; Chase et al. 2006; Heizer and Render
2006), and incorporates a further four which are argued to be particularly relevant to the management of events. Though its potential application is illustrated here via the case of le Tour de France, further empirical research is required before the value of the framework can be confirmed. Such work is underway but will be reported elsewhere at a later date.
