ABSTRACT
Volunteers are an integral part of the workforce of mega and major events, and they are increasingly heralded as a key factor underpinning event success. Volunteer programmes require a huge amount of investment and work over an extended period. This chapter concentrates on the pre-event period, using data from a multi-stage study of the experiences and legacies of the Rugby World Cup 2011 (RWC) volunteer programme. It presents findings from the second round of the five-round online survey, and explores the pre-event experiences of volunteers captured in the two-week period before Tournament kick-off. To explore the pre-event experiences of volunteers, the chapter uses data collected in the second round of surveying, conducted two weeks before the Tournament kick-off. It focuses on the future articles that drawing upon the research to address the lack of longitudinal research on event volunteering identified by Doherty and Pauline contributing to the much vaunted, yet under researched topic of major event volunteering legacies.
