ABSTRACT
Major events have become a key aspect of urban policy in the UK and abroad, seemingly promoted from ephemeral attractions to vehicles for marketing and structuring whole cities. Obvious examples are the Olympics Games and other international sport events, but World Expos (Carricere and Demaziere, 2002), cultural festivals (Gold and Gold, 2005), even housing fairs (Jansson, 2005), have also been used as cornerstones of urban policy. Bidding for and staging these events is part of the shift towards entrepreneurial urbanism, and is often equated by authors such as Harvey (1989) and Hall (2006) with the values of neo-liberal regimes.
