What is Event Management?
Discuss about the Case Study of the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics.
Event management can be defined as the application of the project management in order to create and develop large scale events such as festivals, conferences, ceremonies, weddings, formal parties, concerts or conventions. The management encompasses a brief study of the brand, identification of the target audience, arranging the concept of the event and to look after the technical aspects before the actual launch of the event (Thompson, Schlenker and Schulenkorf 2013). The modern Olympics are one of the most leading international games in the present century. This sport mostly features the summer and the winter sporting competition in which more than thousands of sports persons round the world participate in a variety of events taking place (Davies and Mackenzie 2014). The life cycle of event planning, the planning of the 2018 Winter Olympics and its recommendations are discussed in the following paragraphs.
According to Eddleston et al. (2013), the preparation time of an event depends on its complexity. Small and simple events require about two month’s duration to prepare whereas large and complex events requires more than six months of preparation. To make an event successful, there are several key steps that should be addressed. Firstly, the event goals are addressed and the budgets are decided. The next step involves in selection of the destination where the event is going to take place. Next a draft of the schedule is prepared and the event is designed on a website. Next the event is rehearsed so as to make sure that nothing has been missed and improvements are made where necessary. Once the event details are determined, the planners and manager sent email invitations to their distribution lists so that they are able to register them. Next the events and the staffs are finalized and emails are again resend so as to ensure that there are no cancellations. A survey regarding the event is conducted among the guests so as to obtain the accurate feedback. The data obtained are then shared with the stakeholders so as to take decisions and make improvements where necessary in the forthcoming events (Oakil et al. 2014)
The 2018 Winter Olympics which is officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games and Pyeongchang 2018 was an international multi-sports event, held during the winter in the month of February. It was the first time that South Korea hosted the Winter Olympics and was the second to host the Olympics after hosting the Summer Olympics in the year 1988 at Seoul (Essex and de Groot 2016).
Life Cycle of Event Planning
The preparation of the Olympics starts with bidding and election. Earlier Pyeongchang proposed to host the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics, but lost to Vancouver and Sochi in the respective years. The bidding for hosting the event started in the year 2011. The city of Pyeongchang was elected at the 123rd IOC Session in Durban in the year 2011. The bidding indices are featured by the two websites, gamesbids.com and around the rings, specializing in this profession which periodically analyses and releases the positions of the candidates and assigns them a score ranging either between 0-100 or 0-110 respectively. This year the city of Pyeongchang won a vote of 63 which was the highest score in the history of Olympics (Kim, Choi and Kaplanidou 2015). This involves the first and the second steps of the event life cycle.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on 5th August, 2011 declared that the 2018 Winter Olympic would be held in the city of Pyeongchang in South Korea. After a span of a few months on 4th October, 2011, the organization declared that the event would be directed by Kim Jin-sun. An inauguration assembly was launched on 19th October 2011 by the Pyeongchang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games (POCOG) (Gold and Gold 2016). The initial responsibility that was undertaken was the planning for the games and designs for the venues. According to Muller (2014), the members of the organization visited for the first time in the hosting city in the month of March, 2012. By then the construction had already started and was moving on at a very fast pace. The committee advertised and spread the news of the Olympic Games by recruiting the students from the universities of South Korea, who spread the news of the event by means of social media and news articles. The medals for the games were designed and displayed on the month of September, 2017. The growth stage involves those stages of the event life cycle where the registrations and other required steps are taken for the success of the event.
The staging of the 2018 Winter Olympics started with the marching with the torches on 24th October 2017, which started in Greece and ended on the day of the events on 9th February 2018 at the hosting city of Pyeongchang. On 1st November, 2017 the relay along with 7500 torch bearers entered Korea. These torch bearers represented the 75 million people of Korea and continued the relay for about a span of 101 days. Most of the outdoor as well as the events on the snow were held in the city of Pyeongchang while other events such as skiing and indoor events took place in the nearby countries and cities of Jeongseon and Gangneung respectively. The opening ceremony of the event took place in the city of Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium on 9th February 2018 (Arnold and Foxall 2014). This is the final stage and involves for the organizers to make sure that no cancellations and postponements occur.
2018 Winter Olympics: Bidding and Election
Conclusion
Prior and effective planning is the most important part to perform any action. The events are also not exempted from the same. The 2018 Winter Olympics held at Pyeongchang was also planned beforehand. Every event is planned depending upon it complexity. Simple and less complex events require around two months of planning and the planning period extends to around six months when the events are more complex. The life cycle of event planning involves many steps and procedures. It starts with setting up of the goals and chalking out the budgets and ends with conducting of the survey and recording the feedback of the customers. The Olympics are multi-sport events that involve people participating from all over the world in different sports. In order to make Olympics a successful event, the planning is done some years prior to the occurrence of the event. The preparation of the event starts with election and bidding for the hosting city. Then there were discussions and planning regarding the hosting of different sports. The indoor and outdoor sports were organized at two different places, but the skiing was organized in the city itself. The 2018 Winter Olympics saw grand openings and closing of the events along with the torch marches that took place for about 101 days.
It has been found that all the steps of the event life cycle were followed while planning the 2018 Winter Olympics which was held in the city of Pyeongchang in South Korea. The committee can introduce some more events and sports so as to involve some more participants from the countries. Like this year, the committees that take into account the event in the future, can also design the medals according to the concept, style and fashion followed in the country. This will inspire and motivate more people to participate in the events. Even the same people can also participate in the events every year so as to collect the medals of different countries.
References
Arnold, R. and Foxall, A., 2014. Lord of the (Five) Rings: Issues at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games: Guest Editors’ Introduction. Problems of Post-Communism, 61(1), pp.3-12.
Davies, A. and Mackenzie, I., 2014. Project complexity and systems integration: Constructing the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics Games. International Journal of Project Management, 32(5), pp.773-790.
Eddleston, K.A., Kellermanns, F.W., Floyd, S.W., Crittenden, V.L. and Crittenden, W.F., 2013. Planning for growth: Life stage differences in family firms. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 37(5), pp.1177-1202.
Essex, S.J. and de Groot, J., 2016. The Winter Olympics: Driving Urban Change, 1924–2022. In Olympic Cities (pp. 84-109). Routledge.
Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. Eds., 2016. Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and the World’s Games, 1896–2020. Routledge.
Kim, A., Choi, M. and Kaplanidou, K., 2015. The role of media in enhancing people’s perception of hosting a mega sport event: the case of pyeongchang’s winter olympics bids. International Journal of Sport Communication, 8(1), pp.68-86.
Müller, M., 2014. Event seizure: The World Cup 2018 and Russia’s illusive quest for modernisation. Social Science Research Network.
Oakil, A.T.M., Ettema, D., Arentze, T. and Timmermans, H., 2014. Changing household car ownership level and life cycle events: an action in anticipation or an action on occurrence. Transportation, 41(4), pp.889-904.
Thomson, A., Schlenker, K. and Schulenkorf, N., 2013. Conceptualizing sport event legacy. Event Management, 17(2), pp.111-122.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
