Bridge To Brisbane – An Annual Charity Fun Run In Australia

Overview of Bridge to Brisbane

Discuss about the Event Management: Bridge to Brisbane.

Australia is one of the most emerged countries which have a big history of hosting several small and major events. This country hosts different kinds of events like run event, sports event, music event, racing event etc. Australian population shows a higher level of interest to these events and their involvement has been growing each year (Webster, 2017). For this discussion, the chosen event is Bridge to Brisbane that is organized in Brisbane city of Australia. Bridge to Brisbane is a yearly long-distance fun run over a distance of 10 kilometre (6.2 mi) or 5 kilometre (3.1 mi) organized in Brisbane, Australia in every August month. In the year 1997, the first race was occurred with more than 5000 entrants and every year this event generates funds for charity. In the year 2007, 24,350 runners had participated in the run (Bridge to Brisbane, 2018). It is the largest charity fun run of Queensland where more than 30000 people run with other likeminded people all over most iconic landmarks of Brisbane. It can be stated that the event is conducted with the objective of fundraising for charity. The Sunday Mail Bridge to Brisbane Fun Run is a run event that consists 5km and 10 km event that is hosted by Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd. Moreover, it is managed by Event management Solutions Australia Pty Limited. It acts as the event organizer to offer the event services (Bridge to Brisbane, 2018).

In the year 2016, the event was shifted to Brisbane City. For this, the start line is in Spring Hill and entrants cross 3 bridges before ending in South Bank Parklands in South Brisbane. One of the major characteristics of this event is that minimum 5 members are needed to make a team but there is not maximum limit. In Brisbane, the event is conducted by targeting the people of age group of 15 to 55 years and families. When the people run the Bridge to Brisbane, they get 2 times i.e. race time and hero time. Hero time is the race time minus one second for each 1$ they increase for the charity (Bridge to Brisbane, 2018). However, the event is organized for a utilitarian purpose but still it has some social and sustainable issues. One of the major issues is the safety of the participants in this charity fun run. Minor failure in safety processes can overwhelm the event and its participants. Under sustainability issues, pollution is also a key issue to environmental sustainability. From cleaners, graphics, to paint, portable toilets, generators, many goods which are used at this event has pollution risks. In addition to this, the local people may face some other issues like heavy traffic, wastage emission, transportation issues etc.

Stakeholders of Bridge to Brisbane

In today’s modern environment, conducting a successful event is one of the most critical and complex tasks for the organizers. Stakeholders play an important role in conducting an event effectively. According to Reid and Arcodia (2007), stakeholders are the people who are involved a particular event. These stakeholders may vary from event to event. The authors stated that there are two types of stakeholder i.e. primary stakeholders and secondary stakeholders (Reid & Arcodia, 2007). In this context, Tiew, Holmes & Bussy (2015) stated that stakeholders of an event can be categorized on the basis of nature of involvement and impact they have on a particular event which is going to be held. Primary stakeholders are considered essential to the events as without them that event cannot take place. These stakeholders are significant as without their direct assistance that event will not exist. Apart from primary stakeholders, rest is known as secondary stakeholders (Tiew, Holmes & Bussy, 2015).

As per a report of Bridge to Brisbane Run (2018), the primary stakeholders of this event are such as volunteers, sponsors, suppliers, event organizers (Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd), event managers (Event Management Solutions Australia Pty Limited), participants, attendees and audiences. Apart from this, the secondary stakeholders are like government, local council, emergency services, businesses, media, advertising agencies and tourism organizations. Both play a vital role in conducting and managing the Bridge to Brisbane event in Queensland City. About an event, Parent & Deephouse (2007) stated that events do not hold in a vacuum but they touch each and every aspect of the life like social, cultural, economic, political and environmental aspects. Sometimes, the events can have undesired consequences which can direct them to have public fame and attention of media for the wrong causes (Parent & Deephouse, 2017). The costs of event failure can be devastating that can turn the positive advantages into negative and political influences. Different types of events have different impacts on its stakeholders and overall society. According to report of P4 Group (2018), Bridge to Brisbane is the event that is conducted for charity purpose that has a good impact on the required communities. First of all, the impact on event organizer needs to be discussed. It can be reviewed that Bridge to Brisbane has a positive impact on the organizers like this event will assist the committee to increase its popularity and fame. If Event Management Solutions Australia Pty Limited will not be able to manage and organize the event successfully, it will have negative effect on their brand image.

Impacts of Bridge to Brisbane

Participants are the most important stakeholders who can support Bridge to Brisbane run in fund raising for social cause i.e. research for childhood cancer. The event will have a significant impact on the health and interest of participants. They will be more aware about the health, fitness and happiness. This event can provide them with the entertainment in friendly environment. In addition to this, communities and its people are involved and mobilized through the event (Allen, O’Toole, Harris & McDonnell, 2011). It makes them to feel pride that they are investing their money to a charity or social cause. It increases the social network of Australian population as they interact with the people from different mindset and cultural backgrounds.

The chosen event i.e. Bridge to Brisbane involves a higher number of volunteers that gives a considerable amounts of creation of recreational and educational opportunities for the participants. These volunteers assist the participants to understand the charity cause and learn about the childhood cancer. According to Getz & Page (2016), Volunteers and organizers of this event can get benefitted from some major personal development opportunities. Bridge to Brisbane is conducted to increase awareness among people towards health and happiness. It will provide benefits to the local council and government. It will help in increasing the happiness level of index of country’s population in Australia. The suppliers are able to increase their revenues by selling the required materials in the events. These materials are like t-shirts, shoes, event banners etc. Bridge to Brisbane event has a significant impact on media and advertising agencies. This event provides a good content to media agencies. It provides them opportunities to engage in corporate social responsibilities as the event is conducted to support the research for childhood cancer and other charity reasons (Van der Wagen & White, 2018). In this way, this event has different impacts on different stakeholders of Bridge to Brisbane.

The impacts of event are discussed in the below table:

Thus, the chosen event can have various impacts on the stakeholders, which can be both positive and negative. For the event organizers and managers, it is very important to analyze these impacts and try to eliminate the negative ones.

It can be stated that method of observation can be utilized to gain a deep understanding about the social dynamics of the stakeholders and dimensions of their behaviors. This technique is the most appropriate to the context of event analysis, where use of survey can disturb the flow of event experience for different stakeholders (Spradley, 2016). In this discussion, observation technique is used to analyze the observable impacts of Bridge to Brisbane event held in Queensland, Australia. Participants are the major stakeholders who have direct impact on the event. In this, participants are observed by using direct observation technique. For example, the behavior and perception of participants is judged towards this event (Brown, Getz, Pettersson & Wallstam, 2015).

Environmental and Safety Concerns

From this research method, it is observed that event organizers are conducting this event considering the interest of participants. It has focused on the health and safety of the runners as they are the valuable assets of this event. It is observed that participants are very much satisfied with the services provided by the event organizers so there is a continuous increase in the number of people in the race. The data about the race indicates that first race happened in the year 1997 with only 5000 entrants and every year it generates funds for charity purpose. In 2007, there were 24,350 participants in the race. In the same year, the Bridge to Brisbane enticed a field of 30000 runners. 2008 saw over 36000 participants and in 2009 over 45,000 people participated in this charity run (Bridge to Brisbane, 2018). From this data, it can be observed that participants are highly positive towards this race. The major reason behind this satisfaction is its entry fees. There is standard pricing for all the people, plus kids in prams are free. To run in the race, participants need to pay:

• Early Bird: 10km  = $52

                                                      5km =    $42

• General Entry: 10km  =    $57

                                            5 km =    $47

In addition to this, the event organizers provide transportation services for them. All the participants will be able to have free public transport on the day of event. They just need to show the race number to Brisbane City Cat. Due to safety and health guidelines, different methods of transport like roller board, scooter and skateboard are banned in the event. In addition to this, they are provided with the medical assistance by the medical command center. Thus, it is observable that people are highly interested to engage in fund raising activities of Bridge to Brisbane event (Parent, 2008).

Suppliers and partners also have positive impact due to this event. It can be observed that there is a significant increase in the product supplies and suppliers’ revenues with the increase in the number of participants. It enhances the need of required materials for race like t-shirts, shoes, prams for children, water bottles, banners etc. Moreover, P4 Group is the media agency that worked on the Bridge to Brisbane event for more than 10 years. This agency provides various digital and traditional PR services to the event like social media, showing to sponsors, blog writing, hiring and managing the ambassadors, media relations and social media support on the event day. It plays an important role in the marketing and promotion of the events all over Queensland and nearby cities (Bridge to Brisbane, 2018). Through this research, it is observed that media agencies are able to enhance their brand reputation by covering this charity run. Additionally, it has positive impact on its profits and revenues. It contributes to the event effectively like it is observed from the results that P4 Group secured 470 pieces of reporting across the campaign to data. It includes 16 radio mentions, 317 Television mentions, 91 printings and 44 online mentions. In addition to above stakeholders, volunteers also have some significant impacts. In this event, more than 30000 people run and interact with each other (P4 Group, 2018). It assists them to improve their social support network. They learn to contribute to the social cause and assist other people.

Observation Technique for Event Analysis

In this way, it is observed that the chosen event, Bridge to Brisbane has various observable and non-observable impacts on its stakeholders.

Discussion and Conclusion

Management Strategies

Selecting an appropriate stakeholder engagement strategy is very important to ensuring effective relationship building and success for any event. In order to manage the impacts, the event organizers need to implement some effective strategies (Moses, 2011). These strategies will assist event planner to deal with the observable and non-observable impacts of the Bridge to Brisbane event. There should be timeline for the continuous communications with the above key stakeholders to ensure that they are always updated on what they require knowing to assist event’s objectives. To reduce the issues of environment and sustainability, they should focus on waste management and recycling of waste materials (Andersson & Getz, 2008). To deal with the environmental impacts, the event organization should hire the volunteer who can manage natural environment and resources. It should use some practices and strategies to reduce the wastage of water. For successful completion of an event like Bridge to Brisbane, it is very important to develop effective relationships with all the associated stakeholders. It will support the organization. The event managers should try to make the people and government aware that they are raising the funds for a social cause. The government can provide considerable support in conducting the event effectively. These management strategies will assist in managing both observable and non-observable impacts of event on stakeholders (Getz & Page, 2016).

Trade-off

As mentioned above, the chosen event has both negative and positive impacts on its hosting communities and stakeholders (Jones, 2017). In order to develop trade-off between both the impacts, event manager or organizer needs to recognize and forecast these effects and then to manage them. It will assist them to balance the overall effect of event is positive. First, the event firm has to emphasize on managing different aspects like economic, social and environmental impacts. There are some key success factors like empowerment, collaboration, strategic partnerships, public-private partnerships etc. They need to encourage the corporate sector so that they can sponsor the chosen event (Getz & Page, 2016). By increasing the awareness about the health and happiness among people, it can raise more funds for the purpose of different charities.

Conclusion

From the above analysis, it can be concluded that Bridge to Brisbane is the largest charity run in Australia. The event has various positive and negative impacts on its related stakeholders like volunteers, sponsors, suppliers, event organizers, event managers, participants, attendees and audiences. From the observation technique, it has been observed that participants of the events are very satisfied with the event and they have positive perception towards the event. There are some management strategies which can be used to manage both observable and non-observable impact of the event on hosting communities and stakeholders. Before conducting the event, the event manager needs to predict the possible impacts so that they can trade off the impacts of Bridge to Brisbane event in Australia.

References

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Bridge to Brisbane. (2018). Event Info. Retrieved from https://bridgetobrisbane.com.au/event-info/

Bridge to Brisbane. (2018). Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved from https://bridgetobrisbane.com.au/faq/

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