Introduction: Importance of Festival and Special Event Management
Question:
Discuss about the Festival And Special Event Management.
The current study focuses on the aspect of festival and special event management. Event management is one of the important disciplines which require a lot of precision and planning. Most of the times, the special events are symbolic of a cultural history and are extremely important for maintaining the heritage and cultural identity of a place. The amount of money collected from some of these events is used in philanthropic activities. However, the success of any major event is dependent upon correct amount of advertising and planning.
For the current study, the Sydney based light and music festival have been taken into consideration known as VIVID SYDNEY. The assignment had been undertaken in order to discuss the goals as well as the nitty-gritty which goes in the planning and management of the event.
It is a 23 days festival which is supposed to run from 25th may to 16th june , 2018. It also features as one of most important creative forum of the world. The cutting edge contemporary music programs and free public exhibition of outdoor lighting sculptures makes it an instant hit. VIVID SYDNEY is an event where art, technology and commerce intersect (vividsydney.com 2018). It serves as a forum for public talks from some of the creative leaders of the world. The event attracted more than 800,000 visitors in the year 2013, which contributed to more than $20 million to the New South Wales economy (afr.com 2018).
The goals and objectives of the lighting and musical festival have been described further.
Objective 1: economic vitality
Goal 1: to ensure a vibrant, strong and sustainable local economy
Objective 2: social vitality
Goal 2: promotion of diverse, dynamic and connected local communities
The 23 days festival is organised with the aim of restoring the economic and social vitality of the region. The festival invited some of the world class business leaders with creative ideas and innovation skills. As mentioned by Haeusler (2014), the fruitful collaboration between organizations across different nations leads to successful job creation, which helps in the development of a sustainable economy. The event also results in assemblage of people across different communities and region, which further helps in the development of a strong social and community.
The VIVID SYDNEY was aimed to act a magnet for invirting greater number of tourists from Asia Pacific. As mentioned by Walters and Insch (2018), the goal is to reinforce tourism along with also acting as an important forum for the exchange of crucial business ideas. The marketing methods used by the event also serve as a crucial factor for inviting tourists. VIVID SYDNEY has been using digital technology to give the best in class experience to its target audience. This could be explained on the basis of the 2017 collaboration with snapchat, which served as the social media partner of the event. In here the snapchat users will have the option to choose from a set of five geofilters, which help the attendees to explore many precincts in order to collect the full set of VIVID SYDNEY (dailytelegraph.com.au 2018). Additionally, the exclusively provided VIVID SYDNEY lens over can be used capture augmented version of the face of a user. The VIVID SYDNEY 2018 promise to maintain the feature it has provide since the last year. It will continue to provide audio files though its app, which will provide the audio description regarding each key venue and light sculpture. The Smartphone app of the VIVID SYDNEY offers features such as improved navigation, push notifications, calendar and event ticket integration. As reported by Herezniak and Florek (2016), the vent ticket integration resulted in an 11.1% increase in the overall purchase quantity of the tickets of the event.
Overview of VIVID SYDNEY Festival
The event VIVID SYDNEY can have mixed effects upon the host community. Some of these have been discussed further with reference to plausible impact upon the society and the economy. The event was followed by a huge number of positive consequences, which was further evaluated though face-to face interview with the attendees. The survey conducted highlighted several themes which could be further discussed over here. Some of these include good use of community funds along making the region economically more sustainable. 89% of the respondents surveyed mentioned that the event of enhanced the reputation of Sydney as a creative region (Parmenter 2011). A large part of the attendees of the survey agreed to the fact that the event made the local community economically sustainable. As reported by Herezniak and Florek (2016), the additional funds generated could be used for the promotion of philanthropic activities.
The event calls for the participation of a large number of world class leaders who are there to share their take entrepreneurial ideas. The event also acts as an annual mega job fair where companies come and advertise their marketing objectives (Hespanhol et al. 2013). As mentioned by Lamond and Spracklen (2016), the event gives a push to start up entrepreneurs as they get to choose from a wide display of entrepreneurial ideas. Additionally, the event also calls for the participation from a number of local musician bands and talents, which results in rich mixing of cultures; as many people come and participate from tribal areas. As mentioned by Haeusler (2014), the tourism along with job development aspect results in the generation of extra funds.
A number of methods could be used to evaluate the success of the event. Some of these have been evaluated over here such as empirical evidence, media coverage, organiser’s report and audience survey. Since the event is large-scale, a number of mixed methods have been used to measure the success of the event. An empirical data collected from a survey with the last year attendees of the VIVID SYDNEY showed that almost 78% wished to return (afr.com 2018). Some of the reasons cited by them were as follows- closeness to residence, less crowd, variety show, family friendly etc. As reported by the organisers of the event the return on investment was around $1.8 million and $2.0 million for the event, which gave the economy a huge push (huffingtonpost.com.au 2018). It led to an increase of 37% in the local business profit since the last year, as the event increased the number of people visiting the area three fold times (vividsydney.com 2018). The integration of the event with social media platforms such as snapchat and facebook calls for huge target audience.
A number of issues were faced in organising and conducting the VIVID SYDNEY event. One of the most dominant issues which are faced over here is the management of the large crowd. The large crowd calls for stricter measures to be taken by the Sydney based cops such as putting crowd barriers to facilitate safe viewing. One of the effective measures which had been used by the police since last year is using social media pages to keep crowd movements up-to-date and announce important festivals or events. It has been identified by one of the event organisers that the road closures may hinder bus and public vehicle movement through normal routes. The information regarding each event is put up on the website so that people can check that in advance and plan accordingly. For additional safety the organising committee has decided to put ID wristbands on the hands of the children where the parents can put down their phone numbers so that it is easy to locate the child in case they get lost (vividsydney.com 2018). Additionally, the VIVID SYDNEY app is a good way of connecting with the audience as well ensures that the attendees are kept up- to-date.
References
afr.com 2018, afr.com , Available at : https://www.afr.com/news/special-reports/vivid-2017/sydney-becomes-the-creative-hub-of-the-region-20170517-gw6mty [Accessed on 17 April 2018]
dailytelegraph.com.au 2018, dailytelegraph.com.au , Available at: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/vivid-sydney-2017-the-essential-guide/news-story/a0fa64a8b44851703d7d6eb546b51654 [Accessed on 15 April 2018]
Haeusler, M.H., 2014. The Sydney Vivid Festival: From Place Branding to Smart Cities. Cities of Light: Two Centuries of Urban Illumination, p.144.
Here?niak, M. and Florek, M., 2016. Citizen involvement, place branding and mega events: insights from Expo host cities. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, pp.1-12.
Hespanhol, L., Bown, O., Cao, J. and Tomitsch, M., 2013, November. Evaluating the effectiveness of audio-visual cues in immersive user interfaces. In Proceedings of the 25th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference: Augmentation, Application, Innovation, Collaboration (pp. 569-572). ACM.
huffingtonpost.com.au 2018, huffingtonpost.com.au , Available at : https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/05/21/planning-on-going-to-vivid-heres-what-you-should-know_a_22102585/ [Accessed on 16 April 2018]
Lamond, I.R. and Spracklen, K., 2016. Critical Event Studies, pp.56-85.
Parmenter, G., 2011. The city branding of Sydney. In City Branding (pp. 199-205). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
vividsydney.com 2018, vividsydney.com , Available at : https://www.vividsydney.com/about-vivid-sydney [Accessed on 16 April 2018]
Walters, T. and Insch, A., 2018. How community event narratives contribute to place branding. Journal of Place Management and Development, (just-accepted), pp.100-159.
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