History of the Event Industry Essay

Throughout the years the event industry has gained a major place in everyday life. From the first events of the 19th century, such as the Great Exhibition, to a 2012 music festival. The event industry has developed a huge help to our country’s economy. To the extent of which the â€Å"government is supporting and promoting events as part of their strategies for economic development† (Bowdin and Allen, 2006). There are several types of events. Nowadays, there is almost an event for anything imaginable. First, we will analyse what exactly an event is and the different type of events, then we will be looking at the origins of years. Therefore, we will be able to estimate the future of events. First, there are several definitions of event from different authors. Accepted Practices Exchange Industry Glossary (2003) defines an event as â€Å"an organized occasion such as a meeting, convention, exhibition, special event, gala dinner, etc. An event is often composed of several different yet related functions†. Events enable people to meet up and exchange. There is a large variety of events within four main categories: leisure events, cultural events, organizational events and personal events. Leisure events are an important and growing part of the event industry. Indeed, sport events can generate a huge amount of money for a country because they do not only attract the locals, they attract tourists. Therefore, advertisement comes in thanks to the media coverage, generating extra money. Sport events not only bring benefits(to their host governments and sport organisations, but also benefit participants such as players, coaches and officials, and bring entertainment to spectators (Bowdin and Allen, 2006, p. 20). Cultural events can be ceremonial, sacred, heritage, artistic or musical (Shone and Parry, 2004). Events like these are highly linked with tourism, so they generate income for the event hosts and for the community as the tourists do not usually only go to the event, they stay in hotels, go shopping, etc. Most towns are known thanks to the festivals they host, for instance, Reading is known for the music festival named after the town, the Reading Festival. Organisational events include sales, conferences, charities, politic meetings, business meetings, etc. If we look into conferences, Rogers defines conferences as â€Å"an out-of-office meeting of at least four hours duration involving a minimum of eight people† (Rogers, 2003 p.19). For instance, the G20 conference reunites the leaders of the top 20 world economies to discuss the current situation and make important decisions. These conferences have high importance so the planning of the event has to be perfect. Finally, personal events are the last type of event. It can include weddings, birthdays, anniversaries or funera ls. Personal events are smaller than the other type of events. Weddings are very popular in the event industry; people spend a lot of money on their weddings therefore expecting a perfect organisation. Personal events are supposedly events where the host has a personal link with every guest and the event is usually put together for one or two people. Having seen all the different types of events, we can now analyse the history of the event industry. First of all, the event industry began when events needed trained event managers. However, historically, the organisation of small events did not require any specific expertise. For instance, a wedding would be managed by the bride’s mother. Some families still do it that way; however, some people prefer to pay a professional event manager to avoid having to do the numerous tasks and to avoid the stress involved in organising such an important event. Therefore, event managers began to emerge. Moreover, when big events emerged, an event manager was essential. Such as, the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1851 which was â€Å"conceived to symbolize this industrial, military and economic superiority of Great Britain.† (http://www.victorianstation.com/palace.html, 2001 [online]). It was an event recognized almost everywhere in the world which hugely helped the British economy as it was a great way to promote their industry. According to Dale (1995) the Great Exhibition was a big success which hosted over 6 million visitors. The event made a considerable profit of over  £180 000 (Exhibition Committee, 1995). This was the first big international trade show and therefore many exhibition venues started emerging, for instance, the Royal Agricultural Hall in 1862 or Olympia a few years later (Bowdin and Allen, 2006, p.6). So the 1850’s is when the organisational events started to emerge but the sport events started many years before that. Indeed, sport events, such as, the equestrian event called the Royal Ascot appeared in 1711 and the famous Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in 1829. The UK is known for its sporting events and most of them are originally from the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Sporting events were very popular at the time and still are, so they kept emerging throughout the years. For example, the FA Cup emerged in 1872 and Wimbledon appeared in 1877 which is a huge success in the tennis world and it represented the higher class in the British society. These events attracted many visitors, therefore â€Å"providing major benefits for local economies† (English Tourism, 1999). Cultural events such as, music festivals began to come forth in the event industry from the early 1870’s with the Workington Festival. Later in that period, the Last Night of the Proms appeared which is probably one of the biggest music events in the world (Bowdin and Allen, 2006, p.7). The Last Night of the Proms was set up to encourage people who would not normally attend to classical concerts but who would be attracted by the low ticket prices and a laid-back atmosphere. Robert Newman, the founder of the event, (Nedal, 2010,[online]) announced his goals as such: â€Å"I am going to run nightly concerts and train the public by easy stages. Popular at first, gradually raising the standard until I have created a public for classical and modern music.† After noticing the growth of events, Wood (1982) drew attention to the start of the event industry. She recognised that organising popular celebrations required wealth for people to participate therefore bank holidays emerged, such as, the Silver Jubilee and the Golden Jubilee. These bank holidays enabled the working class to participate in the events thanks to their paid days off. This is when the government starts paying more attention to the event industry. After the Second World War, events are recognised to be of high importance to the economy of the country. Indeed, hundreds of festivals emerged thanks to the general increase of wealth and the free time availability. Foreign cultural events increased as well, for instance, the West Indian community founded the Notting Hill Carnival in 1964 to celebrate and commemorate their ancestors’ freedom from slavery (Holder, 2001). Around the 1970’s, a large amount of popular music festivals appeared, for example, the Pilton Festival and the Isle of Wight Festival. The Isle of Wight festival was a huge success on the popularity front but it had a few organisational issues. The entry fee became free as they lost control of admissions due to an overcrowded venue. After that incident, the Isle of Wight festival stopped for a few years (Bowdin and Allen, 2006, p.9). Moreover, from the 1970’s, the government and the local authorities financed a range of new multipurpose venues, including the Wembley Exhibition Centre. From then onwards, development of outdoor and indoor venues has not stopped increasing. With the increase of events, event is turning into a professional sector. We have seen how the event industry has developed, however, now we will look at the technological changes and the transport improvements that have revolutionised events. First, the appearance of the television had a big impact on events. It enabled people to watch any given event whilst sitting in a sofa; therefore, any event that was broadcasted on television had a considerably larger audience. The Los Angeles Olympic Games was one of the first events to be broadcasted on television. It was a great success as the economic benefits were very high (Bowdin and Allen, 2006, p.10). We will now analyse the relatively recent Olympic Games to demonstrate how the technological changes and the transport improvements made the events so successful compared to the past Olympic Games. First, transport made the games more accessible. The number of flights increased so the speed of travel was faster and more regular. In addition, huge container ships, super tankers, appeared making it easier for the hosting countries to import a huge amount of material goods for the establishment of the venues and the sport facilities. So it made the Olympics bigger in size which meant that there was a bigger audience and more sport athletes. Furthermore, the appearance of computers made life much easier for event managers as they could do all their organisation plans on their PC and virtually design the whole event. When internet emerged it made communication much easier and more efficient. Indeed, for someone to receive an email it takes around 3 seconds which is a bonus for stressed event managers who need to have quick answers. Computing and event managing went to another level when Skype appeared. â€Å"The service allows users to communicate with peers by voice using a microphone, video by using a webcam, and instant messaging over the Internet.† (Techspot, 2012 [online]). Skype enables organisers to have video conferences with each other wherever they might be. For example, if a meeting is taking place in London and one of the members is in Japan they can still have a live conversation with him on the computer screen. This probably often happened in the process of planning the London Olympics. Another technologic invention is the smartphone. Indeed, this is a very recent invention which can do a huge amount, on the move. The main advantage of smartphones is the applications available. Applications that can give you all the latest news about the Olympics live, or some can tell you the easiest way to get to the event. An application that is often used by smartphone owners is the QR barcode reader which is a new form of advertisement for businesses. The idea is that the smartphone acts like a barcode reader thanks to the camera so it can read any given QR code for the advert to appear on the smartphone’s screen. For example, when the Olympics had an advertisement for cheap tickets to see the games and it had a QR code, the smartphone owner could scan the code which would send them to the website to get the cheap tickets. All these applications made the Olympics much more accessible and just easier to gather information. Moreover, for the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, the lighting technology was highly impressive with all the latest technology. The pixel animations were made to draw the audience, in the arena and watching it on the television. It consisted making animations with the lights that where placed on the edge of every spectator in the stadium. â€Å"A total of 27 animated sequences, lasting 75 minutes, were created for the closing ceremony, using 634,500 individual LED pixels that together created what is believed to be the largest video screen† (Bond A.,2012 [online]). All this new technology used for the Olympics is one of the reasons why it was so popular. And it will, most likely, be used in future events. Putting the Olympics aside, a technological feature that has recently been used in a music festival is the hologram. â€Å"A hologram is a technique which enables three-dimensional images to be made† (Concert Boom, 2011, [online]). In a concert in the United States a well-known rapper who died in 1996, Tupac, appeared on stage in 3D. â€Å"A life-size hologram of Tupac who stunned the crowd of 75,000 fans when he appeared onstage† (Fitzmaurice and Mcconnell, 2012, [online]). It shows to what extent technology can go in the event world. After seeing how the event industry has changed, it raises the question of where the event industry is going. For many years, technology has not stopped emerging in events. Therefore, event managers have to adapt to the constant change of technology. Ecology is another factor that event managers have to be aware of. Indeed, the environment has become a big issue. Events, such as festival, are not usually environmentally friendly. Therefore, event managers will have to research different ways of avoiding damaging the environment which will change events. Due to the environmental changes, the price of transport will get higher because of the petrol shortage. Events will, therefore, be more expensive. Furthermore, health and safety regulations will most likely get stricter so events might lose a bit of their creative freedom. The event industry will have to adapt to the future changes in society to keep the society interested in events. Creativity with the use of technology, such as the use of the hologram, will keep the crowd interested. So the future of successful big events will be down to creativity, the use of technology and the environmental consequences of the event. However, even if big events will constantly evolve, it does not mean that traditional events, such as weddings, will change. Indeed, there is only a minimum of technology that a wedding needs to be successful. Therefore, unless the whole concept of a wedding changes, weddings will, more or less, stay the same. It will be the same for birthday celebrations and anniversaries. Throughout this paper, we have discovered that events have a considerable role in todays’ society and that events have evolved a huge amount throughout the years. By looking at the changes of events throughout the years, it should be possible to have an idea of the future of events. However, anything can happen and we do not know what new invention will see the light that will change the whole event industry. But the common idea seems to be that the technology and the environment are the two main factors that will change the big events, such as sport events, but the traditional events will not change. References Bond A. (2010) The greatest disco on Earth! Pixel animations turn Olympic Stadium into psychedelic light show. In MailOnline.[online] available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2187468/The-greatest-disco-Earth-Pixe