In working to understand contemporary festivals, one of the most significant debates is how to manage a festival effectively in the face of increasing competition. In this sense, effective team management is crucial. However, there has been little discussion on the teambuilding phenomenon at festivals. Such features as fluctuations in the number of employees, different categories of employees and involvement of various stakeholders make festivals stand out from other business projects. So, commonly accepted teambuilding practices cannot be simply copied and applied to arts festivals. The purpose of the chapter is to explore particular features of team management at arts festivals in Saint Petersburg. The city, being the main cultural centre of Russia, presents an appropriate field of study. The number of festivals held in the city is increasing each year, as a result of city administration policies (St. Petersburg Committee of Culture Statistics, 2015). There are, however, a limited number of surveys that examine Saint Petersburg events, and it is difficult for researchers to get open access to reports of festival organisations. The authors attempt to fill the gap by presenting major aspects and common team management problems that festival organisations come across. This chapter provides an overview on a variety of team management processes in three specific festivals. Festivals’ team structures, recruitment practices, training and motivation strategies were researched. The authors focus on staff retention and issues relating to the status of different workers that influence team management practices such as decision-making processes, organisational culture, participant interdependence, communication and team size in particular. Research is based on interviews with the festival director, one permanent and one temporary employee for each event, analysis of social media, official websites, articles, and observational method. The chapter presents a part of survey that was carried out in 2014 by the authors. In 6 months, 30 expert interviews were conducted. This chapter deals with three brief cases which were designed as a result of interviews with nine respondents and observation method (the authors took part as visitors in Open Library festival and were involved in the process of organizing International Conservatoire Week Festival as volunteers).

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the problem of place brand architecture. Despite being a well-established research domain in the field of product and services marketing, brand architecture remains an under-explored phenomenon in relation to places. The paper aims to discuss a new approach to a sub-brands strategy that builds on both the supply and the demand sides, and explores the benefits and challenges of the suggested strategy. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on a case study of St Petersburg, Russia, using both secondary and primary data. The primary data consists of in-depth interviews with stakeholders involved in city branding and applies thematic analysis. Findings The results demonstrate that place brand architecture helps to design a differentiated system of sub-brands that are customer-focused and reflect the complexity of a place. The paper outlines the benefits (such as, flexibility of the sub-brands strategy and the increased credibility of the brand) and the challenges for strategy implementation (such as, higher promotional expenditure and communication risk and stakeholder misalignment). Practical implications This paper will be helpful for place brand and tourism managers who seek to attract new target groups and avoid various problems, such as the overcrowding of popular sights. Originality/value While the existing literature on place brand architecture is mainly approached from a geographical perspective, this paper proposes a new target-group-specific approach that incorporates the supply and demand sides.

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