PurposeThis study aims to advance both theory and praxis for event portfolio management in cities and destinations. An experiment has been conducted with professional event practitioners in a city to determine their opinions and strategies for balancing value and risk within their event portfolio. The first objective is to rank 14 of the city's recurring events in terms of both value and risk. Second, the events are plotted in a two-dimensional chart of value versus risk with the objective to differentiate between the 14 events. The third objective is to describe the event characteristics that event professionals associate with value and risk.Design/methodology/approachResults derive from an experiment involving the forced Q-sort procedure and professional event managers from a city renowned as an “event capital”. Empirical evidence is analysed by the constant comparative method of how events are being evaluated by ten professionals working for a DMO.FindingsEconomic impact and image effects are characteristics of high-value events as is an opportunity to create relations with event owners for future collaboration. Local community involvement is important for all events. The issue of portfolio fit was a common argument for weak-value events.Research limitations/implicationsResults are based on the opinions of ten DMO employees in one large city. Conclusions help build event portfolio theory.Practical implicationsThe results and methods are useful for event strategists and evaluators. In particular, the management of event portfolios and policies covering events in cities and destinations can benefit from the documented method for explicitly balancing risks with perceived value.Social implicationsA portfolio perspective is also suggested as an approach to analyse the total tourist attractions portfolio of a destination.Originality/valueOpinions regarding public value and risk by civil servants who work with events have not been studied before. The constant comparative method produces results that can be applied to policies governing events. In terms of theory development, concepts from financial portfolio management, product portfolio management and risk management are used to develop event portfolio design and management, and insights are gained on trade-offs in the process. The plot of the events in a two-dimensional chart of value versus risk clearly differentiated the 14 events and is an original contribution.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is first to describe and discuss an innovative strategy, pursued by a music festival, to reduce the environmental impact by allowing only vegetarian food in the festival area. A second aim is to discuss the effects of the vegetarian strategy for the festival in terms of branding and communication impacts. A third aim is to assess the effect on the ecological footprint of the festival from the vegetarian food strategy. Design/methodology/approach – Festival visitors’ food consumption was surveyed in 2010 (719 responses) and again in 2012 when only vegetarian food was served on festival premises (663 responses). The EPA event calculator, developed in Australia, was used to calculate the ecological footprint of the festival. The implementation and the impacts were studied from the festival organisers’ perspective through two (one hour long) interviews with one of the festival managers. Findings – For the festival brand, the vegetarian strategy proved to be extremely successful in terms of media attention and an enhanced “green” image of the festival. An analysis of the environmental impact of the vegetarian strategy indicates a remarkable drop of 40 per cent in the size of the ecological footprint. Practical implications – Based on the results of this study, a vegetarian strategy can be recommended as an innovation for festivals that have core values and a brand image grounded both in sustainability and the reduction of environmental impacts and that are truly concerned about the environment. Originality/value – Festival Footprint Analysis.

No abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine a social marketing initiative pursued by the privately owned Swedish music festival Way Out West during 2012-2014. This paper’s aim is to explore how events can support individual behaviour changes, and it seeks to assess the effects of Way Out West, as well as to understand what motivated visitors to change. Design/methodology/approach The theoretical lens of perceived consumer value (Holbrook, 1999) as the individual outcome of a social marketing exchange is used for the analysis. The paper uses a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods; a Web survey (n = 1757) monitors self-reported behaviour over time, and in-depth interviews are conducted with a handful visitors who reduced regular meat consumption. Findings The results of this paper suggest that the initiative was a strong inspiration for 15 per cent of the sample (corresponding to ca. 9,300 festival visitors who decreased their meat consumption 2012-2014). It was evident that these “Decreasers” perceived functional, emotional, social and altruistic value as outcomes of changed behaviour. The paper identifies and discusses links between the adoption of a new behaviour in the temporal non-ordinary setting of a music festival and the endurance of the behaviour in a mundane environment. Originality/value This paper examines self-perceived effects on behaviour that a private social marketing initiative had on consumers. The paper contributes by applying Holbrook’s (1999) theoretical framework of perceived consumer value to empirical context, by investigating hedonic aspects of social marketing consumption in the non-ordinary setting of a music festival. The paper discusses how a temporarily adopted behaviour continues to create value for consumers, when maintained in ordinary life.

No abstract