From Fan Parks to Live Sites: Mega events and the territorialisation of urban space

Abstract

This article draws on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to consider the phenomenon of Live Sites and Fan Parks which are now enshrined within the viewing experience of mega sports events.Empirically, the article draws upon primary research on Live Sites generated during the London 2012 Olympic Games. Live Sites are represented as new spaces within which to critically locate and conceptually explore the shifting dynamics of urban space, subjectivity and its performative politic. The authors argue that the first, or primary, spaces of mega sporting events (the official venues) and their secondary counterparts (Live Sites) simply extend brandscaping tendencies but that corporate striation is always incomplete, opening up possibilities for disruption and dislocation.

The London 2012 cultural programme: A consideration of Olympic impacts and legacies for small creative organisations in east London

“…The role of the IOC's copyright restrictions in hindering grassroots leveraging opportunities highlights the primarily commercial nature of the Games and provides evidence of how an Olympic 'striated space' (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988;McGillivray & Frew, 2014) is formed. As a matter of fact, Olympic space is controlled, commodified, utilitarian and state-enforced during the Games (from privatisation of public space to sponsor protection), as well as before (e.g., eviction of local residents and businesses) and after (e.g., gentrification).…”

Visitor (im)mobility, leisure consumption and mega-event impact: the territorialisation of Greenwich and small business exclusion at the London 2012 Olympics

“…In doing so, event organisers produce what Dansero et al (2015) refer to as 'project territory', a space that is physically and symbolically transformed in contrast with the existing locality and everyday practices of the 'context territory'. Thus, Olympic-forms of territorialisation can be conceptualised as the production of new-temporary 'striated' urban space (McGillivray and Frew, 2015) helping to strategically manoeuvre flows and circulations across the city. Giulianotti et al (2015) refers to this as 'instrumental mobility'.…”

“…The 'successful' installation of project territory often requires the temporary reengineering of public civic spaces (Smith, 2014). Examples of such include: the construction of corporate 'fan zones' and 'fan parks' (McGillivray and Frew, 2015), and the closure of popular attractions, parks and green spaces (Smith, 2013). Indeed, for small hospitality businesses dependent on leisure spaces being open, this can have devastating consequences (Trading Standards, 2018).…”

Smoothing, striating and territorializing: The assembling of ‘science in the making’

“…The Deleuzo-Guattarian conceptual imagery around smoothing, striating and territories has been mobilized in various contexts and across different disciplinary settings. This has, for instance, included research on virtual spaces (Aroles, 2018a;Nunes, 1999); digital learning spaces (Bayne, 2004); the investigation of space production (Munro and Jordan, 2013); the unfolding of mega sport events (McGillivray and Frew, 2015); the mobility of transnational students (Lysgard and Rye, 2017), as well as a broad range of studies within the field of geography (for instance, Bear, 2013;Bradshaw and Williams, 1999;Labussiere and Nadai, 2014). Deleuze and Guattari (1987) introduce the concepts of smooth and striated by comparing two board games: Chess and Go.…”