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Emerging Models of the Eventful City
Greg Richards
NHTV Breda and Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Email: richards.g@nhtv.nl
Bio
Greg Richards is Professor of Placemaking and Events at NHTV Breda University of Applied
Sciences and Professor of Leisure Studies at the University of Tilburg in The Netherlands. His recent
publications include Reinventing the Local in Tourism and the SAGE Handbook of New Urban
Studies.
Pre-publication version of Richards, G. (2017) Emerging models of the Eventful City. Event
Management, 21(5), 533-543. For final text see published article.
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Abstract
Cities around the world are increasingly using events as a tool to generate a wide range of effects,
including image enhancement, income generation and social cohesion. However, the use of events as
an urban policy tool is hampered by the fact that events themselves also have their own objectives,
such as making a profit or advancing the agenda of national and international organisations. In some
cases the objectives of the events and the city may coincide, but in other cases they may not. For
cities, therefore, there is a growing challenge in coordinating their events programme in order to
maximise the benefits for the city as a whole, while also supporting individual events. Many cities
have already developed specific events policies and support mechanisms, but these tend to treat events
as individual occurrences, rather than as an integral part of the urban ecology. Richards and Palmer
(2010) have argued that the ‘eventful city’ needs to take a strategic, holistic view of its events
portfolio, in order to move from being a city full of events to developing ‘eventfulness’. This paper
considers how some cities are developing more holistic approaches to event policy and eventfulness.
In reviewing the events policies of cities worldwide, it identifies three emerging policy models:
Event-centric policy, Sector-centric policy and Network-centric policy. The paper further considers
the implications of these different models for events and events policies in cities.
Keywords: eventful cities, urban events, event programmes, event portfolios, urban regimes,
governance
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Cities and their events
There has always been a close relationship between cities and events. Cities provide the stage upon
which a great number of events unfold, and events provide the catalytic energy that drives urban
development. In the modern era this relationship has crystallised into a series of models or strategies
related to the way in which cities utilise events to synchronise agendas, develop externalities and
attract attention. Growing attention for such models has generated a steady flow of contributions to
the events literature dealing with the city-event relationship (e.g. Whitson & Macintosh, 1993;
Gratton & Henry, 2001; Richards & Wilson, 2004; Peters & Pikkemaat, 2005; Hall, 2006; Smith,
2012, 2015).
The first main stream of literature on cities and events deals with the broad nature of events, and the
role of cities as scenarios in which events take place. Some of the early work in this area took its lead
from Foucault’s concept of ‘eventalization’ (1980), which identifies the process by which events are
removed from their historical context and become seen as empty signifiers, bereft of meaning. This is
essentially the development that Häußermann & Siebel (1993) identified in their concept of
‘festivalization’, or the development of urban policy through events.
Attention for processes of festivalization marked a concern with the transformation of urban centres
into consumption spaces, spearheaded by urban administrations keen to attract the affluent middle
classes. This process was fuelled by economic and social restructuring processes and the perceived
need for global attention, particularly in compensation for the declining attention paid by nation states
to cities. Festivalization served as a tool for city governments to create attractions, increase
identification of residents with the city, develop public consensus, and establish common goals.
The widespread nature of festivalization was also captured in Tschumi’s (1994) idea of the ‘event
city’, in which the architecture of the city is increasingly influenced by the event. Sabaté i Bel et al.
(2004) also later introduced the concept of ‘event places’ to denote the way in events increasingly
owed their existence to the qualities of certain places, and in turn came to influence the way in which
these places developed. Increasing attention for the relationship between events and places also led to
the realisation that different events, or types of events, can have differing effects on the places in
which they are staged. PlØger (2010) draws on Foucault’s concept of eventalization to underline the
distinction between the urban as a scenario for spontaneous ‘presence-events’ and top-down, planned
‘serial events’. Presence events, such as the Pirate Parties held in the Danish capital Copenhagen are
equated with eventalization, as they have the potential to challenge and change existing structure
(Richards, 2015a), whereas top-down serial events are seen as instances of ‘eventification’.
‘Eventification’, according to Jakob (2013) involves ‘a rendering of the space of the city as a series of
time elements, increasing the use value of space. In the city, therefore, time and space are intimately
bound to each other. ‘
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The debate on the relationship between events and cities has therefore passed through a number of
stages, from a relatively general notion of festivalization to a more structured consideration of the role
of events as social and spatial actors in cities (Richards & Palmer, 2010). It is against this background
that the ‘eventful city’ concept first emerged. This concept derived from the observation that cities
were beginning to treat events not as discrete happenings in discrete spaces, but as temporal and
spatial tools to utilise urban resources in order to achieve a range of policy outcomes for the city as a
whole. This is the basis for the definition later proposed for the eventful city:
An eventful city purposefully uses a programme of events to strategically and sustainably
support long-term policy agendas that enhance the quality of life for all. (Richards, 2015b:40)
A number of different cities around the globe have embarked on such broader eventful city strategies
in the last few years. This paper looks at the ways in which the eventful city has developed in the
context of three very different European cities: Edinburgh, Rotterdam and Den Bosch, and to trace the
links between their different approaches and urban context. First we consider the general integration
of events and urban processes over time.
The development of urban event organisation
According to Richards & Palmer (2010), the growth of cities marked a shift of events from the
religious into the secular sphere, with a growing use of events as forms of display and spectacle. This
in turn led to the growth of specific event spaces, such as the market square or the parade ground.
Initially, events were highly regulated and limited to specific days or times marked out for collective
celebration. Events were supposed to serve the rational needs of urban society for commerce, festivity
and relaxation, and there was widespread prohibition of events and/or gatherings outside these
legitimised spaces and times.
The rational serving of urban needs continued into the industrial era, as cities sought to profile
themselves first as national and then international centres for trade and industry. There was a
purposeful use of (mega) events as a means of demonstrating the power of the city (Roche, 2000). In
the modern era there was a fairly rigid hierarchy to the events world, with the major events taking
place in the capital city, sponsored by the nation state, or in the 20th century also by supranational
organisations (such as the International Olympic Committee or FIFA).
In the postindustrial era, however, the erosion of national spheres of influence under globalisation saw
cities redefine themselves in the face of global competition. There was a search for new meanings and
narratives as cities sought to position themselves, and events began to provide a basis for placemaking
strategies, image enhancement and employment creation (Hixson, 2010). The increasing integration
of events and urban policy led to the emergence of what Rennen (2007) has termed ‘CityEvents’,
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involving different stakeholders including civic administrations, commercial companies, the media
and national governments. The role of the city therefore moved from the direct organisation of events
towards a more facilitatory role, in line with increasingly neo-liberal policies. In particular mega-
events were analysed as a vehicle for urban policy (Hall, 2006).
In spite of this growth, there has been relatively little research on the relationship between urban
policy and event programmes. Antchak (2016) argues that the study of regional event policies
conducted by Whitford (2004) in South East Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Australia is one of the few
studies to directly address public event policy. In recent years, however, more cities have begun
establishing new event development agencies responsible for planning and realisation of city event
projects (Getz, 2012). Thus in turn has attracted more attention to the causes and effects of urban
events policy, leading in some cases to highly critical analyses of neo-liberal event policies and
management strategies (Rojek, 2014).
In recent years cities have begun to seek increased flexibility and funding possibilities through the
formation of arms-length organisations for event organisation and management. As Smith (2012)
argues in the case of London, neo-liberal policies are driving a growth in the staging of commercial
events in cities, increasing the challenges of coordination. Many cities are now operating ‘one stop
shops’ for event organisers in order to streamline the process of applying for permits and organising
resources for events. Cities now position themselves in terms of their ability to provide support for
event organisers:
In New Orleans, celebration is a way of life. With over 400 cultural, entertainment, and
sporting events, our city has more events than days in the year. New Orleans is uniquely
positioned and skilled at supporting events - large and small, simple and complex. (New
Orleans, 2016)
For many cities the aim is to support a portfolio of events that will deliver a range of benefits to the
city and its stakeholders (Ziakas, 2014). Antchak (2016) analyses the relationship of event portfolios
in the New Zealand cities of Auckland, Dunedin and Wellington and shows that each city has a
distinct approach to the development and management of its portfolio. This underlines the need to
analyse the policy context in which event activity develops.
Influences on urban event policy
As events became recognised as a legitimate sphere for urban policy, cities developed specific event
policies intended to guide the development and management of events taking place in the city. Studies
emerged of events policy, and how cities could successfully encourage or grow events to produce
beneficial outcomes. Many cities also developed specific departments or offices dedicated to
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overseeing events policy and/or attracting new or footloose events. Although the development of
event policy was widespread from the 1990s onwards, it was by no means universal, and some cities
were more enthusiastic and/or successful in their development of event-based policies. Around the
turn of the Millennium a number of cities also began to develop policies that exploited the
relationship between events and wider urban policy agendas. For example Manchester developed a
programme of ‘Pillar Events’ in 2005, focussing on events such as the Manchester Jazz Festival,
Manchester Pride Parade, Manchester Food and Drink Festival and Manchester Literature Festival
that were seen as having particular significance for the city and/or significant externalities
(Manchester City Council, 2011).
In particular, some authors have attempted to link the development of event strategies to specific
types of ‘urban regimes’. Stone (1989, 2005) argues that local governments can only govern
effectively by entering into long-term alliances with other interest groups in the city, such as
businesses, social groups or development organisations. These relatively stable coalitions he terms
‘urban regimes’, which have specific ‘agendas’ or aims that they come together to support.
Interestingly, Stone’s original work in Atlanta focussed among other things on how the urban regime
in the city managed to attract and organise the 1996 Olympic Games in the face of considerable
internal and external challenges. The Atlanta regime arguably used the Olympic Games to put the city
on the global map, attract visitors to the city and create economic impacts. These are fairly typical
aims of what Stone characterises as a ‘development regime’. Later work has confirmed the strong link
between mega events and development regimes (Heying et al., 2002; Hiller, 2003). Heying et al.
(2002) concluded that Olympic bids follow the pattern of growth regime politics, implying that mega-
event bidding suits the desires of business leaders rather than elected officials or city residents. “The
bidding process is conducted in such a way as to limit the accountability of bid organizers to public
officials or citizens. “ (p. 193).
Misener & Mason (2008) also looked at the relationship between sports strategies and urban regimes.
Reviewing the strategies of Edmonton, Canada; Manchester, United Kingdom and Melbourne,
Australia, they found that a more progressive regime in Edmonton used events to facilitate a wider
range of civic goals that the economic development regimes in Manchester and Melbourne, which
were focussed on using events to attract capital and investment. Concentrating on the Olympics,
Surborg et al. (2008) also argued that economic growth regimes now also have a transnational
dimension, with ‘policy networks’ linking different cities and allowing them to learn from each other
about events and event policies.
The growing use of (mega)events for economic goals linked to neo-liberal policies and globalisation
has also caused people to question what is driving such developments. For example Fleischer et al.
(2013) argue that ‘A Hegemony of Festivalized Middle-class Civic Culture’ is in evidence in many
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cities pursuing event-led development policies. Similarly, Haferburg and Steinbrink (forthcoming)
show the ways in which international organisations such as FIFA or the IOC over-ride the normal
decision-making processes in the host city, effectively imposing their own set of laws for the duration
of the event.
These studies have emphasised that events are increasingly integrated into general urban policies.
Events have become more than individual happenings: they have become policy tools that can be used
to further a wide range of different agendas in different cities. A further point that has not been
considered in previous studies is that once events become an important element on the policy agenda
of a city, they can begin to influence the direction of the policies and structures that created them.
Events effectively become ‘actors’ in the urban system, to the extent that sustaining, developing or
attracting events becomes a policy goal in itself (Richards, 2015a). The idea that events have become
central to the policy agendas of cities is one of the key observations that prompted the original
development of the ‘eventful city’ concept by Richards & Palmer (2010).
The new centrality of events in urban policy agendas arguably reflects a legitimisation of events as a
policy tool by a wider range of stakeholders, which in turn is influenced by the shift from narrow
models of urban government to broader systems of urban governance (Stone, 1989). This raises the
question of how cities can adapt their events policies to cope with the increased protagonism of events
in cities and the growing claims of different urban agendas on their events programmes. Does the
programme or portfolio of an eventful city develop in response to top-down strategy, or is it the
product of stakeholder negotiation? This paper aims to examine different ways in which ‘eventful
city’ models have developed and to analyse their relationship to broader urban structures and
processes in an attempt to answer these questions.
Strategies for eventfulness
In their original review of ‘eventful cities’, Richards & Palmer (2010) identified a number of cities
that could be described as ‘eventful’, including Barcelona, Edinburgh, Rotterdam, Montreal,
Melbourne and Singapore. The defining characteristic of these cities is that they all take a strategic
view of events, and utilise their events programme as a whole to achieve wider civic goals. In most
cases there has been a gradual development of ‘eventfulness’, often beginning with certain hallmark
events and then developing into a strategic programming approach. Although all of these cities could
be said to possess an identifiable ‘portfolio’ of events, eventful cities arguably do more than manage
or develop their events portfolio. They also see events as important catalysts that can be used to
synchronise policy agendas, solidify stakeholder networks and increase identification among citizens.
Although the use of events as an urban policy tool is a defining characteristic for eventful cities, not
all these cities have developed eventfulness in the same way. Comparison of different cities reveals a
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high level of path-dependency, with clear links between economic structures, urban regime type and
eventfulness policies.
The following section compares three different ideal types of eventful city policies: event-centric,
sector-centric and network-centric. These are not presented as representative of particular types or
groups of cities, rather the analyses are developed as a heuristic device to illustrate ideal cases. This
analysis has been developed largely on the basis of a study of relevant literature, including policy
documents in the areas of events, tourism and culture. This is supported in some cities by Interviews
with policy makers and data taken from event impact analyses and other original research.
Event-centric eventfulness
At the most basic level, cities can concentrate on developing the number, range and type of events
they stage in order to create more eventfulness. Many cities are now thinking about how they can
programme events in order to support the overall objectives of the city. Such strategies usually focus
on event policy, programming and management.
This is a relatively narrow strategic focus, which centres on the identification of new event-related
products and markets. The most common measures taken include the establishment of an events unit
to coordinate event policy and management and the development of an overall event programming
strategy (e.g. Bianchini & Parkinson, 1993; Whitford, 2002).
Examples of this kind of strategy include the Antwerpen Open organisation in Antwerp, Belgium and
Edinburgh Festivals in Scotland. In the case of Antwerpen Open, the city itself was instrumental in
developing and funding the event-coordination body for the city. The idea arose during the European
Capital of Culture (ECOC) event staged in the city in 1993. Antwerpen Open was responsible for the
event programme of the ECOC, managing municipally-funded events directly and liaising with the
organisers of other events in the programme. Once the ECOC ended the experience was so positive
that the city decided to continue funding Antwerpen Open, and gave it a remit to oversee the city’s
cultural programme (Antwerpen Open, 2005). Antwerpen Open also became a model for other
Belgian cities, most notably Bruges, which established Brugge Plus to manage the ECOC in 2003.
The main characteristic of these organisations is that they generate almost all of their funding from the
Municipality.
Probably because of the origins of the organisation in the ECOC, Antwerpen Open operated mainly in
the field of the arts. For example, it organised the van Dyck Year in 1999 and the World Book Capital
and Rediscover Rubens in 2004. Even though it was also involved with the fashion theme year ‘Mode
2001’, Antwerpen Open did not fully engage with the city’s iconic fashion sector, reflecting a lack of
marketing support for fashion that is still felt today (Pandolfi, 2015; Goesaert et al., 2015). As
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Goeseart et al note, fashion events held in the city are mainly picked up by the specialist fashion press
in other countries rather than by the domestic press.
In 2015 Antwerpen Open was integrated into Antwerpen Kunstenstad (Antwerp Art City). In this
form it is responsible among other things for supporting ‘the objectives of cultural events of the City
of Antwerp’ and ‘promoting the city of Antwerp as a cultural city in Belgium and abroad.’
In contrast to Antwerp, where event policy has been driven by the Municipality, Edinburgh’s
eventfulness is driven by the main festivals themselves. The main Edinburgh International Festival
was founded in 1947, and since then many important festivals have developed in the city, producing a
total audience of over 4 million. Edinburgh became a prime international ‘festival city’, but at the
turn of the Millennium it began to experience growing competition as other cities in the UK and
elsewhere began to develop their own festivals. This was the cue for the 12 main Edinburgh festivals
to commission the Thundering Hooves study (AEA Consulting, 2006), which recommended creating
an on-going forum to ‘ensure the long-term health’ of the festivals. As a result of this
recommendation, the festivals came together to form Festivals Edinburgh in 2007. This body is ‘an
expression of the twelve festivals’ collective will’ (Edinburgh Festivals, 2015:20). It is largely grant
funded, and has to be small and lean. Edinburgh Festivals has done a lot to generate knowledge on the
Edinburgh Festivals and also events in general, through the Festivals Lab.
In particular this example of bottom-up development reveals some of the important issues related to
this event-focused model. As the original Thundering Hooves report on the festivals strategy of
Edinburgh revealed, the festivals themselves tend to have their own sectoral view of the world. So the
Edinburgh Film Festival sees itself operating primarily within a circuit of film festivals, rather than
being part of a festival economy in the city of Edinburgh. There may also be a certain rivalry between
the festivals in the city, as they tend to regard public sector finance as a zero-sum game in which
increased funding for one festival means reduced funding for others. In some cases the different
festivals may also begin to compete among themselves, often dividing into established vs newer
events. This underlines one of the potential weaknesses on an event-centric approach, namely that
benefits accruing to the events sector may not spill over into other sectors of the economy or city life
in general.
Sector-centric eventfulness
A sectoral approach to eventfulness is often based on an understanding that events have a much more
significant role beyond the immediate impact of the events themselves. Sectoral strategies see events
as important platforms for particular economic, social and cultural activities in the city. The
development of eventfulness can therefore be related to all the stakeholder groups that can benefit
from and support events. These can include both direct stakeholders who stand to gain economically
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or politically from the events policy (as is largely the case in Edinburgh, for example), and indirect
stakeholders who will gain from the general growth in economic, social or cultural activity and the
increased concentration of knowledge and resources in the city (Richards & Palmer, 2010).
Examples of sector-centric strategies include Rotterdam, Dubai, Austin, Texas, and Montréal. In these
cities events have become part of broader economic and social policies aimed at developing the city
as a whole. In Montréal events such as the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, Just for Laughs
Comedy Festival, FrancoFolies, MUTEK and the Circus Arts Festival have provided essential support
for the development of the tourism, entertainment and creative sectors in the city (Tourisme Montréal
, 2014). Austin labels itself the Music Capital of the World, and the leading role of the music industry
makes this a natural focus for development. In addition to SXSW, the city also stages the Austin City
Limits Music Festival, the Urban Music Festival, the Kerrville Folk Festival and the Austin Reggae
Festival. These events focus attention on the city and bring leading actors in the creative industries
together there.
A sectoral focus provides opportunities to develop certain events into ‘Field Configuring Events’
(Schüßler & Sydow, 2013) that act as major global or international hubs within a certain economic,
political or cultural field. For smaller cities, such events offer a world stage for a limited period of
time, such as the Cannes Film Festival, which focusses global attention on this small French city for a
few days.
In Rotterdam, as in Antwerp, the Municipality established an events organisation following the ECOC
event (held in 2001). Rotterdam Festivals was created as an arms-length organisation, with
considerable public funding but formally outside the Municipal organisation. As in the case of
Antwerpen Open Rotterdam Festivals also had a remit for cultural programming, particularly aimed at
increasing cultural participation among Rotterdammers.
The mission of Rotterdam Festivals is summarised in their Annual Report (2015), which underlines
that the organisation seeks to reach a large, broad audience with events that are characteristic of the
identity of the city and which support the city’s events sector.
We are looking for festivals that create meaningful experiences for visitors and that
emphasise the identity of the city of Rotterdam. …. We are still the most appealing event city
of The Netherlands and we reach a broad audience through (inter)national appealing
programming where our cultural institutions, architecture, diversity of people and cultures,
and harbours are the main focal point. (Rotterdam Festivals, 2016)
The activities of Rotterdam Festivals have therefore become broader that the events sector alone,
embracing other sectors in the search for distinctive events and a distinctive identity for the city. One
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of the ways that this has been achieved is to identify strong sectors in the city’s economy, and to
develop events that showcase these in the city and also for an international audience. Examples
include the World Harbour Day, the International Film Festival and the World Food Festival. The
latter was created by Rotterdam Festivals in 2013 to coincide with the opening of the Markthal, a
food-based attraction and marketplace. The Markthal was used as a centrepiece for the event, which
attracted 80,000 visitors.
Network-centric eventfulness
The value of a network-based approach to city events has been explored in some detail by Stokes
(2006). Network-centric strategies reach out beyond the city itself to connect with stakeholders
elsewhere who can help to generate ‘network value’. Richards and Colombo (2017) define network
value as:
…the value that can be created through the linkages provided by a network, above the value
created by the links available to individual network members alone.
Seeing events as an important focus for activities within the city is just one part of the potential of
events. Their greatest effects can often lie beyond the city itself, in their ability to tie the city into
broader global networks and to make it a hub for economic, social and cultural activity.
In the case of the eventful city, the key lies in conceptualising the city itself as a network actor.
Following Castells’ (2009) terminology, when a city takes an active role in networks, it can position
itself as a ‘switcher’ that links different networks together. As a switcher in global networks, the city
can perform a vital role in linking local ‘programmers’ (responsible for the local content of events)
with global networks, providing new opportunities and ideas. Two cities that have managed to
position themselves as switchers in different ways are Den Bosch in the Netherlands and Barcelona in
Catalunya.
The Dutch city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) made extensive use of the creative industries in its
programme of celebrations for the 500th anniversary of the death of the painter Hieronymus Bosch in
2016. This event aimed to attract large numbers of tourists, and also to strengthen the creative and
cultural fabric of the city by bringing Bosch to life, using his artistic legacy as a creative inspiration
for the future. The interesting challenge for Den Bosch is that it does not have any pictures by Bosch,
as his surviving paintings are scattered across the world. The city has therefore had to develop a
creative tourism product based entirely on intangible assets, including the creativity inspired by
Bosch’s work and the storytelling potential of being his birthplace (Marques, 2013).
Particularly important elements of the programme are the Bosch Research & Conservation Project and
the Bosch Cities Network. The Bosch Research & Conservation Project is researching the work of the
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painter, validating and discovering new artworks, and restoring many of them. These activities
increase our knowledge of Bosch’s work, and help to establish the position of Den Bosch as a global
hub of expertise and knowledge. The Bosch Cities Network links the cities where Bosch artworks are
present in museum collections. The network cooperates around research, restoration, performing arts
and visual arts. Most importantly, the network has been used as a means of securing works by Bosch
for the Major exhibitions of Bosch paintings (in 's-Hertogenbosch in February - May 2016 and in the
Prado in Madrid from June - September 2016). Over 420,000 visitors saw the exhibition Visions of a
Genius in 's-Hertogenbosch, about 25% of whom were international tourists. Even more importantly
the city attracted attention from the global media, in particular for ‘achieving the impossible’ in
mounting the exhibition (Kennedy, 2015).
By linking tourism and the creative industries, the city has overcome limitations in the supply of
cultural heritage resources, developed the creative capacity of the city, forged international networks
to gather creative resources and focus visitor attention and engaged citizens through the development
of grassroots creativity. A city that was previously reliant on the heritage of the past has creatively
linked itself to new sectors such as gaming and design to engage new visitor markets and extend its
product portfolio. This case particularly illustrates how the creative sectors can help destinations reach
new markets, extend their creative activities internationally and use clusters and networks to leverage
added value.
In the case of Barcelona, there is no shortage of tangible or intangible resources on which to base
eventfulness. In fact, the ‘festive culture’ of the city includes some 6000 popular festivals and local
events every year. Over 500 organisations are involved in these events, which are organised with the
active participation of 117,718 people (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2013). This festive culture has
helped to put Barcelona on the map as a major tourist destination, to strengthen the creative industries
in the city and to increase social cohesion (Richards, 2015a). However, the strategic development of
event policy in Barcelona is dominated by major events such as the World Mobile Congress, EIBTM
and Bread and Butter, all which generate significant economic impact (e.g. GSMA, 2016). One of the
ways in which Barcelona has been able to attract and secure major events is through the use of its
international networks. A good example of this is the 2004 UNESCO-sponsored Universal Forum of
Cultures – a year-long event which was held for the first time in Barcelona thanks to the city’s
lobbying with UNESCO. Even though the event itself was not so successful (Richards and Palmer,
2010), Barcelona managed to secure a position as the home of the Forum, and future editions of the
event have all been selected and organised with the help of Barcelona. The event therefore continues
to provide a global platform for Barcelona and Catalan culture, even though it is now held in distant
locations. This strategy of establishing the city as an events ‘hub’ is also seen in the case of the Sonar
Electronic Music Festival (Richards and Colombo, 2017), which has developed satellite events around
the world that focus attention on Barcelona as the origin of the event.
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Discussion
The examples of different models of eventfulness presented here illustrate the very different directions
that cities can take in trying to develop themselves as eventful cities. Many cities still have a fairly
traditional top-down model of event organisation, with the city setting, funding and monitoring
policy. In other cases, most notably in Edinburgh, the growth of events has produced a situation in
which the events sector itself begins to take a much more active role in policy. In many places public
funding cuts have also forced events to develop a more mixed funding model, which draws a greater
range of stakeholders into the event arena. This mirrors the development of urban governance models
as a whole, which have also seen a shift away from top-down policy making into regime politics and
the development of policy agendas driven by broader coalitions of civic actors.
In the cases analysed here, the different cities all show signs of a shift towards broader stakeholder
engagement, but the actual governance structures show a high level of path dependency that reflects
the political, economic, social and cultural history of the city. Both Rotterdam and Antwerp, for
example, are industrial and port cities that have attempted to address economic decline through the
creation of a broad economic development regime. The power of key sectors in the urban economy
has led to a concentration on particular types of events linked to these sectors. In Antwerp, the
difficult political situation has weakened coalition formation, and therefore also the ability of new
economic sectors to influence the direction of agenda setting (Pandolfi, 2015). This is evident in the
case of the fashion industry, which although it enjoys a high international profile, has not been able to
attract the resources necessary to establish regular international fashion events in the city (Goesaert et
al., 2015). The situation in Rotterdam is different, because Rotterdam Festivals has been able to take a
more strategic view of the events that the city needs to develop in order to create distinction and to
link to major economic sectors in the city (Rotterdam Festivals, 2015). There is therefore a fairly good
‘fit’ between the strong economic development agenda of the regime in Rotterdam and the types of
events promoted by Rotterdam Festivals.
Edinburgh provides a contrasting example because as the capital city of Scotland it has not suffered so
much from economic adversity, and has therefore been able to maintain a broader remit for festival
policy. The Edinburgh Festivals also thrived in a relatively generous subsidy climate that enabled
them to establish a powerful position in the city. The festivals themselves are now able to use their
considerably political clout (backed by judicious use of research showing their economic, cultural,
social and political value to the city) to influence the agenda of the city as a whole.
A lack of economic problems in Den Bosch was also one reason why the city was not successful in an
earlier joint bid for the European Capital of Culture title (Marques & Richards, 2015). However, the
city has faced other challenges, including a lack of physical resources related to its key cultural icon,
Hieronymus Bosch. The population of the city is only 143,000, and therefore it cannot compete
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effectively with neighbouring Eindhoven or Rotterdam in terms of staging large events. There are also
no major economic sectors that could be used to spearhead new event development. The solution has
been to use the networks of the city to focus attention on Den Bosch at one particular moment in time
- the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Hieronymus Bosch’s death in 2016. The network created
around his artworks produced considerable leverage that would normally only be available to much
larger cities. The 2016 Bosch exhibition has therefore attracted an audience that would normally only
be possible in Amsterdam or Rotterdam.
One of the interesting points emerging from these analyses is the way that events or event
programmes themselves begin to affect the agenda-setting of cities. In the past events have usually
been viewed as simple tools that can be used to address the different needs of the city. But as events
grow as part of the urban ‘software’, they also have important effects on other areas of policy
themselves. However, the extent to which events can shape policy agendas depends on their position
in the urban regime, and also on the collective consciousness of the events sector or other sectors that
can utilise events. The ability of cities to develop eventfulness is therefore dependent on a wide range
of factors, which include the structure of the governance regime, the coherence of different urban
actors and the structure of the urban economy.
Conclusions
This brief review shows that eventfulness can be developed in many different ways, and that each city
will have its own strategy, affected by the context, resources and creativity of the city itself. The
interplay of these factors over time will influence the extent to which a city can become ‘eventful’.
Over time, some ideal types of eventful city strategies have begun to emerge, including the use of
event-based, sector-based and network-based strategies. Depending on the type of strategy adopted,
the skills, knowledge and resources required for successful implementation will also vary.
In order to engage with a wide range of urban stakeholders and to compete successfully in the global
events arena, therefore, cities will need to think beyond the creation of a varied programme or
portfolio of events. The governance arrangements made for developing events will in itself have a
significant impact on the range and types of events needed for successful eventfulness. Depending on
the governance context, the event programme will have to support different aims and objectives, and
therefore utilise different performance indicators. In an event-centric environment, for example, it
may be sufficient for performance to be based on outputs such as visitor numbers, profile, spending
and media attention, since these measures fit with the aims of the individual events themselves. For
sectoral-based policies more attention will need to be paid to the different ways in which events
support economic activity, including the development of knowledge, innovation and image. For
network-based event policies attention needs to be focussed on the creation of ‘network value’
15
(Richards and Colombo, 2017), which is a measure of the outputs generated by the network as a
whole over and above that which the city could achieve on its own.
16
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