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CHAPTER 10
Event Takeover? e Commercialisation
of London’s Parks
Andrew Smith
Introduction
Over the past forty years, public parks have had to endure periods of under-
funding which have instigated inecient cycles of decline and regeneration
(Smith et al. 2014). ese ‘crises’ are signicant for various reasons, not least
because they are usually accompanied by changes in the way parks are con-
ceived, managed and governed. As Krisinsky and Simonet (2012) argue, park
crises such as the one experienced in the US in the 1970s tend to be used as
an excuse to justify further private sector involvement. ey are an intrin-
sic part of the neoliberalisation project which is known to function through
processes of creative destruction (Brenner and eodore 2002). e austerity
policies pursued by the UK government since 2010 mean many UK parks are
currently experiencing the latest funding crisis. Local authorities have had to
cope with signicant cuts, with park budgets hit particularly hard: 92 per cent
of UK park managers reported reductions in their budgets in 2013–2015 with
33 per cent experiencing cuts of over 20 per cent in the same period (Heritage
Lottery Fund 2016).
How to cite this book chapter:
Smith, A. 2019. Event Takeover? e Commercialisation of London’s Parks. In:
Smith, A. and Graham, A. (eds.) Destination London: e Expansion of the Visitor
Economy. Pp. 205–223. London: University of Westminster Press. DOI: https://doi.
org/10.16997/book35.j. License: CC-BY-NC-ND
206 Destination London
e nancial crisis currently facing parks provides the context for this chap-
ter which explores the implications of the push for new sources of revenue.
Parks have long earned revenue from concessions and charges, but many are
now required to generate a substantial proportion of their funding via com-
mercial income streams. is is changing the way parks are funded, but it is
also transforming the ways they are governed and managed. Government
austerity combined with the ongoing project to neoliberalise public services
is creating a new breed of ‘entrepreneurial parks’ (Davidson 2013) which are
‘nancially self-sustaining’ (Loughran 2014), an ambition which is assisted ‘by
having parks managed and maintained by private companies’ (Davidson 2013:
657). In London, this trend is one that is strongly resisted both by local users
(e.g. Park Friends groups) and by campaign groups (e.g. e Open Spaces Soci-
ety) seeking to protect public access to open spaces.
e crisis facing UK parks, and the commercialisation likely to result from
it, are national challenges rather than ones specic to London. But these issues
are particularly relevant to the UK capital. London is a city famed for its parks,
and as the permanent and temporary populations of the city have grown, these
spaces are heavily used as sites for everyday recreation and tourist visitation.
However, London’s parks are not merely places for people to use and visit, they
are highly symbolic sites that are coveted by various political and commercial
interests. ese multiple roles are oen incompatible. e commercial exploi-
tation of London’s parks interferes with everyday use by restricting access to
space and by encouraging certain types of user. Commercialisation also aects
the established role of prominent green spaces like Hyde Park, Jubilee Gardens
and Blackheath as sites of political gatherings and resistance. e analysis here
highlights that London’s parks are inherently contested spaces because the ter-
ritorial demands of citizenry, capital and state collide.
is chapter examines the ways that London’s parks are increasingly com-
mercialised and it explores the various issues associated with this trend. ese
include a number of ideological concerns alongside problems with the ecacy
of commercial funding. e paper then focuses on one of the most obvious and
prevalent ways that London’s park authorities are generating income – by stag-
ing commercial events. Events provide insightful examples of the way that pub-
lic parks are being privatised in subtle and incremental ways. Hiring out parks
to organisers of festivals, exhibitions and sports events provides a way of gen-
erating income from park space without having to sell o public assets. Indeed,
the rise of park events illustrates how London’s public spaces are increasingly
oered for hire to private companies, something that erodes their public status.
Commercial events involve temporary incursions, but their temporal footprint
extends well beyond the duration of events and, combined with the potential
for events to act as precedents for other further commercialisation, this means
the rise of event funding has signicant implications for the accessibility of
parks.
Event Takeover? The Commercialisation of London ’s Parks 207
e chapter begins with an overview of park commercialisation which is
used to contextualise the subsequent discussion about London’s parks’ exploi-
tation as event venues. In several instances, the introduction of commercial
events into London’s parks has been strongly resisted by local users. ese dis-
putes came to a head in 2016 when campaign groups launched legal actions
against large-scale events in Battersea Park and Finsbury Park. ese cases are
discussed here alongside other insightful examples where local authorities have
prioritised events as a way to help pay for parks. e paper is based on a series
of research exercises undertaken in the summer of 2016 including interviews
with park stakeholders, extensive observation exercises before, during and aer
events, and online communication with park users.
e Neoliberalisation and Commercialisation of Parks
e commercialisation of parks can only be understood in the wider context
of neoliberalisation of urban space. Within the enormous amount of published
work on this theme, there are several texts that specically examine neoliberal
transformations of parks. For example, Krinsky and Simonet (2011) discuss
the changes to stang arrangements in New York City’s parks, highlighting
the increased use of non-unionised sta working for private contractors. In the
contemporary era, stang costs are also reduced by using volunteer labour –
a noted characteristic of parks governed by neoliberal regimes (Rosol, 2010).
Other texts focus on the transfer of responsibility from public to private organi-
sations. For example, using Harvey’s (1989) conceptualisation, Perkins (2009;
2616) examines how ‘cash strapped and/or scally conservative local govern-
ments unload them in what amounts to a shi from state managerialism to
entrepreneurial regimes of governance’. New management arrangements take
various forms, including not for prots, social enterprises, private trusts, pri-
vate companies, and various versions of Business Improvement Districts. Parks
have always generated money from concessions, but in some neoliberal regimes,
companies are not only invited to operate in parks, but to manage them as well.
Perkins (2009) examines the ways some US parks have been leased to coee
chains who assume responsibility for maintenance.
Whilst many of the initiatives discussed above aim to address funding short-
falls by reducing maintenance costs, neoliberalism is also associated with vari-
ous eorts to generate more income from parks. Work by Zukin (1995) and
Madden (2010) in New York City shows how Bryant Park pioneered the intro-
duction of commerce ‘into what was previously the non-commercial domain of
the municipal parks’ (Madden 2010, 188). Loughran (2014) analyses how this
has been accomplished in New York’s newest park – the High Line – through the
way that the space is structured and controlled – with commerce and consump-
tion prioritised in the design and regulation of the park. is case – regarded
208 Destination London
by Loughran (2014, 50) as ‘an archetypal urban park of the neoliberal era’ –
also provides an illustrative example of the way parks are increasingly justied,
created and maintained via the value they add to surrounding real estate
( Millington 2015).
Attempts to generate more commercial revenue from parks take various
forms. One option is to attract sponsorship/advertising, with companies pur-
chasing the right to be associated with whole parks or specic features within
them. In extreme cases this has involved selling the naming rights to parks. A
second option is to lease space to commercial enterprises, with park authorities
earning income through ground rent and/or a levy on ticket sales. is model
encompasses both semi-permanent installations (e.g. visitor attractions) and
temporary ones (e.g. events). For example, several London parks (Alexandra
Palace Park, Trent Park and Battersea Park) now feature Go Ape attractions
which require entry fees to access installations installed above ground in the
trees (see Chapter 6). Park authorities can also generate income directly via
introducing/raising charges for certain services (e.g. educational courses), per-
mits (e.g. for commercial photography) and licenses (e.g. for tness training).
Parks have also attempted to increase the scope of charges levied for sport facil-
ities by introducing fees for those wishing to play organised sport. For exam-
ple, Regents Park in London now charges people who want to play football or
cricket in areas designated for organised sport.
e sorts of commercial activities outlined above can generate a signicant
amount of revenue, particularly for iconic parks located in large cities. e
Royal Parks – the agency responsible for eight historic parks in London – have
pioneered the shi towards commercial funding. is was a transition they
were required to make to oset reductions in their annual government grants.
In 2015/6, the cost of managing the Royal Parks was £34.9 million and 64 per
cent of these funds were raised via commercial income – through a mixture of
events, sponsorship, donations, catering, grants, lottery funding, licences, and
rental income from lodges, lming and photography (e Royal Parks 2016).
A shi towards more commercial funding has been controversial and some
of the new initiatives have been vehemently opposed. For example, in 2014
campaigners forced e Royal Parks to drop their plans to charge people who
regularly played soball in Hyde Park.
Park commercialisation in the UK has been pushed by several quasi non-
governmental organisations (QUANGOs) that, in the absence of national
government involvement in parks, have assumed key leadership roles. e
Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) – established in 1996 to distribute money gener-
ated through the UK National Lottery – has become particularly inuential
given they are one of the few organisations with the resources to fund park pro-
jects. e HLF have co-produced reports and toolkits that encourage parks to
develop their commercial potential. For example, in 2011 the HLF, the Big Lot-
tery Fund and e Land Trust launched ‘Prosperous Parks’, an income genera-
tion toolkit which helps parks to generate ideas for expanding their commercial
Event Takeover? The Commercialisation of London ’s Parks 209
activity. Several London parks – including Battersea Park and e Royal Parks –
are cited in Prosperous Parks as exemplars of commercialisation which other
park authorities are encouraged to emulate. e HLF supported by Nesta (the
UK’s innovation foundation) also commissioned the Rethinking Parks project
which tested ‘new business models for parks in the twenty-rst century’ (Nesta
2013; 2016). e neoliberal/commercial emphasis of these initiatives was justi-
ed through the notion that new approaches were needed to ensure that public
parks would ‘remain free, open and valued community assets’ (Nesta, 2016, 4).
Citing the threat that parks will be closed or sold o unless new nancing
models are adopted is a common way of legitimising the commercialisation
of parks.
ere are understandable concerns about the explicit commercialisation of
public parks being pursued in the UK and in other neoliberal regimes. ese
reect wider anxieties about the commercialisation of urban public spaces
(Kohn 2004). Introducing commercial activity means that parks are increas-
ingly oriented towards consumers, with those unwilling or unable to pay
unfairly excluded (Madden 2010). Commercialisation sits awkwardly with the
history and ethos of public parks as open, accessible spaces that are free to use
by anyone. Even small increases in the amount of commercial activity provide
precedents for more extensive commercialisation, laying the foundation for
more controversial changes – including charging for entry. e greater involve-
ment of private companies in public parks – through sponsorship, product
launches and entertainment facilities – erodes their historic function as places
that are ostensibly dierent from the rest of the built environment that sur-
rounds them. And whilst it may be unrealistic to keep the commercialisation
of the contemporary city out of public parks, that does not mean we should not
try to.
Concerns about commercialisation extend beyond the predictable critique of
the denigration of public space: there are also signicant issues with the ecacy
of commercial funding. For example, whilst commercialisation is justied on
the basis that funds are needed to pay for parks, in many instances the rev-
enue earned is not hypothecated and spent on specic spaces, or even parks
in general. Instead it goes into general budgets, leading to the accusation that
parks are becoming lucrative cash cows for local authorities desperately seeking
funds. e lack of transparency about where park revenue goes undermines the
rationale for commercial funding. Even when cash is ring-fenced to be spent on
the park in which it is earned this creates potential problems. Some parks are
better positioned to capitalise on opportunities to generate commercial reve-
nue and these tend to be those surrounded by auent communities. erefore,
the rise of commercial funding exacerbates existing inequalities in the provi-
sion of urban green space (Millington 2015).
e drive for commercialisation is one of the key reasons why responsibil-
ity for parks is increasingly being detached from local authorities. To provide
incentives to generate more revenue, and to allow that revenue to be spent
210 Destination London
on maintaining specic parks, new governance arrangements have been con-
ceived. In some cases, these involve new autonomous or semi-autonomous
agencies being established to run individual parks (or a set of parks) on behalf
of local authorities. In other instances, partnerships have been established with
private companies, with specialised expertise used to increase commercial rev-
enue. For example, the London Borough of Bromley recently appointed a com-
mercial manager for Crystal Palace Park with prots generated by new projects
shared 50:50 with the Council. Commercial expertise is something many park
authorities do not have, and even when parks are able to employ commer-
cially savvy sta, there are fears that these roles are now being prioritised at the
expense of other skills (e.g. horticulture).
Whilst academic texts tend to be highly critical of park commercialisation,
this view is not necessarily shared among the general public. A recent survey
of park users in the UK (n=2,130) revealed that 75 per cent supported more
sponsorship by businesses and 59 per cent supported more commercial use
(HLF 2016). Commercialisation can achieve more than just nancial returns
with some anecdotal evidence suggesting the presence of commercial services
can make parks feel safer, add to the range of facilities on oer and diversify
the proles of users (Zukin 1995). is suggests that there may be potential for
a more progressive commercialisation agenda that aims to achieve more than
just revenue.
Commercial Events
e open space provided by urban parks mean they have always been ear-
marked as places to stage events. Hyde Park famously hosted the Great Exhibi-
tion in 1851 and ever since London’s parks have been used to stage a range of
events: civic occasions, political rallies, sport events, concerts and exhibitions.
However, in recent years, London’s parks have been more intensively used for
larger, more commercially oriented events. Evidence provided by London and
Partners to the London Assembly’s Environment Committee suggests that
commercial events have increased by 20 per cent in the last two years, with the
fastest growth being in major events attended by 5,000–50,000 people (Lon-
don Assembly 2017). Analysing specic examples of parks reveals even more
dramatic growth. For example, in 1991 Battersea Park staged approximately
100 events (Wandsworth Borough News 1991), but twenty-ve years later
there were estimated to be over 600 events staged there every year (Interview
with Wandsworth Borough Council [in 2016]). Many of these are small-scale
community or charity events, but the extent of growth illustrates that London’s
parks are now perceived, used and licensed as event venues.
e growth in park events reects growth in the events sector more gener-
ally, with experiences growing in popularity at the expense of the consump-
tion of material goods (Pine and Gilmore 1999). e increased popularity of
Event Takeover? The Commercialisation of London ’s Parks 211
music festivals – and the introduction of new festivals in urban locations – has
also contributed to the growth of large-scale commercial events in London’s
parks. However, there are other factors driving this trend, most notably the
need for local authorities to generate income to pay for their parks and other
services. Park authorities generate income from events in various ways: by
organising their own events and charging for tickets and trading licenses or, as
is increasingly the case, by hiring their spaces out to events companies and
taking a proportion of the ticket sales. ere is even potential to generate
income by oering ‘pre-event advice services for private events on council land’
(Lewisham Council 2016).
Many local authorities in London have set ambitious targets to grow the
amount of income they earn from commercial events. Brent Council are
‘exploring the potential to hold large scale events in parks aiming for audi-
ences at a minimum level of 2000’ to full their target of generating £650,000
from festivals and events in 2017/8 (Brent Council 2017). Lambeth Council has
even more ambitious targets – aiming to generate £1.5 million per annum from
events staged in ve key locations – four of which are parks or green spaces
(Event Lambeth 2015). To ensure host parks benet the Council plans to intro-
duce a Parks Investment Levy which will be charged to each event staged – with
commercial events charged 50p per person per day. is replaces the system
used in many parks which requires event organisers to pay an environmental
impact fee – with these funds directed to park budgets.
London boroughs can earn signicant sums from staging single events in
their parks. Formula E paid Wandsworth Council £1 million for each week-
end of motor racing they staged in Battersea Park in 2015 and 2016 – perhaps
the most lucrative events ever staged in a London park. It costs approximately
£3.25 million a year to run Battersea Park, so staging the events covered
almost a third of the annual budget (Interview with Wandsworth Council [in
2016]). Wandsworth Council do not hypothecate revenue, so the money was
not directly allocated to Battersea Park. However, to placate opposition, the
Council promised that 20 per cent of the revenue earned would be spent on
making specic improvements to the host Park. Because they were worried
about being undercut by other London boroughs, and because Formula E were
worried about oending other hosts who were not getting such a generous deal,
the Council did not initially reveal how much the contract with Formula E
was worth (Interview with Wandsworth Council [in 2016]). Councils are oen
reluctant to disclose how much they are being paid by event companies but this
lack of transparency oen breeds suspicion amongst local residents.
e fees each year paid by Festival Republic – organisers of the Wireless
Festival – to Haringey Council also represent a signicant proportion of the
local authority’s parks budget. For the 2016 edition, £446,264 in fees was gener-
ated by this three-day event (Haringey Borough Council, 2016) and, according
to Haringey Council, the income from Wireless is spent on maintaining and
improving the park. However, critics suggest that rather than supplementing
212 Destination London
Figure 10.1: Battersea Park hosted controversial Formula E Motor Races in
2015 and 2016 (Photo: Andrew Smith).
the parks budget, this income is merely osetting ongoing cuts. Staging these
events provides a justication to reduce funding for parks, leading to a situa-
tion where parks have become reliant on precarious commercial income, rather
than public funds. e Chair of the London Friends of Green Spaces Network
suggests, that the attitude of Haringey Council is:
if Finsbury Park is generating £700,000 or £800,000 a year, we’ll take
that money o the core budget for the entire park service. And to be
honest, that is more than 50 per cent of the budget. So what they’ve done
is eectively mortgaged the entire park service to be totally dependent
on the commercial concerts in Finsbury Park. (Interview with Chair of
London Friends of GPN [in 2016])
Events are seen as particularly attractive ways of generating revenue for parks
because they can deliver wider benets too. ey add to the range of attractions
that parks oer, bringing in new uses and diversifying the prole of people
who visit. However, there is little hard evidence that events do diversify park
users, and when new users are attracted, they tend to be those willing and able
to spend (Interview with Parks Alliance [in 2016]). ere are also longer-term
benets via the promotional eects of events that are represented in a range of
Event Takeover? The Commercialisation of London ’s Parks 213
traditional and social media. In an era of place marketing, events are seen as
useful ways of promoting parks and enhancing the ways that they are perceived
by target audiences. A recent report published by the London Assembly (2017)
suggested that one of the key challenges facing some of London’s parks is their
lack of visibility. Events provide an obvious way of addressing this challenge.
e need to be more visible is related to wider commercialisation as parks now
need to drive demand for commercial services and attractions. ere is also a
danger of aestheticisation, the ‘supercial embellishment of public space into
visually appealing lifestyle amenities and domains of experience’ – something
that breeds exclusion (Glover 2015, 104).
As the recent Parliamentary Inquiry into Public Parks revealed, the increased
use of parks as venues for commercial events has been met with a great deal of
resistance. e amount of time and space occupied by these events is deemed to
be inappropriate by other users. Events interrupt the everyday use of parks and
installations oen take a long time to set up and take down, causing signicant
disruption. e presence of large crowds and heavy vehicle movements cause
damage to turf (particularly aer wet weather) and this can mean park envi-
ronments are inaccessible for long periods of time while they are regenerated.
e weekend long SW4 music festival staged on London’s Clapham Common
in 2014 provides an illustrative example. e set-up of this festival began on 18
August, but due to the extended time it took to repair the damaged site, fences
were not removed until 23 October. is type of disruption oen takes place
in the summer months when parks are most heavily used – maximising the
displacement of everyday users.
Alongside concerns about the environmental damage and disruption to
access, there are also signicant ideological issues associated with events.
Staging ticketed events commercialises park space in several interrelated ways:
by turning parks into commodities that are oered for hire; by introducing
charges to access parks; by normalising the presence of commercial vendors;
and by providing platforms for sponsorship that wouldn’t otherwise be per-
missible. erefore, whilst events involve temporary installations, they have
enduring eects on the ways our public parks are conceived and experienced,
including material legacies. Opponents have suggested that some of the physi-
cal changes made to parks to allow them to stage events have been deliberately
retained to facilitate further commercialisation. For example, the Battersea
Park Action Group suggested that the extra tarmac laid down to stage the For-
mula E Grand Prix in 2015 was retained to allow the park to accommodate
lm trailers. e failure to restore the original gates to Greenwich Park aer
it staged the Olympic equestrian events was also seen by local campaigners
as a change designed to facilitate the lorry movements needed to stage future
events (Smith 2014).
Whilst complaints about events staged in London parks are nothing new, as
the number and size of events has grown, opposition has intensied. In some
instances, for example in Battersea Park (in Wandsworth) and Finsbury Park
214 Destination London
Figure 10.2: e London Parks that host Major Events (mainly Music Festivals)
every Summer (© Mason Edwards).
Event Takeover? The Commercialisation of London ’s Parks 215
(Haringey), resistance has focused on specic events deemed to be inappropri-
ate. In 2015 and 2016, Battersea Park hosted Formula E motor races which were
vehemently resisted by the Battersea Park Action Group, whose campaigning
eventually resulted in the races being discontinued. In Finsbury Park the Friends
group have campaigned for several years against Wireless – a three-day music
festival that is staged every July. In other instances, for example in Gunnersbury
Park (Hounslow/Ealing) and Victoria Park (Tower Hamlets/Hackney), ongo-
ing complaints about events are based more on the regularity with which they
are staged. Opposition to events tends to be dominated by local concerns over
access, disruption, noise and damage, but more ideologically driven resistance
to the event driven commercialisation of urban parks is emerging. For exam-
ple, in December 2016 the Open Spaces Society – the UK’s oldest conservation
body – launched its ‘Save our Spaces’ campaign to tackle the ‘abuse’ of parks in
England and Wales. ey cited events in various London boroughs as egregious
examples of inappropriate commercial exploitation.
Victoria Park
Staging commercial events in London’s public parks divides opinion. Whilst
this trend has generated a lot of opposition, there are also many people who like
the opportunity to attend festivals, events and exhibitions in their local park.
e way users feel about park events is explored in more detail here through
the case of Lovebox – a music festival that was staged in Victoria Park in East
London every summer until 2017. Just before the 2016 occurrence of this event
an article written by the author about park events (entitled: ‘Is it right to use
public parks for commercial events?’) was posted on e Friends of Victoria
Park Facebook site. is provoked a large number of interactions and these are
analysed below to help understand the dierent views about this event.
Lovebox is a two-day music festival staged every July which has become a
favourite haunt for London’s cool hipster crowd. e event was held in Victoria
Park from 2005–2017, regularly attracting crowds of 40,000 people per day –
making it one of London’s largest music festivals. is is an expensive event –
tickets for the weekend cost over £100. e organisers, Mama Festivals –
part of the Live Nation Entertainment company which dominates the music
festival market – paid Tower Hamlets Council around £300,000 every year for
the rights to use Victoria Park and some of this money was used to fund park
improvements. Posts to the Friends of Victoria Park Facebook group suggested
that opinion about Lovebox amongst local residents was divided 50/50.
Most opponents of Lovebox were not against staging events in general;
they just felt this particular event was too big for Victoria Park. ey also felt
the event occupied too much time: ‘a two day festival is actually more like
a month’s festival as there’s the build-up, break down and recovery of [the]
damaged area’. Unsurprisingly, the noise of the event was the cause of several
216 Destination London
Figure 10.3: Lovebox – One of London’s biggest Music Festivals now staged in
Gunnersbury Park (Photo: Andrew Smith).
complaints, with one resident moaning that ‘the music vibrates my windows
and walls’. Others were concerned about disruptive eects on ‘the peace of
the park’ and worries were expressed about the likely impact on wildlife and
‘the natural rhythms of nature’. Some people felt that too much of the money
earned went to the festival organisers not the Council, which led one respond-
ent to recoil at the ‘proteering’ involved. A recurring theme was the strong
dislike of the oppressive structures used to fence o the festival site which were
described as ‘hostile and aggressive’ by one contributor and as ‘prison walls’
by another. e sentiments of those who opposed staging Lovebox in Victoria
Park were summed up neatly by one contributor who simply stated: ‘I’m for
letting parks be parks’.
Despite the resistance to Lovebox expressed by many contributors to the
Friends of Victoria Park Facebook group, roughly an equal amount of peo-
ple who responded to the post supported the event, mainly because of the
money it generated for the Council and the improvements to the Park that had
been made as a result. Negative impacts were acknowledged, but many felt the
inconvenience and disruption were limited to a few weekends of the year –
so were justied. e wider economic impact was also cited when people
justied their support: ‘It raises the prole of our area and provides a boost to
local businesses’. Advocates felt that the events provided local residents with
Event Takeover? The Commercialisation of London ’s Parks 217
convenient access to great music and generated valuable experiences for the
young people who attended. One contributor even felt the event contributed
a (rare) feeling of togetherness amongst park users: ‘even in the park so many
of our experiences seem to be fairly solitary and almost in spite of one another
(cyclists vs dog walkers etc). Festivals, free and paid for, give us the chance to
be a bit collective’. is social dimension meant that some people supported
the event despite their wider concerns about park commercialisation: ‘I have a
problem with the growing corporatisation of public spaces generally and Vic-
toria Park in particular. But private events like Loveboxfor me are ne (and
fun) because they host great music and bring a lot of people together to enjoy
the park’.
e views outlined above highlight the issues facing large, well located parks
in London which are increasingly used to stage large-scale music festivals.
e event has now been moved to Gunnersbury Park in Hounslow, and the
same debates have re-emerged there about the controversial transformation
of this Park into a venue for a large-scale music festival. Similar events also
take place in Hyde Park (City of Westminster), Trent Park (Eneld), Brockwell
Park (Lambeth) and Finsbury Park (Haringey). ese commercial incursions
are justied as ways to generate much needed revenue for local authorities,
and they are supported by a section of local residents who like the opportuni-
ties for entertainment they provide. is builds anity for old-fashioned parks
amongst young residents. However, these events are extremely divisive as they
involve a trade-o between income generation and the accessibility/integrity
of park spaces. Large-scale music festivals are one of the few types of event
that can bring in sucient amounts of money to help with the nancial crisis
aecting local authorities, but these events are also the most controversial and
disruptive. is illustrates the unenviable dilemmas faced by local authorities
tasked with maintaining London’s parks.
Governance
e increased number of events staged in London’s parks aects the ways that
London’s parks are used but it is also beginning to aect the ways they are
governed. e potential to generate revenue from events – and the dicul-
ties maximising and ring-fencing income within conventional local author-
ity structures – mean that new organisations are being created. For example,
in 2015 Wandsworth Council created a new company called Enable Leisure
and Culture and awarded it a four-year contract to manage its parks and cul-
tural services. e company is set up as a sta mutual – incentivising sta
to increase revenue and cut costs – and it aims to become like other social
enterprises that have grown by bidding for service contracts in other local
authorities. Enable Leisure and Culture has a strong events focus, and one of
the reasons it was established was to allow the Council’s existing parks and
218 Destination London
events teams to work closely together within a new structure that allows the
income earned from park events to be spent on parks. is new company
illustrates how the new focus on events leads to shis in the ways parks are
governed and managed.
In other cases, rather than responsibility for all the parks in a Borough being
outsourced to a separate company, more focused organisations have been
established to manage individual parks. Potters Fields Park in Southwark is one
such example. Before it was redeveloped into a more formal space this for-
mer bomb site was a wildlife park, run by a charity that managed temporary
parks on undeveloped land. e transformation of loose space into a tightly
landscaped park reects the transformation in governance arrangements. Pot-
ters Fields Park is now managed by a dedicated Trust which generates its own
revenue and ring-fences this money to be spent exclusively on the Park. e
land is still publicly owned and is subject to Southwark Council’s byelaws, but
Potters Fields Park does not need any public funding for maintenance because
of the income it generates. Over two thirds of this income is earned through
events and the Trust employs two members of sta to manage park events that
are staged on up to 56 days per year. e Park is located next to Tower Bridge
and this creates demand from companies seeking to stage product launches
and other commercially-oriented events there. is seems like an ecient way
of funding a park, but the regularity with which these events are staged under-
mines the notion that this is open and public space. Ultimately, Potters Fields
Park represents a new model of public space provision where parks are funded
by allowing them to be privatised temporarily.
e new structures outlined above represent typical examples of the ways
public service management is changing in the era of neoliberalism. ese
arrangements are criticised by many commentators who feel they undermine
the democratic tradition of local government and encourage a culture where
management is driven by nancial motivations. e new arrangements have
signicant social justice implications. Some parks are more able to generate
more commercial funding than others, and these parks tend to be those that
are located in auent areas. erefore, the rise of commercial funding and
associated governance structures are likely to exacerbate the inequitable access
to quality park space that already exists in London (London Assembly 2017).
Rather than detaching ‘prosperous parks’ from local authority control, as has
happened in Southwark, it seems fairer to redistribute income earned by parks
to those that are not in a position to generate large amounts of commercial rev-
enue. is approach – adopted by Wandsworth Council – prevents the perni-
cious mode of park neoliberalisation criticised by Millington (2015) and other
authors. However, even this model creates problems as there is a temptation to
use high prole parks as revenue generating ‘cash cows’ to subsidise others. Per-
haps the best example is Finsbury Park where critics have summarised Harin-
gey Council’s approach to park management as: ‘We need the money, therefore
Event Takeover? The Commercialisation of London ’s Parks 219
we have to sacrice Finsbury Park for the good of the rest.’ (Interview with
Chair of London Friends of GPN [in 2016]).
Regulation
One way of controlling the event takeover of London’s parks is through eec-
tive regulation. Staging events in London parks is regulated through various
planning and licensing requirements, giving local authorities the opportunity
to ensure that park space is not overwhelmed or denigrated by inappropriate
events. Many London parks are now licensed premises, but anyone seeking to
stage an event in a public park still needs permission from the local authorities –
with decisions guided by outdoor events strategies or dedicated park event
policies. e latter are now produced by several London boroughs to control
the number, size and nature of events that can be held in specic parks. For
example, Eneld’s new Parks Events Strategy 2017–2022 limits the number of
events staged in each of the Borough’s parks to eight in small parks and ten
in larger ones. e timing of events is also controlled by these policies. Sev-
eral of London’s local authorities stipulate that major events (those catering for
more than 5,000 people) cannot be staged in the school summer holidays and
some policies indicate there must be a certain amount of time between major
events (e.g. Hounslow). If event structures are to remain in place for more than
28 days, or if they are particularly extensive, then planning permission is also
required. e obvious issue with all these regulatory mechanisms is that they
are controlled by local authorities – but we know that these authorities are des-
perate to generate income to oset budget cuts. However impartial and scrupu-
lous their planning and licensing procedures are, there is an inherent incentive
to sanction lucrative events (Smith 2016).
ere is also other legislation that is designed to help protect public open
space from excessive commercial use. e Greater London Parks and Open
Spaces Order 1967 applies to local authority owned parks and, whilst it permits
the provision of ‘amusement fairs and entertainments’, it stipulates that spaces
enclosed or set apart ‘should not exceed in any open space one acre or one-
tenth of the open-space, whichever is the greater’. is legislation seems to pro-
tect London’s parks from excessively large events that take up an unreasonable
amount of park space. How oen ‘amusement’ can be staged is also regulated:
the Order states this must be limited to 35 days and to a maximum of eight
Sundays. Commercialisation is specically regulated by the stipulation that ‘the
areas occupied by the paraphernalia of sales must not exceed one tenth of the
area of the open space occupied by the function in question’. e 1967 Order
anticipated the potential for conict between event uses and everyday uses of
London’s parks – providing useful legislation to regulate competing demands
for park space in the contemporary era.
220 Destination London
However, several large events staged in London in recent years seem to con-
travene this legislation. Formula E events in 2015 and 2016 enclosed over
90 per cent of Battersea Park for four days and approximately 27 per cent of
Finsbury Park is used for the Wireless Festival. is was the basis for the legal
action undertaken by e Friends of Finsbury Park in 2016 when they applied
for a Judicial Review of Haringey Council’s decision to permit the Wireless
Festival. e judge overseeing the case ruled that subsequent legislation (e
Local Government Act 1972) meant the Council were entitled to stage this
event. is decision was upheld in the Court of Appeal and so it would appear
that London has lost the protection aorded to it by the Greater London Parks
and Open Spaces Order 1967. A laissez faire regulatory landscape where local
authorities can choose to do anything they like with parks they control means
London threatens to overtake New York at the vanguard of park neoliber-
alisation. Whilst a series of large-scale music festivals have been sanctioned
in London’s parks, New York’s Parks Department have adopted a much more
cautious approach. In December 2016, three separate applications to stage
music festivals in Corona Park – from AEG, Live Nation and the Madison
Square Garden Company – were turned down. e reasons cited by the Com-
missioner of the Parks Department reect the arguments made by event oppo-
nents in London:
Figure 10.4: Fences erected to stage Music Festivals in Hyde Park every summer
(Photo: Andrew Smith).
Event Takeover? The Commercialisation of London ’s Parks 221
Given the proposed duration of your three-day festival and the large
amount of the Park that would be occupied for an extensive period of
time, including the load in, loud out and the actual event, the Department
has determined that the Park is not a viable venue for an event of this size
and duration.
Conclusions
is chapter has identied how and why London’s parks have become more
intensively used as venues for commercial events. Urban parks are notoriously
contested spaces, and the rise of commercial events adds to the reputation of
parks as disputed territories. ese conicts are perhaps best understood as
inevitable struggles between interests that value parks for their everyday use
value, and those that seek to realise the exchange value of parks. e latter
include event organisers, who use park venues to add value to their events, and
local authorities seeking to generate revenue from public assets. Staging events
has helped London’s local authorities generate much needed income, but there
is a danger that some Boroughs are now overly reliant on single events or over-
exploited parks. Events are a relatively unreliable source of revenue given their
high failure rate and due to the growing competition between park venues for
events. ere are other issues too. As with other forms of commercial income,
it is not always clear how money earned from events is spent – and this under-
mines the notion that events are justied because they help to pay for parks.
ere is a danger of over-exaggerating the ‘threat’ posed by events, but the
increase in the number and scale of events has important implications for Lon-
don’s parks. First, it aects the physical, symbolic and nancial accessibility of
much needed green space. Every time a ticketed event is staged the amount
of genuinely public space available to use is diminished. ese events com-
municate the message that parks can be bought and fenced o, and these bar-
riers erode the public feel and visual appeal of parks. Second, events – and the
assembly/de-rig work needed to stage them – make London’s parks more like
the rest of the city, i.e. dominated by commercialism and construction work.
Whilst this may please those stakeholders seeking to ensure Victorian-era parks
remain relevant in the twenty-rst century, it erodes London’s reputation as a
city punctured by green havens. And, third, whilst events are temporary, they
can also have more permanent eects on the parks that host them. By normalis-
ing commercial activity in parks, they provide precedents for further commer-
cialisation and their increasing inuence over new governance arrangements
also represents a longer-term legacy. e rise of events also contributes to the
broader commercialisation agenda as they are used as vehicles to enhance the
visibility and image of parks. As parks are generating more income from com-
mercial sources, there is an incentive to attract more tourists – and events are
222 Destination London
a good way of attracting the attention of these audiences. In this sense, events
help to integrate parks into the wider visitor economy, transforming London
parks from amenities into destinations.
London’s parks should continue to stage well managed events, but the discus-
sion in this chapter shows there is a need to protect parks from over-exploitation
and over-commercialisation. Limiting the amount of park space and the number
of days that major events are allowed to occupy seems justied; and these limits
should incorporate days when events are being set and taken down. It is impor-
tant to maximise the amount of public space still available during events and
key facilities – playgrounds, sport facilities – should remain accessible. To avoid
some of the conicts seen in London during the summer of 2016, there needs
to be more input from local user groups into decision-making about events/
event policies and better communication with residents about what events are
happening and how they will aect parks. More transparency about how much
money is generated by events and where this income goes would also help to bet-
ter justify many of the large-scale events that are now staged in London’s parks.
Staging major events in London’s parks is a contested topic which divides
opinion. A useful way of summarising the dierent arguments made to justify
or resist this trend is through references to openings and closures. Opponents
feel that events close down parks, disrupting use and restricting access –
changes which they feel undermine the publicness of parks. Advocates argue
the opposite – suggesting that events help to keep parks open – by generating
much needed funds and by opening up traditional parks to new uses and users.
Hence, event advocates argue that events make parks more public. One way
to reconcile these contrasting views is to understand park events as agents of
de- and re-territorialisation, in other words as interventions that both open up
and close down public space. Music festivals, motor races and other large-scale
events de-territorialise parks by challenging established meanings and identi-
ties, but they also re-territorialise parks as spaces of consumption for non-local
users: tourists and visitors. is expansion and extension of commercial activity
into London’s green spaces is driven by the policies and rhetoric of neoliberal
austerity – a context in which the traditional way of funding parks (through
taxation and public nances) – is no longer deemed viable. In this sense, dis-
courses of crisis are once again being used as a vehicle to push through changes
to public park management.
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