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The field of events management has been critiqued for being overly focused on operational and managerial concerns to the detriment of critical analysis of power and representation, of which equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is an important aspect. This paper reports on an audit of the four leading events management journals over the period 2011-2021 to assess the current state of play in relation to engagement with EDI issues and consider whether this critique remains justified. After screening, 49 articles were included. Findings reveal that EDI remains a marginal issue in events management journals, often confined to special issues, with no evidence of increasing engagement over the review period. EDI needs to become more integrated in the core body of knowledge of events management to ensure that events research is socially useful to students, other researchers and practitioners, contributing to the development and reputation of the field.

This article critically reflects on the space of tourism and its intersection with spatial justice. Despite the urgency to embrace a more just, sustainable, tourism the space of tourism has not yet received a sufficiently forceful reflection. Our study contributes to filling that gap by proposing a novel theoretical framework that combines Massey’s spatial turn in the social sciences, with the posthuman, affirmative ethics of Braidotti, while drawing on elements of Field Theory/Hodological Space in Lewin. We move from an overview of the sociological space of tourism, articulated by neoliberal capitalism, through a critique built upon the spatial turn in the social sciences, arguing that space is relational, imbued with power geometries, the product of interrelations, and always under construction. We develop a conceptual model that draws on Latour’s Actor-Network Theory and aspects of Field Theory, which understands space as an individual lived experience (hodological space). That theorisation is then extended to the space of tourism through the lens of the posthuman, affirmative ethics, and mobile ontologies of both human and non-human actants. In doing so the novel theoretical framework we develop exposes the complexity and nuance of the space of tourism and enables the possibility of spatially just tourism.

Beginning as the Golden State Comic Book Convention in 1970, which drew in around 300 people, what has now become San Diego ComicCon now sees an average of 130,000 attendees a year with an estimated annual economic impact on the region of $150 million (CNBC, 2018). Not only has attendance grown substantially over that period, but the breadth and diversity of fan conventions has event also undergone significant change. In this conceptual paper, I will begin by drawing on recent approaches to the study of event within critical event studies, in combination with a Lacanian approach to the presence/absence dialectic, to conceptualise fan con events, and the forms of leisure articulated within them, as diverse forms of the narrating of absence. From that perspective, its attention will turn to the large scale, rapidly expanding, highly commercialized fan con events sector. Drawing on critical approaches to the study of leisure rooted in the work of Stebbins and Spracklen, the paper will reflect on how these events have become instrumentalised evental spaces where the narrating of absence has become a key engine in the commodification and monetisation of leisure.

Navarini and Citroni provide a summary of the relationship between order and liminality, and show how this analytical framework facilitates a better understanding of the consolidation of ‘populist’ political forces and their incorporation in Italy’s government. The authors focus on the campaigning prior to the Italian elections of 2018 and their immediate aftermath, a period when the frameworks of ritual order and liminality overlapped; they draw attention to the emergence of threshold zones of political discourse and practice that gradually moved from the periphery to the ‘symbolic centre’. This process involved subversion of the established rules and changes to the symbols of social ties, such as representations of national cohesion and ‘the other’, that normally affect the reproduction of community power.

Around the world the twenty-first century has seen growth in the number and scale of protest events, mobilising substantial numbers of people to gather in acts of dissent. Central to understanding participation in such large-scale activist mobilities is an examination of those imaginaries of dissent, space and place associated with them. However, attempts to examine such imaginaries are hampered by traditional social science approaches that depoliticise participation and are often treated with suspicion by the protesters and those tasked with mitigating the impact of their activism. The disrUPt project confronted those issues by exploring disruptive and adaptive methods that could bring those imaginaries to the fore. The theoretical foundations of the project were rooted in those ideas in contemporary European thought around the philosophy of the event that conceptualise ‘events’ as sites of multiplicity and contestation (Badiou; Deleuze), articulated through the emerging field of critical event studies (Spracklen and Lamond) and the literature of activist tourism (Pezzullo). Four methodological approaches are explored, these are: the creation of a bicycle based mobile film projector, used to make visible spaces hidden by developments in the contemporary city; the presentation of augmented film screenings, which combine film presentation with non-traditional elements in non-traditional venues; activist film making with a group of female asylum seekers; and a series of conversations that brought together participants more commonly in opposition during events of dissent. The paper concludes that whilst the methods deployed were successful in facilitating the articulation of imaginaries of dissent, space and place, attached to protest and activist tourism, much more needs to be done to both draw such research approaches together and in the development of a deeper understanding of the use of disruptive and adaptive approaches to participatory data analysis.

Following the Second World War, most working people, saw a substantial change in both the amount of leisure time they had available and how it could be enjoyed. During the 1950s the amount of paid leave that could be taken had risen substantially which, coupled with a general increase in basic disposable income, resulted in a growing demand for leisure resources. It is in this period that we find the emergence of party political interest in addressing concerns associated with leisure, with recognition of it as a legitimate arena for governmental policy. Using a lexical frequency analysis this paper will consider how leisure was construed as an object of governmental policy between 1945 and 1983. It concludes that such an approach affords us an opportunity to view policy in general, and leisure policy in particular, in new ways, enabling us to approach familiar topics from an alternative perspective.

Disrupt is an ongoing project exploring methodologies appropriate to critical perspectives in event studies, suitable for researching activism, protest, and events of dissent. This paper considers the use of augmented film screenings, which combine cinematic presentation with non-film/live elements and panel-led discussions, as one of the approaches trialled as part of the project. Rooted in techniques based in photo and video elicitation, whilst incorporating aspects of the use of film to educate, stimulate and provoke radical debate, employed by Latin American activists since the 1960s, the augmented screening approach explored in this paper formulates an innovative approach in evental visual research methodology. Going further than photo and video elicitation, it combined film with live disruptive elements in the attendee experience to legitimise participant engagement with narratives that challenge the dominant hegemonic discourses in which we act and interact. In conclusion we consider some of the limitations and opportunities of evental research methods that use film as a key element within a framework anchored in a visual elicitation approach. Key words Photo-elicitation; Video-elicitation; Evental research; Protest; Critical event studies.

Avenida Paulista (Avenue of the Paulistas – i.e. those who reside in Sao Paulo) stretches 1.7 miles and is one of the most important roads in Sao Paulo. It is the state’s cultural and financial heart whilst also home to many high-end shops and restaurants. Originally built in 1891, it was opened with a great festival; ostensibly a celebration of the strength of the country’s first republic. Over the last 30 years it has also become the focal point for activist demonstrations, and events of dissent, within the city and, due to the scale of many of those protests, the country. In 2013, the Avenida was host to the world’s biggest Gay Pride parade, with over 5 million participants; whilst the largest demonstrations both for and against the former President Rousseff, occupied the avenue in 2015 and 2016. This chapter combines a critical approach to event studies with a conceptualisation of leisure, drawn from the work of Habermas and others, to reflect on the relationship between disruption and ritual in events of dissent. Using two case study demonstrations, the anti-corruption protests of 5th December 2016 and the 2017 Gay Pride parade, to contextualise its discussion of accessibility, inclusion and diversity.

This is the first handbook devoted entirely to leisure theory, charting the history and philosophy of leisure, theories in religion and culture, and rational theories of leisure in the Western philosophical tradition, as well as a range of ...

Greenhushing selectively communicates fewer pro-sustainability actions by businesses than are practiced; based on a perception of customers’ rights to consumerism. We first studied the gap between the communication of sustainability practices in the audits and websites of 31 small rural tourism businesses in the Peak District National Park (UK). The analysis showed that businesses only communicate 30% of all the sustainability actions practiced. Their websites emphasised customer benefits, using explicit, affective, experiential and active language that legitimises the customers’ hedonistic use of the landscape, while downplaying complex issues and normalising sustainability to reduce customer guilt. Just one website mentioned climate change. We found that greenhushing results from a low moral intensity, masking potentially negative consequences of perceived lower competence, whilst protecting business from more cynical consumers who may interpret their statements as hypocritical. Subsequent textual analysis and interviews were used to understand how communication constitutes these organisations. We propose that greenhushing reshapes and constitutes tourism businesses through their communications. Moreover, greenhushing is a form of public moralisation that adopts communication practices similar to greenwashing, reflecting the social norms expected from a business; however, in this case, located in a moral muteness, rather than moral hypocrisy, that businesses accept but resent.

What follows is a very personal and emotional response to my participation in the Politics, Emotion and Protest workshop, coordinated by the social movements groups within the Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association. Whilst it is neither a piece of research, nor an outline of my previous or current research activity, it does – polemically – reflect the impact the workshop had on how I conceptually orientate myself to my working practice as an academic researcher within the field of critical event studies.

It is not a common practice for those interested in the study of events to cast their attention towards elections. Common faire for their considered gaze tends to be large scale sporting, nation branding or cultural occasions such as the Olympic Games, Global Expos and the European Capital of Culture. That may be, but general elections are highly significant events. They are, or at the very least should be, the defining event of a representational democracy.