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The report acknowledges where Lincoln City Football Club (LCFC) is already making a positive contribution to ‘Brand Lincoln’ and the economy, but also seeks to offer suggestions on how they might enhance and develop this for the benefit of the club and the city. The report is exploratory in nature and rather than reporting simply on numerical evidence of impact, which is scant at this point in time and an initial investigation as produced here was required to ascertain which areas to examine, it seeks to consolidate knowledge about the current contribution of LCFC on ‘Brand Lincoln’ and the wider visitor economy and to suggest ways in which this could be enhanced and developed. The report is presented in four sections. The first is a short section to contextualise the research that has taken place. The following two sections are designed to provoke discussion between LCFC’s Executive Management Team and spark ideas about new ways of capitalising on the club’s success and making a positive contribution to the city’s visitor economy. To achieve this we examine the current and potential contribution of LCFC to the city of Lincoln through engaging with cultural programming, leveraging fans, utilising fan zones, and the concept of the last mile in sporting events and venues. We then examine the current and potential economic benefits to the hospitality and leisure sectors in Lincoln, looking at food and beverage outlets and accommodation, and then retail and transportation. Finally we consider the potential for further partnership research between LCFC, The University of Lincoln, and Coventry University, as we believe there is further research potential in this area.

The COVID-19 outbreak led to the cancellation of sporting events across the world in the spring of 2020 and forced billions of people across the globe to stay home and self-isolate for a number of months. One of the first sports to reposition and adapt their product during the global lockdown in March/April 2020 was professional darts. The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) took an opportunity to promote their version of darts via an elite online home tournament, the PDC Home Tour, in a vast sports market craving live sporting action. This commentary provides an understanding of how professional darts, a sport that has relied on fan interaction within multi-purpose arenas at live events, attempted to move online to a home-based tournament for a temporary period to fill a sporting void. The commentary discusses the reaction to the tournaments held by the PDC and MODUS and issues encountered, before exploring the reasons for the tournaments being held during the primary global lockdown. As a niche sport, it is hoped that this commentary can provide some insight into the contemporary sport of professional darts, a sport rarely discussed in the scholarly field of sport and leisure.

The tourism literature contains substantial discussions on how increasing numbers of attendees and conventions at a destination contributes to the local economy, but there is limited research on the environmental impact of the concomitant increases in air and other travel, and other activity increases in energy and other resource use. This research assesses the current environmental position of the convention industry in the United States and formulates suggestions for future direction in regard to “green” concepts by examining and comparing the perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions of three groups of convention stakeholders: convention attendees, meeting planners, and convention suppliers. This empirical study recognizes the critical problem of inadequate understanding of the environmental impact of convention activities and the lack of knowledge regarding ecological convention practices. It shows that the perception of environmental impact among the three groups varies depending on which environmentally friendly practices are available to each group. It discusses the background to – and the implications of – the emotional formation of decisions and self-motivation based on positive attitudes and the strong intention to adopt green management practices agreed to by convention stakeholders.

Various sport scholars have noted the transition of sports from amateur leisure pastimes to professionalised and globalised media sporting spectacles. Recent developments in darts offer an excellent example of these changes, yet the sport is rarely discussed in contemporary sports studies. The only sustained theoretical research on darts focuses primarily on the origins of the sport in its nostalgic form as a working-class, pub taproom pastime in England. This article critically examines the transformation of darts from a leisurely game to a professional sport between the 1970s and the 1990s. The change was enabled by the creation of the British Darts Organisation (BDO) and the introduction of television broadcasting, which together fed a continual process of professionalisation. Initially, this article discusses both the concept of professionalisation and similar developmental changes in a selection of English sports. Following this, via selected interviews, documentary analysis and archival information, the reasons behind the split in darts are explicated, shedding light on how the BDO did not successfully manage the transformation and the sport split into two governing bodies, from which the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), the sport’s most successful organisation in the present day, has emerged to dominate the world of televised darts.

The toolkit is designed to guide you through the main aspects of events management in a practical way, and to point you in the right direction for further information, advice and support. It is direct, clear and simple throughout to make sure you get the most out of it, and is available in several formats such as Braille, audio, large print, and in Portuguese. Copies in all formats are held by Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire Library Services.

The toolkit is designed to guide you through the main aspects of events management in a practical way, and to point you in the right direction for further information, advice and support. It is direct, clear and simple throughout to make sure you get the most out of it, and is available in several formats such as Braille, audio, large print, and in Portuguese. Copies in all formats are held by Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire Library Services.

A case study on the use of technology in the subarctic with specific reference to polar bears.

This book provides events management students with an accessible and essential introduction to project management. Written by both academics and industry experts, Events Project Management offers a unique blend of theory and practice to encourage and contextualise project management requirements within events settings. Key questions include: What is project management? How does it connect to events management? What is effective project management within the events sector? How does academic theory connect to practice? The book is coherently structured into 12 chapters covering crucial event management topics such as stakeholders, supply chain management, project management tools and techniques, and financial and legal issues. Guides, templates, case study examples, industry tips and activity tasks are integrated in the text and online to show practice and aid knowledge. Written in an engaging style, this text offers the reader a thorough understanding of how to successfully project manage an event from the creative idea to the concrete product. It is essential reading for all events management students.

Historically, visitors’ motives for visiting protected areas included ‘rest, relaxation and reinvigoration’. Ecological impacts were typically low. Recent trends have increased use of protected areas for extreme sports, with greater numbers undertaking more active recreation, such as extreme sports. The effect of this trend is considered, together with potential management options. We propose that the development of appropriately targeted and delivered educational programmes could minimise environmental degradation. However, to maximise ecological conservation in protected lands we consider that a major paradigm shift is required. This will require a more strategic, holistic approach to planning and managing outdoor recreation/sport destinations incorporating collaboration across stakeholders. Based on past experience, to continue with the current model will ultimately accelerate biodiversity loss, degradation of protected areas, and loss of recreational amenity.

A study undertaken on behalf of the City of Lincoln Council in 2013 to assess the economic contribution of Lincoln Christmas Market to the local economy.

Purpose - Contemporary outdoor rock and popular music festivals offer liminal spaces in which event participants can experience characteristics associated with the carnivalesque. Festival goers celebrate with abandonment, excess and enjoy a break from the mundane routine of everyday life. The aim of this conceptual paper is to explore the way gender is negotiated in the festival space. Design/methodology/approach - The rock and popular music tribute festival, known as ‘Glastonbudget’ provides the focus for this conceptual paper. A pilot ethnographic study at the event utilising photographic imagery was used to understand the way in which gender is displayed. Findings - It is suggested that liminal zones offer space to invert social norms and behave with abandonment and freedom away from the constraints of the everyday but neither women nor men actually take up this opportunity. The carnivalesque during Glastonbudget represents a festival space which consolidates normative notions of gender hierarchy via a complicated process of othering. Research limitations/implications - This is a conceptual paper which presents the need to develop social science based studies connecting gender to the social construction of event space. The ideas developed in this article need to be further explored further building upon the research design established here. Originality/value – There is currently a paucity of literature surrounding the concept of gender within these festival spaces especially in relation to liminality within events research.

The economic downturn has inspired hotels to turn their attention to local residents to seek new revenue sources, and they are offering more of own special events to attract nearby residents to their venues. This study examines locals’ experiences at hotel special events, and evaluates their intention to purchase special event packages that include room nights. By employing Pine and Gilmore’s dimensions of experience economy, this study found that escapism experience and positive memory have strong impacts on locals’ purchase intention of hotel room nights in association with hotels’ special events. Based on the findings, this paper reports the potential of local customers to serve as revenue generators and concludes with practical implications for developing special event packages.

Environmental sustainability has become a matter of primary concern in the event and meeting industry; this paper, therefore, investigates whether prior knowledge and educational experiences related to environmental sustainability are influential motivators in causing event planners to commit to engaging in ecologically-friendly behavior. The regression analysis showed that the intention to implement green event practices is positively influenced by both knowledge of green practices and educational experience in green practices. Particularly, educational experience was found to be a strong influential factor contributing to intention to engage in green or sustainable practices for event planners. This study not only highlights academic discussion on sustainability and green education, but also derives managerial implications for the event and meeting industry based on the findings.

Environmental sustainability has become an important concern in staging meetings and events. This paper introduces the Convention Industry Council's Green Meetings Report and goes on to investigate whether prior knowledge and educational experiences related to environmental sustainability are influential factors in planners’ commitment to engaging in ecologically friendly behavior. Using a nine-point questionnaire, 278 delegates at North America's largest one-day event for meeting planners were sampled. Regression analysis showed that the intention to implement green meeting practices is positively influenced by both prior knowledge of and educational experience with greening practices. In particular, educational experiences were found to be a strong influential factor contributing to meeting planners’ intention to implement green meeting practices. By providing operational definitions of knowledge and education, it proves that knowledge gained by an unstructured format was less effective than the impact of education on green intention. Accordingly, this study not only highlights academic discussions on environmental knowledge-building through formal education but also derives managerial implications for the meeting and event industry by outlining ways to incorporate continuing professional education in sustainable meetings and events. A range of ideas for the content of that professional education is presented, along with the possibilities for e-learning.

This article introduces the basis for research relating to the management and monitoring of student expectations within a new Events Management degree. It is important to gain an understanding of the Events Management students’ expectations and backgrounds. This research offers a starting point in exploring how teaching and learning practices can accommodate student learning and satisfaction. The root of this research lies with the Student Voice Initiative (Fielding, 2004), in which students are seen as the co-producers rather than higher educational consumers. We have established a wide-reaching discourse with students regarding their expectations and experiences of the new degree programme, in order to promote better communication channels between both groups. This research is prompted by a noted evolution in the student character; ‘they are supposed to become unique, successful individuals, making their own choices and plans to accomplish autonomy’ (Harris, 2004, p.6). As educators we have a responsibility to respond to societal changes in student expectations in order to benefit their student development and experience. The methods used take particular account of the student need for autonomy and individuality through participatory activities, qualitative methods and flexibility. The aim is to reflect on current departmental practice and also to respond to and accommodate the emerging student voice. We present our plans for this co-production of research at the early stages of development.

A festival of contemporary music was established in 1978 in Huddersfield, an industrial town in northern England. The event acquired an international reputation, enjoyed to the present day. Yet the news media continued to report as 'surprising' the successful juxtaposition of avant-garde art with an industrial town. An explanation is constructed via an analytic discussion of fashionability, the avant-garde, and the nature of continuing news. This discussion is further set within the context of the generic urban transition from the industrial to the post-industrial, and the movement known as cultural regeneration. The work of Simmel, Nietzsche, and Bourdieu are deployed in these analyses. The concluding argument is that the news media are relating, simultaneously, three stories: that of the success of a festival; that of the cultural regeneration of urban centres seeking a role in a new economy; and a generic rags-to-riches narrative. The news reporting of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is thus a multiple metaphor for a continuing cultural change.

Secondary research reveals that, in the United Kingdom, national shifts in the sizes of key socio-economic groups have been substantial. The numbers in the AB (professional and managerial) groups in the population have increased from 8.1m in 1992, to 11.6m in 2003, to 12.8m in 2007. This is complemented by a reduction in the C2D (manual) groups, a fact unrecognised by some public initiatives to ‘widen access’. Two research questions are addressed. First, the ABs are known to be a primary market for live drama: between 40% and 50% of audiences. To what extent is the growth of these groups reflected in audience levels for live performance? Second, to what extent is upward mobility reflected in mobility of taste? In this respect, the work resonates with the ongoing dialogues initiated by Peterson and his omnnivore/univore thesis. Primary research has yielded data on live arts consumption from respondents living in and around the city of Lincoln, UK. This city has, in the last five years, seen its Victorian theatre complemented by the refurbishment of a municipal multi-arts venue; a new flexible theatre and concert venue on the university campus; and a Students’ Union concert venue, for popular music events, on the same campus. Offering therefore a widening range of live arts consumption opportunities, Lincoln as a community is an interesting subject for this study.

Purpose - Contemporary outdoor rock and popular music festivals offer liminal spaces in which event participants can experience characteristics associated with the carnivalesque. Festival goers celebrate with abandonment, excess and enjoy a break from the mundane routine of everyday life. The aim of this conceptual paper is to explore the way gender is negotiated in the festival space. Design/methodology/approach - The rock and popular music tribute festival, known as ‘Glastonbudget’ provides the focus for this conceptual paper. A pilot ethnographic study at the event utilising photographic imagery was used to understand the way in which gender is displayed. Findings - It is suggested that liminal zones offer space to invert social norms and behave with abandonment and freedom away from the constraints of the everyday but neither women nor men actually take up this opportunity. The carnivalesque during Glastonbudget represents a festival space which consolidates normative notions of gender hierarchy via a complicated process of othering. Research limitations/implications - This is a conceptual paper which presents the need to develop social science based studies connecting gender to the social construction of event space. The ideas developed in this article need to be further explored further building upon the research design established here. Originality/value – There is currently a paucity of literature surrounding the concept of gender within these festival spaces especially in relation to liminality within events research.

Rural and Agricultural Shows are rich in tradition but their function in the rural economy is evolving. The cancellation of Shows during the Covid-19 pandemic led us to examine how rural Shows would re-emerge and what opportunities and challenges they now face. The research draws on interviews with organisers and exhibitors, attendance at live events and evaluations of online events that were staged during the pandemic. This has revealed that Shows have accelerated their digitalisation but also that the physical meeting space is critical to their social function. The research identified new expectations from exhibitors which have discovered alternative routes to market, including online. There is an imperative for Show organisers to identify methods to tap into online markets and offer value to their exhibitors. Shows re-opening in 2022 are having to adapt quickly to the post-pandemic economy including the cost-of-living crisis, a loss of volunteers and a more competitive event environment.