Guest editorial

Abstract

Guest editorialEvents and placemaking Events and festivals have become increasingly important policy tools for cities and regions. They are able to produce a wide range of externalities, including economic impacts, image change, social capital and cultural regeneration. All of these event-related externalities have impacts and effects on the places in which they are staged. In many cases, these eventrelated impacts are analysed separately, but in fact the most powerful effects of events are more holistic, able to impact not just on individual economic sectors or social groups, but on places as a whole.Over time, the use of events by cities and regions has grown more sophisticated and complex. The range of policy goals for which events are utilised has expanded, and the range and type of events staged has increased as well. Increasingly, public administrations seek to co-ordinate the events in their jurisdiction to create synergies between events and to maximise the benefits generated. Event policies make frequent references to the development of programmes or "portfolios" of events (Antchak, 2016). The ability of events to effect a broad range of changes in different places has added to their attractiveness as a placemaking tool, and has led to more cities developing "events units" and other forms of event-based interventions (Whitford, 2009). Many cities are also actively engaged in bidding for events such as the European Capital of Culture or the Olympic Games. Some cities may also resort to copying events held elsewhere, or in the most extreme cases, simply "stealing" events from their neighbours (e.g. Van Aalst and van Melik, 2011).The emergence of coordinated approaches to the management of events by places has, over time, also produced changes in the relationship between events and their host locations. Historically, many events were used as a form of place marketing, essentially to attract attention to their location and to obtain wider recognition of their existence, and to establish specific brand associations (Hall, 1989). As marketing and branding of places became more necessary with increasing globalisation, the role of events was more firmly linked to city marketing and place branding strategies. For example Ashworth (2009, p. 9), in his review of tools for place branding, identified "event hallmarking" as a process "where places organise events, usually cultural or sporting, in order to obtain a wider recognition that they exist but also to establish specific brand associations". As the term "hallmarking" suggests, places tended to use major events in order to market and brand themselves. This had the advantage of attracting attention, but Ashworth (2009, p. 20) also argued that "hallmark events alone are unlikely to have much impact upon a place brand" and even identified "cases where events have resulted in increasing brand recognition but of an inadequate place product".This recognition of the limitations of place marketing and place branding approaches linked to events led in some cases to a bro...

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