Information and Communication Technology in Event Management

Abstract

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of information and communication technologies (ICTs) used by event organizers and attendees. The ways that ICTs are integrated into event administration, design, operations, marketing, and risk management, both back-stage and in plain sight, are considered from an applied perspective and through the lenses of theories applied in the literature. Currently, events and festivals use diverse ICTs to enhance utilitarian aspects, such as ticket purchasing, safety procedures, wayfinding and scheduling, as well as hedonic visitor experiences, like virtual and enhanced reality, gamification, and innovative programming using social media. How ICTs influence attendees' experiences is discussed in-depth by exploring the contribution of ICTs to "communitas," "liminality," sense of place, mindfulness, memorableness, and co-creation. Throughout the chapter, both emerging and established ICTs are described, and real-world examples from festivals are provided to gain insights into the opportunities and drawbacks of ICTs in the event and festival domain. The chapter focuses on ICTs used during the festival experience. However, the importance of the pre-and post-event and festival experience is acknowledged as well.

Making Sense from Experience: How a Sustainable Multi-Sensory Event Spurs Word-of-Mouth Recommendation of a Destination Brand

“…Moreover, the virtual broadcast of these events can be a great tool for nurturing a brand's values and supporting the recommendation of new visits and re-visits among tourists and current residents. For this reason, the service sector is becoming more interested in hardware and software developments-such as livestreaming, holographic images, social media and drone surveillance-that allow tourists to enjoy a multi-sensory experience in virtual environments [107]. As more people adopt these disruptive technologies, there are clear opportunities for researchers and practitioners to conceptualize virtual multi-sensory experiences and apply them to event marketing.…”

Event technology for potential sustainable practices: a bibliometric review and research agenda

“…Afterall, the democratisation of ICTs has empowered the services industries to optimise consumer experiences through technological products and experiences (Van Winkle and Bueddefeld, 2020). Apart from the information released by event organisers, attendees' perceptions and attitudes towards events are increasingly shaped by user-generated content (Wakefield and Bennett, 2018) on the internet, personal blogs, or social media.…”

“…sustainable practices engaging and immersive experiences for event attendees in the foreground (Neuhofer et al, 2020a;Van Winkle et al, 2019a;Van Winkle and Bueddefeld, 2020). The cluster analysis shows that the areas that received much attention by scholars to date are the use of social media (Laurell and Bj€ orner, 2018), mobile devises (Van Winkle et al, 2016), and the internet (Ojo, 2018).…”

“…With the raising awareness of sustainability, event organisers and venues increasingly seek to incorporate green initiatives as part of the management plans. Common sustainable practices in events and festivals include, but are not limited to, reducing and managing waste (Van Winkle and Bueddefeld, 2020; Van Winkle, 2020), improving social engagement (Robertson et al , 2015) and public health (Perna et al , 2019). Essentially, sustainability is the co-existence of biosphere and human civilisation, where enhancing both current and future potential to meet human needs is the core idea (Lawton and Weaver, 2010).…”

Applying Crowd Risk Mitigation Technologies in Urban Sport Events

“…Figure 1 illustrates the makeup of an effective crowd management plan (Martella et al, 2017). Event Design and Communication are critical elements that can determine the success of a crowd management plan in events (Martella et al, 2017;Van Winkle & Bueddefeld, 2020). Failures in event design can include inadequate amounts of signage, poor traffic flow, under-planned vendor mapping, and dangerous structure placement.…”