Social Sustainability in Event Management: A Critical Commentary

Abstract

This critical commentary focuses on the development of research in Event Management on social sustainability in the context of events. Findings suggest that while there has been a plethora of articles published in the journal that touch on elements of what we understand to relate to social sustainability (e.g., resident impacts; sense of community, place, belonging etc) there are very few which have explicitly situated their work in the sustainability field. This means that it is somewhat difficult to pull together the various threads of disparate studies to comment on the evolution of research on events and social sustainability as a whole. There is considerable scope for papers published in Event Management to build on these growing efforts to think systematically and comprehensively about festivals and events through the lens of social sustainability.