Category: festivals and events

PhD student, Benedetta Piccio: My experience at the THE INC 2022 conference

by Benedetta Piccio

The tourism, hospitality and event industries have been majorly impacted by the Covid19 pandemic over the past two years. Lockdowns, social distancing, and restrictions have had serious consequences on events; resulting in cancellations or being moved online.

In Edinburgh, the summer festivals released a statement in April 2020 announcing that festivals would not go ahead as planned for the first time in 73 years. They are only just returning this summer in full swing.

THE INC 2022 conference’s topic: Tourism, Hospitality and Events Innovation and Resilience during Uncertainty, was well situated with the current environment. The conference took place at the end of June at the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) in Limassol.

As my PhD looks at Women, festival leadership and social transformation: the case of Edinburgh, the world’s leading festival city, presenting part of my research at the INC2022 conference was an incredible opportunity. My research focuses on understanding gender inequalities and obstacles women face during their career progression within the festival industry.

I had recently finished my data collection that consisted of 33 interviews, with one of the questions investigating the effects of the past two years on female festival organisers’ roles and positions. And my presentation at THE INC2022 conference was about an initial analysis of my data.

The results show that female festival leaders have strongly demonstrated innovation and resilience during the past years. One of my participants commented:

“For me the last two years have probably been a test of any leadership and probably the biggest test has been a test of resilience (…) it was about how can I now move into a mode of leadership that is about survival and that is about supporting my team, my colleagues and holding this together.”

The past two years have also improved the working conditions in terms of flexibility and the possibility of working from home, which was something that never existed before:

“Our policy of like pretty flexible, a lot of flexibility in terms of working. So we can kind of work around pick up times and drop off times if we need to.”

My research is still in progress, so the conference was a great opportunity for me to share my initial findings with fellow researchers and academics, and to discuss my work with them and gain valuable feedback.

The conference had great keynote speakers on the resilience and innovation of the event, tourism and hospitality industries: Professor Jane Ali-Knight, from Edinburgh Napier University, Professor Cathy Hsu, from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), and Professor Scott McCabe, University of Nottingham.

Get in touch: benedetta.piccio@napier.ac.uk

New report offers guidance to events industry partners on managing risk in the time of unexpected crisis: COVID & Innovation within Edinburgh’s Festivals

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed significant social and economic losses on festivals globally. Government imposed lockdowns prevented socialising and meant that events were cancelled, paused, or redeveloped into a virtual format. Event organisers turned to creative problem-solving and accelerated innovation to manage the crisis.

Edinburgh Napier academics – Prof. Jane Ali-Knight, Dr Gary Kerr, and Hannah Stewart MSc – have created a report in collaboration with Prof. Kirsten Holmes from Curtin University (Perth, Australia) examining the impacts of COVID-19 on festivals in eventful destinations and the response of festival managers to the ongoing pandemic, using the case study of Edinburgh’s Festivals.

First, the team reviewed policies and practices relevant to the safe opening of festivals and events up to the Autumn of 2021. Second, they used a mixed methods approach to collect a range of data between June 2021 to November 2021, including participant observation of events, and in-depth interviews with key Edinburgh Festival Directors, managers and city stakeholders to identify how they initially responded and continue to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 situation. The fieldwork data are supported by content analysis of key media narratives focusing on festival and event cancellation and post COVID-19 recovery.

Key Findings revealed that since March 2020, 10 out of 11 of Edinburgh’s major festivals have successfully delivered programming in a live or digital format; all participants reported having to restructure their organisations’ business and delivery models in response to COVID-19; festivals were forced to shift their primary funding avenues from a ticket sales and revenue-based focus to securing funding from sponsorship, donations and COVID-19 recovery support with several organisations trialled a digital ‘pay what you can’ model for access to online events, championing and maintaining financial accessibility in an economic crisis.

The research team used the data to develop a new framework (please see below) for industry partners to approach risk management within festivals and events. This new model provides a tactical response to unexpected crisis events, such as a global pandemic, acts of terrorism, natural disasters, and other unique disruptive scenarios beyond the sector’s control.

illustration of the framework developed by Ali-Night et al. The framework has 3 components: Respond, Reassess, Reimagine with a fourth component: Communication sitting in the middle, interlinking the other components

The framework consists of three components. The first one, response, refers to organisers first assessing the situation, then reacting to evolving customer needs and behaviours by offering new types of experiences, products, and services, and lastly, strategically planning the next steps to cope with high levels of uncertainty.

The model’s second element, resilience, describes the critical importance of business model innovation that can be done through establishing new partnerships, as well as adjusting and adapting business and delivery models and supply chains to manage risk in the long term.

Lastly, the reimaging component touches on dynamic recovery through the reviewing of organisational successes and areas for opportunity, the development of potential future scenarios and how they can be prepared for, as well as the building of flexible and dynamic strategies that are stress-tested against various scenarios.

The importance of effective communication and support between festival stakeholders in times of crisis is emphasised by the researchers, and it appears in the centre of the framework interlinking all elements.

To download the full report please click here.