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Event studies
Event studies: finding fool’s
gold at the rainbow’s end?
Tom Baum
Strathclyde University, Glasgow, UK, and
179
Leonie Lockstone-Binney and Martin Robertson
Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract
Purpose – The aim of this opinion piece is to seek to cast a critical eye over the event studies field to chart
its progress as an emerging area of study, relative to its close relations tourism, hospitality and leisure.
Design/methodology/approach – Viewpoint approach.
Findings – The paper highlights various challenges that event educators and researchers face in
advancing event studies to discipline status.
Originality/value – It is timely that, as the quantum of event research and the number of event
management education programmes surge, those involved in the field engage in greater critical
introspection. This opinion piece attempts to provide such a reflective insight, which has been largely
absent from the event studies literature to date.
Keywords Event studies, Event management, Field of study
Paper type Viewpoint

Introduction
Interest in events is unquestionably at an all-time high, fuelled by the profile of major
cultural, religious and sporting occasions that are subject to increased commodification
and, consequent, growing media coverage. Large and small destinations support and
market events as a central plank in their economic development, community enhancement
and tourism marketing programmes, recognising that they offer something different from
the rather more passive provision for these constituencies which, hithertofore, has
typified destination development and place management strategies. So events are of
increasing importance in many countries and undoubtedly require conceptualisation,
development, marketing, operationalisation and, of course, management.
Capitalising on this interest, event studies has emerged in recent decades as the new
kid of the block, an addition to the leisure, tourism and hospitality fields of study.
Together these fields draw upon social science disciplines to understand a multitude
of discretionary human behaviours. The growth path of the event studies has been
documented in a number of reviews and summations of the extant literature (Harris
et al., 2001; Getz, 2000, 2008, 2010, 2012; Kim et al., 2013; Lee and Back, 2005; Mair,
2012; Mair and Whitford, 2013; Yoo and Weber, 2005). These reviews whilst invaluable
in identifying the scope of event studies and gaps in current knowledge have, to date,
largely failed to cast a critical eye over the field with a view to assessing its academic
standing and merit. With greater freedom to test the waters compared to an empirical
paper, this opinion piece provides an opportunity for some much needed critical
introspection (Thomas and Bowdin, 2012) as to progress in the field. International Journal of Event and
Here, in a consideration of event studies as an area of study and of serious critical Festival Management
Vol. 4 No. 3, 2013
endeavour, we chart its progress as an emerging area of study, relative to tourism, pp. 179-185
hospitality and leisure. This discussion is followed by an interpretation of some of the r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1758-2954
perceived limitations of current research in the field. In viewing its limitations, we DOI 10.1108/IJEFM-06-2013-0014
IJEFM opine that educators and researchers must seek to overcome challenges present and future
4,3 that may curb the growth and credibility of event studies as an academic field of study.

Event studies: boundaries and context

There is no denying the seminal contribution of Donald Getz (2007, 2008) to shaping
understanding and conceptualisation of “event studies” as the study of planned events. His
180 numerous reviews have articulated “event studies” as the third and highest level of event
education, positioned at the pinnacle of a pyramid structure, with what he labels the more
applied level of “event design and event production” at the base and “event management”
the intermediary between the two. Most recently Getz mapped the dominant discourses in
the field. Most thoroughly he mapped a classical discipline-based discourse that draws
upon established social science disciplines to explain event experiences, as distinct from
the more applied discourses of “event tourism” and “event management” (Getz, 2012).
Getz is not alone amongst academics (Page and Connell, 2012a; Thomas and
Bowdin, 2012) in questioning the maturity of event studies as an area of study and its
progress towards recognition as a distinct academic area. The UK offers an example of
the progression made by the study of event management in this respect. In 2008, after
considerable lobbying (principally from the Association of Event Management
Education), event management was accepted as a clear strand in the national Quality
Assurance Agency (QAA) subject benchmark statements for hospitality, leisure, sport
and tourism undergraduate degrees. Within this, the benchmark statement for an
honours level event management degree certainly makes reference to higher range
theoretical perspectives akin to the field of study to which it is linked. Is this a partial
acceptance of its higher order capacity as a field of study? Well, perhaps. However, as
with other already recognised fields of study this is unlikely to be a short journey. Nor
is it likely to be simple one. It certainly has not been for hospitality, for example.
Modern-day Samuel Becketts, Lashley and Morrison (2001) began their search for
theoretical perspectives in hospitality over ten years ago and, to the best of our
understanding, they are still looking, academics waiting for a Godot who may never
appear. Their uncertainty underpins the challenge that faces contemporary hospitality,
tourism and leisure education and is reflected in a lack of consensus in the design and
delivery of programmes at university level. At the heart of the endless journey upon
which Lashley (2000) and Lashley and Morrison (2001) have embarked is a, perhaps,
simplistic interpretation that theirs is an inability to reconcile two approaches. In this, on
the one hand there are those who follow the critical traditions embodied in hospitality
studies and there are those colleagues, on the other hand, who see hospitality as an
applied management field. Some may see this standoff as irreconcilable because neither
perspective represents more than the bastard progeny of well-established fields of study.
In the case of hospitality, tourism and leisure studies, these include sociology, psychology
and geography within a specific social context while hospitality, tourism and leisure
management can be seen as the combined application of a swathe of business disciplines,
again within a contextual framework.
Given this probably irreconcilable problem, one that in the case of hospitality
management has been around for the 120 years that it has been delivered within the
academy, what hope is there to find real substance when addressing event studies
as the new kid on the block? This field (advisedly not labelled as a discipline here)
has emerged as a major player within university calendars in Australia, the UK and,
increasingly, elsewhere in the world. Student demand for programmes is undoubted,
though the potential for an oversupply of these offerings and flattening of demand has
been flagged (Barron and Leask, 2012). Moreover, it now grows far more rapidly than Event studies
its established relations, hospitality, tourism and leisure, each of which are suffering
decline in many institutions.
Is the study of events bound to follow a similar developmental path to that of leisure,
hospitality and tourism that have gone before? Certainly, as part of its progression, the
study of events is being viewed with a more critical eye from inside and outside the field.
Notably, Rojek (2012) in his recent critique of global event management, highlights that 181
“the positive claims made by event management are excessive and reflect a disturbing
myopia about generations of critical study in the Social Sciences and Leisure Studies on
questions of power, control and resistance” (p. 8). The undertone of this critique is that
leisure studies is under threat from the popularity of the new kid, with Rojek (2012)
stating “rumours of the death of Leisure Studies and its replacement with Event
Management are premature” (p. 13). Some loss of traction in the leisure studies field may
indeed be through its failure to adapt. As Coalter (1998, p. 21) suggests, leisure studies
often takes place “within a normative citizenship paradigm”, presuming leisure is an
extension of social citizenship rather than an activity influenced and sometimes
necessarily acquiescent to a mixed economy.
Rojek’s critique does not demarcate between “studies” and “management” in
reference to the academic field of events. Event studies, as is the case with leisure
studies (using Rojek’s point of comparison), does give further opportunity to query,
with more vigour, a wider sphere of phenomena and effects than does the management
prefix. So while the literature of the event management area is denounced as being
“overwhelmingly uncritical and self-congratulatory” (Rojek, 2012, p. 1), it is unclear
whether a wider reference to the related body of knowledge is being made.
In the same work, Rojek suggests that organisation of major events that purport to
be a response to negative global conditions (such as global poverty), actually serve
to obfuscate long-term understanding of the related issues involved. These “realities”
and the dangers of a public-private boosterism agenda (Hall, 1992), underpinning the
development of global major events, has been recognised by many for a considerable
time (Hall, 1992; Roche, 1992; Robertson and Guerrier, 1998). They resonate in the
literature that addresses the impacts of event management (for introduction to the
ongoing discussion see the special issue of Event Management (11/2) entitled “Beyond
economic impacts”). To suggest that this recognition has been ignored in the event
management literature is as flawed as suggesting that the leisure industry and leisure
studies are not also influenced by similar neo-liberal effects (Bavinton, 2010; Bramham,
2006; Coalter, 1990, 1998).
The criticisms of the study of events from outside of the field accompany anecdotal
evidence of a slowing down of evolutionary research progression from within. Getz
adopts a more critical perspective most recently in his 2012 review, highlighting that
the discourses of event tourism and event management are largely “instrumentalist”,
concerned with the immediate value of events to allied sectors. Getz (2012) goes on to
note that theory in relation to event management has been slow to develop, an
assessment that may also be levelled at all facets of the academic field of events.
No seminal theories have emerged, grounded in the event experience, a challenge that
the field faces alongside hospitality (as noted over 30 years ago by Nailon, 1982),
although those working in the critical hospitality studies area may choose to disagree
(Lugosi et al., 2009). Tourism, for example, has amongst others, the Tourism Area Life
Cycle Model (Butler, 1980), Doxey’s (1975) Irridex and Plog’s (1991) Allocentric and
Psychocentric tourist classification. Leisure has established theories such as Leisure
IJEFM Constraints (Crawford and Godbey, 1987; Crawford et al., 1991), Recreation
4,3 Specialization (Bryan, 1977) and Serious Leisure (Stebbins, 1982). Such widely cited,
underpinning conceptual models, become the stuff of textbook legend, taught to
undergraduate students throughout the years. These theories in the events context
would likely conform to Henderson et al. (2004) terminology applied to leisure and
recreation research of “middle range theories”, acknowledging that “postmodernists
182 debunk the possibilities of finding a universal truth or grand theory regarding any
topic and recognize that all theory is contextual and dynamic” (p. 413). It would seem
an important step for the study of events (and to become an event studies discipline)
that if it wishes to rival its peers in academic standing, corresponding middle range,
explanatory models have to emerge that conceptualise new and accepted event
knowledge in an revisioned light, forming the building blocks for the field.
Getz (2012, p. 180) suggests that if progress in related fields is anything to go by
“then event management will likely continue to grow and spread globally for another
decade before peaking”. So what factors are likely, if anything, to curb this progress?
Rojek (2012, p. 1) concedes that organised events “now receive unprecedented
prominence in the curriculum and research”. Whilst much good research has and
is being published, evidenced by the quality of Page and Connell’s (2012) Handbook
of Events compendium and Routledge’s commissioning of the Advances in Event
Research Series, no studies have yet to obtain theoretical prominence above all others,
with pockets of the literature highly descriptive in nature (Mair, 2012). Is this state of
affairs due to an inherent weakness in events as an area of study or is it, rather,
a product of the modern academic environment in which the field is trying to
establish itself? Page and Connell (2012b) briefly touch on the competitive pressures
academics face arising from research assessment exercises (in the UK, Australia
and New Zealand) and the greater emphasis on timely publications in high-quality
journal outlets for personal (e.g. academic employment and career progression) and
institutional (e.g. research funding and reputation) reasons. Journals with a preference
for original research findings often shun purely conceptual papers, necessary for the
development of the field. As a comparative example, Butler’s (1980) Tourism Area Life
Cycle model, which is widely recognised as a pioneering model in the field of tourism,
was first published as a brief (by today’s standards) conceptual paper with no
accompanying findings. It is not unreasonable to suggest that such a paper would not
be published in the modern era without supporting primary data, although as Butler
(2006) himself highlights, one of the reasons for the enduring prominence of the model
is that “it appeared at a time when concepts and models were lacking but being eagerly
sought in tourism as research moved beyond simple description towards interpretation
and analysis” (p. 23). It is not unreasonable to suggest that the study of events is
already beyond this point of development without indigenous theories to speak of.
Importantly, close cousin tourism, as an example, has found voice in a great number
of journal and book publications, allowing a distinction between tourism studies and
tourism management studies. Moreover, tourism has, in part through this myriad of
journals, found an increasing number of sub-fields that has further facilitated its
growth. Relatedly there are only a handful of journals servicing the event studies field,
many of which are less than five years old. Event studies researchers are publishing
widely outside of the field in search of more highly regarded outlets in tourism,
hospitality and leisure. Tourism and leisure researchers in search of publication
opportunities did likewise in the emergent phases of their fields’ development,
however, in combination with the competitive pressures detailed above, this trend does
not bode well for event studies developing a stand alone, recognised body of research, Event studies
and viable high-quality journals to support it. Indeed, it is questionable if, and when, a
theoretically focused Event Studies journal will emerge, one without a “management”
prefix, to rival counterparts such as Annals of Tourism Research and Leisure Sciences
servicing the tourism and leisure fields.
Further supporting the need for theoretical development, Getz (2012) suggests that
it is only those event education programmes that adopt a more theoretical lens to the 183
study of events, moving towards the third and highest level of his event education
pyramid (Getz, 2007), that will survive in the long term. In tandem, these programmes
will live and die by their associated graduate career outcomes. Allen et al. (2011)
highlight that a standard event management career path and recognised roles are yet to
emerge but there is evidence of some progress towards industry acceptance. This
progress has likely been delayed by the fragmented nature of the sector and the
multitude of industry associations each advocating for a separate slice of the wider
events industry (e.g. festivals, special events, association meetings and other forms of
business events). Questions have also been raised as to whether event management
degree programmes are adequately equipping students with the skills needed to work
in industry and whether there are sufficient jobs for a growing tertiary qualified cohort
( Junek et al., 2009). Time will tell on both fronts.
The onus is on event studies researchers and educators here and now to rise above
the various challenges they confront, some of which have been outlined in this opinion
piece, in order to develop a coherent set of theories that encompass the breadth and
depth of event studies, including critical reviews to facilitate continued reflection on
progress in the field. If this does not occur within the next decade, more established
disciplines such as tourism, leisure and hospitality may re-emerge from cyclical
downturns to overshadow event studies and blindside its educators and researchers
distracted by the search for fools gold at the end of the rainbow.

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Corresponding author
Leonie Lockstone-Binney can be contacted at: leonie.lockstone@vu.edu.au

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