Events and Society Bridging Theory and Practice

Events of all shapes and sizes play an important part in all of our lives. They are fun, frivolous, and often allow us to escape from our everyday lives - and they are also fascinating to study and examine in a more serious way, to understand what they mean and what they do for us - individually and collectively. Events in Society, therefore, explores the social impact and sociological implications of designing, planning, and delivering events - cultural events like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; sporting events like the Olympic and Paralympic Games and FIFA World Cup; to music festivals like Glastonbury.
Thirty carefully selected contributions feature, written by global experts in a short and succinct way that are easy to digest, covering a variety of disciplines, fields, contexts, and cases. Every chapter explores a critical issue or debate based on real-life events, and contextualises this within the key theoretical debates, managerial, and policy implications. Throughout, there are linkages to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, as well as interactive features to aid understanding and spur critical thinking, including learning objectives, quiz questions, and debate questions per chapter.
Some of the topics covered include:
Uniting nations and people
Personal experiences and transformations
Social critique and explorations
Activism
Programming and representation
Health, safety, and security
Identity and gender
LGBTQ+
Environmentalism
Displacement and exclusion
Education and participation
Community development
Disability and accessibility
This innovative, topical, engaging, and comprehensive book is an essential reading and teaching resource for all students and lecturers in events that are easy to integrate into educational programmes.