The concert showcasing Ed Sheeran was held on the 22nd June 2018 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, South Wales. The doors opened at 5:00 pm, with the concert then promptly starting 6:30 pm, with the supporting acts Jamie Lawson and Anne-Marie opening before Ed Sheeran was set to take the stage. The target audience for this event would be mainly be people who lived locally, however it is still typical for a concert to attract those that live further away.
This would, therefore, categorise the event as community event. A community event is one of many typologies used to categorise different events. Considering this, a community event is described to “expose people to new ideas and experiences” (Bowdin et al., 2012:19) while bringing together a diverse group of people. The Ed Sheeran concert evidently fits into this category as it targets local communities with the aim of bringing people together to enjoy memorable experiences with remarkable, musical entertainment.
It is highly important for events to set objectives as they form the “key direction for the following stages of the project’s planning, delivery and evaluation” (Bladen et al., 2018:33). A popular way to help the formation of these objectives is through the acronym SMART; meaning “specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, time related” (Bladen et al., 2018:33). Linking to this, the aims and objectives of this event can be clarified through both the event and the venue. The aims of the Ed Sheeran concert were to provide entertainment and to bring unique experiences to the admirers of the artists. Furthermore, the Principality stadium aim to give an unmissable experience to the customers with unrivalled service, alongside providing the highest standard of excellence in the venue (Cardiff Conferences, no date).
The cultural definition of a concert is described as a “one-off music event to attract an audience because of an individual performer or a small number of performers appearing together” (Bladen et al., 2012: 333). Concerts were created not only for people to enjoy and experience live music, but also for people to make memories with friends and meet new people. A music event is also regarded as a “celebrations of creativity” (Raj et al., 2017:12) that can often be “concerned with change or charity” (Raj et al., 2017:12), this has been seen in many occasions where a concert has taken place to raise money for a charity, typically known as a “benefit concert”.
The definition of value is seen as “the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth or usefulness of something” (Brown et al, 2015, cited in Armbrecht et al., 2017:4). Linking into this, events are then valued through “attendee numbers, the economic impact/ visitor spend, investment/ future funding, cost recovery/ income, press/PR/profile, satisfaction/ feedback, cultural and social rates”. (Armbrecht et al., 2017:30).
In conjunction with this, further research shows that it is the economic and the social impacts of an event that are the main factors when considering value and deciding how much an event matters to the event industry. Evidence to this shows that events have shown to have “positive results showing the creation of new employment opportunities to increase livelihoods of residents” (Bowdin et al., 2008:830). It has also been shown that events would often create opportunities such as “community building and social strengthen” (Bowdin et al., 2008:830).
When considering the value and importance of the event to the industry, the Ed Sheeran concert would have also created a financial impact as they would have needed to hire contractors/ suppliers which would also have had a significant economic impact on local businesses as their visitor spend would have increased due to the large numbers attending the concert. It would’ve also had a large social impact as it brought community together, created jobs and possibly allowed volunteers to gain experiences. Furthermore, due to the popularity of the event, attendee numbers were high as the concert was sold out in not just Cardiff, but all other venues across the UK where the event was also held. This, therefore, created press around the concert, bringing attention to the town and the UK.
Another way to prove value of this type of event is by looking into its statistics. According to Mintel, the amount of people going to concerts in the UK has lowered since 2017’s figures. However, it is agreeable that the reasoning behind this is mainly expense as 69% of people in 2018 said they found concert tickets too expensive. Another factor is that 57% worry about losing their bank card/ money at the event. Despite all this, concerts still remain popular in the events industry as Mintel tells us that in 2018 1/3 of British residents attended a UK based concert. In addition to this, ½ said they would also travel abroad for a concert. Furthermore,
Mintel has predicted that the concert industry should be worth £3,278, with it currently being worth £2,459 (Mintel, 2018).
An event manager is defined as “the person with the delegated representative of an entity that holds overall ultimate responsibility for the event” (Matthews.,2008:8). As an event manager it is common to communicate to another event specialist such as an ‘event producer’. It is also worth noting that at the Ed Sheeran concert, the term ‘event manager’ may also be used as ‘tour manager’.
In today’s industry, an event manager is used for large scale events such as concerts, festivals, and large charitable events that need a specialist to ensure the event runs smoothly. Event managers also often “enjoy a work environment where no two days are the same” (Rutherford Silvers, Bowdin, O’Toole, Nelson,2006;185) as they are constantly running a variety of events throughout their career.
Event managers are incredibly important as they hold the overall responsibility events and are in charge of appointing responsibility towards others. Events are forever going to be a big part of society, and for those events to be successful they need event managers. Without an event manager to run events there would be no large scale events such as concerts as when events become “larger and more sophisticated, all theories and methods of management” (Getz.,1997;11) are then put into place. The responsibilities they hold has been categorised into five domains which include “administration; design; marketing; operations; and risk” (Robson,2009;22) source: EMBOK Silvers (2004). From these domains they have many subdivisions seen in the EMBOK structure. These Subdivisions explain the importance of an event manager as they are involved in many different aspects such as financial management, production design, marketing plan management, site management, and health & safety management.
The profession of events managers has been constantly changing over the years, and will continue to change over the future. The main factor implicating these changes is technology. Technological advancements are changing the role of event managers as it alters how they run events. Current changes is seen in new technologies such as “ticketing, communications, marketing, energy use, mobile technology, lighting, sound and ancillary systems” (Shone and Parry.,2013:90). In addition to these changes, an example of technological advances can be seen in the growth of renewable energy sources. This is visible through examples such as solar panels, as today things like solar panels can now be “easily provided to power a remote location at very little cost” (Shone and Parry.,2013:90). This is beneficial, as this is a current advancement which is changing how event managers run their events.
Another example of advancements in technology is seen through “the broadband capability of the internet” (Goldblatt.,2013:31), meaning the capability of social media. Advancements in social media is constantly changing the role of the events manger as new social media platforms, such as Instagram and snapchat are constantly being created. These platforms act as new ways for event managers to publicise their events.
One important aspect event managers must control is crowd management and crowd control, two different but interrelated concepts as “The former includes the facilitation, employment and movement of crowds, while the latter relates to the steps taken once the crowd has lost control” (Abbot.,2000:105). Crowd control defines as the “directing or constraining” (Getz.,1997:85) of crowds once the “crowd has started to behave unexpectedly” (Bladen.,2018:98). Crowd management is defined as something that “has to be integrated throughout the design process and management systems” (Getz.,2012:236) to prevent an outbreak of unruly crowds.
Crowd management is incredibly important to ensure there is a system in place to allow an easy flow for attendees to follow and to ensure overcrowding doesn’t occur. Event managers, to avoid this, need to carefully plan how many people they can fit into the arena to make sure they do not oversell tickets as it is important for people to be able to “see where they are and where they are going. People also need sufficient space to move about” (Silvers.,2008:298). From this, it is important to also have crowd control plans in place in the possibility a crowd becomes disorderly. It is noted that one of the main causes of crowds to behave unexpectantly is panic which can possibly lead to “stampedes and possible crushes against barriers” (Getz.,1997:84). These incidents can have long lasting effects on guests such as “anxiety, physical discomfort, minor or major injury, and death” (Silvers.,2008:). An example of this was when “gate crashers at Glastonbury festival 2000 doubled the licensed capacity to an estimated 200,000” (Bowdin.,2011:612) which then led to the cancellation of the festival in 2001 amid fears of crowding. Another example is when guests at an “overcrowded concert in Harlem” (The New York Times.,1996:no page number) heard gun shots which lead to people running out where “several people fell and were stepped on”(The New York Times.,1996:no page number). This shows the severity of overcrowding at concerts when panic erupts in a crowd and the importance of not only controlling crowds after the incident, but also the importance of crowd management to avoid overcrowding.
Crowd management and Crowd control is now changing as it is becoming more and more of an importance to event managers. Due to serious crowd incidents, the teaching of crowd management has now become a “recognised industry requirement” (Raj.,2017:331). This has been the case since the1989 Hillsborough disaster were “96 people were killed as a result of crowd management decisions made by individuals who had insufficient knowledge” (Raj.,2017:331). It is then said that this incident acted as an upsurge in the events industry in “training, legislation, guidance and regulations that would minimise the possibility of this situation occurring again” (Raj.,2017:331). This shows changes being made within this aspect of events and how in the future extra consideration will be taken when looking into crowd control and management. The main steps when managing crowd safety are to “set clear roles and responsibilities, work with others to ensure crowd safety, plan for incidents and emergencies, assess the risks and identify hazards, and to put crowd controls in place” (HSE.,YEAR:Online).
In conclusion, the role of the event manager, as discussed above, will continue to change the aspect of crowd management and crowd control in the years to come. This is because event managers are constantly learning from past incidents involving overcrowding, and from incidents due to terrorism which are unfortunately becoming more frequent over the last few years. From this, event managers are getting better when controlling crowds when panic emerges from tragedies as they have more control methods/plans in place. This means arenas are also becoming less crowded as event managers are getting better with crowd management as they becoming more concerned with how many egress points there are in the arena, how many people can flow through the door per minute, and how long it will take to get the whole crowd out of the arena when serious incidents occur that raise panic.
In relation to the Ed Sheeran concert, one aspect in the area of crowd control and management that could have been improved was better signage. The arena lacked signage indicating how to move around the arena. This therefore could have been recognised when considering crowd management as if an incident occurred that meant the arena had to evacuate, confusion could have emerged amongst the public on leaving.
Reference List.
Cardiff Conferences. (No Date). Principality Stadium Experience. [Online]. [23/10/1