Annab ofTourism Research, Vol. 21, pp.

I-19,
Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.

1994
Copyright

0160-7383/94 $6.00 + .OO

0 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd.

MEGA-EVENTS
AND
URBAN POLICY
Maurice Roche
Sheffield University, UK

Abstract:
The paper argues that the search for explanation
should guide
mega-event
research.
The influence
of planning,
political,
and urban
contextual
processes and factors on mega-event
production
is illustrated
through a discussion
of comparative
event research and a case study
of Sheffields Universiade
1991. This research indicates the important
influence of contextual societal change, urban leadership, and nonrational
planning in event production
processes. These factors are important
for
understanding
both event causation and also the potentially rational character of event policymaking.
The strengths and limitations
of planning
and political approaches to understanding
events are considered. A relevant research agenda is briefly outlined. Keywords:
mega-events,
megaevent planning,
mega-event
politics, contextual explanation,
situated rationality.
R&urn&
Les mtga-tvtnements
et la politique urbaine. La recherche sur
les mtga-CvCnements
doit surtout fournir des explications.
Linfluence de
la planification
et des facteurs et processus contextuels,
politiques et urbains, est illustree par une discussion de la recherche comparative
sur les
evtnements
et par une etude de luniversiade
de 1991 a Sheffield.
On
souligne Iinfluence importante
des changements
sociaux et contextuels,
les initiatives
urbaines et la planification
non rationnelle
sur la gentse
dun Cvenement. Ces facteurs permettent
de comprendre
la causalite des
kenements
ainsi que le caracttre
rationnel de la formation des politiques
pour les 6vCnements. Les points forts et les limitations
de la planification
et des approches
pour comprendre
les tvtnements
sont consider&.
On
esquisse
tgalement
un programme
de recherches.
Mots-cl&:
megatvenements,
planification
des mtga4vtnements,
explication
contextuelle, rationalit
sit&e.

INTRODUCTION
Mega-events (large scale leisure and tourism events such as Olympic
Games and World Fairs) are short-term events with long-term consequences for the cities that stage them. They are associated with the
creation of infrastructure
and event facilities often carrying long-term
debts and always requiring long-term use-programming.
In addition,

Maurice
Roche is Lecturer in Sociology at Sheffield University
(Sheffield SlO 2TN,
United Kingdom).
His research interests include the sociological and policy aspects of
sport, leisure, and tourism, and he has published a number of papers in these areas in
recent years.
1

MEGA-EVENTS

if successful, they project a new (or renewed) and perhaps persistent

and positive image and identity for the host city through national
and international
media, particularly
TV, coverage. This is usually
assumed to have long-term positive consequences
in terms of tourism,
industrial relocation, and inward investments.
As a result, city leaders
and event organizers typically claim that mega-events
help to address
the economic and cultural needs and rights of local citizens, rgardless
of whether the citizens have actually been consulted about or involved
in their production.
This paper is concerned with the social production, and the social conditions of production,
of such events.
Mega-event
or hallmark event research has tended to focus on
effects, particularly economic effects, rather than causes. The issue of
event causation, and related issues such as the functionality of events
for modern society, has tended to be better identified and addressed in
retrospect, in historical studies, rather than in contemporary
perspectives (Allwood 1978; Benedict
1983; Lavenda
1980; Ley and Olds
1988; McArthur
1986; Rydell 1984). Contemporary
mega-event
research has developed an elaborate understanding
of events as causal
factors explaining their effects. However, with few exceptions,
it has
contributed little to the social scientific task of developing an explanatory understanding
of these events in terms of their production,
their
conditions of production, and their causes. The methodological
limitations of much early event research is well-known (Burns and Mules
1986; Roche 1989; Schaffer and Davidson
1980; Travis and CroizC
1987), as are its limitations
of scope. These have been revealed by
more recent work on the broader non-economic
(political, ecological,
psychological,
and community)
impacts of mega-events
(Ahn 1987;
AIEST
1987; Burns, Hatch and Mules 1986; Marris 1987; Mueller
and Fenton 1989; Ritchie
1984; Roche 1992; Syme, Shaw, Fenton
and Mueller 1989). However these developments,
interesting as they
are, do little to alter the basic social scientific limitation of this research
field as regards its lack of attention to causation/production
and thus
to explanation or explanatory understanding.
In recent years, some research attention has begun to be given to
the causation or production of events. Two main approaches (plancan be identified in the
ning and political, as rough categorizations)
work so far and this paper is intended to contribute to the emerging
research interest in the explanatory
understanding
of mega-event
by
exploring the two main approaches in general terms, considering their
strengths and weaknesses. These issues will be illustrated by material
from two sets of empirical data about event planning and production,
namely comparative
research on urban prestige projects and recent
studies of Shefftelds World Student Games 1991.
UNDERSTANDING

MEGA-EVENT

PRODUCTION

The Planning Approach

Public policymaking
and urban planning,
such as that involved in
tourism and mega-event planning, can be conceived of in various positive and critical ways. In a positive sense, planning can be conceived

MAURICE

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of as a mainly technically or conventionally

rational decision-making
involving,
for inprocess. Hence the process is knowledge-based,
stance, the systematic gathering of optimal data relevant to the plans
implementation
and impact; the analysis of such data (e.g., in cost
benefit, risk-analysis,
or other relevant terms), and their use in evaluating planning; and the application of such analysis and evaluation in
decision-making
(Lichfield 1975). Then again, planning may be conceived of as a mainly democratic decision-making
process, requiring
consultation with the community in order to optimize its input of information, views, resource, and legitimacy (Arnstein 1969). Or else planning may be conceived to be a mixed process requiring both technical
rationality and democracy (e.g., tourism and event planning below).
As against these versions, planning may be addressed from a critical
perspective.
Neo-Marxism,
for instance, conceives of urban planning
as an essentially ideological activity. In this view, planning serves the
interests of local capital and dominant class fractions by promoting
myths of local governmental
rationality and civic harmony to disguise
and legitimate the deeply nonrational
and socially divisive character of
the capitalist system (Castells 1978; Harvey 1985; Logan and Molotch
1986).
For the purpose of this paper, planning approaches in general may
be roughly summarized as having various relevant strengths and weaknesses. Thus, in principle, they can identify and coordinate the numerous real factors involved in complex decision-making
processes and
systems; they can contain and utilize explanatory models and information; and they can identify and evaluate the reasons and conditions for
project failure as well as project success. In these and other ways,
planning approaches are undoubtedly useful for exploring the production of urban tourism and mega-events.
However,
their ultimately
normative,
practical,
and applied orientation,
aimed at diagnosing
and improving planning/management
practice in terms of principles
and ideal models and examples of best practice, necessarily limits
their usefulness as tools for the pursuit of the explanatory understanding of real-world event/action production,
as compared with mainstream social sciences.
Although
mega-events
are multi-dimensional
and multi-purpose
phenomena with diverse impacts, it is nonetheless conventional
to see
them particularly in relation to tourism. The development of planning
approaches in the general field of tourism studies (Duffield 1977; Getz
1983b; Gunn 1979; Jafari
1990) has been of a rather more longstanding and substantial nature than anything in the more specialized
field of mega-event
studies. Understandably,
the planning literature
concerning
mega-events
that has been initiated
relatively
recently
(Dungan
1984; Getz 1991; Hall 1992; Sparrow
1989; Syme 1989)
tends to conceptualize such events in tourism industry/economic
sector
planning terms. Contemporary
writers on tourism and mega-event
planning tend to argue for the need to mix technical rationality and
democracy in planning (Getz 1991, 1983a; Hall 1992; Haywood 1988;
Jafari 1990; Murphy 1985; Runyan and Wu 1979).
The interest in recent work in community-based
tourism and event
planning mainly responds to the notion that the product or service

MEGA-EVENTS

consumed by tourists is, to a significant extent, the community

as a
whole (its heritage and customs, its hospitality and goodwill, its milieu
and ambience).
In a fully rational planning approach to tourism and
events, the communitys self-production
as a relevant environment
for
particular tourism attractions would seem, therefore, to require a mixture of the democratic
and technically
rational planning approaches
indicated earlier.
The descriptive
and explanatory
limitations
of the planning approach in general to touristic mega-event
analysis can be empirically
illustrated in two stages. The first concerns the technical or conventional rationality of real-world events and will be considered first. The
second concerns the potentially
democratic
character of such events
and will be considered next in connection with the political approach.
In Table 1, a technically rational model for the mega-event planning
process derived from Sparrows recent proposal (Model One) is compared with a real life model (Model Two). Model One obviously presents a simplified scheme for the purposes of discussion; more complexity, input sources, evaluation
stages, etc., could have been included
(Getz 1991; Hall 1992). This model process may be usefully compared
and contrasted
with two alternative
empirically
based schemata
of
event planning processes. On the one hand (Model Two) there is the
typical planning process observed in an original and authoritative,
but little known, comparative
study of 30 urban prestige projects and
mega-events (Armstrong 1984, 1986). Armstrongs study revealed that,
In no cases were alternative strategies of achieving desired goals examined . . . Data relevant to planned projects was used in such a
way as to support the project rather than objectively applied. The
projects examined were not planned in any traditional sense of planTable

1. Models

of Event

Model One
A rational event planning
process: typical stages

Planning

Processes

Model Two
Actual event/project planning
process: typical stagesb

Pre-Bid
Phase

1. Conceptualization
2. Pre-bid feasibility study
3. Political commitment
process
4. Bid group organization

1. Preliminary,
vague subjective identification of a need
for a specific project
2. Development of cursory
report
3. Decision taking

Post-Bid
Phase

5.
6.
7.
8.

4. Development of a plan to
justify the project
5. Building program
6. Implementation

Post-Event
Phase

Re-evaluation
Post-bid feasibility study
Organizational
planning
Implementation

9. Monitoring/feedback
10. Evaluation
11. New concept/new commitment?

7. Little attention given to review of planned developments through time

After Sparrow (1987); for more complicated models see Getz (1991);
bFrom Armstrong (1984: 273, 272, Stage II).

Hall (1992).

MAURICE

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ning. Decisions to go ahead were most often made before any data
collection, analysis, evaluation, or constraint determination. Extrarational factors such as whim, influence, creativity, intuition, charisma, vision and experience played large roles in the planning and/
or decision to undertake these projects (1984:298).
Table 2 shows the planning process recently observed in studies of
Sheffields World Student Games, which will be discussed in more
detail later. These data together suggest that although mega-event
planning processes may or may not be usefully schematized and evaluated in technical rational terms, they certainly cannot be fully described
or explained in such terms. Table 1 demonstrates that serious and consequential information input is frequently disregarded in these decisionmaking processes, or else is used retrospectively to legitimate decisions
which have already been taken.
Of course, the fact that planning processes tend to be technically
nonrational need not imply that their implementation
in event organization and facility construction
is necessarily technically nonrational
or deficient. Implementation
tends usually to be at least competent,
while urban leaders and planners can sometimes exercise good practi-

Table

2. Sheffields World Student Games 1991: Some Aspects

of the Event Planning process (1986-1992)

Pre-Bid
Phase

1. Mid-late 1986 Conceptualization:

Acceptance as British candidate city
Cursory Feasibility Study (no event deficit, low capital costs)
2. Late 1986/early 1987 Political commitment:
Negative financial study suppressed
Bid group organized
Bid successful

Post-Bid
Phase

3. 1988- 1990 Various problems

Event organization and finance problems (first event company
collapses);
Building program problems (cost control);
Publicity/image
problems (low TV interest in event, high TV
interest in crises, public criticism).
4. 1990 Official Economic Impact Study published:
(over 2 years after commitment decision, no rigorous cost-benefit
analysis, fairly positive projections).
5. 1991 Implementation
of event and facilities:
(technically successful, event fairly popular while running).

Post-Event
Phase

6. 1991-1992
Event and aftermath:
No visitor or media research on event;
unpredicted and uncontrolled event deficit of f10 million;
20 year capital debts over f400 million;
official financial audit delayed over a year;
no oolitical accountabilitv for failures:
no clear long-term after-use planning for some facilities
7. Further large events under consideration
1

From various sources, principally Roche (1991);

Darke (1991), District Audit Service (1992).

also DEED

(1990);

Foley (1991);

MEGA-EVENTS

cal judgment
simply get
However, the
of this
is that
limitations of
planning approach
it to
supplemented by
concern with
study of
politics and
context, particularly
the urban
if progress
the social
goal of
understanding
is
be made
the megaresearch field.
The Political Approach
The political and wider societal conditions of mega-events,
and their
significance
in terms of urban tourism and development
policy, is
well-understood
in the historical studies, as noted earlier. These issues
are also addressed in occasional
studies of the politics surrounding
globally preeminent
events (and the symbolic, financial and franchising power of their associated organizations
and movements) such as
the Olympic Games (Auf der Maur 1976; Booker 1981; Espy 1979;
Hart-Davis
1986; Shaiklin 1988; Simson and Jennings
1992; Tomlinson and Whannel 1984). However, the explanatory
interest indicated
or pursued by these studies has not tended to figure very noticeably in
mainstream event research and related tourism analysis.
In recent years, this situation has begun to change and indeed it has
now become common in tourism and event research to acknowledge
the fact that events and tourism are political phenomena (Armstrong
1984; Butler and Grigg 1989; Getz 1981; Hall 1987, 1989a, 1989b,
1989c, 1992; Hiller 1989; J ac k son 1988; Ley and Olds 1988; Ritchie
1984). The word political here does not reflect the planning ideal
(noted earlier) of democratic or community-based
planning processes,
but rather the reverse. As Hall, one of the main proponents
of a
political approach has argued:
Hallmark events are not the result of a rational decision-making
process. Decisions affecting the hosting and the nature of hallmark
events grow out of a political process. The process involves the values
of actors (individuals, interest groups, and organizations) in a struggle for power (1989c:219).
Comparative
event research illustrates the relevance of this approach.
For instance, Armstrongs
findings on the politics of the events and
projects he studied were as follows:
Eighteen of the 23 publicly funded projects came about through the
efforts and influence of individuals who were powerful politicians
. . . prestige projects are usually the product of an influential elite or
a particularly powerful individual. . . . Contemporary prestige projects, even private ones are highly political (1984: 13).
This analysis reveals an essentially
autocratic pattern of decisionmaking on major urban events and projects. There is typically little
democratic community input, and decisions are largely determined by
the will and power of urban political leaderships and/or other relevant
and powerful urban elite groups (such as business and cultural elites).
This essentially leadership-driven
autocratic pattern, associated also

MAURICE

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with civic boosterism, has been identified in other studies of prestige

projects and mega events (Auf der Maur 1976; Butler and Grigg 1987;
Shaikin 1988; Simson and Jennings
1992; Thorne and Munro-Clark
1987). In terms of Amsteins
(1969) well-known criteria for citizen
participation
in planning, the typical event production process is manipulative or minimally participatory.
Recent studies of social and economic development policies in Western cities point up the need to research and analyze the often-crucial
role played by different forms of leadership in the success or failure
of such policies, policies which often include a tourism and events
component (Cummings
1988; Gottdiener
and Pickvance
1991; Judd
and Parkinson
1990; Stone 1991). Unlike the comparative
research
cited above, these recent studies begin to describe an explanatory relationship between societal context (socioeconomic
change, etc.) and
urban leadership, and also to evaluate the rationality and democratic
legitimacy of particular urban leaderships in terms of the nature and
adequacy of their general social and economic strategies and policies.
To understand urban tourism and event planning from the political,
sociological,
and urban studies perspectives
taken in recent research
two general issues need to be addressed: first, the mediation between
contextual forces (societal changes and trends) and urban policy; second, the potential reasonableness or situational rationality of policy decisions and actions. These can often be undertaken for general strategic
purposes in response to urgent problems and without much evaluation
of alternatives,
cost-benefit
projections,
or community
consultation
(that is, without much in the way of planning or rationality as it is
conventionally
understood).
SHEFFIELDS

WORLD

STUDENT

GAMES

1991

Contextual Explanation and Situational Rationali@

The importance of contextual forces, pressures, and changes in understanding contemporary
urban tourism and mega-event planning is
clear in the Sheffield case. Prior to the mid-1980s,
the chances of a
touristically-oriented
mega-event occurring in Sheffield were minimal,
to say the least. The citys longstanding
and politically impregnable
Labor leadership would not have entertained
such an idea, and the
combination
of economic decline and the political weakness and marginality of the citys private sector ruled out any other source of support
for a prospective
event promoter.
However,
in the mid-1980s,
the
citys Labor leadership changed direction and began to seek to build a
partnership with local private sector leadership to encourage land
and property development,
company relocation
and inward investment (Lawless 1990; Seyd 1990).
The causes and reasons for this change were structural,
political,
and sectoral. Structurally,
the fast-moving and long-term technological
and global market changes in steel production in the late 1970s and
early 1980s led to a sudden severe and irreversible loss of employment
in Sheffields industrial
base (Lawless
and Ramsden
1989; Watts,
Smithson and White 1989; Westergaard,
Noble and Walter 1989).

Sheffields version of a socialist alternative economic policy approach

to stemming economic decline and turning it into growth, which was
pursued in the early 198Os, had demonstrably
failed by the mid 1980s
(Lawless 1990).
Politically,
the obdurate New Right Thatcherite
political climate
and the government
approach to urban policy throughout the 1980s
emphasized public spending cutbacks and the privatization
of public
services at national and local levels. Centrally imposed, private-sector
dominated Development
corporations (to plan land reclamation,
landuse, infrastructure
development,
and investment
in key areas of decline and dereliction in major cities), were a key element in this strategy. These and a variety of other similar agencies and initiatives were
empowered to encourage,
and, where necessary, coerce local governments to develop economic growth and regeneration
strategies in close
collaboration
or partnership with the private sector (Robinson
1988;
Stewart 1990; Stewart and Stoker 1989; Stoker 1989). A Sheffield
Development
Corporation
(SDC) was imposed on the city in a key
development area in 1987.
In sectoral terms, government
policy involved vigorous promotion
of the tourism sector nationally (drawing on US urban regeneration
models) and of urban development
in particular.
A politically and
structurally motivated wave of large hallmark events was instigated in
British cities in the mid and late 1980s (Roberts
1988; Robson 1988).
These and other apparently %uccessful large events, such as the Los
Angeles Olympics in 1984 (Shaikin 1988), created a demonstrationeffect factor which influenced elements of Sheffields leadership to feel
more positive than they otherwise might have done about the prospect
of Sheffield bidding for, successfully
staging, and even conceivably
making a profit from a mega-event.
These forces led to the formation of the Sheffield Economic Regeneration Committee
(SERC)
in 1987, a partnership
between the Labor
Council leadership and the private sector (SDC, Chamber
of Commerce leaders, and others), with the limited involvement of other stakeholders, such as the higher education institutions.
The emergence of
SERC fortuitously coincided with council approval for two major visitor-attracting
developments,
Meadowhall
(one of Europes largest leisure shopping malls) and the World Student Games. SERC speedily
developed a regeneration strategy, building on existing council development plans, which expressed hopes and visions for development in
various sectors of the local economy,
notably the leisure sector. In
terms of the latter, SERC promoted the hitherto unlikely concept of
Sheffield as a national sport center and tourism attraction
(DEED
1990; Lawless 1990; Seyd 1990).
The structural, political, and sector-al context briefly indicated here
could be said both to have motivated
Sheffields development
of a
tourism policy and its mega-event bid, and also to have rendered these
intelligible
and explicable within a strategic policy context. On the
assumption that the new strategy was sound, the event could thus be
said to be potentially situationally
rational, in spite of the fact that its
particular production process largely by-passed conventional
planning
processes, moving directly to the decision and implementation
stages
(Table 2).

MAURICE

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Situational Rationality
As noted above, national government urban policy in the late 1980s
inspired large events, in a number of de-industrializing
British cities.
In addition to the wave of Garden Festivals (Liverpool
1984; Stoke
1986; Glasgow 1988; Gateshead
1990; Ebbw Vale 1992), the three
largest British cities outside of London developed active urban tourism
strategies that included the pursuit of mega-events.
Thus, Glasgow
became European City of Culture in 1990, Birmingham
made bids for
the 1992 and 1996 Olympics, and Manchester
made bids for the 1996
and 2000 Olympics.
These innovative projects among Sheffields peer group were generally deemed to have been relatively successful in terms of boosting
these cities. They restored the self-confidence
and dynamism of their
leadership and also some civic pride. In addition, they were successful
in terms of raising land values and re-imaging the cities for outsiders,
particularly potential tourists. However, these successes were offset by
the costs: the Garden Festivals were essentially break-even operations
needing considerable
public subsidy for their capital costs (Gateshead
Council 1992; LEDIS 1985; Robson 1988: 111) and most of the Olympics bids were ultimately unsuccessful.
In the context of the structural,
political,
and sectoral factors, it
would appear that many British urban leaderships came to the view
that investment in urban tourism development plans, including megaevents, was a reasonable course of action (almost irrespective
of the
huge financial and other risks involved). Indeed, given the absence of
a national industrial policy and the lack of realistic alternatives,
such
policies came to be seen as both reasonable and compelling,
that is, as
a necessary part of any strategy to tackle the traditional industrial citys
many long-term problems and needs in the late 20th century.
Although it resulted in technically excellent facilities and events in
1991, Sheffields experience of event production from 1988 to 1990 was
crisis-ridden,
politically divisive, and financially highly questionable.
It
could be argued that, as an exercise in urban planning, it was lacking not
only in conventional rationality, but also in situational rationality.
Conventional Nonrationality
To a considerable extent, Sheffields leadership bypassed the conventional rational policy process in producing the World Student Games
event (Table 2). Although an urban tourism policy was sketched in
1987 (Sheffield City Council 1987), the leadership had no effective
means to
( i.e., resourced) tourism strategy, nor any organizational
implement such a strategy, and yet they moved directly and speedily
from initial conception to the decision to bid for the event. Researchbased impact, cost-benefit and market forecasts, and feasibility studies
were either nonexistent,
ignored, or produced too late to influence the
decision-making
process. The community
was not asked to indicate
whether it wanted the event and/or what it was prepared to pay for it
(whether financially
or in terms of opportunity
costs). These basic
nonrational
and nondemocratic
characteristics
and weaknesses
resulted in unanticipated
organizational,
financial,
and political prob-

10

MEGA-EVENTS

lems, particularly during the period of event and facility implementation (1988-1991)
in particular (Roche 1991).
One of the organizing
companies collapsed in a blaze of national
and local media attention and the event was very nearly canceled. An
early consultants
report predicting
a substantial
operational
deficit
(g3-14 million), which the Labor leadership had suppressed in 1987,
was discovered by investigative journalists
and aired on national TV
in 1990. The validity of the reports prediction was confirmed by the
actual deficit in 1992 of fl0 million (District Audit Service 1992).
The event operation was ultimately very badly managed financially
and became the subject of a number of damningly critical reports by
the District Auditor, the councils Chief Executive,
and the councils
Internal Audit Service. For instance, event organizers in 1991 were
only able to achieve a small proportion of the income targets they had
predicted as recently as 1990 for the key areas of sponsorship,
ticket
sales, and merchandizing
(15 % , 45 % , and 18 % respectively)
(Sheffield City Council 1992:2).
Facility capital costs escalated in an apparently uncontrolled
way
(f30 million in 1986- 1987, E80 million in 1987, fl50 million in 1990).
Including debt-interest
charges and excluding operating deficits, they
were to continue to balloon to f400 million by 1991- 1992. The citys
Labor leadership, rather than its SERC shadow leadership, took the
brunt of the criticism.
It found itself isolated and assailed by Labor
party critics from within the council and from Sheffields District Labor
Party. Sheffield citizens were already antagonized by centrally imposed
public service cuts and the imposition of the controversial
new local
tax (the poll tax, which was to cost Prime Minister
Thatcher
her
position).
The news of the incompetence
and politicking
associated
with the Games project in the 1988-1990 period caused further demoralization.
This had various negative consequences
from the point of view of
the citys leadership and its hopes for positive city image and efficient
event organization.
A small but vocal anti-Games
group (Stuff the
Games) was formed and received local publicity for its various meetings and activities; the support for the Games volunteer program and
also for local ticket sales was slower and lower than projected. Significantly, since the citizens had been denied a referendum on the Games,
they expressed their disenchantment
with the leaderships strategic
visions in the annual Local Council Elections.
Labors traditional
dominance in the capital city of the socialist republic of South Yorkshire began to collapse from 1990-1992
(from 63% share of the vote
in 1990, to 50 % in 1991, to 43 % in 1992, although they still retained
a large majority of the council, even in 1992). This collapse can be
reasonably interpreted as being mostly due to the problems associated
with the Games project, although obviously other national and local
factors should be taken into account.
Situational Nonrationality
In principle, as suggested earlier, event-planning
that is evaluated
in orthodox terms as nonrational may, nonetheless, be capable of being
assessed as situationally
or strategically
rational. However, this is not

MAURICE

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11

a carte-blanche
device capable of salvaging the rationality credentials
of all possible examples of event production.
Event production can be
both conventionally
and situationally
nonrational,
and this seems to
have been the case with Sheffields event policy and production process.
Sheffields new partnership urban leadership evidently acted in haste
both on
(Darke 1991) an d in classic civic booster style in 1986-1987
its regeneration
strategy and on its first major project,
the Games
event (Roche 1991). However, the partnership leadership at this time
was lacking in strategic experience,
organizational
ability, and democratic legitimacy.
Further, since mega-events
demand a high order of
specialist organizational
resources, which it would be unusual to find
in any city, the leadership was inevitably lacking on this front, too.
The quality of the Sheffield leaderships overall strategy has been
questioned and criticized by various analysts (Crompton
1992; Darke
1991; Friel 1991; Lawless 1990, Seyd 1990). Glasgows tourism director and organizer of its successful re-imaging,
who produced a report
on Sheffields regeneration
in 1991, observed that the various sections
of the urban leadership presented confusingly disparate and discordant
versions of the re-imaging
and tourism strategy to the public, and
that they had not cultivated a sense of popular participation
in and
ownership of the strategy by the public (Friel 1991; McCall 1992).
Also the leadership was unrealistic about the role and potential benefit
of the Games event within the overall strategy. The short-term event
seemed to have hijacked the long-term
strategy (Friel 1991). Sheffields attempted mega-event
could be judged to have been potentially
situationally
rational, given the societal political and economic challenges it faced. Nonetheless,
its actual genesis and production can be
evaluated as lacking in situational or strategic rationality.
The Labor
City Council was unrealistic,
on the one hand, about the degree to
which the Thatcher government might ultimately be persuaded to relax local public expenditure
controls and to support the citys event
costs and, on the other, about the possibility of a Labor Party government (in 1987 or 1992) coming to power to bail the city out. In general,
it was the lack of realism in the booster culture of Sheffields new
partnership leadership in the mid 1980s combined,
ironically,
with
its lack of real power (e.g., financial resource) and authority (e.g.,
popular understanding
and legitimacy) which were the main causes of
the Games events organizational
and financial crises. These crises, in
turn, contributed to the ambiguous and mostly negative economic and
political impacts on Sheffields citizens of the citys first major venture
into the international
tourism and events market.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper has given an account of the main issues involved in the
analysis of one important form of contemporary
tourism, namely large
event planning and production.
It has illustrated
these issues with
reference to a case study of Sheffields World Student Games in 1991.
The concepts of contextual explanation
and situational rationality
were introduced and illustrated through empirical studies. They were
proposed as potentially useful concepts for the future development of
explanation-oriented
mega-event research.

12

MEGA-EVENTS

The discussion has suggested that the long-established

bias in that
part of the tourism literature concerned with events toward studies of
their impacts, rather than their causes and production,
is a weakness
in terms of social sciences concern for explanatory understanding.
The
two main contemporary
approaches
to understanding
event production, referred to here as the planning and the political approaches,
were each considered. While they have some contribution
to make to
a new research agenda for mega-events,
each has some important
limitations.
The planning approach of necessity focuses much more
on developing the application-potential
of explanatory
knowledge for
presumptively rational actors and agencies, rather than on the genesis
and construction
of such knowledge per se. The political approach
appears to address more directly the problem of describing and explaining real-world hallmark and mega-events
than the planning approach.
The political approach,
for instance, can reveal the role of urban
power-holders (e.g., urban leaderships,
event planners, and organizers) in tourism and event production.
This may involve a critique of
particular planning ideals in any given instance, and in general involves the depiction of competing
political and situational interests,
rationales,
and rationality criteria in event-production.
In some versions, the approach can be taken further towards a scepticism about
the role of urban planners as such (Castells 1978; Harvey 1985). Nonetheless, in principle the political approach promises to complement the
it offers
planning approach (Hall 1992), not least by the contribution
to the latters knowledge base about the factors affecting the performance of planning systems in real-world conditions.
However,
the
paper suggests that, from an explanatory
point of view, the political
approach, in turn, requires contextualization
in terms of the structural
forces conditioning
and transforming
Western nations and Western
cities in the late 20th century.
Such explanation-oriented
research is relevant to the practical/normative evaluation of event-planning.
Any urban leadership generating
or motivating tourism policy development and mega-event production
is likely to locate such a project, whether rhetorically or substantially,
within a wider urban development
strategy. In this context, urban
leaderships approaches to event production need to be realistic and
well-founded.
They need to be realistic about both the problems any
mega-event is intended to help resolve and the chosen events capacity
to have relevant effects on these problems. Their approach needs to be
well-founded in terms of the various sorts of vital resources necessary
to support effective policy implementation,
particularly power and authority (e.g., leadership and administrative
competence,
financial resources, etc.) and democratic legitimacy (e.g., public support, understanding and involvement).
Event-production
may be judged to be
situationally
or strategically
rational (even where orthodox rational
planning procedures are by-passed because of the demands of bid competitions and deadlines,
etc.), to the extent that the strategies they
are part of are realistic and well-resourced
in terms of power and
legitimacy.
The major structural changes occurring in late 2Oth-century West-

MAURICE

ROCHE

13

ern societies, connected with post-industrialism

and globalization,
are
focal concerns for much contemporary
social science and social theory.
These changes are most visible in their effects on contemporary
cities,
particularly
old industrial cities. Urban tourism policies, including
heritage, new attraction, and mega-event policies, are being produced
by cities in the throes of transformation
and in various sorts of crisis.
Various recent theoretical analyses of these changes are of relevance
for developing the explanatory
understanding
of urban tourism and
urban events in terms of urban post-industrialism
and of post-modern
and consumer cultural developments (Cooke 1990; Featherstone
1991;
Urry 1990a, 1990b). Such approaches have begun to be usefully applied in empirical and comparative
studies of contemporary
urban
leisure policy (Henry, Bramham,
Mommas
and van der Poe1 1989;
Henry, Bramham and Spink 1990, Henry 1990). In this period, with
rapid structural/contextual
and political change impacting on the contemporary city, the important role that mega-events can play in assisting cities to regenerate (that is, to renew their image, to restructure
and reposition themselves as centers of capital and labor, production,
and exchange in the national and global economy,
and generally to
modernize, Roche 1992), needs to be better understood.
From a neo-Marxist
logic of capital perspective on contemporary
social change, Harvey (1989b,
1989a) observes about the Wests old
industrial
cities that, given their grim recent history of de-industrialization,
they seem to have few options except to compete with
each other mainly as financial, consumption,
and entertainment
centres (1989b:92).
Further,
Imaging a city through the organization

of spectacular urban spaces

[has become] a means to attract capital and people (of the right sort)
in a period (since 1973) of intensified inter-urban competition and
urban entrepreneurialism
(Harvey
1989b:92;
see also Logan and
Molotch 1986).
From
a more pragmatic
and empirical urban studies perspective,
Judd and Parkinson
concur that city image and contemporary
reimaging is a vitally important phenomenon
to grasp if urban policy is
to be adequately understood:
If we speak of the capacity of cities to respond to external threats or
opportunities, we are actually referring to the success of local elites,
in projecting a coherent interpretation of a citys intentions and of
its economic and political environment-in
other words, its image
(1990a:22;
see also Bianchini and Schwengel 1991; Watson 1991).
The search for explanatory
understanding
in theoretical
and empirical
urban tourism
and mega-event
research
needs to take account of the
debate and relationship
(Fainstein
1990) among these types of perspective on the global, national,
and local dynamics
at work in contemporary urban re-imaging
and restructuring.
Therefore,
what this paper suggests is that further research is needed
into the influence on urban tourism and mega-event
production
of two
main factors. First, there is the influence of the particular
local forms

14

MEGA-EVENTS

of the general structural problems afflicting all major Western cities in

the late 20th century. Among the main problems, particularly for old
industrial cities, are de-industrialization
(and thus unemployment
and
poverty reproduction),
service sector development,
and image renewal/creation.
Second, there is the influence of the types of urban
leadership that generate events in response to their perception of the
needs and problems and the possibilities and politics of their cities. In
contemporary
Western societies, the major global and national problems and structural changes impact differently in different cities largely
because of differing characteristics
of their politics and leaderships.
At
the very least, then, a systematic comparative
analysis is needed of
cities and large events in a range of post-industrializing
Western societies going beyond the sort of analysis provided by Armstrong
(1984,
1986) which has been considered in this paper.
A comparative
analysis responds to the facts that touristic megaevents have local/urban national,
and international
significance.
On
the one hand, event-franchising
organizations,
such as the International Olympic Committee,
together with the media and other corporations whose expenditures
and used to finance events, and the media
publics and event consumers they supply, are all global phenomena.
On the other hand, large events typically (although not in the Sheffield
case considered here) carry national governmental
prestige and fmancial support with them, and this takes various forms and serves a
variety of functions in different nation states (Getz 1991). Although
they present somewhat different theoretical
and practical problems,
such an analysis could also be adapted and extended to include a range
of the Third World and newly industrializing
societies.
The aim of the comparative
analysis proposed here would be to
develop the theoretical and explanatory
understanding
of the relation
between various types of large touristic events (Hall 1989a, 1992) and
their production processes, and a set of urban social and political factors. The typology of political and contextual factors needs to include
the following: one, types of city (Feagin and Smith 1989; Logan and
Molotch 1976), together with the main types of associated societal and
local socioeconomic
problems; two, types of c&en participation in urban
planning in general (Arnstein
1969; Gyford 1990) and in tourism in
particular (Hayward
1988), together with main local political traditions, cultures, and divisions;
three, types of urban leadership (Cummings 1988; Judd and Parkinson
1990; Molotch 1988; Squires 1991;
Stone, Orr and Imbroscio
1991) in particular factors such as the balante between private and public sector power, Right-Center-Left
political orientation,
and local government resource and competence;
and,
four, types of urban regeneration and re-imaging strategies (Biachini
and
Schwengel 1991; Cameron
1989; Henry 1990, Henry, Bramham and
Spink 1990; Judd and Parkinson 1990~).
This sort of event and urban tourism
research
agenda,
which
responds to contemporary
developments
in this field, presupposes
a
capacity for dialogue on the part of researchers
and disciplines.
It
social
requires dialogue between theory (i.e., varieties of contemporary
and political economic theory) and empirical (sociopolitical)
research
at both societal and urban levels. It also requires dialogue between
planning/managerial
approaches
and explanation-oriented
empirical/

MAURICE

theoretical
line a case
and also to
main issues

sociopolitical approaches.
for such a new event and
identify theoretically
and
and problems facing it. 0

ROCHE

15

This paper has attempted to outurban tourism research agenda,

illustrate empirically some of the
0

material on Sheffield discussed in this paper derives from a

and interview
sources.
Thanks are due to
variety of documentary,
observational,
Sheffield City Council for, among other things, allowing full access to the World
Student Games Bid Group and to the Tourism Joint Officers Group throughout
1987.

Acknowledgments-The

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I

Submitted 11 September 1991

Resubmitted 3 February 1992
Resubmitted
27 November 1992
Accepted 18 December 1992
Final version submitted 1 May 1993
Refereed anonymously
Coordinating
Editor: Donald Getz