Contemporary Issue 1: Legacy of Mega Events

(Image from DeadCurious.com)

Legacy is an issue which I, as a third year events management student, have found a great interest in. One of the reasons for this interest is the way in which an event can create different legacies just because of the change in location or day it took place. It has become apparent through reading about legacy in a range of different sources including newspapers, books and journals, that a lot of event organisers focus on the planned, positive legacy and forget to consider the that they cannot plan for all legacies, especially the negative ones. 

2012 London Olympic Legacy

LOCOG (The London Olympic Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) are an example of event organisers that did not successfully create only planned, positive legacies and instead created some negative legacies. Since the winning of the 2012 Olympic Bid until the 2012 London Olympics began, LOCOG put a strong emphasis on the legacy the London Olympics would have on the UK. One legacy that ministers hoped would arise from the hosting of the games was a generation that would be inspired to take up sports. A recent report in the Guardian argues that the effects of the Olympic games may already be decreasing. The Guardian writes that a survey of 2000 children by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport found that almost three quarters of the children under 10 did not feel that the games had inspired them to take up sport and just over half of 11-15 year old's shared the same view. The article argues that this lack of inspiration is due to the fact that many schools do not have funding to run sports clubs, competitions and events and therefore children are not having the opportunities to partake in sports. However, it can be argued that this legacy was not planned as LOCOG put an emphasis on the legacy of inspiring a generation but did not supply the funds that would be needed for this legacy to be created.

How will the issue of legacy effect my future career in the Events Industry?
It is important as a future event organiser, that I have full understanding of the different legacies events can leave. As I hope to have a job in the events sector of the charity industry, I have considered below both the positive and negative legacies an event for a charity can leave and through by doing this, I can see that the finance planning part of the event needs to be carefully managed in order for the the negative legacy to be avoided:

Positive Legacies:

• Improved understanding of what the charity offers.

• Increase in number of people donating money to the charity.

• Increase in number of volunteers working for the charity

Negative Legacies:

• Charity getting into debt through running an event.