■ ■ Mega events are so large that they affect whole economies and are covered by the global media. They include the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, for example. They target the international tourism market. The term ‘mega’ equally refers to their size, the number of visitors, level of public funding, political effects, media coverage, construction of facilities and their impact on the economy and society of the host country. If events are classified according to form and content, the main types are: ■ ■ Cultural events which include festivals (like the Salzburg Festival or the Edinburgh festival), art-form festivals that focus on a specific art form (e.g. the film festival in Cannes or the Biennale in Venice), cultural or religious festivals depending on the calendar (e.g. the Notting Hill Carnival) or commercial music festivals like Glastonbury in South England or the Frequency Festival in Austria. ■ ■ Sports events whose tradition goes back to the Greek Olympics and beyond. ■ ■ Business events, which are mainly characterised by their focus on business and trade, although there is a strong tourism aspect to many of them. They include meetings (smaller gatherings), incentive travel (to motivate or recognise employees for their performance), conferences (designed for discussion, factfinding, problem solving and consultation) and exhibitions of products and services (e.g. trade fairs, consumer shows, agricultural shows, etc.); corporate events like corporate hospitality may be included. ■ ■ Online events, which are also known as virtual events or webinars, in which people experience content in a live virtual format. A variety of online conferencing tools is available to hold any size of meeting, share videos and collaborate. Not only possible pandemics but also the continuing globalisation and digitisation provide increasing demand for such virtual events. What do events managers do? Events managers plan, co-ordinate and carry out events; they need to create a concept, research possible dates and venues, calculate the budget – which often involves finding sponsors – and plan the event. After contacting and booking performers and suppliers, they put together a programme. Marketing and promotion (nowadays often via social media in addition to traditional media) is the next step, followed by ticket sales. The work of an event manager includes logistics and administration (from transport, catering, sanitary facilities and waste management to security and getting the necessary permits) as well as on-site management during the event. Post-event reviewing and assessment are equally part of an events manager’s job. Ideally, events managers should have business and management skills as well as people skills as they need to liaise with customers, suppliers, authorities and the public; creativity is highly desirable, as is flexibility and the ability to work in a team. Nerves of steel are of advantage as are troubleshooting skills. Read the text again and list three things you already knew and three things that you didn’t know. Scan the text in 14b and find the nouns that go with the verbs below. 1 raise 2 provide / / 3 create / / 4 attract 5 generate / / 6 target / 7 carry out 8 research / Try to form as many new collocations with the above verbs as possible. Use a dictionary if necessary. Use the collocations in sentences of your own. Example: The charity tries to raise money to support homeless people. c Language focus Collocations 15 a b c Language skills Extras Explore 3 Success in today’s business world 37 Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
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