Editorial

Citation

Jago, L. and Carlsen, J. (2011), "Editorial", International Journal of Event and Festival Management, Vol. 2 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijefm.2011.43402caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Event and Festival Management, Volume 2, Issue 3

As the number of event education and research programmes continues to increase, so too does the number of researchers with a focus on events and festivals. There is clearly an important role for specialist journals in this field of study to consolidate and present the latest research literature, methods and findings. In line with this trend, the journal has seen growth in manuscripts received and published in 2011. Also, the total number of downloads of IJEFM articles by mid-2011 has already exceeded total downloads for 2010. These outcomes indicate growing awareness and acceptance of the journal and auger well for the future.

Whilst many of the early event-related research papers came from a purely business perspective and more often than not tended to focus on economic evaluations of events, it is pleasing to now see event research papers coming from varied disciplinary perspectives and a growing number adopting a multi-disciplinary approach. This exciting change indicates that the field is maturing. It is somewhat disappointing, however, that many manuscripts that are submitted to the journal still tend to focus on a specific festival or event and do not do enough to demonstrate their contribution to the broader field. There are a number of critics who argue that events is such a practical field that there is little need for research other than in purely operational areas. In order to prove them wrong and for event research is to realise its potential as a “stand alone” field of study, it is crucial that event research draw upon the latest theory from other fields and over time develop its own adaptations of this theory. It is also important that contributors develop new multi-disciplinary approaches that can be applied in other fields of research involving complex and co-incidental social, economic and environmental phenomena.

There are four research papers in this issue of the journal, employing both qualitative and quantitative research methods. First, Barron and Rihova use qualitative research to study the motivations to volunteer at the Edinburgh International Magic Festival in Scotland. They found that volunteers regarded volunteering as uni-dimensional ranging from pure altruism at one end to utilitarian activity at the other. Event volunteers in this study regarded their motives as being very much utilitarian whereby they were largely seeking to develop their employment related skills and build their curriculum vitas. Second, Hallmann and Breuer provide a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of the nexus between destination and rural sporting events in Germany. Amongst the many useful findings, the most important relate to the methods employed in researching destination image, in that an holistic, rather than partial, approach is required to capture differences in destination, sport event and tourist type variables. Third, Mair explores the important issue of climate change and the impending impacts in Australia of which event managers should be cognizant, including bio-physical and socio-cultural impacts as well as mitigation and adaptation measures. Finally, Mosely and Mowatt make the case for inclusion of exhibitors when researching and quantifying the economic impact and significance of festivals in the USA.

Once again the Editors would like to acknowledge all contributors and reviewers to IJEFM for their continued support in making this a truly multi-disciplinary and internationally relevant journal.

Leo Jago, Jack Carlsen