Search

Within the professional Event Management literature considerable claims have been made for Event Management. Investment in the area and student enrolments has risen dramatically. In some circles, Event Management is portrayed as challenging Leisure Studies and even undermining it. However, if one examines the professional literature, one quickly finds that it is overwhelmingly uncritical and self-congratulatory. The relationship between Events, manipulation, corruption and social control has not been rigorously examined. This paper distinguishes the main types of Global Event (Single Issue and Cyclical). It attempts a balanced account of the claims made by Event Management. It examines data from Live Aid, the FIFA World Cup and the Sydney Olympics to test the claims against practice. It also includes two longer examinations of Global Event Management, namely the Sydney Mardi Gras and the Live 8 (2005) concert. The paper concludes that Event Management is based in principles from neo-liberalism and communitarianism. This produces an attitude to Events and leisure which is Reformist. This perspective is contrasted with the critical tradition in Leisure Studies which supports a more radical perspective on leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to reaffirm the relevance of Marxism for Leisure Studies. It is motivated by the view that the influence of Marxism on the field was late and short lived (primarily through Clarke and Critcher’s bookThe Devil Makes Work(1985)). Marxism in Leisure Studies was rapidly eclipsed by the revival of neo-liberal approaches and the ascent of post-structuralism which privileged ‘discourse’, ‘coding’ and ‘representation’ over economics and class. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the so-called ‘velvet revolution’ in Eastern Europe seemed to expose Marxism as passé and wrong headed. The serious Western economic crisis following the banking collapse (2008) and its effects on employment, work prospects, public investment in welfare, education, health and leisure, together with the persistence of the development gap between the economically advanced countries and the emerging/developing world, and the threat to the environment and society of competitive industrial production, combine (with many other features) to put Marxism back on the agenda. This paper aims to examine the impact of Marxism upon Leisure Studies. It offers a rationale for why this influence was short lived. It moves on to evaluate some aspects of Marxism that are indispensable in the analysis of leisure today. The point is not to claim that Marxism was right all along. More modestly, the purpose of this article is to suggest that flight from Marxism in the field was premature and that, while by no means having all of the answers, Marx and his followers still have much to teach students of leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]