Sports Event

INDEX

1./What is an Event and what is an Sport Event? Page3

Definition and types

Organization

Main Characteristics

2./Elements to consider for the documents Page 4

3./The information and documentation in the sports events Page 5

4./The Olympic Games Page 6

Opening Ceremony Page 7

Closing Ceremony Page 8

Medal Presentation Page 8

Olympic Symbols Page 8

Olympic Games host cities Page 9

5./UEFA Champions League Page 11

Format Page 11

Classification Page 12

The Hymm Page 12

6./The “Tour de France” Page 12

7./Conclusion Page 12

8./Bibliography Page 13

1./What is an Event and what is an Sport Event?

Definition and types

Shone in his book “Successful event management: a practical handbook” (2001) defines en event like “phenomenons that appear in no routine occasions and they have goals of leisure, culture, personal and organizational established in a separate way to the normal diary activity, which purpose is to illustrate, celebrate, entertain or challenge the experience of a group of people”.

From this definition we can say that there are different types of human activities (leisure, personal, cultural and organizational), being the sport one of them. We can quote some examples: a birthday party, a wedding, a sport competition, the Olympic Games, a music concert, an exposition, etc.

The events can also be classified according to the market or audience which they refer to. Examples in this classification are: the Olympic Games, the World Championship, or a simple competition in the local ambit. This classification includes too the “megaevents” that according to our scripts and the definition of Getz (1997) are:

“Mega event, by way of their size or significance, are those that yield extraordinarily high levels of tourism, media coverage, prestige, or economic impact for the host community or destination … their volume should exceed 1 million visits, their capital costs should be at least $500 million, and their reputation should be of a вЂ?must see’ event”.

Organization

An event and specially an sport event can be organised by a lot of organizations, such as: national sport organisms, clubs, association, companies, federations, educative institution, etc.

Main Characteristics

Complexity and uncertainty are two characteristics. They are more or less complex depending on their organizational structure, the organizers have to apply different levels of management and there are different demands satisfactions. The concept of uncertainty is because we have an initial doubt in the management of the event (volume of participation, total cost or information).

According to Shone’s formulations other aspects of the events are: uniqueness, unrepeatable, intangible, high levels of interactions and personal contact, intensity of the work and limited temporal scale.

Uniqueness because they are not routine activities and each event is different to the others, even though it’s the same type of event. Ex: swimming competitions follow the same rules in organisation, one is different to the other because of the place of the celebration, the number of competitors, dates, etc.

They cannot be repeatable in the same way in the following editions. Even a swimming competition is celebrated in the same place, under the same corporate image, it must me considered different to the previous one.

The events include also intangible and tangible elements.

The intangibles correspond to the principal product of the event, ex: the emotion of the competitions. The tangibles elements are products complementary to the first ones, ex: merchandising, they generate public opinion and contribute on the creation of the memory of the event.

The public is very important in the events. There are two types of contact that can be established with the public. On one hand, there is a direct contact with the public which participate with the event, and on the other hand, an indirect contact with the public opinion in general. That involves the necessity to plan carefully the services which are going to be offered to the public. An example are the information services to the mass media for the event.

The events have a fixed temporal scale, with beginning dates and ending. This temporal limitation affect to the organization and to the celebration of the event.

Depending on the level of the complexity, uniqueness of the event and the audience which it is directed to, the organization and operation management can reach different levels, affecting to the staff number, communications needs, number of work units, territorial distribution of the units, etc.

2./Elements to consider for the documents

In the steps of planning the information strategy and documentation of an event, we have to consider the temporality, the complexity of the organization and the public attention.

The information strategy of an event is part of the information strategy of an organization, the organizer committee, that is a temporal entity, created only with the aim of organize the event.

This organization has also a variability of its organization complexity (organizational structure, number of employees, information needs, etc.)

The organization of an event has various steps (see the figure - Shone). The information strategy and documentation defined for the event has to foresee the information needs of the organization and the external agents to the event (sponsors, mass media, public in general) and design its information systems considering