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About the Project

Image accredited to ITU/Delly Carr

The eventIMPACTS Toolkit has been developed by UK Sport, Visit Britain, Event Scotland, the London Development Agency, the North West Development Agency, Yorkshire Forward and Glasgow City Marketing Bureau. It comprises some key guidance and good practice principles for evaluating the social, economic, environmental and media-related impacts associated with staging major sporting and cultural events.

Economic and media-related impacts

Hosting major events is widely believed to be inherently good because of the enjoyment and excitement they bring to those who attend them and those who follow them in the media. There is a well-developed body of evidence which shows that events have the potential to generate positive economic impacts. There is also a variety of established approaches to quantifying the media impact of events, including the benefits of place marketing. However, because methods of measuring and reporting on impacts in these areas can be inconsistent, event organisers have sometimes struggled to understand which methods will best suit their needs. In these respects, therefore, the purpose of eventIMPACTS is to provide organisers with templates for carrying out, or commissioning, such studies which are based on some central principles and which will facilitate comparison across events.

Social and environmental impacts

A relatively new agenda, for which there is little supporting evidence, is that major events can deliver directly, or act as catalysts for, wider social impacts such as the development of community and the advancement of skills. Furthermore, as environmental issues become increasingly important, event organisers should be mindful of the potentially adverse environmental impacts of events. In these respects, eventIMPACTS is designed to help event organisers move towards more developed approaches to measuring, monitoring and managing the social and environmental impacts of their events.

Investing in events

eventIMPACTS will not automatically provide funders with an answer to the question of whether they should invest in events or, if so, then to what extent. However, if, using the eventIMPACTS framework, event organisers become more practised, and more skilled, at testing the claims that are often made about the impact of events, then the growing evidence base should at least provide greater clarity about the contribution that events can make to economic objectives - and in furthering social and environmental agendas.

The tools

The Toolkit is organized around nine impact areas. Although each area can be accessed and explored separately, we strongly advise anyone who wants to use the Toolkit to look first at the issue of Attendance (plus the 'Setting Event Objectives' section of the website)

The other eight impact areas are

Economic Impacts

Environmental Impacts

Social Impacts: Satisfaction

Social Impacts: Identity Image & Place

Social Impacts: Participation

Social Impacts: Skills & Volunteering

Social Impacts: Children & Young People

Media-related Impacts

Keeping it simple

Many of the monitoring and evaluation methods contained in the Toolkit are concerned with producing quantitative data and/or are survey-based. To some extent, this can be explained by our desire to provide the events industry with some reasonably inexpensive, simple and easy-to-use tools that can help to get it started on the impact evaluation pathway. However, although qualitative methods such as focus group discussions and face-to-face interviews are likely to be more resource intensive, costly and require specialist input, the contribution that such approaches can play is not in doubt.

To help event organisers and others make informed decisions about the kind of impact assessment they should be undertaking given the nature of their event and the budget they have available for research, we have in each case separated the impact areas and associated evaluation tools into three types

  • Basic impacts - impact assessment can probably be undertaken using existing ‘in-house’ or event organiser data. Cost likely to be minimal.
  • Intermediate impacts - impact assessment is likely to require some research, but could be organised by event organiser or generalist research company. Moderate cost depending on scope.
  • Advanced impacts - impact assessment is likely to require a significant piece of work using a specialist contractor/research company. Likely high cost.

Case studies

The guidance within eventIMPACTS has been devised following independent evaluations of six events that took place across Great Britain in the summer of 2008. These evaluations were carried out by a research team headed by the Sport Industry Research Centre (Sheffield Hallam University) and involving colleagues from the BRASS Centre (Cardiff University), the University of Stirling and the Substance social research company. With the focus falling primarily on social and environmental impacts, these events were:

View all case studies »

For more information about the aims, objectives and concepts underpinning the Toolkit, please click here

Feedback

If you have any questions about the eventIMPACTS Toolkit; if you have any suggestions about improving it; or if you would simply like to share with us your experience of evaluating the impact of an event, please click here to send us an email.