David McGillivray

Professor in Event and Digital Cultures

Centre for Culture, Sport, and Events at University of the West Scotland

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Historically, sport and culture have been bedfellows. Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Movement, originally conceived of the Cultural Olympiad as a competition in art, music, sculpting, architecture, and literature (Garcia, 2012) stemming from his belief that sport and art should be closely aligned and that the Olympic Games offered an ideal vehicle to promote that agenda.

It is now increasingly commonplace for art and cultural festivals to accompany most major and mega sport events, with many rights holders now requiring this as part of their host city agreements. Moreover, host cities often develop an accompanying cultural offer for their sport events to help reach audiences that are perhaps less interested in the elite sport competition itself, or to generate welcoming, convivial settings that increase the attractiveness of the destination for visitors in the present, and, they hope, the future. In this article, I outline why sport events have become ‘festivalised’ and with what effects, drawing on literature and examples from cities across the world.

enliving the (sport) city

The last decade has produced a growing body of academic literature that considers the role of festivals and events, sporting and cultural, in the animation and activation of the urban public spheres we occupy (Gold & Gold, 2020; Smith 2016, Smith et al. 2021). I’ve argued that hosting sport events in a city contributes to its ‘liveness’, animating fixed public spaces and producing atmospheres can enhance the quality of life for residents (McGillivray, 2019). Furthermore, for the host destination, the animated city also produces attractive media messaging that promotes the concept of the open, vibrant, and cosmopolitan city for visitors. Careful choreography enables host cities to frame affective place attributes for easy media consumption, and broadcast companies are important players as they are the means through which the host can convey its distinctive attributes to a significant external audience.

strengthening the social fabric

Others view festivalisation as a useful means of achieving pro-social policy outcomes including greater conviviality (Stevenson, 2021), enhanced social cohesion (Stevens 2019), and strengthening of social capital in neighbourhoods (Devine and Quinn 2019). Here, there is recognition that festivals and events bring people together, facilitating public gatherings that enable greater social interactions and exchanges. For example, Smith (2018) describes how events can be utilised to produce people-focused places by opening access (removing fences, barriers, walls, and gates), maximising diversity, and facilitating opportunities for stimulation and sociability.

privatising urban public space?

From a more critical perspective, the occupation of public spaces for hosting sport events and ancillary entertainment has generated criticism for contributing to (over) commercialisation (see Smith 2016; Smith & McGillivray, 2020; McGillivray, Guillard, and Reid 2020). This critique is based on concern that giving commercial organisations access to important public space can render it less accessible and inclusive because of the need for it to be secured through the deployment of barriers, policing, and surveillance technologies. However, the counterargument is that ancillary animations are normally free, and open access to the wider event, potentially diversifying the audience beyond those keen to watch sport.

new formats and experiences

Established mega sport events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Summer and Winter versions), and the FIFA World Cup now invariably look to diversify their offer, attracting new, younger audiences, by offering non-traditional sports in their programmes. While the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the delivery of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, organisers reflected the interest in urban ‘lifestyle’ sports in Japan in the sports programme. From the early 2000s, the Olympic Movement has enshrined the provision of Live Sites as managed fan experience venues as a valuable means of promoting the atmosphere of the Olympic city to watching audiences. The FIFA World Cup also requires the provision of Fan Parks for ticketless fans, often representing spaces for sponsor activation and an urban location to welcome and manage ticketless football fans visiting host cities. I have argued (McGillivray & Frew 2015) that these contrived experiences create the conditions within which audiences are encouraged to participate in the production of festival narratives that generated wider (positive) media exposure, especially directed towards sponsor activation.

playing with urban codes and identities

Beyond the well-known mega sport events, new event formats are also embracing this festive turn, making use of traditional urban public spaces and the built environment to host sporting competitions that attract the attention of new audiences and stimulate broadcaster interest. For the 2022 European Sport Championships in Munich, sport climbing was hosted in the city centre. For the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games, the street dancing sport of breaking made its debut and was located along with other urban sports in one of Paris’ most iconic public squares, the Place de la Concorde. In football, the 2024 UEFA Champions League Cup Final held in London was accompanied by a four-day urban festival, with several venues across Central London including music, food and beverages, and family entertainment. Whatever the sport event, siting sporting events and an associated cultural offering in the urban centre contributes to the notion of the host city as a place to produce “heightened forms of collective sensory experience” (Gandy, 2017: 365) where feelings, emotions, and atmospheres can be managed or curated to produce powerful new urban identities. The city is re-imagined as an affective entity, possessing unique characteristics that can differentiate it from its competitors. Sport as festivity and sport and festivity combine to extend the reach of sport events.

reimagining the city as a sport venue

Another contributing factor feeding festivalisation trends in the sport event space, is the desire of hosts to enable a wider range of people to be involved and benefit from hosting the sporting spectacle. While we often conceive of sport events taking place in purpose-built stadia and other sporting venues, such as cultural venues, this can limit those people able to engage with the sport because of financial constraints including ticket pricing and socio-cultural considerations associated with cultural and social capital possession. However, blending events held in more accessible public spaces, such as streets, squares, or public parks with a more open and accessible festival-like flow of audiences through the city can more effectively embed the sport event in the public culture and consciousness of the city. Evidence from festival and event literature suggests that hosting events in urban public spaces can enhance sociability, facilitating encounters between different segments of the population. For example, when Glasgow hosted the UCI Cycling World Championships in 2023, following the European Championships in 2018, the city hosted several sporting events in its main urban park, Glasgow Green, and designed its road race routes to pass through the city attracting more than 100,000 people. The city was, quite literally, alive. Hosting an urban sport such as BMX Freestyling in a well-used public park with free entry also contributed to the democratisation of sporting events. This was also clearly a part of the plan for Paris 2024, with the four urban sports taking place in the central public square (3×3 basketball, BMX Freestyle, breaking and skateboarding) functioning as a temporary ‘urban park’.

concluding thoughts

Innovation and creativity are features of the contemporary sport event landscape. While the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the FIFA World Cup represent global brands that attract significant attention from audiences and sponsors alike, other sport events need to innovate to ensure they garner attention in a crowded marketplace. Positioning themselves as festivals of sport, or sporting festivals, enables these events to extend their reach, attracting new audiences and more effectively contributing to the economic, social and cultural outcomes that host destinations and sporting federations demand. When extended beyond traditional sport venues and facilities, sport events can enliven the urban milieu, encouraging a diversity of people to encounter and interact with each other and generate heightened sensory experiences that are so important as an antidote to atomisation, individualisation, and social isolation.