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EventIMPACTS Toolkit launched at 2010 Legacy Lives Conference

Alistair Brownlee
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Press Release 04 March 2010

UK event industry experts today, Thursday, March 4, unveiled eventIMPACTS, the first toolkit of its kind for the UK, at the annual Legacy Lives conference in London. eventIMPACTS provides guidelines for the evaluation of social, economic, environmental and media related impacts associated with staging major sporting and cultural events and aims to help create an industry standard in evaluating the impact of events.

The toolkit has been created by UK Sport, VisitBritain, Event Scotland, the London Development Agency, the North West Development Agency, Yorkshire Forward and Glasgow City Marketing Bureau. It can be downloaded at www.eventimpacts.com and is targeted primarily towards event owners, funders, sponsors and event industry employees across the UK.

Speaking at the launch today in London, Liz Nicholl OBE, Chief Operations Officer at UK Sport, said: “UK Sport is proud to have led the eventIMPACTS project, working in collaboration with six other public funding bodies to broaden and standardise how the industry measure the impacts of major events. eventIMPACTS ensures that event organisers can freely access the support and guidance necessary to measure and evidence the significant benefits that we know flow from hosting major events. We hope eventIMPACTS will encourage a collective industry-wide commitment to improve the assessment of events in order to determine return on investment.”

The development of the toolkit was underpinned by a pilot research project focusing on six events that were held in the UK in summer 2008: IRB U20 Rugby World Championship in Wales, Edinburgh International Film Festival, World Pipe Band Championships and Piping Live!, both in Glasgow, BUPA Great Yorkshire Run in Sheffield, Tour of Britain Finale from Blackpool to Liverpool and the London Freewheel cycle event.

The UK is home to one of the world’s strongest event industries which works to bid for and sustain a portfolio of world class events and to harness the benefits generated from impacts such as media coverage and heightened international profiling of visitor destinations to social change within local communities and the promotion of environmentally sustainable practices in event management. Accurate measurement of these benefits is vital to the ongoing success of the UK’s events industry.

Paul Bush OBE, Chief Operating Officer at EventScotland, Scotland’s national events agency which worked on the Toolkit development, said: “Working towards the creation of an industry standard for major event impacts is hugely important for the continued development of the UK’s events industry. When we understand the benefits and their value, we can better measure the industry as a whole and harness its power for the advancement of the economy, the environment, our international profile, our position as a tourism destination and for long term social change.

“This is a real milestone for the UK’s events industry and demonstrates industry leaders working together in partnership to secure the long term future and success of major events.”

The eventIMPACTS toolkit offers advice and guidance on how to go about measuring the impact of events and why this is so important for the industry. eventIMPACTS also shows how the toolkit works through detailed case studies and offers advice for events of all sizes and types.

Simon Mills, Head of Business Visits & Events at VisitBritain, Britain's national tourism agency said: "We are delighted to be a partner in the research and delivery of eventIMPACTS. International event visitors to Britain represent a significant proportion of the overall value of the inbound tourism benefits and the creation of this online toolkit will provide a greater understanding of events as a driver of the visitor economy."

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