Emerging Professionalism in the Event Industry: A Practitioner's Perspective

Since the 1980s the event industry has seen unprecedented growth in the number of festivals and events that are staged. Parallel to this growth has been a rapid growth and development in the number of researchers and practitioners investigating and writing about festivals and events. This article is an exploration (and an Australian practitioner's perspective) of the dynamics of the contemporary event industry as it strives to be recognized as a profession and the influences, impacts. and barriers that face the event practitioner seeking to professionalize. These influences, impacts and barriers include: the shift from an event management-predominant to an event design-predominant paradigm; the increasing priority for economic event outcomes; the advent of an overarching risk assessment and management regime; and the role of the practitioner academic.