Strategic Venue Management Process: a Model to Maximize the Value of Venues

  
5 
policies to assure achievement of the main goals and implement 
adequate programs that will guarantee organization’s efficiency and 
effectiveness. Considering this cornerstone as a starting point, the thesis 
illustrates the “Strategic Venue Management Process”: it is a model that 
tries to fulfil facility managers' needs by providing a set of different 
strategic approaches, which will ensure organization’s continuity, and a 
body of managerial instruments that will give them the proper skills to 
“Sweat the Asset” and maximize the venues value. The study is based on 
a model of Strategic Sport Management written by Hoye, Smith, 
Westerbeek and Stewart and published in the book “Sport Management: 
principles and applications” in 2006. Their successful strategic process 
fitted for the Sport Management has been adapted to Venue 
Management, trying to keep unchanged its original template and 
structure. It consists of five phases: Strategy Analysis, Strategy Direction, 
Strategy Formulation, Strategy Implementation and Strategy Evaluation. 
Each phase is strictly related to others and the whole process consists of 
an iterative approach seeking for a continuous organization’s 
improvement. 
The thesis is completed by other two chapters. The opening chapter 
assesses the key factors that are influencing global stadia and arenas 
marketplace providing a broad insight into the structure, size and trends 
that typify the facilities and events sectors. This “big picture” 
information is used to briefly elaborate on the key drivers of success 
  
6 
when planning, designing, building and operating sport and 
entertainment venues. A closer look on Governance and Management 
focuses on the big changes that Sport Industry had during the last two 
decades and identifies new Sport Business developments. The second 
chapter provides an overview on the most important European Leagues 
outlining the actual “State of the Art” of Facility Industry in Italy, 
England and Germany. This 
 	
 is useful to identify best 
practices and lessons learned from “virtuous” countries across Europe in 
order to realize a useful set of examples to follow in order to refurbish 
Italian stadiums. Finally, the first part of the third chapter introduces the 
concept of Venue Management as the practice of coordinating the 
physical workplace (stadium) with the people and work of the 
organization taking care of events and the related tasks in an integral 
way. Venue Management principles of business administration and 
architecture are used for an optimized realization of the organization’s 
outputs (services and short-term services) and outcomes (impacts and 
long-term aims) starting from the environmental inputs.  
  
7 
1. Scenario Analysis 
Special events have always influenced human history. Anthropologists 
have traced human civilization for tens of thousands of years and at the 
heart of their observations are the special events that typify and explain 
tribal behaviour of that time and place. The long and continuous human 
civilization on the planet, that of the people of Africa, can be traced back 
60000 years, and many of the ancient rites and rituals survive into 
modern times. Rite and rituals represent special and important occasions 
for members of the tribe or community, which either mark significant 
changes in position and responsibility or are more general celebrations 
or commemorations of significant moments in time, such as the arrival of 
spring, or the passing of and elder tribesperson. Many of the sites of 
these rituals were secret and sacred and remain so today. In other words, 
the special event is closely tied to a special place: one without the other 
loses its significance. From more modern times, records have shown that 
special events did not diminish in importance in the context of different 
societies. The Scandinavian Vikings celebrated successful explorations 
and hosted large festivities to honour their gods, as did the American 
Indians. The Ancient Greeks conducted large athletic festivals to 
celebrate human excellence as a direct expression of honouring their 
  
8 
gods, and the Romans organized gladiatorial events at the “Colosseum” 
to entertain the crowds and also to sustain a combat culture. Hundreds 
of years before the discovery of gunpowder in Europe, the Chinese 
would celebrate the arrival of the New Year with elaborate displays of 
fireworks, and throughout the European Middle Ages more localized 
events would lead to the development of many country-specific events 
that still exist today (Oktoberfest in Germany is an example). Largely 
through European Imperialism (leading to the export of domestic events) 
and the Industrial Revolution, events became more international. Better 
information flow and transport infrastructure allowed people to travel 
more widely and created opportunities for joint celebrations. Events 
such as the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 are precursors to a 
movement that saw the 1900s become the first century of truly 
international events. After an initial facility boom during the ancient 
Greek and Roman civilizations, when hugely impressive venues were 
purpose-built to host major events, a second building development took 
place during the latter stages of the nineteenth century. If in the 1890s the 
second facility building boom was initiated, then societal changes in the 
1990s led to the third global development period. Some anthropologists 
have defined the XXI century civilization as the leisure time civilization: 
in the developed countries, workers have obtained, after years of 
disputes, better work conditions and remuneration. According to 
Goldblatt (2000), there are four reasons that largely explain the growth in 
  
9 
the number of events organized worldwide. The first reason relates to 
the demographic shift that is currently changing the makeup of most of 
the developed first world. The population of most Western nations is 
ageing rapidly, leading to older people. Not only do older people have 
more time, they also have more money to spend during that time. The 
second reason is related to the exponential development of new 
technology, which in turn leads to a high-tech environment in which 
human contact (both face-to-face communication and physical contact) 
becomes increasingly rare. To balance their high-tech life, people are 
looking for “high touch” opportunities to preserve their humanness. 
Events are excellent providers of “high-touch” experiences. Booming 
economies around the world constitute the third reason for the growth in 
the event sector. In particular, tourism and leisure industries have 
benefited from the extra disposable income earned in many countries 
around the world. Moreover, the events are not limited to sport that 
represents only a small part of the global events industry which includes 
cultural festivals, food festivals, art exhibitions and religious events. The 
final reason leading to growth in the number of events relates to time. 
Time in fact has become a precious commodity to be traded against other 
valuables: work and leisure have merged to become almost a continuum 
in the Western Nations. People are opting for shorter breaks, which in 
turn should offer different experience every time. More varied events, 
throughout the whole year, are needed to satisfy the requirements of 
  
10 
increasingly diversified and demanding customers who are prepared to 
pay for those events that allow them to “economize” on the time they 
have available (Weesterbeek et al. 2005). 
Sport is one area of events that is experiencing significant growth. There 
are some special characteristics that make this market unique: the 
consumer involvement and the unpredictability. The most readily 
characteristic is the “expertise” demonstrated by the sport event 
consumer. The “armchair selector syndrome” is an issue within sport 
and however, it is one reason why sport is so popular. Moreover, in all 
the entertainment events unpredictability is the leading element that 
attracts the audience. During the performance of a well made show the 
spectator is involved in a continuous game of problems and solutions. 
The sport event’s first rule is the unpredictability of the final result: 
contrary to other exhibitions, nobody has knowledge of what will 
happen on the pitch, not even the organizers and the actors. The real 
dramatic element associated to all sport events is the real distinctive of 
this kind of entertainment: the likelihood of opposite outcomes is almost 
the same; the blind chance is a fundamental component. The closer the 
opponent level, the more unpredictable the final result and the match 
development. The sporting event is in real-time, there is not a play script 
  
11 
previously realized as in a movie, in a performance, in a concert: the 
spectator takes part to a live experience of the happening as well as the 
actors on the scene. The development of the event is set by different 
strategies straight away set up on the pitch to face the opponent and to 
win the competition. The sporting event equally offers to its spectators a 
happy end as it happens in the other kind of shows: the prestigious 
record-breaking, the winning of an international trophy, and the 
promotion in a higher division. At the same breath sport guarantees the 
chance for the losers to regain their “honour” in the next circumstance or 
in the following season so that its supporters will achieve their 
satisfaction and sporting revenge too. Moreover, sporting events 
represent a very interesting product for the media industry because of its 
capacity to arouse emotions, to develop behavioural models and to 
attract enormous audience. The indisputable penetrations force as well 
as the high diversification of the public involved makes this kind of 
entertainment an overdrawing instrument that can enhance the visibility 
of the firms and the media interested in investing in this field. At the 
same time, for the advertising industry this field represents a valuable 
medium to join targeted markets with high purchasing power that can 
provide good returns on investments. During the last decades the sport 
perspective has changed from a recreational competition to a proper 
business market oriented as a part of the big entertainment industry.