A report from Warwick Business School looking at how the infrastructure around events and be improved to make better legacies.
Creating the Golden Thread
Creating the Golden Thread is a report commissioned by Spirit of 2012 from Warwick Business School looking at how the infrastructure around events and be improved to make better legacies.
The report was commissioned after the conclusion of Spirit’s Inquiry into the Power of Events, which explored the impacts of a wide range of events that have taken place in the UK over the past twenty years, and made five key recommendations to strengthen the infrastructure and accountability, reach and delivery of major events to ensure a long-term legacy for the investment. In exploring these different events, the Spirit team were struck that what was often missing was a sense of what bound these events together and how they operated in a wider system of place-based change. The DCMS Select Committee referred to this as the ‘golden thread’; we’ve sometimes described it as a ‘connective tissue’ that brings together the various impacts of events, and works to ensure they are more than the sum of their parts.
This connective tissue should not be the job of individual event organising committees, rightly preoccupied as they are with delivering the event itself, but must be the joint responsibility of multiple stakeholders.
To explore this further, Spirit of 2012 commissioned researchers at the University of Warwick to write an expert advisory report on better ways to develop the UK major events ecosystem which have such a positive impact on our society; showcasing the best of British talent and creativity; bringing communities together; and driving economic impact.
‘Creating the Golden Thread’ sets out recommendations for a national ambition that provides a framework to strengthen the legacy of culture, sport and ceremonial major events from inception to legacy with joint responsibility across key stakeholders to maximise the long-term social impact through collaborative partnerships supporting policy, investment and destination management, as well as data to underpin learning and progression.
The report is based in experience and expertise in the evaluation of major events from Jonothan Neelands, Haley Beer and Mark Scott in WBS, including Coventry’s year as City of Culture in 2021 and the Commonwealth Games hosted in Birmingham in 2022 and the findings from a series of roundtables for funders, event organisers and local government held in Coventry, Edinburgh and Liverpool.
The report concludes with a set of recommendations that will strengthen the golden thread that unifies major events and maximise the impact value from significant levels of public investments:
- Central UK Government and the devolved governments to convene investors, local government, and the events industry to develop a ten-year major events strategy;
- For DCMS to develop a national evaluation framework based on the five common outcome areas that will be consistently measured across events and over time;
- Spirit of 2012 and the AHRC to lead a consortium of funders, policy makers and major events organisers to establish a Major Events Data Observatory;
- DCMS to appoint a National Major Event Relationship Manager within the DCMS to collaborate closely with a designated Destination/Event Relationship Managers; and
- The business plan for the major event must take into consideration the need for dedicated funding to cover the post-event and legacy periods.