Abstract
AbstractThe article reflects on the stop-and-go procedures of re-opening the event sector under pandemic circumstances in a case study for difficult political and administrative governance, confusing regulations and systemic irritation. The focus lies on the addressees of restricting regulations, i.e. event industry and in particular event organizers who have to deal with requirements from different event stakeholders. It is our aim to trace their strategies and identified margins of manoeuvre in order to re-enable events under inconvenient surrounding conditions. In times of COVID-19, major events are under general suspicion as enablers for “super spreading” or “mass contagion”. One of the major business sectors in Germany—the event sector—was among the very first that was forced to shut down and among the very last, that could re-open again. This has not only economic but also social impacts: events as social settings and contexts fulfil important societal functions. They enable social exchange, cultural innovation, and political participation and provide socio-psychological relief. The contribution of events to these elementary societal functions was strongly limited in the pandemic. Although event approving authorities and event organizers in collaboration with their service providers work intensely to re-open events under hygienically safe conditions, lastingly convincing re-opening concepts have not yet been identified. The federal system in Germany, the diversity of applicable regulations, expected measures and outcomes, the dynamics of the situation, and resulting short-term changes in legal conditions lead to a variety of concepts and measures, which differ depending on location, event, persons involved, etc.
Funder
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Bergische Universität Wuppertal
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Reference29 articles.
1. BaSiGo (2015) BaSiGo-Guide. http://www.basigo.de/wiki/index.php5?title=Hauptseite&oldid=5906. Accessed 27 Feb 2022
2. Challenger R, Clegg CW (2011) Crowd disasters: a socio-technical systems perspective. Contemp Soc Sci 6:343–360. https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2011.619862
3. Coellen B, Franke D (2014) Ein diffiziles Thema. Bevölkerungsschutz: 3–4
4. DiMaggio PJ, Powell WW (1983) The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. Am Sociol Rev 48:147–160. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095101
5. DiMaggio PJ, Powell WW (1991) Introduction. In: Powell WW, DiMaggio PJ (eds) The new institutionalism in organizational analysis, 4th edn. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 1–40