Event Volunteering.: International Perspectives on the Event Volunteering Experience

Volunteers make important contributions across the spectrum of event settings, most visibly at high profile mega events such as the Olympic Games they are volunteers are lauded as 'Games makers', 'unsung heroes' and the like. Less visibly volunteers are the heart and soul of community events and festivals, often undertaking multi-faceted roles from event leadership through to operations and ensuring that these celebrations are made possible in the absence of big budgets and professional event staff.

This book is the first to showcase and advance international research into the volunteering experience at events, drawing on the work of key scholars in this field. Events of all sizes benefit from volunteer support but event volunteering research is frequently case study-based and individually these cases make a limited impact. This text brings together cases from around the world, specifically including those that expand theoretical and methodological boundaries. It features mega events like the 2012 Olympics and the 2011 Rugby World Cup, alongside music festivals and sports events. New areas that are examined include the benefits of event volunteering for students, the role of volunteers in social enterprise events and new methodological approaches to researching this phenomenon, specifically ethnographic and cross-national studies.

This innovative book acts as a global source of key information for practitioners and researchers, an important text for students of event management and will provide stimulus for further work in this emerging area.

Karen A. Smith is an Associate Professor in Tourism Management at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She co-wrote Managing Volunteers in Tourism: Attractions, Destinations and Events (Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann 2009). Her research interests include the recruitment and selection of volunteers, and the career paths of managers of volunteers.

Leonie Lockstone-Binney is an Associate Professor in Event Management at Victoria University, Australia. Leonie’s main area of research expertise relates to volunteering, specifically in event and tourism settings. Leonie has published in several top-tier journals including Leisure Sciences, Tourism Analysis and the International Journal of HospitalityManagement.

Kirsten Holmes is a Senior Lecturer at Curtin University, Australia. She has been researching volunteers for over 15 years, particularly in tourism and leisure contexts. She is the co-author of Managing Volunteers in Tourism: Attractions, Destinations and Events (Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann 2009).

Tom Baum is Professor of International Tourism and Hospitality Management in the Department of HRM, University of Strathclyde, UK. His research interests focus on the workplace in tourism, hospitality and events, including the role of volunteer labour within the sector.