The natural environment as an agent in the design and operation of the Bournemouth Air Festival.

Abstract

There is a growing body of literature that discusses the protection of the natural environment in relation to events and festivals. However, there is little that demonstrates the value of nature to event stakeholders. This research contributes by recognising the natural environment as an agent in the design and operation of the Bournemouth Air Festival, which is held on land, sea and in the air. The case study was undertaken iteratively and within an inductive approach drawing on multiple sources of evidence, namely in-depth and unstructured interviews with stakeholders; observation and documentary evidence. In the absence of a theoretical proposition, the analytical strategy adopts a multi-disciplinary approach to develop a case description. The study reveals first, the value of natural capital to the Festival and secondly, it develops a new model demonstrating the variability of the natural environment as an agent in the design and operation of the event. This shows that changes in the environment have occurred historically, recently and even sometimes during the Festival. The latter create the greater challenges for the organisers as they may be consistent in their agency or inconsistent and further divide between those which are predictable, those which are foreseeable and those which are unforeseeable. The paper concludes with a discussion of the effect nature’s actions have on event planning in its various forms and other implications for management.