The Impact Of In-Person Crowdfunding Events On Event And Entertainment Management: A Critical Essay.

Research into the emerging themes within the business sector related to their programme of study and use the evidence gathered to inform operational and strategic decisions. Students should apply their critical understanding of relevant emerging themes to formulate alternative courses of action necessary. 

Students should review the case study provided and undertake the following:

1. Critically evaluate the case study, outlining the ways in which the identified relevant emerging themes might impact on the current business strategies relating to the identified organisation or sector.

Your critical discussion should include a critical analysis of the ways in which those themes might affect the appropriateness of existing organisational policies and
practices.

Areas of focus can include any combination of the following:

1. Political environments
2. Technological advancements
3. Demographic changes
4. Social trends and shifts
5. Industry globalisation
6. Legal transformations
7. Global economic issues

2. Critically evaluate how those themes identified could affect the operational and/or strategic decision-making necessary to shape organisations within the broad sector over the next five years. Your answer should use contemporary examples of how those emerging themes have started to be addressed within your business sector. 

3. Provide justified recommendations for courses of actions that organisations within the broad sector can take to ensure that they are able to manage the effects of those emerging themes effectively

Crowdfunding has become a popular technique of raising money for special projects, ideas including events. The concept grew by leaps and bounds in the last couple of years due to the upward trajectory of the start- up culture across the globe. Thus, a wave of organization including funders have come together to help build the momentum of the start-up culture. Crowdfunding is of great importance to people who have brilliant ideas but do not know how to raise money or have any potential investors or backers who support their ideas. In Person crowdfunding is a great place to be for such individuals as many organization, entrepreneurs and investors are looking forward to invest in such brilliant ideas and help the world to be steady on the path of innovation. This can also be seen as an approach to build network and help the community to become strong (Sadler, 2018).

The report here will provide a critical analysis and discussion of the current and future impact of this new wave in the field of Event and Entertainment management, in person crowdfunding.  The discussion would also give insight on how this new practice of crowd-funding might impact the existing policies and practices in the events arena. The area of focus for the critical analysis will be a combination of Political, technological, demographic changes, social trends and shifts, industry globalization, legal transformation and global economic issues. The reports will also discussing how this emerging theme of crowdfunding in events can have a potential impact on the strategic and operational dimension of the events in the next five years. Towards the end, a set of recommendation will be provided to provide sustainability to the idea of in-person crowdfunding events.

This section will focus on the finding from the case study “The next big thing in Crowdfunding: In person events” and will provide a critical analysis of the given literature. The section will tend to provide an in depth understanding of the crowdfunding events and how is it shaping the present event and entertainment industry.

Back in the day, people with start-up ideas or entrepreneurs used to take the help of websites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo and appeal to the crowd to invest in the new business. The decade old practice has been revamped and a new strategy has been constructed with a more systematic procedure to collect funds and get the audience interested in the new and radical business idea. Organization these days are helping the budding start-ups, entrepreneurs and idea creators land funding in person (Mollick, 2014).

A lot of sites are doing a lot of experimentation around the concept of in person crowdfunding events. For instance an organization by the name of Find Boomer facilitates meeting of the young start-up companies with experienced advisors, investors and the mentors. These people help the young talent to further improvise and polish the idea they have been working on. The job of the mentors here is to assist the individuals with their existing plan and help them to convert the theoretical idea into a practical application to earn revenue and profits. Investors get hands on experience with the idea and get more detailed insight on the business idea, which they can further refine with their experience and funds. The funds are the biggest source of reason the entrepreneurs or start-ups founders be a part of such result, they easily get to meet a lot of people who are interested in the business idea and have the ability to fund the project(Belleflamme et. al., 2014).

In-Person Crowdfunding: Emerging Theme

The in person crowd funding can be seen as the big leap in the direction of start- up culture. The events here have to be designed in such a manner that it not only creates a lot of buzz and interest around it, so much so that founders, investors and mentors are excited to be a part of such events. Such events can also be seen as win-win for both the organization as well as the participant. It is the organization that put in lot of efforts in bringing the event together, in terms of all the arrangement, and creates an event which would reap in benefits for the participants and other stakeholders. The stakeholders are the participants, who comprise of creators, founders, entrepreneurs and mentors who comprise of advisors, mentors and investors. Thus, every part gains by such event; the bottom-line here is to focus on the bigger good, which is helping the community grow strong (Kirby & Worner, 2014).

Another important aspect of such events is growth of strong networking ties amongst all the possible stakeholders. The stakeholders here get a chance to become a part of a society or community, which is standing tall to help each other. The network built in such events goes on to help one another in times of difficulty or otherwise. Thus, an environment of collaboration and positive synergy can be seen as the order of day at in person crowd funding events (Colombo, Franzoni & Rossi-Lamastra, 2015).

The hype seen around crowd funding events can be seen at its peak the very present moment; a lot of organizations are creating engaging events which have the potential of getting positive outcome out of the entire event.  For instance, one organization in Jacksonville is so focussed and headstrong to help the entrepreneur get funds and make contacts in the professional world, they have increased the duration of the events. Fla, the organization has transformed its one day event to a 5 day festival to be held at different places in Jacksonville. This can be seen as a huge step of development towards society and community. This 5 day event will help founders and entrepreneurs to reach a long list of potential investors and mentors who can help them in becoming successful business owners (Flaming & Sorenson, 2016).

The organizations who are organizing such events are working towards widening the scope of the event, or taking it to the people who are normally not counted as entrepreneurs. The event is open to all the possible creators, and is not restricted to such one or two category of founders. The aim here is to give an opportunity to all the creators, who are really passionate about their idea and wants to achieve something big in their life. These kinds of people in normal circumstances would not have the backing up of the investors or mentors, but in such events the creators have access to all the potential investors and backers of the idea (Menon et. al., 2018).

One of the owners of the Crowd funding event’s organizations, Shahid Khan has pledged to invest up to $ 1 million to the projects showcased at one spark. Now this is something which is very encouraging for the participants, as the opportunity is not a mirage, but one really does get funding from such events. Display of such figures also helps in pulling the crowd for the event and getting the numbers for the event. The format of the event is changing rapidly, the event has transformed from a usual one on one meeting to being more participative and engaging in nature. For instance, as one of the new themes emerging in crowd funding is the concept akin to speed dating, herein, the idea creators get a chance to actually meet all the investors and backers of the project. They have the chance to impress all the investors by explaining them the rationale behind the idea, now the responsibility solely rests on their shoulders. Another new change which can be seen in the events is, including the audience in the event. This is done in the event by displaying on the led screens the idea and giving the power in the hands of the audience to vote on the idea of the creator. This way, the engagement in the event gets more heighted and intense, and the founders also get the feeler of how the audience is reacting to the business plan or the concept (Gras et. al., 2017).

The events have become more and more systematic and organized in nature, this effectively helps the idea creators to better utilize their time. For instance the potential for funding in these types of events is three fold:

• $ 250,000 in crowd funding will be distributed to the ideas which have got at least some percentage of votes from the public. This is done to show that public has certain role to play in the events.
• Up to $ 1 Million in capital from the Owner Shahid Khan in return for certain equity in the business.
• Any person who is attending the event can offer on the spot an individual contribution towards any project he is interested.

In person crowd funding events topples the online crowd funding sites any day, as one to one communication is much better while making people interested in the potential business idea. Creators here also have an opportunity to put their story across in person, get real time feedback on the idea with an opportunity to get in touch with the backers and the investors directly. The creators also get an access to hundreds of people in gathering and work on their networking with such people. It also helps them to improvise their existing idea, the feedback of the people can be thought of as the same while Beta testing the product or service (Ducarroz, Yang & Greenleaf, 2016).

At the same time, there are certain events like Startup weekend which provide more or less the similar opportunity, but the focus here lies on the projects which are more focussed on the projects which are rich in technology or technology lies at the centre of the business plan. Thus, due to high barriers of entry, events like one spark have more opportunities for the creators.

The last words for such events can be that in the future more and more in person crowd funding events will take over the traditional online sites, due to their ability to provide better opportunity for the creators.

The section here will focus on the impact the following factors can have on the emerging theme in events and events management, specific to in person crowd funding events.

The political environment is become more and more friendly and conducive to the growing start up culture. The countries are giving attention to creativity and innovation, and in order to do so, they are providing a lot of facilities. The facilities in terms of funds, mentors, investor and tax exemption for some time top the possible benefit for the business innovators. The idea here is to encourage people to innovate and create jobs for the country. Thus, political environment is a great aide even to the organization who is creating in person crowd funding events (Colombo, Franzoni & Rossi-Lamastra, 2015).

If facts are to be believed, over the last decade more than 50% of the business ideas had technology at their centre Most of the creators had the business ideas which revolve in and around technology. Thus technology is a big enabler in creation of business ideas. Therefore a lot of organizations are giving special emphasis to the companies who are creating products and services which are reliant on technology. Also the rapid use of Internet and Social media further enable the creators to promote their business idea and plan to other potential investors and backers. Thus opening a whole new world to the creator’s. However, with time, more and more offline events will take over, whilst the online platform will be restricted towards awareness of the idea or the business plan (Lin & Viswanathan, 2015).

Social trends and shifts is an indication of how the society or the trends related to the crowd funding event is changing. As mentioned earlier, platforms like Kick-starter, Mashable are being used to create awareness and generate interest among the potential backers and the investors. These platforms will be restricted towards promotion of the business ideas and also will be used to gauge the initial reaction of the crowd towards the audience. However, in practically the frequency of the in person events will be on an upward trajectory. More and more such events will happen in the future, and the aim will be to create more engaging and rewarding events for all the possible stakeholders. This will be equally aided by the growing euphoria around the start-up culture in the world, which would definitely help in creation of jobs and helping the society of the community (Tanaka & Voida, 2016).

The population of the world is increasing at an alarming rate and has already reached above 7 Billion; however, the world is shrinking, due to rapidly increasing globalization and proliferation of Internet in the world. The same is translated in business as well; organization can operate in any of the country they want due to opening up of the borders. It is a great opportunity for the business as they can use the human resources and the technological capabilities of the nation to work on their business idea. This trend will see further development as more and more creators will leverage the advantage offered by globalization (Paulus & Roberts, 2018).

Europe has still not recovered truly from its recession, and the world is constantly threated by the fear of global economic recession. This however, does not limit the ability of the creators to create some product or service which will be beneficial for the community or the society. The same would not impact the potential investors and the backers from being a part of in person crowd funding events, as the rationale and the purpose of the event to them will get clearer with the growth of the events. Thus, it is difficult to ascertain the impact of global economic issues on the in person crowd funding events (Mourao, DaSilveira & DeMelo, 2018).

Hence, it can be said that the above mentioned factors have a significant role to play in the emerging trend in the events and the event management sector, specific to the in person crowd funding events.

Over a couple of years or possibly in a time period of 5 years, there will be a lot of development in the way the in person crowd funding events will be conducted and created for the stakeholders. As of now, there are only a few organization who are focussed on the in person crowd funding events, and majorly organization are using the online platform to help the creators. But the online method of collecting funds is not comprehensive in its concept, the creators are not able to receive the real time feedback on the idea, or they have limited opportunity of communicating with the potential investors. This limitation is further lessened by the inability of the platform to provide real time advice on how to improve the business idea or the attached concept. Thus with time, it is for certain that the popularity of the in person crowdfuding events will increase exponentially (Hildebrand, Puri & Rocholl, 2016).

The operational implication of the emerging theme on the event organizers will be akin to changes in the event conceptualization and the elements to increase the engagement of the participants. Presently, the events are less engaging in nature, and it is seen more like a conference, but this will be changed for the better. Although the concept of conference is not bad, but it certainly becomes mundane, and not a lot of investors, mentors, advisers and creators would like to restrict themselves to the traditional platform. Thus, the event organizers have to come up with ways to make the in person crowd funding event more engaging and should showcase the perceived benefits of participation to all the possible stakeholders of the event (Rossi & Vismara, 2018).

This section will focus on providing recommendation to elevate the impact of the in person crowd funding event on the stakeholders. It will give an in-sight on how the event platform can be used to leverage the emerging trend in the in person crowd funding events:

Event or the business organization which are working in the space of crowd funding has to constantly be on their feet and pay attention to the emerging trend in the crowd funding space. They have to be able to pick up the emerging trend, and capitalize on the trend to gain the necessary momentum leveraging the trend. For instance the in person crowd funding is the latest trend, which will severely impact the organizations involved in online raising of funds. In the similar manner, it has been noticed that the event organizers are including participants and giving them an important role to play in funding the projects, and also the ability to participate in the voting for the best project. It is such ideas which will help the crowd funding event to get bigger, better and more effective in its approach (Yang & Zhang, 2016).

In person crowd funding events is definitely an improvement over the traditional crowd funding events. The platform give an ability to an individual to present the idea to the investors, potential backers, mentors or advisers in an open environment, which is aided by top notch technology. For an instance the probability of creating the same impact as the intent desired by the creator increase significantly with the usage of technology. But, there still is a lot of improvement which can be accommodated in the in person crowd funding events. For instance, the organizers can create activities such as 2 min elevated pitch of their idea, which can be ranked by all the participants, a speed dating wherein everybody gets to meet everybody and using social media technology to broadcast the live event and make it open to the people who are not present at the venue. Thus, integration of online and offline channel would increase the engagement in the event, and also help the stakeholders to benefit immensely from the improvement in the in person crowd funding events (Estrin, Gozman & Khavul, 2016).

Conclusion

Crowd funding is a very noble concept which facilitates collecting funds for a business plan or an idea from plethora of investors and potential backers. The concept of crowd funding in the last couple of years have improved and organization are moving from online crowd funding to in person crowd funding events. The idea here is to provide a platform to creators, entrepreneurs, backers, investors and mentors for a positive outcome. The idea here is to help in collection of funds in a systematic manner, and use the brilliant minds of the potential investors and mentors to further sharpen the business idea. Thus, it can be said with utmost certainty that in person crowd funding event is the emerging trends in the event management space, which would help the creators, in turn provides innovative solutions for the society, community and the nation.

References

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