Event Evaluation For Salt Fest Surf Festival

The Event

Discuss about the Event Evaluation for Salt Fest Surf Festival.

Salt Fest Surf Festival is a unique and new event which only occurred twice till date. It was held at Coolangatta on the Gold Coast. The purpose of the event is to make a community gathering which celebrates the art, culture, music, foods and clothes of the surfing community. The event was simple, and the crowd was light. The report shows the positive and negatives of the event which can be improved in the coming days to yield more positive results. Sustainability is a vital issue which measures the success level of an event. The areas of improvement are discussed here with providing new strategies which can help the Salt Fest Surf Festival to be more successful and sustain in the future (SaltFest 2016). It is explained in this report that presentation of an idea in an interesting way is required to get the attention necessary for the topic.

On the Gold Coast of Coolangatta, Australia, a free event took place name as the Salt Fest Surf Festival. It was the second time for this event.  It took place at Queen Elizabeth Park on 3rd September. It started at 10 in the morning and lasted till 4 pm. The beach culture and the surf culture were celebrated here. It was accompanied by music from the local bands. The event had nothing to do with surfs except selling the surfboards. According to Getz, (2012), the objective of the festival was to admire the culture, music, art, local street foods, and clothes. The audience included local people, visitors, who were relaxing and having fun with their families, and friends. The age of the audience varied from sixteen to forty-five. Some parents brought their toddlers also. Maximum senior citizens stayed till after lunch. I attended the event as a music enthusiast. I was present there from 10:45 am to 4:30 pm. There were some sustainable approaches followed by the managers, although it lacked many other sustaining strategies. The influence of the event on the local communities was being witnessed there. 

In the year 2016, the Salt Fest Surf Festival, a small community event took place for the second time. The Triple Bottom Line of sustainability was followed while analyzing the event. The report is judged under the criteria of the ecological, economic, and socio-cultural factors. Its small size bounded the economic outcomes of the event. According to Schulenkorf, (2012), the significance of the small scale events like, Salt Fest Surf Festival in the community has been analyzed here. Accessing and assessing the economic impacts of this event was hard due to the management issues. The traffic around the area was feasible for mostly the local people only. As stated by Beatley and Newman, (2012), this restricts the event from injecting any new money in the community. Hence, the economic impacts were not significant. There was no other event nearby which could pull the crowd that day. It ensures low opportunity cost. People were mainly buying food products overseeing the other products being sold in the event.

Reflection and Evaluation

As stated by Meng, Jiani and Michael, (2014), community events like this might not yield many economic impacts, but the socio-cultural outcomes can be high. It promotes social networks, bonding among all groups of people. The socio-cultural aspects of this event can be divided into option value, bequest value, and existence value. Residents choosing to attend this event shows them opting for socializing. As stated by Dredge and Jamal, (2013), the young audience in the crowd proves that families are introducing their young family members to the surf culture. The existence value can be gathered from the fact that people are proud to show where they belong; in this case, it is the surfing community. As stated by Gibson, Kaplanidou and Kang, (2012), this community holds eighteen world champions which prove surfing being embedded in their daily lives.

As stated by Martin and Assenov, (2012), the event shows the outcomes of celebrating the community's history and culture blended with entertainment. The management had made sure that the event did not disrupt the local life outside the park. The cleanliness and the efforts of keeping the negative effects low of the event show sustainability. According to Getz and Page, (2016), adverse aspects of the event might come through lack of rules in food sourcing, use of generators, waste management system, and not using nonrenewable energy to the maximum to power the devices.

The analysis above suggests various places for improving sustaining attributes in the future. As stated by Martin, (2013), to address the environmental concern the event management can opt for green energy which will reduce carbon emission. The event used generators which increased the overall emission level of the festival. Using solar powered electricity will decrease the emission levels. As stated by Page and Connell, (2014), the waste management has to be improved by differentiating the types of waste. The source and quality of food can be enhanced. Allotting more stalls for local food will benefit the local food providers. The event attendees mostly came avoiding the public transport. As stated by Jones, (2014), this decreases fuel efficiency. According to Raybould et al., (2013), the management can ensure public transports being used correctly by enforcing parking rules. The sound pollution was controlled in this event rigorously making the approach of controlling pollution a sustaining one.

As stated by Lobato, (2014), one of the socio-cultural issues was the lack of diversity in the event audience. The situation can be improved by including the indigenous people and aboriginals. This will ensure diversity in public. People of all age were present in the event which provides interaction between generations. This phenomenon will enrich the background and values of the community. Ensuring good quality of music will bring more people in the Salt Fest Surf Festival. The event only provided a bouncing house for the kids. Providing some more fun activities will draw more kids and parents in the event. 

Recommendation for Future Improvement

According to Mair and Laing, (2013), the economic issues can be well handled by expanding the audience domain and including people from other places. This will inject money into the community from the outside. The other economic issues like allotting more budgets for the event can be backed by implementing a minimum ticket price, a penalty for not abiding by the rules of the festival committee, and others. Transport cost and fuel can be reduced by using public transports. For getting more recognition, the authorities can start a campaign before the event. This will increase the number of attendees.

According to Griggs et al., (2013), the experience from student-led workshops was positive due to the diversity of the cultures present in the student domain. It encourages personal growth in communication and managing different people from various backgrounds. According to Hall, (2012), the workshops require addressing all the contents in limited time while getting intact attention from the listeners. Bad quality of voice projections and physical expression might ruin a presentation. The workshops help the students to learn how to present in front of an audience, which is an art. According to Sorokina, (2015), this skill can improve one's career. The workshops also help to understand the importance of sustainability in every kind of organizations. Strategic management, using green resources, and many other things are incorporated in the sustainability domain.

As stated by Hjelte and Larsson, (2013), following the approach of sustainability in the early stage of an event, the organizers can avoid adverse impacts on the outcomes. Identifying the stakeholders of an event and acting according to the requirements incorporates actions like employing local people in the event. It will increase the level of support from the local community. It will help the committee to earn a good reputation. An idea no matter how good it is, presentation of that idea holds the key to success. The personal growth can be pointed out as the understanding the potential of sustainability.  According to Hodgetts and Duncan, (2015), actions which follow the dimensions of a sustaining approach for events have the potential to make a positive impact on the community through the economic, environmental, and socio-cultural attributes. The experience of the workshops was challenging which empowers one regarding sustainability.

Conclusion:

The Salt Fest Surf Festival has successfully arranged two events celebrating the culture of surfing. There were several issues regarding the event, changing which can make it sustainable. The environmental problems can be addressed by inclining more towards green and renewable energy sources. Wastage management and campaign for the event are prescribed for having a sustaining environment for the event. The lack of diversity can be addressed by incorporating the Aboriginals and Indigenous groups residing nearby. This festival can be designed to produce positive economic impacts on the local people. Betterment of the food sources and allotting more stalls for local businesses will have huge positive impacts on the economy, along with ensured more visits by people from outside.

Reference:

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