Project: Event Strategy 2018-2021
Organisation: Shellharbour City Council
Place: Shellharbour LGA
Year: 2018
Project Type: Strategy, Policy & Research
In 2018, City People worked with Shellharbour City Council to develop an Events Strategy. It provided Council with:
- a strategic direction and focus for events in the public domain areas of Shellharbour
- an assessment of events for the LGA, including opportunities and challenges
- a framework and recommendations for how Council could best enable, along with event stakeholders, the growth of events for the economic and social benefit of the city.
City People planned the strategy to integrate with Council’s objectives and to work in with the emerging place planning and placemaking strategies for major urban development projects in the area.
Outcomes:
City People drove an innovative approach to the direction of the events strategy by taking a place-specific approach to the work. Rather than seeking to foster generic events that would not fit with the current and emerging character of Shellharbour, City People sought out the defining place character and aspirations of the city with regard to:
- its physical characteristics
- the communities that live and visit the city
- the histories and memories of the place.
In order to develop a strategy of excellence, City People incorporated the emergent events, placemaking and place activation programmes of other stakeholders such as major urban developers and developed a place-driven strategy. That is, we recommended that Council prioritise expenditure and resources towards supporting internal and external events that would tie closely to the place and would provide visitors and residents with an experience of place that they could not have anywhere else.