Events
ATLAS Special Interest Group
Events
The coordinator for this Special Interest Group is:
Ilja Simons – Breda University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
Alba Colombo – Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain
The ATLAS Events SIG was founded in 2011, and since then it has organised a wide range of activities related to events research and education. The main objective of the group is to enable members to work together to analyse and understand events and festivals as social, cultural and economic phenomena, and to add to the body of knowledge on events and their effects.
The group aims to:
- Develop and support transnational research on events
- To stage expert meetings and other information exchange activities related to events
- To produce publications of interest to Group members and to the wider academic and practitioner communities
A number of international meetings have been held by the group both at the ATLAS Annual Conference and as stand-alone expert meetings. These meetings have also resulted in a number of publications, including the research monographs Exploring the social impacts of events, Event Design: Social perspectives and practices, and Experiencias turísticas de festivals y eventos. Conference papers have often been included in special issues of journals edited by group members, including issues of Event Management, the International Journal of Event and Festival Management, and the Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events. The group has also developed a number of research projects, including the Event Experiences Project, which developed the Event Experience Scale, the Carnival Experiences Project and the Multilingual Event Research Project.
If you want to contact the SIG coordinator, please fill in the form HERE
If you want to join this SIG, please fill in the form HERE
Leading up to the ATLAS Events SIG Pre-Meeting in Leeds, we will release a new episode every Thursday. This series emerges from a shared desire to challenge traditional frameworks and create a space for critical reflection in our field. This inaugural session is part of a collaborative podcast initiative led by the coordinators of the ATLAS Events Special Interest Groups (SIG) Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and Leisure & Events | Breda University of Applied Sciences. The series aims to shift the focus away from management and economic topics toward a “critical turn” that views events and collective practices as complex phenomena entangled with power relations, identity, and social transformation.
All episodes on SPOTIFY can be found HERE
ATLAS SIG Soundbite 4 – Events
In the ATLAS SIG Soundbites series the different ATLAS Special Interest Groups tell about their SIG.
Annual review of activities – 2026
The ATLAS Events Special Interest Group (SIG) continues to develop its community of scholars and practitioners, fostering collaboration through conferences, publications, and new initiatives. The 2025 – 2026 academic year has been quite active, with a special track at the ATLAS Annual Conference, a pre-meeting in Leeds, a special issue nearing publication, collaboration in projects, and the launch of a new podcast series.
Special Track at the ATLAS Annual Conference, Leeds, June 2026
At the 2026 ATLAS Annual Conference in Leeds, the SIG will organise a Special Track titled Beyond Growth: Degrowth and Post-growth Perspectives in Festivals and Leisure Events, convened by Alba Colombo (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain) and Emma Wood (Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom).
As the climate emergency and social inequalities intensify, this track invited critical reflection on the traditional growth-oriented model of festivals and leisure events. Participants were encouraged to explore how the sector can move away from ‘extractive’ models toward ‘regenerative’ frameworks focused on socio-ecological sufficiency, local resilience, and the well-being economy.
The track also called for a shift toward innovative, qualitative, and participatory methodologies, including Participatory Action Research (PAR), longitudinal studies, ethnographic approaches, and arts-based research, in order to capture the social capital and emotional resilience generated by festivals in ways that traditional quantitative metrics often miss.
SIG Pre-Meeting, Leeds, June 2026
A SIG Pre-Meeting will take place in Leeds on the day before the ATLAS Annual Conference. Themed What’s on the Horizon? Community, Collaboration and Co-creation in EU Funding Bids, the meeting is organised by Alba Colombo, Emma Wood (Leeds Beckett University).
This session is designed as a hands-on incubator. Its goal is to build foundations for collaborative EU funding bids in 2027, with a particular focus on the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Networks and other Horizon funding streams. Participants are invited to bring their ideas, networks, and ambitions to shape the next phase of SIG research collaboration.
Special Issue: Annals of Leisure Research
The Special Issue of the Annals of Leisure Research, titled Leisure Events Navigating Crises, Tensions and Disputes, is nearing completion. Edited by Alba Colombo and Ilja Simons, this issue emerged from the Special Track held at the 2023 ATLAS Annual Conference in Bad Gleichenberg, Austria. Publication is expected in Summer 2026.
New Podcast Series: Critical Event Studies Dialogues
A new initiative this year is the launch of Critical Event Studies Dialogues, a podcast series produced by the ATLAS Events SIG. The first season launched on 14 May 2026, with one episode released each week in the lead-up to the SIG Pre-Meeting in Leeds.
The series provides a platform for deep academic discourse, challenging traditional frameworks and exploring new critical perspectives. Topics covered in the first season include the ‘critical turn’ in event studies, social sustainability, creative research methodologies, and the role of cultural festivals as socio-cultural infrastructure. The podcast series aims to share collective insights from leading scholars and practitioners, and to provide accessible content for educational use within the events studies community.
Link to the Podcast series:
https://open.spotify.com/show/033grzKpmwgC5MR5JjvyxK
Projects
Carnival Experiences Project
The Carnival Experiences Project, led by Lenia Marques and Greg Richards, continues to explore the social bonds created through carnival events.
STEP – Sustainable Training for Event Professionals
The STEP project (Sustainable Training for Event Professionals) is an EU-funded initiative developing a freely accessible, modular training programme to help event professionals and students across Europe make their work more sustainable.
STEP is delivered by an international consortium of five partners from Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Slovakia. Alba Colombo (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) and Amber Herrewijn (NHL Stenden) are among the key contributors, with UOC responsible for developing the online learning platform and training materials, and NHL Stenden contributing academic research and quality assurance. The project aims to train 400 event professionals and students and run 40 sustainable event pilots, while establishing a lasting Community of Practice and a European directory of circular and low-carbon suppliers.
Looking Ahead
In the upcoming year we aim to build on the foundations established in 2025 – 2026. The SIG will continue to develop its collaborative research agenda, with a focus on EU funding opportunities and the further development of critical and participatory approaches to event studies.