Stakeholder Analysis in the Planning of a Future Music Festival - Case Study Example

Stakeholder Analysis in the planning of a future music festival Student’s name International Affiliation Stakeholder Analysis in the planning of a future music festival Stakeholder Analysis (SA) is defined as a systematic analysis of stakeholders in terms of their power and interest in a certain business, event or a process. For instance, this paper analyses the interests of stakeholders involved in the planning of a future music festival. This paper conducts a stakeholder analysis so as to represent the interests of all stakeholders involved in the best way (Freeman, 1984) A Stakeholder Analysis is basically a process of providing insights and understanding the interactions that take place between the planning of the event as well as its stakeholders. SA is a very powerful tool as it assists event organizers to identify the various stakeholders and rank them in terms of their priorities. This means that there are some stakeholders who greatly impact on the project or event more than others. For instance, in our case of the planning of the future music festival, the sponsors and donors are very crucial since they provide the finances required in undertaking the event and thus they should be given the first chance (Getz, 2007). A stakeholder in this case can be defined as a person or a group that can influence or can be influenced by the event or the organization. Stakeholders in this case can also be defined as those people or groups of people with a stake in the music festival event as well as its outcomes. This takes care of all the groups taking place in the participation of the event production, all sponsors and grant donors, representative of the surrounding community, as well as every person impacted by the music festival event (Reid, & Arcodia, 2002) Organizing such an event involves groups of stakeholders which include the public, private and also voluntary governmental and non-governmental organizations such as the artists involved, suppliers of materials required, public authorities, traders and the media. The efforts made in interacting with the stakeholders together helps in building the festival and its image and this helps in attracting as many other visitors as possible. Relationship between event management and stakeholders Organizing the music festival will be executed by the many stakeholders listed above. The efforts aimed at integrating the various stakeholders will lead to the constitution of the event as well as its image and this is expected to attract tourists and other visitors. Interactions among the various stakeholders as well as the actors always involve both competition and collaboration. In terms of competition, the various actors, who are part of the stakeholders, tend to compete with one another so as to attract visitors to their specific products and this often creates conflicts. These conflicts are in the forms of the time of performance, for instance, one may prefer an early time rather than presenting at a later time. The conflicts may also arise from best spots since a central position is more attractive than a peripheral one. All these factors cause the differences and hence the opposing interests and conflicts. Thus it is the responsibility of the events planner to ensure that he or she understands the relationship between management of events and the stakeholders involved in the event so as to be in a position to manage them (Andersson, & Getz, 2008). Events management involves identifying the various stakeholders in the music festival as well as identifying the relationships present and the relative frequency of the relationships. The management of the music festival as well as its continued success depends much on the stakeholders who are involved in the management and execution of the festival. The understanding of how events management relates with stakeholders helps to sort out the various groups of stakeholders so as to organize the appropriate strategies aimed at making them comfortable while in the music festival. The sorting out of the groups helps in suggesting appropriate strategies for each type of the stakeholders, hence the need for understanding the relationship between events management and stakeholders (Getz, 2007). In the process of organizing the music festival event, I need to take into consideration the aspects of both internal and external stakeholders in the whole process. As the event’s organizers, we need to come up with a technique of identifying the individuals or groups to include and invite in the music festival. We need to conduct a stakeholder analysis so as to segregate the various stakeholders. The first thing is to plot and identify the internal and external stakeholders. In terms of organization, stakeholders may be described as internal which include the employees of the company as well as the management whereas external stakeholders may include customers, competitors and suppliers attending the music festival. In addition, internal customers include those people involved in coordinating and funding the process of the event planning whereas external may refer to those who are involved in advising the organizers. It is thus imperative that we get to differentiate between the two types of stakeholders. After identifying the types of stakeholders, we now need to assess the nature of each stakeholder in terms of influence and importance. After this, we then need to monitor and at the same time manage the stakeholder relationships so as to satisfy their interests and avoid conflicts amongst them (Andersson, & Getz, 2008) Risks of not conducting stakeholder analysis The management of the music festival in our case calls for a very clear thinking in terms of the relative importance of the stakeholders involved in the planning of the festival as well as in achieving the outcome of the project. Undertaking a stakeholder analysis will help the team to have an understanding of the influence given by all the stakeholders in the planning of the festival. This will help in that I will be able to focus on the right direction of the planning process as well as assuring success. During stakeholder analysis, a lot of communication and conversations are done among the members of the team and this is as crucial and insightful just as the final outcome of the process. Stakeholder analysis is always designed so as to allow flexibility in its application and also allow for continued improvements of the whole process (Getz, Andersson, & Carlsen, 2010) The success of any project or event, for instance in our case here of the planning of the future music festival, ultimately depends on the ability of the planners or organizers to gain the support of key people and at the same time manage their expectations. This is what is basically referred to as stakeholder analysis, in other terms (Howden, 2009). The successful management of stakeholders always has a substantial and positive impact to the planning of the event or project. Stakeholder Analysis ensures that majority of the stakeholders if not all, are satisfied and this greatly improves the progress as well as the relevance of the event and this is believed to significantly to the success of the event or project in question. In this case of planning for the music festival, the stakeholder analysis will be a crucial step in the management of human and social capital resources in the event. One of the major benefits of undertaking a Stakeholder Analysis during the planning process of the music festival is that it gives an insightful communication about the event and how it will be conducted as well as with the stakeholders. This will lead to the development of a very clear understanding of the needs and interests of the various stakeholders involved and this helps in coming up with a more focused strategy of running the music festival. Thus, it would be very risky to undertake the process of planning the music festival without first undertaking a stakeholder analysis (Wilson &Udall, 1982). There should be a good plan on how stakeholders are treated so as to avoid risks such as wasting time and resources in the planning of the music festival, not managing stakeholders in the most efficient ways basically because the team is not sharing their knowledge and understanding about the various stakeholders, neglect of the most important stakeholders in the planning process, failure to assess the environment under which the music festival is being planned, making unworthy assumptions about the stakeholders and their interests among other risks. All these risks may affect the planning of the event so much that it ends up losing some very crucial stakeholders in the process (Allen, Toole, McDonnell, & Harris, 2002). Conclusion The main challenge of undertaking stakeholder analysis in the management and planning of the music festival or rather any other event is that there are many assumptions made when determining how the stakeholders are affected by decision of the organizers as well as in the implementation of the decisions made concerning the stakeholders. Many event planners tend to assume that all stakeholders are equally important in all dimensions (Cross, Borgatti &Parker, 2002). However, in reality, stakeholders are not affected in the same way and that not all of them have equal influence ion the decisions made. When stakeholder analysis is conducted well, the resulting strategies have the power to succeed well since all stakeholders are well taken care of. Engaging and communicating with stakeholders is very crucial in the process of stakeholder analysis (Andersson, & Getz, 2008) References Allen, J., O’Toole, W., McDonnell, I., & Harris, R (2002). Festival and Special Event Management. Queensland: John Wiley and Sons Milton. Andersson, T., & Getz, D.(2008) “Stakeholder management strategies of festivals”. Journal of Convention and Event Tour-ism, 9(3): 199-220. Cross R, Borgatti SP &Parker A (2002) 'Making invisible work visible: Using social network analysis to support strategic collaboration', California Management Review, 44(2): 25-46. Freeman, R. E. (1984) Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Boston: Pitman Publishers. Getz, D. (2002). “Editorial: On the nature and significance of events studies”.Event Management,7(3): 141-142 Getz, D. (2007). Event Studies. Theory, Research and Policy for Planned Events. Oxford: Butterworth Heine-mann. Getz, D. (2008) “Event tourism: definition, evolution, and research”. 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