What are the ethical social, cultural and intercultural aspects of events?

All events require their organisers and crew to maintain professional values throughout their planning and operation. Professional values are a set of ideas a person holds and tries to maintain. They exist to set a precedent for how people conduct themselves at work. For operators, this can include values like reliability, positivity and a good work ethic. For an event as a whole its values can include a wider range of ideas, this is because events, especially large events can have a large footprint on the natural environment and the people who live around the site as well as on those who attend. This means that if an event has a set of positive values that it maintains it is more likely to benefit people than be a negative experience.

 

These values can be observed in the categories of ethics, social impacts, cultural and intercultural impacts.  

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Ethics in events is a set of moral principles that can be used to evaluate what is considered right and wrong. This includes why the event is being held and the priorities and goals of the event. If the event is solely focused on making a monetary profit for the stakeholders that can gain from the event then it is likely that others will be negatively impacted such as attendees being charged extortionate ticket prices this can be seen as ethically wrong. opposite to this directing the profits of the event towards a charitable cause is generally considered ethically good as people who need the assistance of some kind will receive it and those attending the event will benefit from what the event has to offer. By having an event be transparent about its ethical approach it allows stakeholders in the event to form an opinion on the event organisation if an event has fallen behind in its approach to ethics these opinions can be heard and changes can be made.

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The social impact an event has refers to the people and communities involved with the event. if the quality of life has been affected for any group of people involved it can be seen as either a positive or negative impact. these impacts can include factors like the politics (or lack of) in an event as well as the health and well-being of those present and around an event. Additionally, consideration for the fear and aspirations of those both attending and working on the event can be made.

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Culture is:

"the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time:" (Cambridge Dictionary, 2024)

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In events culture can often be seen as part of the music featured in many events, every different genre has its own culture surrounding it and many have evolved by taking aspects from cultural types of music to create something new. Additionally, types of events where the focus isn't on music can also feature strong cultural influences events like weddings often feature different aspects depending on where in the world you are. An event's cultural impact can be seen as how it respects different cultures and observes their practices.

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Intercultural impacts furthers this by bringing multiple cultural groups together to give them representation and to exchange ideas and customs. An example of this is the Eurovision Song Contest which brings together European nations and allows them to perform for an international audience with songs that often feature cultural influences from the home nation or include multiple cultures promoting unity between them.

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