Disorganised host community touristic-event spaces: revealing Rio’s fault lines at the 2016 Olympic Games

ABSTRACT

We investigate the live staging spatial-organisational requirements of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, exploring the extent to which the project sequestrated, territorialised and commodified public space. Relatedly, we examine the role of new legal, regulatory and securitised event conditions in affording an effective and efficient ‘Olympic takeover’. We do this by drawing on i) official Rio 2016 planning documents, ii) observations of the live Olympic-city spatial effects, and iii) interviews with key informants. Findings reveal that Rio’s specially created Olympic event zones sought to transform visitor flows and circulations across the city, appropriating and regulating public space in-line with a desired tourist aesthetic. Rio’s public civic space became reimagined and controlled for commercial exploitation by Olympic sponsors, supporters and suppliers– facilitated by the creation of areas of exclusivity. And yet, we also reveal how the Rio Olympic city simultaneously emerged disorganised, open and fluid in places– a (temporary) break in the (neoliberal) economic logic we have come to expect. We argue that localised conditions affecting Rio afforded closer connectivity between event visitor economies and host communities. While these gains remain marginal and largely symbolic, they demonstrate that with effective planning, the Olympic host city need not only serve corporate interests.

KEYWORDS:

• Mega sport events
• Urban space
• spatial territorialisation
• commercial exploitation
• Rio 2016 Olympic Games
• exceptional legislation
• visitor economy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

M. B. Duignan

Dr M. B. Duignan is a Senior Lecturer in Management and Programme Director of the MSc Sport Management and MSc International Events Management at Coventry University (UK) researching on event and festival led place and tourism management, marketing and sustainable development.

D McGillivray

Prof D McGillivray holds a Chair in Event and Digital Cultures. His research focuses on two main areas of activity. The first area of interest is the contemporary significance of events and festivals (sporting and cultural) as markers of identity and mechanisms for the achievements of wider economic, social and cultural externalities. The second main area of interest isthe affordances of digital and social media in enabling (and constraining) participation in civic life, including in relation to major sport events. He has published extensively on the topic of accelerated leisure cultures and digital technology, focusing on the wider social and cultural implications for producers, consumers and regulators across the lifespan. He is the co-editor of Digital Leisure Cultures: Critical Perspectives (Routledge, 2017) and co-author of Event Policy: From Theory to Strategy (Routledge, 2012) and Event Bidding: Politics, Persuasion and Resistance (Routledge, 2017). He is currently Deputy Editor of the Annals of Leisure Research and sits on the Editorial Board of Leisure Studies.