The Centre for Events and Festivals (CEF) is an international Not-for-Profit providing research and resources to all event and festival sectors - from sports, business and private events to public, arts, and cultural festivals.

We do this by harnessing the collective intelligence of leading professors, practitioners, and experts, and bringing together our vibrant community to meet, debate and collaborate on intellectual and business challenges…

…to help the world deliver GREAT* events and festivals!

But what do we mean by GREAT*?

Irrespective of event and festival type, size, sector, scope, and geography, most of us would agree that there are fundamental ideals that make them GREAT.

  • Economically viable

  • Socially responsible

  • Protect our planet

  • Deliver transformative experiences

  • Improve people’s lives

  • Do no harm to people, communities, and animals

  • Align to sustainability ideals (e.g. UN Sustainable Development Goals)
    and global standards (e.g. ISO20121:2024).

Why launch CEF?

1. Our industry is often split into specific sectors and geographies.

On one hand this is a strength as there is a strong unity and collaboration with those working in and studying specific sectors and geographies. On the other, this is a challenge as there is so much more we can learn from each other if we cross-pollinate ideas and solutions, across our sector and beyond geographical boundaries. CEF helps to bring together those working cross-sectors, geographies, and cultures.

2. There remains a significant gap between theory (academy) - and - practice (industry).

We - professors, practitioners, policy makers - could work more closely and better and develop data-driven and evidence-based decision making across all aspects of events and festivals. CEF provides a space to bring the two worlds together - to meet, and debate; foster collaboration between the academy and industry; and translate research and practice into valuable research and resources.

3. We need a platform to aggregate great ideas and practices for all the industry.

There are hundreds of greats events and places devoted to talking about important ideas, practices, challenges, and solutions. CEF helps provides a platform for aggregating this knowledge and exchanging it with those who are working on wild and wonderful aspects of events and festivals across the world — from balloon festivals and surfing tournaments in developing island states, to major and mega events like the Olympics.

4. The importance of data/
evidence-based decision making.

We need data — and a lot of it — to make robust, reasoned, and defendable decisions, particularly for events that have large-scale impacts on the places and people that play host. Yet data and evidence can be either expensive to attain or so hard to come by. Busy event and festival professionals often also find it difficult to collect, analyse, and use for strategic, planning, and delivery purposes. AI and the use of new technologies have opened up new and innovative ways to efficiently and effectively engage in research. CEF’s research and resources helps to contribute to this body of knowledge, as well as providing a ‘Research Shop’ to help organisations collect the data and evidence they need.

5. post-COVID, we have had a global resourcing problem at all levels.

It is widely acknowledged that the events and festival industry faces significant resourcing challenges, globally, in entry right through to senior leadership positions. There is a need for individual and organisational level professional training and development across all aspects of events and festivals. CEF continues to develop resources to provide a way to up skill current and future generations of professionals working and students studying events and festivals.

6. Sustainability continues to become critical for success and survival…

…whilst also avoiding “green washing”, “social washing” and “sports washing” criticisms. Consumers, particularly Gen Z, as well as event owners, governments and municipalities are increasingly demanding transparent and ethical practices to warrant continued support. Economic, social, and environmental sustainability plays a core part of everything CEF does and we help to provide ideas, frameworks, practices, and policies to help align to ideals and goals (e.g. UN Sustainable Development Goals) and global standards (e.g. ISO2021:2024).

CEF provides a unique global cross-sector learning network
and meeting space in the event and festival industry.

Hello! I’m Mike, the Founder and CEO of the Centre for Events and Festivals (CEF) and I care passionately about bringing together the brightest minds - across the academy and industry - to develop research and resources to help deliver GREAT* events and festivals!

Beyond my role at CEF, I’m a Professeur des universités at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France) — the “Sorbonne” for short — and the Editor-in-Chief of Event Management Journal - the leading academic journal for the study and analysis of events and festivals, founded in 1993, and based in New York (USA). I am also the Editor of Routledge’s book series: ‘How Events Transform Society’.

Over the past 15 years I have held a mix of university and private sector roles. I have been the Director of Research, Intelligence and Education at Trivandi; Head of Department and Reader at the University of Surrey, where I also served as the Director of the UK Olympic Studies Centre; and an Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida (USA) - the #1 UK, European and USA universities for the study of events and festivals. For the past 5 years he has also been part of the Centre for Science and Policy’s network of trusted international scholars (profile) who provide policy advice to governments and NGOs, based at the University of Cambridge (UK).

Founder and CEO

Dr Mike Duignan

CEF’s research and resources

CEF’s ‘value proposition’

  1. World leading professors and practitioners - with deep and diverse expertise across events and festivals

  2. 50-50% theory-practice balance - honouring and synthesising robust academic and relevant practical knowledge

  3. Large academy and industry network - with wide access to professionals, policy makers and professors

  4. Social motive (not-for-profit motive) - we genuinely care about help you deliver great events and festivals

  5. Most of our resources are open access and free - to enable fluid spread of information, for the benefit of all

  6. Exclusive invites to events - for those in our CEF Community, which is free join here

  7. Access to paywalled research, data and articles … that typically costs $1000s to access!

  8. Commitment to publish more and more research and resources - over the next years to support you and your event and festival.

and finally…who do we serve?

We serve everyone who has an interest or who is impacted by events and festivals. Every professional. Every professor. Every policy maker. Every student. Everyone.

Have you joined CEF’s Community? If not, sign up  for free here.