“How Events
Transform Society”
CEF’s official book series, with global publisher: Routledge.
Open call from 1 May 2025 to propose a book!
Have you ever imagined being an author with your book on the physical and digital shelves of major retailers?
If you are an industry or academic expert in events or festivals, consider sharing and turning your years of knowledge into a book to shape the way we think, practice, and develop current and future generations of professionals!
You may be an expert in strategy, planning, delivery, evaluation, legacy — right through to sustainability, technology, design, development, production etc. We are open to receive proposals from all topics that focus around great ideas, practices, policies, concepts, and challenges.
Open to all CEF’s Community - sign up for free here
Interested?
Published and forthcoming books
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Events of all shapes and sizes play an important part in all of our lives. They are fun, frivolous, and often allow us to escape from our everyday lives – and they are also fascinating to study and examine in a more serious way, to understand what they mean and what they do for us – individually and collectively. Events in Society, therefore, explores the social impact and sociological implications of designing, planning, and delivering events – cultural events like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; sporting events like the Olympic and Paralympic Games and FIFA World Cup; to music festivals like Glastonbury.
Thirty carefully selected contributions feature, written by global experts in a short and succinct way that are easy to digest, covering a variety of disciplines, fields, contexts, and cases. Every chapter explores a critical issue or debate based on real-life events, and contextualises this within the key theoretical debates, managerial, and policy implications. Throughout, there are linkages to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, as well as interactive features to aid understanding and spur critical thinking, including learning objectives, quiz questions, and debate questions per chapter.
Some of the topics covered include:
Uniting nations and people
Personal experiences and transformations
Social critique and explorations
Activism
Programming and representation
Health, safety, and security
Identity and gender
LGBTQ+
Environmentalism
Displacement and exclusion
Education and participation
Community development
Disability and accessibility.
— Out now —
— Out 20 June 2025 —
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Events and Economic Development explores the economic impact and developmental implications of designing, planning, and delivering major events – from cultural events like the Notting Hill Carnival and Day of the Dead, to sporting events like the Olympics to the Super Bowl.
This book comprises 24 chapters, each addressing various diverse and interconnected topics related to the economic and development implications of hosting events. Each chapter follows a consistent structure, beginning with the aim and learning objective(s), followed by theoretical focuses and the significance of these perspectives. Similarly, practical focuses and their significance are also outlined. The main body of each chapter consists of an 800 to 2000-word argument. Following the argument, chapters include managerial, policy, and/or research implications, explicitly mapping how they relate to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Each chapter concludes with a series of quizzes to test knowledge and debate questions to engage learners in discussing and interrogating the argument.
Some of the topics covered include:
Nation Branding through Events
Urban Transformation via Events
Commercialization of Culture and Events
Crisis and Resilience in Event Management
Sustainability in Event Hosting
Cultural Identity and Heritage Preservation
Globalization of Sports and Festivals
Media and Narrative Evolution
Ethics and Sponsorship in Events
Community Impacts and Gentrification.
— Out 19 September 2025 —
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Events and Politics offer students a cutting-edge, intellectually stimulating, and accessible exploration of the deeply intertwined relationship between events and political power.
The book includes 30 chapters from global academics, structured around theoretical and practical considerations based on real life events such as the Olympic Games and Dinard’s Festival of British Cinema, managerial and policy implications and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Covering broad themes such as soft power, propaganda, sports washing, human rights, and governance, the book provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the political dimensions of events. Through historical analysis, case studies, and theoretical insights, authors challenge the notion of events as neutral spaces, highlighting how stakeholder interests, geopolitical ambitions, and governance structures influence bidding, planning, and legacy outcomes.