Too often, major events are treated as singular showcases, with attention focused on short-term gains like economic spikes, media visibility, or one-time legacy projects. However, this approach can leave host communities vulnerable to the inherent volatility of large-scale events. Event portfolios offer an alternative, embedding a series of smaller and larger events into the calendar year and local infrastructure. This sustained approach ensures that communities are not reliant on one-off successes. For example, cities like Edinburgh and Auckland have diversified their event offerings to include recurring festivals, cultural programs, and sporting events that together maintain a consistent economic and social rhythm throughout the year. By doing so, they build sustainability and resilience into their destination strategies—offering more dependable visitor flows, long-term employment opportunities, and community participation. The cumulative nature of portfolios helps to maintain continuity when one event fails or underperforms, thereby increasing the adaptive capacity of host cities in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or economic downturns.

Event portfolios can catalyse more strategic governance and overcome the fragmented, siloed approaches that often characterise event planning. Rather than managing events in isolation—sport here, culture there, tourism somewhere else—portfolios require coordination across sectors, departments, and stakeholders. This necessity forces destination managers to think holistically, aligning events with broader urban, cultural, and economic development goals. For instance, in the Sunshine Coast and Manchester, the creation of formalised event portfolios has led to improved collaboration between tourism boards, cultural agencies, city councils, and private sector partners. Portfolios offer a shared framework and common language for integrated planning, helping to coordinate objectives, timelines, and resource allocation. In this way, event portfolios can act as governance tools that foster inter-organisational trust, build long-term relationships, and encourage innovation through shared goals and mutual accountability.

While mega-events often focus on scale and spectacle, event portfolios present opportunities for deeper community involvement over time. A diverse set of recurring events allows more residents to engage with programming that reflects their values, interests, and identities. This includes everything from food festivals and cultural parades to neighbourhood sports days and environmental workshops. In the small rural community of Fort Stockton, Texas, the integration of sport and cultural events created a symbolic and practical infrastructure that enabled different parts of the community to interact, celebrate, and co-create shared meaning (Ziakas, 2010). Over time, this built a stronger sense of local identity and social cohesion (Ziakas, 2013). Because events are interlinked and repeated across time, they create a fabric of social interaction that is more participatory than a single event could provide. Event portfolios therefore foster local pride and belonging, strengthen volunteerism, and mobilise civic action—ultimately making the event ecosystem more embedded and inclusive.

A single large event often stretches a city’s operational resources—logistics, staffing, infrastructure, and risk management systems. In contrast, portfolios allow for better planning, smarter scheduling, and more efficient use of limited resources by spreading operational demands across multiple events throughout the year. This results in economies of scale and the reuse of systems, venues, and personnel. For example, common branding strategies, safety protocols, marketing platforms, and volunteer networks can be deployed across a series of events, reducing duplication and improving consistency. This not only saves money but also builds institutional knowledge and capabilities over time. Additionally, hosting recurring or complementary events can encourage knowledge transfer and skill development within teams, making it easier to deliver high-quality experiences. A well-managed portfolio creates an operational rhythm that supports long-term staff retention and improves the city’s ability to respond flexibly to future challenges.

From a tourism and destination marketing perspective, event portfolios allow destinations to segment audiences more effectively and offer diversified products across different seasons. Instead of betting everything on one blockbuster event, cities can design a balanced programme that targets multiple demographics—families, sports fans, foodies, cultural tourists, and locals. This enables more precise brand positioning and the potential to extend tourist stays and spending. For instance, the city of Macao has developed a portfolio combining sporting events and culinary festivals, allowing it to attract both short-stay international visitors and repeat domestic travellers. By programming events throughout the calendar year, destinations can counteract seasonality and create reasons to visit during traditionally quieter periods. This strategy not only boosts tourism revenue but also makes the destination brand more authentic, locally grounded, and reflective of its diverse cultural assets.