Monitoring & Evaluating Social Value | Sport, Culture, Events & Festivals | Prof Gayle McPherson

good afternoon my name is Gail McPherson

and I'm a professor in events and

cultural policy and the director of the

center for culture support and events at

the University of the west of Scotland

thank you for inviting me to be part of

your convene Challenge and connect

webinar series

today I'm going to talk with you about

monitoring and evaluation of events

programs and projects linked to sport

and cultural events and festivals

I look forward to meeting up with you in

the question and answer series a bit

later in in September

so without further Ado I'll just take

you through it so what I'd like to cover

today is often these are quite scary

topics in terms of monitoring evaluation

and we ask

culture cultural creatives and artists

and people who run community events

to Monitor and evaluate their event to

justify funding or to justify resource

or space in the community or facility

and that can often be a bit daunting so

I would like to break that down a bit

for you today so that it's much more

simple and you can show you that it's

it's more manageable and when you need

to call in the experts if you're really

looking for a big economic economic

impact study

um so today we're going to cover what we

mean by monitoring and evaluation I'm

going to take you through a logic model

for evaluation that we've used many

times with others for people like

um Spirit of London 2012 with the

British Council there's often used with

them with the dcms with others then

sometimes you'll hear them talk about a

theory of change especially in Arts and

Cultural programs when they're looking

for that so we'll talk a little bit

about that today and then I'm going to

give you an example of the six

dimensions of social value this is based

on a project that we did for a spirit of

London in 2012 and local Trust

where they wanted to look more in depth

so what how do we Define social value

how do we measure it how do we monitor

it what can we show the results within

the community so I'll take you through

that it's a really useful guide and then

at the end I've given you some tools and

resources and I'll also provide a bit

more from that if anyone needs it

two right to the very Basics what do we

mean by monitoring and evaluation when

someone asks us to do that or however in

a sense for me I always ask people the

question what does success look like for

you so one of my roles I played was part

of the team for city of culture for

Paisley for the city culture 2021 and

one of the things that we started with

right at the start was what does success

look like is it actually about winning

this title is it about what we do in the

communities is it about making change is

it about how culture

can create participation engagement

[Music]

alleviate poverty reduce isolation these

are all big things that we expect from a

program and that was a programmer of

change through a city of culture a bit

bring that down to much smaller programs

and events where perhaps like Birmingham

Commonwealth Games 2022 there's a

cultural Festival alongside it so what

does success look in that Festival do we

have a themes for the festival are you

looking at monitoring evaluations The

Branding of the media

of participation of local people of

tourists are you showcasing what

Birmingham has to offer to the world is

this about putting yourself in an

international stage and we can sit back

and say oh gosh maybe maybe all of those

things at different stages depending on

the size and scale of the event that

you're doing

so how do you determine what success

looks like and we spent many days doing

this

um and basically we've looked at this a

lot

previous to that have been involved in

previous Commonwealth Games bid for

Glasgow for example again looking what

would success look like these are all

things that you ask so one of the things

that we're trying to get you to look at

is spend enough time or more success

means does this mean on a local level

just members of the community

participating who hadn't before doesn't

mean involving

um increasing and growing audiences for

a cultural offerings that you have

locally that perhaps you haven't reached

in the past

and how do you how do you know when that

has been a success so in the most basic

terms we're going to compare what was

planned and what was achieved

and then you need some tools to do that

so if you plan to have to grow your

audiences and you say that you're going

to grow your audiences by 10 or 20 or

you're going to have X number of people

who have never participated in the Arts

of culture before coming along how do

you see it and

if that if you also have targets like we

want to increase participation reduce

loneliness

um create trust all of these things

these These are what we tend to talk

about in terms of social values and I'll

spend a bit more time looking at them a

bit later one of the things then to if

you're really looking at a large-scale

event is to pick Gates that are already

there and no point in Reinventing the

wheels so events Scotland have an event

impact toolkit and we now have an event

written as well so

a very

um strong on when you bid for funding to

these organizations if you're bidding

for funding to evaluate and to run an

event for example or to receive funding

to put on a large scale event then they

will ask you to use their event impact

toolkit and the event impact toolkit

covers for broad areas of we absolutely

want to see economic and by that they

are looking for you to show a return in

the basement so generally that tends to

be around the seven or eight to one

level or for every pain they put and

they would like to see seven or eight

pound coming back into the economy

and a lot of

um funding organizations

quite rightly will be concerned about

the economic impact to that

um city or county for example so these

are something that you if you're running

a large scale

um festival or event that you would have

to engage and you may have to engage

others to help you with that on a more

smaller scale that may not be such a

concern for you

um and it may be some of the more

environmental or the social and cultural

impacts

and in this toolkit there I've given you

the details for there and you can Google

you will get a link to each and every

one of those so for example in media if

you are using social media to promote

your event

have you set up the analytics for that

in the first place do you know how to

analyze it are you going to be able to

to to set up something that will scrape

all the data for you have you

established that you will use one

hashtag only so many events that I see

we have two hashtags we have three with

four different different hashtags go out

and and maybe because sometimes they're

sporting and cultural they may eat two

hashtags that would be the maximum I

would say how are you going to scrape

that data how are you going to analyze

it how you're going to know the reach

and I don't just mean by the Google

analytics you really need to know much

more detail on that than you and there

are tools that you can set that up

things like um The Branding for your

event your sponsors will be interested

in The Branding they'll be interested in

how you promoted it locally and again

that that will come down to even a local

sponsor increasingly people who are

wanting to say well what am I getting

for my money if I sponsor you even for a

local community festival and if you're

able to say well I will look at The

Branding I will look at our social media

reach

um how and how far and not just about

the reach but the actual engagement with

the brand or and and then you devise a

strategy for that so each of these would

have their own strategies and that may

be well beyond some small to

medium-sized events

increasingly we're seeing

environmental and sustainability as key

issues in climate change especially with

young people and you know what could be

worse than events we we ask people to

travel to events it doesn't make them

being environmentally friendly very

easily but we can do that we can reduce

food miles we can have only local

produce at our local events we can have

only glass bottles we can have

wristbands that I mean you peer deposit

and you get money back if you if you use

environmentally

um sound products it means that if you

reduce waste and you ask everybody to

take it home for example these are all

things that you could be looking at

again this will change depending on

whether you're doing a small scale or a

large scale event

and I've not seen so much about the

social and cultural because we're going

to look at social value

um in a bit more detail there

but this is all before you even start to

run your event or your program or your

Festival you're starting to think

this will all be in the pre-planning

stages to what does success look like in

each of these not just have I got enough

people to come to the event and tickets

tickets on the door or or if the events

free people through the road and at the

end of it you say well I think everybody

had a good time

but what did that good time lead to and

is that enough is it enough for your

event just to be happy and

and if it's if it's a free event if it

doesn't require much funding that may be

enough but then there are stages that

you have to go through and for most of

you that have been involved in the

Birmingham

2022 cultural Festival I think you're

going to need a bit more Beyond just

some of the basics

so moving on to thinking about logic

models I the my next slide is going to

take you to show you an example of a

logic model but sometimes

logic models can be quite daunting again

for people and so I wanted to take you

through just a very basic way of looking

at it on either side of that and say

there are four steps to evaluating your

event and if you do these four steps in

order then you're you're halfway there

you're you're on the the planning stage

and at the very basic level it is about

thinking about the

um

what you're going to do sometimes I

refer to as a road map where is a

roadmap that you're going and again we

talk about this on much bigger projects

like for the British Council when

they're looking at

um cultural protection or cultural

programming how do they know that

they've achieved what they set out to

achieve and we sometimes talk about it

as a theory of change and if you start

off Sumo I would really like this event

to be much more remote ethnic I would

like everybody in the community to come

together I would like it to reduce

loneliness and you know all of these

things and really for people to to work

together in the community in harmony

okay right they're pretty big asks so

they're good and they're admirable so

how are you going to evaluate them how

are you going to bring them together so

the first stage of course is determining

what you want to achieve for your event

sometimes people have lots of aims lots

of objectives and it's not possible and

they start small grow big you often you

see some of the success and events have

come from

small small-scale community events that

have grown and they've grown an identity

they've attracted more people and

they've been able to move from a small

scale event to a medium-sized to

suddenly they're an internationally

renowned event and Festival sometimes

they may have even been something that

was in protest or something else so

um you know if

some of the big music events in in

America for example might have been

um in protest and they said well we

don't want this overly commercialized

event and then suddenly they've become

overly commercialized as the years have

gone down because there's no other way

of managing the festival and everybody

coming in so alternative models don't

always end up staying the alternative

models you end up saying well we

actually need some of the standard

toolkits to to know how we want to even

change an event or where we go with that

so we've done that first stage you

determine your objectives what you want

to achieve and then you decide what you

want to find out from your evaluation

before we start how are we going to find

this out what what is it we want to know

from people about participation or

engagement

um or audiences for example do you ever

ask your audience

what they thought about Beyond

um did you enjoy yourself tonight and

and that's important but there may be

supported that

identifying what evidence you need

whether you have the skill set for that

do you have to um bring in a plan do you

have to try to seek other members of

your group or Community to bring that

together and or your organization when

do you know that you have a skill set

but there are times that you want to buy

in for that

um

so one of for example if we look back to

the event impacts toolkit they talk

about how we measure how we monitor

um and how we manage the impact of

events because impact of events are can

be both positive and negative so we have

to manage all of these

and if you're still on a very basic

level looking at an economic return and

that might just be getting your money

back from Community level events so I'm

sure you could do the evaluation

in-house then we can you can set up a

basic questionnaires and qualitative

approaches so we talk about quantitative

approaches which would be a

questionnaire for asking people what we

thought generally on a tick box basis

and it gives you data that you can turn

into a report

qualitative data tends to be a bit

harder to determine people because

they're not quite sure how to sometimes

do that is systematically so that's why

we often hear the language of we will

measure X or we'll measure y

and if you then look to the qualitative

approaches it tends to be more about

participation enjoyment feelings

and how that how that made you feel and

things like that so that maybe just

requires a bit more of a skill set

because sometimes that requires your

volunteers to be able to engage with

people and speak to people on the day

with generally a set of guides or

questions that they can ask people about

their engagement and and their

experience of the event

if you're taking that stage up where

it's a you know maybe a public sector

event or a mixture of public and private

sector event but it's a it's a bit

bigger and that you do need to give a

clear Rapport and detailed report to

your funders then you will we talk about

that as an intermediate level research

skills that needed again depending on

the company and the organization if

you're established

um our Sports organization you may

already have those skills in there to do

that

when it moves to an advanced level of

measurement and monitoring is when you

need to actually show an economic impact

assessment and that would be required

from the like so within Scotland if

they've given you or have been Britain

if they've given you uh a large scale a

large amount of money to help run an

event or a festival or for example if

depending on the scale of the funding

that you maybe have got through a

festival program

um through something like Birmingham

cultural festival for the 2022 games

at that stage you probably are looking

to possibly connect or work with

um experts in that and there's plenty

experts and Consultants who will do this

for you and be able to set up there are

times when you just need to know that

this is what I need to do to go out with

um

so that we can focus on the things that

you're good at in terms of delivering

whether it's the art program or

creatives I often get asked by people

saying well I'm a I'm a creative

entrepreneur or I'm an artist or I

actually don't know how to do all this

evaluation but actually I've got a

significant amount of money

um and I need to you know that might be

hundreds of thousands and to envisage

and and put on my idea and put this

event on but yes I do want to understand

what impact that had on the community

and whether that led to something else

so for example at London 2012 we we

conducted a cultural Olympic we conduct

an evaluation of the cultural Olympiad

based on a set of themes and that themes

were on reach participation engagement

and then we looked at the various amount

of cultural projects that were funded

and how they'd achieved that and how

they'd set themselves up to achieve that

we perhaps some of the things that may

be important are that you create new

networks that you create Partnerships

how do you how do you judge what you've

done on that and how do you see

the network came about I might have

known some of these people already but

what happened was through this project

it led me to bidding through a new

project with one of those Partners or

somebody in that Network and that impact

may not be realized for two years down

the road but once that has been realized

and you have developed new skill set as

well from running these cultural

festivals or or your project then later

on you're able to say actually the

impact was far greater than just

and you can only come back to the town

or a city but also you as an artist and

the sector in terms of excellence and

cultural excellence and then the reach

of that isn't just about

branding and media reach the reach is

about the artistic talent going perhaps

to a national level events or

International level Partnerships and

events

and most of our Founders are interested

in that and our UK government are

interested in that because these type of

things increase our self-power increase

our ability to sell our artists

internationally and increase that

perhaps exchange relationship with

people in other countries that you can

connect with anyway these are huge asks

of of looking at how you were going to

evaluate your event from you starting

with you know local people coming to

International Partnerships but it's the

same template and that that's why I've

got you looking at this here to see this

is the exact same template

so on a more basic level then how do we

start it is so that's going slightly

um off but I'll move that so that you

can see it a bit better it's what do we

want to achieve what are the aims so

that First Column is the aims and what

what are factors that are external to us

what's our starting point what's the

Baseline do we have any Baseline data

already and what's the potential

um for our potential audiences so if you

look this will take you through

um the the this is the standard approach

to what we would call

a logic model and each of these

templates here

each of these columns will be about what

you need to ask yourself is and some of

this is about input it's about output

it's about outcomes it's about the

activity so this third column here that

I'm looking at is what do you need to

put in to get the the achievement that

you want

um what type of activity is required to

bring the audiences and participants

that you're seeking and how will you

know what the take-up will be is it all

ticketed is it something that's online

can you monitor that and how will you

know if the the activity that you're

doing is end the right person or the

right level for example as well

this may be more familiar to you in

terms of some of our national

organizations of what we would call a

logic model

at the end column here we've got I've

written here themes and programs because

this is about

are you required to fit your program

into a wider program such as the

Birmingham and Commonwealth Games

Festival so does your where does your

your program fit and that may be a small

part and a wide a much wider program Are

there specific themes that you tie into

and do those themes allow you to have

idiots whether that's cultural

Excellence participation engagement that

you can demonstrate your activity and

what you've achieved

just going to take a

think about the process that you're

going through in this and the process

that you're going through when you put

on your activity because I think

sometimes the process of if you're

looking for change through something the

process is just as important as the

outputs and outcomes and these last few

columns here but we often miss the

process and sometimes that process of

Engagement with people are some of the

life-changing moments that you may have

in communities

something as simple as putting on a

festival or a van me bringing in people

that have never never participated

before they might volunteer for

something and again you might not know

the impact that's had on them for three

to four months down the line but the

process of even being involved and

putting on

um

an art program or a festival

have you thought about evaluating that

are you managing that process as well so

that gives you lots of

um areas to to contemplate there

and and hopefully is a good resource for

you to use on that too

again

just trying to simplify that so that

it's not scary it's just your aims your

backgrounds what will you put in what

are you doing who'll be involved

what will happen on the day

what are the outcomes you're aiming for

and how will you know when you achieve

it

okay I'm going to move on to

I said we would talk we'd spend a little

bit of time on earlier or quite a bit of

time on really

in terms of understanding the social

value of events and how we evaluate the

social value so in the piece of work

that we did for Spirit of London 2012

and local trust

um this this was quite uh well quite a

big piece of work where we we conducted

an Evidence review and a literature

review for them and we looked at what we

meant by social value and we came up

with six themes

for social value and these are the six

themes here Community participation

well-being

skills negative values and police

and we'd look at how you would evaluate

each of those six themes these six areas

of social value

and I think that's the area that

sometimes

lends itself to much more qualitative

evaluation and

it gives you a richness of data I would

say these are the things that you

instinctively know when you say to me

something I know instinctively this

works I know instinctively that this is

really good for the community and and it

makes it a better place to live people

are engaged it helps with their

well-being

um

at times it can have a skills

development Etc and you you feel that

you can talk about that but can you

demonstrate it

so when would you need to demonstrate it

and who asked you for that

so often with these I say that this

takes us sometimes to when we deal with

politicians or local counselors and they

say

statistics are useful when we need them

on the economic impact and I need you

and I absolutely wholly need you to to

show the the the money that's spent here

has had a return on the investment

sometimes we talk about that return

um not just of investment in

quantitative terms though but in the

qualitative terms and that's when you

can show that the social value is much

more interesting the politicians the

counselors they want to be able to give

that meaningful data you know that

richness and the text of what you have

you're doing as artists because what

you're doing is artists and creatives

isn't always quantifiable it's much more

than that and so by able to justify your

work and social value terms allows you

the chance to explore that depth and to

to show

um the value that this is having in the

community

we're starting to see this much more

being written into

um

government strategy tends to be written

into things like external engagement

strategies soft power agendas for

international relations

um things like that and uh even in the

government white paper on leveling up

for example the leveling up strategy

specifically looks at we want to

increase pride in local community right

well what do you mean by that how did

how do they demonstrate them that

whether or not increasing pride in local

community is there and surely it's it's

the surveys have their place but they're

not the they're not the only thing there

so if we example if we look at that in

terms of place

we want to be able to show that there's

feelings of Pride and attachment to the

local identity if you look at things

like bidding for a commonwealth games or

a city of culture one of the key things

that they ask you especially in bidding

for combo games or in Olympic Games it

says that you as a host City must be

able to demonstrate that the people

of the city and the nation the people of

this the whole city are behind the bid

so you have to demonstrate that they're

behind the bit so that takes more than

just a a quantitative as well so we tend

to see on those large-scale events

people justifying it by engaging artists

engaging filmmakers engaging Sports to

personalities and celebrities that

you'll see go through these video clips

and see back the bit and so they'll be

backing a bit for example campaign

whether that's sporting a culture and

one of the things that they're trying to

demonstrate is this will have an

economic

um benefits to the city that will have

increased Pride to a city it will

improve the skills improve well-being or

improve all of these six social values

that we've said here so things like the

local identity being improved

um whether or not for example you're

making use of public spaces and City

squares creating that sense of place and

identity and branding that wasn't there

before

festivals and events have been good at

this over the years

if you look at something like

um the rise of book festivals for

example and yes more recently through

covert some of them went online but

things like the wigton Book Festival

have created an identity for that town

through their book festivals so that

town is now known or one of the things

it's known is for that big Festival

Glastonbury will be known for its music

festival and how do how does that start

they always start small and then they

grow so these are things about pride and

place and remember without with that

comes some disruption as well and some

disruption is disrupting the norm

um and that can be positive but it can

also have negative effects on things

like social costs and noise and things

like that and we'll look a little bit

these

um in a bit more detail I'd like to

separate them out just slightly to help

you in thinking about those six

areas of social value

I've put them into these are collective

impacts as well I it's what we call from

this so Place participation and

Community are collective impacts I'll

just move myself down there a little bit

I'll see if I can minimize it

um

no okay never mind

um these are collective impacts so we

talk about the community participation

in place all bringing in a sense of

identity with that and if you look at

how we would justify some of these if

you look at Community for example

there's a world Bank questionnaire which

I've got the resource for at the end for

you that will give you a toolkit and an

actual questionnaire on Social Capital

that's what it's called the social

capital in terms of networking community

of development

um how how do you involve

or most members of your community how do

you help grow people's Social Capital

where they want to participate or feel

that they can participate in the

cultural offering that you're putting on

how often do you hear people say well

that's not for me you know that I don't

think I can go to that that's because we

don't have what we sometimes call a

social capital

and that works across many barriers or

many boundaries of one of the things

you're trying to do with vegetables is

to break down those boundaries and say

whether that's

everybody participating in a jam session

of music to listening to Opera we can

try to break down those boundaries and

uh

through music through culture through

ART through participation through

growing that sense of community you're

hoping as well that having programs of

art and culture and festivals will lead

to sustainable communities and that will

help people be resilient in times in

times of difficulty

none greater than that we've just

experienced over the past couple of

years of in times of covert

it's interesting that during the time of

covert

the areas of art and culture became the

most important in our communities in our

schools

we stop stressing so much about teaching

maths and English or we still had to

teach it but we focus much more about

getting people Outdoors participating in

community events listening to music

going for walks in nature

learning to know your place and your

sense of community and and growing

communities together

one of the things that we'd like I I

think going forward from that is not to

lose some of that thing but understand

how we evaluate that and so much has

come out from that that dark period if

you like into much more celebratory

moments and we've been able to go back

and have the Birmingham Commonwealth

Games 2022 and the cultural festivals

and the sharing and participation that

we've missed for so long

we talk of do we build resilient

communities

um yes and but how do you increase

participation some things like that are

a bit more tricky about creating

networks building linkages developing

that Social Capital

um you know staging an event might

increase an audience

participation but does it actually

increase participation in a community

beyond the show itself so what else has

happened and that's sometimes the

Dilemma you have perhaps as cultural

providers and artists of how do we move

Beyond a showcasing event to an

integration of culture and celebration

and and sharing of identities in these

areas

so

often you talk you hear or programs of

Engagement and engagement strategies

from that

one of the things that we looked at

um for the spirit of 2012 work which is

that looking at their legacy you know 10

years on and they're still funding

Community programs along with local

trusts to develop

and and grow participation within the

communities

many of the events that we looked at

that they put on our help fund to for

communities to put on for themselves

empowered them to put them on was they

talked about

A Renewed sense of identity from a

community that learning to love the

place that you you're in and to make

that a better place and to increase the

participation so how on an individual

level can we do that well we can justify

that on we try to look at the people

that we've involved in many groups set

up volunteer committees to run events to

host community events to get the

community together now that can be

fraught with difficulty as I can

probably imagine lots of museums oh we

had lots of volunteers and we all have

different ideas and again it's part of

your logic model of what is it that

you're trying to put on and where are we

trying to go

the skills development is a really good

one we talk about

you can demonstrate an increase in

Social economy skills some of the places

that we looked at as case studies

um there were huge levels of poverty

people who hadn't worked who had

families who hadn't worked for three

generations so they didn't know what

working was yet suddenly he were in

community groups asking them to get

involved

um to especially something like a city

of culture a bit to to get involved to

put on events in their local community

we wouldn't know how to do that they

didn't have the skill set they didn't

feel they did skill set but by

volunteering by working together with

other people this could help develop

social economy skills and through that

experience of volunteering and we've had

that with many Commonwealth Games or

Olympic Games the volunteer programs are

very successful we give people a skill

set that they can then be used in the

workplace and Beyond and and so that

that became much more dominant even on a

small local level from some of the

things that we we saw there yes people

in a local area some some people have a

you know they understand the local

history the identity the heritage of an

area that that perhaps many young people

or people new to the area that

um have joined that local area and don't

know and through this you can you can

have a range of skills coming together

um intergenerational and uh alike to to

work together to develop what you need

and it's about that process again of how

am I developing my skills and making a

chart making a plan for that skills

development and that that sharing from

each of these

some of the work that we saw that came

out of you know UK city of culture birds

and you'll hear that

um especially in places like how as well

who talked strongly about their

volunteer program here and and the

impact locally that that had made these

are all really good career skills that

can be developed

I'd like to just take a little bit of

time by and moving on to thinking about

well-being this is increasingly becoming

a key issue in evaluation terms we've if

you look at things like

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um

New Zealand Finland Scotland these are

all places

um and you and UK government all places

where they are writing in well-being

strategies into their external

engagement strategies into their

um

performance indicators for

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for increasing the economy we're not

just looking at the traditional economic

approaches of public sector growth in

terms of of economic outcomes where

we're looking at if we make if we focus

on well-being and we focus on the

quality of life in communities and

cities and and cities can attract people

to stay there because the quality of

Life's good then we can improve that and

that will grow the economy so it's a

part of taking a different approach to

how you know public sector economics

really and well-being and how we're

going to grow the economy

that isn't the same for everybody but

local

authorities are also taking a well-being

approach from everything from health and

drugs crisis to not seeing examples

elsewhere I've not seen certain problems

as crimes but a Health crisis and once

we approach them as a health issue we're

able to deal with things better

we're seeing

um this is a key social value area

um within events and festivals that have

been running we're looking at how we're

bringing in people and

that perhaps didn't come in before and

things like isolation and loneliness

these are the two key elements that I've

seen across many events that when I've

asked people to when I've worked with

them to do a logic model they say we

want to reduce isolation we want to

increase well-being and we want to

improve people's Mental Health

these are huge asks we have government

programs that have you know may or may

not have achieved all of that but yet

here we're putting this all on to you

know the festivals and events are are

going to be able to create

um

these huge improvements and well-being

so how do we go about it again again

that's about monitoring and evaluation

and looking and sometimes that's what I

said it's not just saying that this is a

short-term gain immediately after your

Festival your program that you do a

survey and you see this was the results

of it because some of that is not

realized for six months a year two years

later and those that were successful

were Community groups that have year

sometimes what we call Hallmark events

where they happen year on year the same

event takes place locally or nationally

and they can go back and say well this

is what we want to achieve and we want

to chart that achievement we want to

chart the engagement how do you set up

do we want to engage certain people and

how will we know when we've achieved it

in terms of the well-being some of the

some of the key studies that we looked

at through the spirits Spirits work and

local trust work was we followed

specific Community groups one in

Yorkshire for example where they

actually set themselves the goal of

reducing isolation reducing loneliness

and trying to bring people in

and at the end of the the community

Festival that they had on for that

summer they were able to realize that

some of the people some some issues are

basic like they don't have transport so

they can't come and if they manage to

put on a minibus to bring people in more

rural areas or outlying areas

um because not every event is in a city

remember so that that would help and

people could come things like

they managed to involve some some

members of the community Through It was

things like um

part of the festival was a dog show it's

something as small as a dog show there

and

and people thought well I I speak to

people in the park by walking my dog

maybe this wouldn't be too much at my

comfort zone back to that Social Capital

do we have something in your event that

talks to each person because not every

event that you might put on will relate

to everybody or or be something that

they want to do

so by people getting involved in this

talk show that then led to some of those

groups getting together and working

together to put on other events and one

of the stories that came from that was

that it involved some individuals who

basically hadn't really been out of

their house much in that past year that

they had got involved because there was

the the dog show that that had led to

something else and the person was then

campaigning for better transport links

to these more rural areas you know a

year down the line but we wouldn't have

known that if they hadn't charted the

engagement with individuals all the way

through that process and goes to that

stage where they said actually we've

looked and people are now going on to do

their own things and and within the

community and these were success moments

these are successful moments for the

general well-being of your community but

they're also success moments for your

politicians and your counselors to say

this is the value of events and

vegetables to answer they're not always

just about the complete artistic moment

of whether people have engaged just with

the art but they are much more far far

reaching benefits within communities and

they're really important

I think some of the most positive things

that

um came out from me from you know years

of working in events and vegetables is

is seeing some of these of skills

development of people of Engagement of

well-being and

that links back to community that makes

them feel part of a community so

sometimes you will hear and see

um event organizers saying this gives a

sense of community so how again this is

about you charting it and having a means

of charting it that might be as simple

as making sure that you have a program

to train volunteers that your volunteers

on the day

are participating in festivities whether

that's a week-long festival or two week

long Festival that they can they are

trained to to mingle and to to speak to

people and have a key set of questions

that doesn't seem like a survey

sometimes what we refer to as go along

interviews so the go-along interviews is

just engaging with people informally

through an event or a festival but

actually they're taking notes and

they're writing these up afterwards and

it's about making feel people feel

comfortable in their environment rather

than the intrusion of an interviewer

with a clipboard saying can I ask you

the following questions you know you may

follow up with surveys afterwards and

they're important

but you may have other means as well

some of those other means may also be in

terms of really really basic if you've

got an International Event and you've

got a range of languages and you don't

have enough people that can speak all of

these different languages I've seen

things like just

you know huge Billboards putting up

Billboards but huge boards put up where

they have emojis and smiley faces that

everybody can relate to in social media

terms and then move these stickers on

the emojis to how they're feeling and

how they event made them feel so at the

end of the day you've got this Rich text

um through emojis of the cement feel

made me feel good it made me feel

welcome it made me feel included it made

me feel I belonged gave me a sense of

Pride and you can do that through emojis

and

everybody can relate to that because

we've got into a way of social media

I've been able to use these to express

our feelings so again just thinking a

bit differently about your audience

I just also mindful of referring you to

other models and things so a really well

established model that has been used in

the health sector

um and social justice nature is

something called the Warwick Edinburgh

mental well-being scale

and this is a survey that's used and

this is just an example of one of the

well-being surveys within it but this is

again the resource for that is at the

end of of this webinar and so you can

see again these are some of the things I

don't need to read all of these to you

but I'm conscious

um to make sure this is order audio

available for everybody that is it says

things like I'm feeling optimistic I'm

feeling useful I feel relaxed and I can

deal with my problems well I feel good

about myself I feel confident so when

you're asked to do a survey about

well-being these are the types of things

that you can ask people and how that

event or artistic performance has made

them feel and they're being used as I

said increasingly more and more

throughout the sector there

so just moving on to sometimes

potentially a difficult one what people

see is a negative perceptions of events

the events we bring sort of anti-social

Behavior they have noise they have

traffic this happens sometimes where

you've got

um Urban or Petty urban areas and they

they have Civic squares that have been

deemed to be used for events and so

every weekend they're suddenly being

used for events and that can create

tensions with people who live there or

sometimes it's Waterfront areas that

have been development as artistic and

cultural areas so these are on all the

time and it's about how you manage

things like noise traffic lettering and

exactly for example

but they can also

um use this as disruption and protest

events in a positive way not all not all

disruption is is a negative that is

often so

um sometimes Civic squares are known for

that these are an area where we can

peacefully protest we can peacefully

have cultural events and Facilities that

helped to engage people in the community

with that peaceful protest and again

looking at those shorter and longer term

impacts for some of them

um

I think it's youthful that you that this

part also goes into your planning

process that this is that you don't

think oh that'll be fine we'll just

manage it you have to have good

relationship with the planners if you

were cutting off streets with the police

you know with your community stewards do

you have enough people starting how do

you deal with complaints how do you deal

with counting people down

um and also at events we need different

zones as well so do you have a quiet

zone for people sometimes that can't

cope with a level of noise or are you

dealing with

um

you know we have such a wide range of

needs for people in the community is

there a way that you're able to

accommodate you know on social inclusion

grounds that you're trying to

accommodate everybody but unless you

plan for that then you won't know if

you've achieved it and you wouldn't not

be able to see in terms of

um monitoring your value afterwards well

actually it was really good because we

were able to have specific zones for

families or specific zones for a quiet

area or we had silent disco or we had

concerts that were X Y and Z that you

were able to quote for and allows you to

address the issues of diversity and

sometimes things of social inclusion

that would be seen as a negative can be

turned around to be a positive whether

that's at an individual level for

somebody or a wider Community level

and then just lastly then to conclude

um

because I talked a lot at you today here

and with you about the the tools for

monitoring and evaluation but also about

understanding the social values and you

know I would finish by seeing

the increasingly we're moving towards

social values are planned and charted as

outputs and outcomes and then as we've

seen they're not the same thing and that

they're just as important as the

economic impact from festivals and

events or from sporting events and so

just as Birmingham cultural Festival was

attached to sporting but then we we see

that these are interlinked and

and this is always part of whether it's

the Olympics and having a cultural

Olympiad or a commonwealth games or a

city of culture we have cultural

facilities as part of the work that we

do around these events and and because

we don't just put on these events just

for their sporting prowess or whatever

this is about an identity and connecting

and the entertainment for the city and

for the for the the global media across

the world and showcasing our culture to

others so that we can then use that in

International women International ways

for exchange and that leads and helps

with government in terms of our

developing of our soft power and

attributes through our culture

um and support and showcases the cities

that we have that in and so we're able

to increase our exchange value and that

so results in perhaps more trade results

and more people exchanging are coming to

study with this for example cities are

much more aware of this on this National

level and they're trying to ensure that

the events that they have

um that we can justify the monitoring

evaluation far beyond just the the

economic value but in these social

values

so and then lastly just to see

remember events are markers of identity

they are about our multiple identities

within our communities and our cultural

identity that's what community

engagement together well-being and

inclusion and we have to celebrate and

understand and demonstrate both our

tangible and those intangible outcomes

from that I mean the stories the the

history of our cultures that we

celebrate through that

that's all for today I have finished

with some resources here for you that

you should be able to link on that take

you to economic resources social value

resources well-being and social capital

resources thank you very much for

staying with me for just about an hour

and

um I will be delighted to come and do a

question and answer session with you

later

um next month thank you very much