Developing a Community of Practice - no brainer or complicated business? Lessons to date from the field of Events Management in Northern Ireland

AbstractIn 2012 the “Our time, our place” campaign brought together a yearlong calendar of events throughout Northern Ireland (NI). The following year NI was the setting for the first ever UK city of culture with the host city Derry-Londonderry again providing an impressive calendar of wide ranging and varied events. In the period 2012/2013 NI has successfully staged a number of successful events on a scale it had never previously experienced. Not surprisingly and fresh from the momentum of staging successful events, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) has recently launched its Events Strategic Vision. Central to the vision is the aspiration that NI will be known as the home of great events and that the type of events hosted will include major global events. There is a clear strategic direction for the future development of tourism in NI which is driven by a programme of international, national and local events. NI is truly starting to come of age in relation to successful events. In terms of third level education there are a number of programmes of study in this subject area which are validated and delivered by the University of Ulster and its partner colleges. It is not surprising therefore that with such emphasis on developing events in the region a Community of Practice might seem like an obvious choice to advance the agenda for events development in NI. This paper traces the background to and rationale for developing a NI Events Management Community of Practice as well as providing an insight into progress to date.