The Charter for Mega-Events in Heritage-Rich Cities provides principles and recommendations that can help cities take advantage of the opportunities offered by mega-events and mitigate their risks. The Charter explores issues ranging from the new uses and physical stresses that mega-events can introduce in historic areas to changes in the understanding of heritage spaces. It explores the challenges for the local governance of mega-events.
Local policymakers can refer to the Charter’s recommendations from the initial bidding stages for cultural mega-events like Capital/City of Culture programmes and throughout the planning of the event and its legacy. More broadly, the Charter can be useful for organising other large cultural events, festivals, and sports mega-events that interact with cities’ tangible and intangible heritage.
The Charter consists of 13 key principles representing the Charter’s core values, structured within the four themes: Context matters; Planning legacies; Inclusive governance; Communities and identities. The accompanying Key concepts provides readers short definitions of the Charter’s terms. Finally, the Snapshots section gives concrete examples of each of the 13 principles, presenting the cases in which they were observed. These snapshot views of both successful cases and also more critical aspects can assist policymakers and event organizers with best practices, key issues and missed opportunities from which to learn.
