COVID-19: an opportunity to review existing grounded theories in event studies

Abstract

Abstract The outbreak of COVID-19 has negatively impacted the event industry, while offering it opportunities to reinvent itself. Reviewing some of Getz (2012) futurist thoughts, is part of this reinvention process. This study concludes that: (a) Future Proposition 2 is accurate (b) Future Propositions 1 and 7 need precisions, and as a result has been reformulated as follow:  New Future Proposition 1: Planned, live events, both personal and societal in scale and meaning, will always be a prominent feature of civilization, in all societies and cultures. However, in time of pandemics or other crisis, live events might be perturbed, before a staggered return to normal under certain conditions, and strict controls.  New Future Proposition 7: As travel and tourism collapse, possibly because of the cascading effects of global warming, another energy crisis, war terrorism or global pandemics, events will also collapse temporarily, but will remain important globally because they meet fundamental human needs.  On top of Getz (2012) future thoughts, this study suggests additional Future Propositions.