The Importance Of Unplanned Events

INTRODUCTION
“Festivals and events are special times in people’s lives, they give us the opportunity to go outside normal experiences for a cultural, social or leisure experience.” – Daves and Brown (2000). Events are a special part of life and most individuals would have had the opportunity to experience an event or some sort, and in the process, enhance their cultural, social and leisure experience. So what exactly is an event? Originally derived from the Latin word “eventus” which means “outcome, result, success” (Damm, 2010), ‘event’ can be defined in three ways, as Getz (2012) suggests; “an occurrence at a given place and time; a special set of circumstances; a noteworthy occurrence”. Events usually include birthday celebrations, weddings,

This paper will discuss the relation between Event Studies and unplanned events, the importance of studying unplanned events, and briefly discuss the difference between unplanned events and

It all started in March 1991 when Rodney King was spotted speeding while drunk and led police on a high-speed pursuit. When King came to a halt, a witness caught on tape, four police officers beating King and submitted it to the authorities. The four police officers were found innocent and this verdict led to a riot by outraged African-Americans on 29 April 1992. Although the riots appear to be sudden and unplanned to many, the Los Angeles riots can be said to be a planned mishap waiting to happen as a result of several social conditions like poverty, racism and police brutality that caused dissatisfaction amongst the people, and the incident involving Rodney King was the breaking point. As Smyth (2006) suggests, “the Los Angeles Riots were not borne overnight.” As a result of the riots, Los Angeles suffered damages of around $1 billion and 53 people were killed, thousands were injured and 5,000 were arrested. It is not coincidental that more than 5,000 people would appear at the same place and time, protesting about the same issue, and so happen to have with them weapons to destroy the city. The riots were clearly planned out. However, the riots are regarded as unplanned events because of the scale of planning. The individuals involved had different reasons for getting involved; some may be friends of King and others could include the social circle of victims of