Early contractor involvement (ECI) in event planning and management

Large and mega-events employ traditional procurement approaches, adopting an adversarial stance with contractors/suppliers. These events are often beset with problems with the contractors/suppliers. This study investigates whether early contractor involvement (ECI) is being applied to the procurement processes within the event planning and management industry and to explore the potential benefits and challenges of the application of ECI within that industry. ECI attempts to exploit the contractor/supplier's specialist knowledge and expertise to the benefit the project planning and design process to provide mutual benefits and minimise the drawbacks associated with an adversarial contract. This paper argues that an event is a particular type of project and discusses the potential benefits of ECI to the event planning and management industry. A literature review approach was used to explore the construction and infrastructure industries and the event planning and management industry to determine whether ECI is being utilized to any meaningful degree. Overall the study findings indicate that by adopting ECI the event planning and management industry could expect similar benefits to those observed in the construction and infrastructure industries.