Understanding an event portfolio: the uncovering of interrelationships, synergies, and leveraging opportunities

Although the potential value of an event portfolio strategy has been suggested in the literature, there are no empirical studies exploring the nature and implementation of event portfolios. To fill this gap, the purpose of this study was to understand an event portfolio by uncovering the interrelationships and synergies that assemble different events together as valuable community assets and foster an integrative mindset toward their use. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in the rural community of Fort Stockton, Texas, investigating its event portfolio. Results show that event interrelationships are grounded on the instrumental connectivity of events in terms of sharing common elements, objectives, and resources. This cultivates an organic event relatedness that capitalizes on experiential capacity, maintenance of volunteer pools, and generation of new or complementary markets. The local governmental structure enables collaboration setting mutual objectives, sharing common resources, and coordinating event implementations. However, strategic planning is not employed, and subsequently, events in the portfolio are not cross‐leveraged, leaving missed opportunities to magnify its value. The findings of this study have implications for event policy and management. A holistic policy approach is required if it is to foster and fully exploit the potential of event portfolios. Event planners need to create synergies among different events and integrate associated economic, tourism, leisure, sport, or socio‐cultural objectives by formulating and implementing joint strategies. A focus on event interrelationships can ultimately help event planners find the best means to leverage event portfolios.