Johnny Allen was the foundation director of theAustralian Centre for Event Management (ACEM) at the University ofTechnology, Sydney where he is now associate director, businessdevelopment. He was event manager for the Darling Harbour Authorityfrom 1989 to 1996, and has an extensive career in event planning.Prior to his position at the ACEM, he was the special event managerfor Tourism New South Wales. Johnny is now semi-retired butcontinues his involvement with event management and eventeducation. William O Toole is an international eventsdevelopment specialist. He assists councils, cities, regions,countries and companies to grow their events portfolio and writetheir strategies. For five years he advised the Supreme CommissionforTourism in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the development oftheir tourism event program in the thirteen provinces. Bill trainsand assists the United Nations event organisers in places such asthe Sudan and Uganda and is facilitating the development of theevent industry in Kenya. He is a founding director of the EventManagement Body of Knowledge and key adviser to the InternationalEvent Management Competency Standard. From Scotland toJohannesburg, he has trained events staff in the application ofproject and risk management to their events. Bill has been involvedin events innovation, creation, operations, management and strategyin over 30 countries. He is currently writing a textbook on eventsfeasibility and development. Rob Harris has been involved in event management,education and research for over 10 years and has developedundergraduate, postgraduate and TAFE programs in the area. Robteaches programs in event management in a number of countriesaround the world including England, Scotland, Singapore, China,Malaysia and New Zealand. He is a founding Director of the NewSouth Wales Festivals and Events Association and is a member of theeditorial board of the journals Event Management andInternational Journal of Event Management Research . He iscurrently completing his doctoral studies in the use of events astools in driving the ecologically sustainable development agenda ofthe places where they take place. Ian McDonnell is a senior lecturer in the Faculty ofBusiness s School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism at theUniversity of Technology, Sydney (UTS) where he teaches managementand marketing of leisure and tourism services. He, along withJohnny Allen, constructed the very fi rst academic course in eventmanagement in Australia and perhaps the world the ExecutiveCertifi cate in Event Management held at UTS in 1996. He soondiscovered that there was no useful text book for a course of thistype, hence the origin of the this text, now in its fi fth edition.He continues to research in event management, particularly thesponsorship of events.