Riga Cup organization

Abstract

This diary-based thesis was created as a learning diary for a ten week period. The thesis will follow the journey of the author as event manager and organiser in planning and executing a successful two day orienteering competition near Riga, Latvia. The aim of the competition is to attract at least 500 participants from more than five countries and create exciting rivalries for the main age categories. The aim of the author is to enhance the understanding of event director role and event management. The event will be part of the Latvian orienteering cup competition series and is expected to be one of the main events of the Latvian orienteering spring season. The author will report on how the idea about the event came up and report the progress and tasks over ten weeks, starting from week 5 in 2023, leading up to the event, which will be held on April 8th and 9th, 2023. The focus will be on the planning and execution stages of the event, with an emphasis on the responsibilities of the event director in ensuring that the target audience is reached. The report will first analyse the role of event director where the main source book is Project Leadership by Timothy J. Kloppenborg, Arthur Shriberg and Jayashree Venkatraman. Followed by the daily entries where the event director describes the tasks that were done in order to achieve the end goal. The competition Riga Cup is in the tenth week of weekly reports at which all the preparation for the event is finally executed and the goal of reaching 500 participants is achieved. The final discussion section looks back at the long process of event organisation and the author reflects on the work accomplished and the outcomes that could be implemented in the future. The aim of the thesis is accomplished as the understanding of the event director role is deepened.