This document provides background context for a study on Ireland's event planning processes. It notes that the event industry is worth €450 million annually to Ireland's economy. In 2015, a large concert cancellation due to licensing issues prompted a review of planning for large events. The study will focus on the role of local authorities and Dublin City Council's processes for issuing event permits. It notes that most Irish events are small-to-medium sized and managed by non-professionals, while Dublin City Council processed only 11 large event applications in 2015. The planning processes vary between local authorities and lack environmental sustainability guidelines.

1. Backgroundand Context of Study
Ireland like any country has seen the positives of the event industry can contribute to the
country’s economy. It has been published that the event industry is worth €450 million to
the Irish economy and supports up 9,000 full time jobs in Ireland
(ww.failteireland.ie/Footer/Media-Centre/As-bank-holiday-arrives,-tourism-industry-hopes-
fo.aspx). In the last number of years Ireland has seen a steady increase in the number of
large events that it hosts and the number of small and medium size events has increased
rapidly over the same period. With this in mind in 2015 after the cancelation of the Grath
Brookes concert in Croke Park where there was 400,000 tickets sold got cancelled over
licencing issues, called for review and changes to be made to the planning process for large
events in Ireland to prevent this situation from happening again. This study is going to
review the new amendments made to the planning process of events in Ireland carried out
by the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government. For this research
project the research is predominantly going to be focused on Local authority’s involvement
in planning process of an event licence application in Ireland. The research of this project is
going to focus on events held in Dublin because Dublin city is the capital city in Ireland and
attracts more public events than any other city in Ireland. It will also contextualize the study
to the process in which event organizers have to go through with the Dublin City Council to
get a permit to host an event in Dublin and comparing them to other process in the rest
country.
It has been noted that small and medium size events that have the capacity attendance of
less than 5000 don’t have to go through a rigorous planning process compare to the
planning process of large events that have a public attendance of more than 5000+. With
this in mind vast majority of the events that carry out in Ireland are classified small to
medium size events and a large proportion of these events are hosted in Dublin city. During
2015 Dublin City Council Events and Tourism Unit processed 505 events with a capacity of
attendees less than 5000. This high percentage identifies that the vast majority of events in
Ireland are classified as small to medium size events are usually organised and managed by
amateur Event Organisers or non-professionals e.g. event committee for a community
event.
Also Dublin City Council Planning Department only processed 11 events applications that
where classified as large events (more than 5000 capacity) in 2015. It is important to state
that these applications where processed before the new amendments where brought into
the planning application for event licence for large events.
In Ireland there is a variety of permits and applications that must be submitted by the event
organiser to the relevant agencies/ bodies in order to gain permission to stage their event
(discussed in more debt in chapter two). Currently in event planning system in Ireland

2. regarding applications and processes for small to medium size events vary from one Local
Authority to another. There is also a lack of environmental sustainable guidelines and
policies in the planning process for all types of events in Ireland.
Justificationfor Study
Aims and Objectives
The Current Planning Process inIreland:
In Ireland there is a requirement for most public events to have some form of official
permission for them to take place. This official permission varies depending on the scale and
type of event. Smaller events in Ireland request less oversight from the local authorities and
official bodies compare to larger scale event (capacity 5000+). Since there is more oversight
given to the larger events, it results in more diligent planning process taken by all event
organiser and stakeholders involved in the planning process. This more diligent