Data management and governance in Events: A Research Agenda

This presentation considers the issues around data management and data governance for the events industry. While there are many opportunities to incorporate technology to enhance attendee experience and allow more efficient management of event production, the potential issues of how this data is managed appear to be under researched.
Current research as reviewed by Ryan et al. (2020) and Celuch (2021) show a relatively comprehensive coverage of social media usage, e-ticketing and other forms of personalisation and operational management. Similarly, the use of wearable devices is moving from pioneers such as Disney to become a more common part of hospitality and events (Nadkarni et al., 2020). Virtual and hybrid events have become part of the mainstream, although with questions around attendee experience (Iyer, 2022). Similarly, generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is being touted as a way to simplify personalisation and incorporate Augmented Reality (AR) into event delivery (Lopes et al., 2025).
While the need for reliable and accurate technology has been noted (Lopes et al., 2025), the ethics involved in holding large volumes of attendee data and the risks of reliance on technology are less researched. While data ethics can be considered as part of the domain of business ethics more generally (Tavani, 2002), there are potential issues that need to be considered in the context of the novelty introduced by technology (Kantar & Bynum, 2021; Maner, 1996; Tavani, 2002). There is also a need for a global view of data ethics given the global reach of technology (Kantar & Bynum, 2021). Data ethics includes not only privacy and security but also cybercrime, digital exclusion, and the potential for algorithms to full short of the requirements of transparency and fairness, especially when used as a guide for decision making (Tavani, 2002; Vallor, 2018).
In an events context, much of the focus has been in compliance issues such as the requirements of the General Data protection Requirements (GDPR) along with some research on cybersecurity in a sporting context (Bongiovanni et al., 2024). The implications of the human factors involved in data governance and management are still under researched generally (Dalal et al., 2022) and will need to be considered in the context of the industry structures of event delivery. For attendees, the level of awareness of the trade-offs they are making between convenience and control of their own data needs to be understood. Lastly, the ethical dilemmas posed by AI, particularly the unauthorised use of creative works for training models and potential bias incorporated need to be confronted (Vallor, 2024).

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