Organizing events for configuring and maintaining creative fields

Events such as conferences, trade fairs, festivals, award ceremonies and related phenomena are becoming an increasingly prominent research topic in the social sciences. Sometimes classified as field-configuring events, tournament rituals, or temporary clusters, such intentionally organized temporary social arenas in which diverse members of an industry or organizational field assemble, often periodically, have recently been recognized as important selection environments and sites for the negotiation of values in creative industries. By drawing on theoretical concepts from management studies, organizational sociology, and economic geography, this chapter provides a review of the existing research on what we denote as " organized field-level events " and proposes three theoretical perspectives: organized field-level events as creative products, events as mechanisms of configuring and maintaining creative fields, and organizing field-level events as a form of institutional work.