Sir – 2011 has not been a good year for live events as many festivals and carnivals face shrinking audiences and revenues.

A highly acclaimed event has gone under the truck and the Cowley Road Carnival, with its recurrent funding problems, saw its audience halved compared to last year’s event.

This is bad news for organisers, service providers and ultimately the public.

It could not have come at a worse time as Britain hosts the Olympics next year, an opportunity to showcase non-sporting events. In a way this should not have been too much of a surprise. The last decade has seen a mushrooming of live events in the country and, it is only natural for the industry to go through a consolidation process. Costs have typically ballooned, largely related to health and safety issues. The recession has not helped but much of it relates to management.

Live events that will survive the current turmoil would need to go through radical changes. In particular, they need to take the project management approach, making comprehensive plans covering all aspects of managing the event, augmented by systems to account for unplanned for developments and changes to the original plan.

They must implement extensive marketing and media management campaigns and give themselves enough lead time to realise low event spend per audience.

Survivors will be events that keep their costs low and at the same time draw in the crowds. At the end of the day, the message to organisers is that there are too many live events and, many of you are not offering what we want or need, so shape up or we will continue to vote with our feet and wallets.

Boima Rogers, Media and Event Management Oxford