Do You Belong with Me?
Rethinking Events & City Identity
Does every event truly belong to where it's held?
Not every event belongs everywhere. Just because a city can host something big, doesn't mean it should.
Take Singapore's exclusive deal to host Taylor Swift's Eras Tour as Southeast Asia's only stop. On paper, it was a major coup—tens of thousands of Swifties, booming hotel bookings, and months of media coverage. But was it the right match? Fans across the region felt excluded. The moment felt less like a celebration and more like a commercial transaction. A cultural spark, auctioned to the highest bidder.
Which raises the real question: when a city says "you belong with me" to an event, do the feelings match—or is it just singing along to someone else's tune?
Whose Stage Is It, Anyway?
This was the question I posed to European cities during the VivaCITY panel discussion at the recent tourism conference of CityDNA in Budapest: do the events you attract fit your city's identity? Some cities already apply this as a key criterion in their event bidding process. Others? Not so much.
Too often, the tourism board isn't even at the table when major event decisions are made. City officials or economic departments strike the deals. Only afterward are tourism teams called in to make it work—sometimes with great success, but just as often at great cost.
When tourism professionals are excluded, opportunities are missed to align events with the city's long-term narrative, values, and residents' needs.
Events as Expressions of Identity
Events are more than entertainment—they're powerful tools of identity and belonging. A good event doesn't just fill hotel rooms. It strengthens the cultural DNA of a place, deepens local pride, and communicates a clear sense of what a city stands for.
If your event calendar is filled with borrowed fame- global acts with no local roots—what does that say about your city? That you're ambitious? Or that you're insecure?
Local involvement is also key. Who shaped the event? Who profited? Who was left out? Residents bear the cost—traffic, noise, higher prices—yet often aren't consulted. Volunteers and vendors carry the logistics. And tourism boards are asked to promote it all, even if they never signed off.
Beyond Numbers: A New Definition of Success
It's time to update the way we measure success. Beyond attendance and revenue, we should ask:
- Does this event reflect who we are?
- Does it bring people together or just consumers to a transaction?
- Will it still mean something here five years from now?
Because if an event doesn't belong to your city, it can just as easily belong somewhere else next year. Identity, not just infrastructure, is what keeps it rooted and makes it flourish.
"If you could see that I'm the one who understands you…" sings Taylor Swift to her fans. She is right because in the end: a place that hosts everything and everyone eventually stands for nothing.
- ELKE DENS
This is an article in the VivaCITY series.