Giga-events, host communities, and liminal spaces: Affording immediate local leveraging at the Rio 2016 Games

Mega-sport events re-configure the way visitors flow, engage and consume across the ‘host city’. Public spaces are transformed into new private commercial zones – ripe for sponsor activation and presence. Yet a latent but emerging body of evidence a latent but emerging body of evidence identifies that such exclusive touristic-event spaces often restrict access for local entrepreneurs - precluding productive forms of ‘entrepreneurial leverage’. We examine Rio’s 2016 Olympic event spaces to investigate such spatial and economic effects. Empirical, qualitative insights are generated through real-time observation, photo and video diaries capturing visitor flows, engagements and consumption with (or not) local entrepreneurs across three official Olympic zones: Copacabana beach, Olympic Boulevard in Porto Maravilha, and Olympic Stadium in Maracanã. Furthermore, we draw on 17 interviews with governmental, non-governmental, and senior tourism industry actors to corroborate real-time analysis. Contrary to previous research, our findings reveal how Rio’s event zones represented a disruption in global-corporate consumption and logic – offering a balanced platform for both global businesses and local entrepreneurs to leverage mega-event visitor economies. We conceptualise these spaces as both ‘liminal’ and ‘liminoidal’ – generating a unique transitional dwelling space across ‘transit zones’ to and from event venue seldom found in other mega-sport event contexts. We present Rio 2016 as a positive case for supporting fairer and more equitable (re)distribution of economic opportunity to existing communities, specifically local entrepreneurs.