Virtual Special Issue: International Women's Day (2026)
Collectively, these contributions published in the International Journal of Event and Festival Management signal that gender equality is a central, structuring issue that shapes how events are conceived, designed and experienced. From Monterrubio, Daspher and Hernandez-Espinosa’s (2026) positioning of organisers as ethical and political agents, to Dasper and Finkel’s (2020) call to interrogate how we “do gender” in event research, the journal has provided a platform for scholarship that challenges taken-for-granted norms. The work of Walters, Hassanli and Finkler (2021) and Walters and Higgins-Desbiolles (2024) on academic conferences exposes how even scholarly spaces reproduce inequality, while Swartjes (2024), Kinnunen and Honkanen (2025), and Lata and Jasotia (2025) illuminate how gender intersects with race, minority status and professional access across festivals and event industries globally. By foregrounding these critical perspectives, the International Journal of Event and Festival Management demonstrates its commitment to examining power, representation and inclusion within the field.
In the spirit of International Women’s Day, the journal seeks not only to publish research on gender equality but to actively encourage scholars to be bold in how they frame such work. This means moving beyond descriptive accounts of imbalance towards theoretically ambitious, methodologically innovative and politically engaged scholarship that interrogates structures, challenges dominant practices and proposes transformative alternatives. We invite researchers to question whose voices are centred in event spaces, whose labour is rendered invisible, and how event design can either reproduce or disrupt inequality. International Women’s Day reminds us that progress requires courage as well as critique. The International Journal of Event and Festival Management stands as a forum for that courage supporting work that is reflexive, intersectional and committed to advancing gender justice within event and festival research and practice. If you have a paper that you would like to submit in this area of research please do get in touch with us.
All papers in this special issue will be free to access between 8th March-8th April 2026.
Curating equality, diversity and inclusion: event organisers as ethical and political agents in Mexico's community carnivals
Carlos Monterrubio, Katherine Daspher and Rafael Hernandez-Espinosa
“Doing gender” in critical event studies: a dual agenda for research
Katherine Dasper and Rebecca Finkel
The role of academic conferences in the [re]production of gender inequality in business disciplines: not just a STEM problem
Trudie Walters, Najameh Hassanli and Wiebke Finkler
“I didn’t want to promote it with a white girl”: marketing practices and boundary work at popular music festivals
Britt Swartjes
Opportunity lost: addressing DEI in academic conference design practices
Trudie Walters and Freya Higgins-Desbiolles
Gender minorities at music festivals
Maarit Kinnunen and Antti Honkanen
India’s event industry diversity deficit: are minority students left out?
Suman Lata and Aruditya Jasotia