Event legacies.

Abstract

Abstract Event legacies include, but also go beyond, the long-term impacts of an event. While the majority of research on sports events legacies has focused on mega-events hosted in urban cities, the concept is shown here to be equally applicable to smaller sports events and those hosted in rural areas. In the case of a biennial sports event held at different sites in different years - like the Icelandic horse championships, Landsmót - legacies build over time, related to various aspects such as infrastructure, environment, culture, sport and event policies. In this chapter the legacies of Landsmót 2016 are explored, focusing on infrastructure, rurality as a cultural aspect of the event and the affective or emotional impacts as important in legacy building. Data for this chapter were collected through semi-structured retrospective interviews with five individuals engaged in planning and running Landsmót 2016 in Hólar, Iceland.