Assessment One – Part A: Facility Critique
NB Students are expected to hand in assignment work by the due date. Failure to do so will incur a penalty of 5% per day late. In the case of sickness or accident a medical certificate will be required to obtain an extension to complete set assignments.
Students will be required to select a sport, leisure or recreation facility upon which to base a case study. Once the facility has provided permission, students will undertake a site visit(s) whereupon data for the case study will be collected. It may be necessary to interview members of staff, as well as gathering information from documents that the facility has on hand or on –line, or more broadly from the media/local council etc. This is designed to be a more applied assignment rather than a theoretically based assignment. Having said that, there is a need to investigate the facility from a broad theoretical standpoint as applying to each of the areas below.
The case study should include:
a) A description (audit) of the facility and its management;
b) A critical analysis (i.e., ‘the good, the bad, and the ugly’ of the facility and its management);
c) Recommendations/solutions (i.e., to solve/reduce the problems/weaknesses you identify in the critical analysis); and
d) A reference list (to support your critical analysis and recommendations/solutions)
The case study should identify those issues noted in the following major headings (in bold) and ascertain whether these areas are required to be explored. The contents of each heading are guides, rather than aspects that must be covered.
Introduction & nature of facility
• spectator facilities
• participative facilities
• natural facilities
• multi-use facilities
Design & construction
• needs assessment
• physical layout, construction & renovation
• environment/location
• ownership/management
Strategy & structure
• scope & stakeholders
• situation audit & competitive analysis
• customers (major tenants, events, vendors, performers, corporate hospitality, etc.)
• organisational structure/staffing/human resources
Marketing & quality
• quality service systems
• positioning
• marketing communications
• public relations
• pricing
• advertising & promotions
• merchandise & licensing
• memberships & tickets
• responding to the market
• information systems
• market research
• attracting and servicing sponsors
Programming
• customer types (e.g., active versus passive, individual versus group)
• providing space versus providing activities
• equity & social justice
• linking programming to needs
• linking programming to staffing
• programming practicalities
• challenges of innovative programming
• scheduling
• balancing tenant needs
• fixtures & tournaments
• scheduling staff
• booking organisations and events
• booking performers
Logistics
• capacity planning & demand forecasting
• supply chain management
• procurement
• staging
• performance needs
• media
• venues
• set-up and removal
• temporary venues
• transport
• communication networks
• queuing and flow control
• contingency planning
Operations
• security
• emergency & medical
• box office/ticketing/reception
• registration & accreditation
• media relations
• cleaning & maintenance
• catering & hospitality
• information technology
• purchasing
Evaluation (i.e., by the facility – not YOU)
• measuring performance
• links to strategies and objectives
• service quality
• customer satisfaction
• benchmarking
• analysing impacts
• reporting
Assessment One – Part B: Facility Future Plan

Students will support their facility critique through assessing the future planning and design approaches towards their chosen facility. Development of the feasibility and/or design process associated with a sport facility will be undertaken.
Taking the considerations from the facility critique, the current options provided within the chosen facility and future opportunities/development for this particular facility need to be addressed. Focussing on the same facility you have audited in Part A, this part of the paper reviews the feasibility and design attributes applicable to the future development of the facility.
The audit (Part A) explains what the facility currently is; the future plan (Part B) explains what the facility could develop into. Take at least a 5-10 year ‘into the future’ viewpoint.
Paper Due Date - Friday, 28 August, 2015
Length of Paper - 4,000 words.
Available marks - Written paper 50%
Information can be obtained from the selected readings list, lectures, and from newspapers, magazines, local councils, facility managers, annual reports, planning documents etc.