What is the Active Economy?
Today, the $3 Trillion global active economy incorporates all for-profit, not-for-profit and public organizations and individuals who directly or indirectly contribute to the development and delivery of sport and active recreation experiences, whose aim is expressing or improving individual or community physical, mental and/or social health and wellness. The active ecosystem is composed of ten sectors in the Figure below.
The ActiveCITY Collective
The ActiveCITY Collective is a collaboration of not-for-profit, for-profit and public-sector organizations and individuals engaged in Calgary’s regional active economy. Our objective is to facilitate collaboration, debate, learning and connection to shape system wide solutions. Our ultimate goal is transforming Calgary into Canada’s most livable region by maximizing the potential of our natural competitive advantage – our active economy.
From the Prairies to the mountains and from the Bow to the Elbow rivers, spanning winter and summer, Calgary is a naturally active city. But our real strength are the hundreds of thousands of people engaged actively every day in the active economy, as participants, leaders, volunteers, fans and supporters. So whether you cycle, garden, do Tai Chi, design sport tech or are just a fan, you are part of our rich active economy.
In the Calgary region, the active economy includes in excess of 2000 organizations and hundreds of thousands of people, powering the economic and social prosperity of our community.
Whereas, Silicon Valley is a leader in technology and London in financial services, Calgary possesses the natural resources - our history, our people and our environment - to be a global leader in the active economy.
But being a global leader rarely happens by accident. It happens because of a plan and commitment.
Over the next year, the ActiveCITY Collective is engaging thousands of Calgarian’s to develop a collective vision and framework for maximizing the potential of our active economy and transform Calgary into Canada’s most livable region.
The Future of the Live Experience Economy
Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 on Calgary’s Live Experience Economy
The spread of COVID-19 resulted in the closing of all non-essential organizations. One of the hardest hit sectors was the collocated live experience economy. Collocated live experiences are those sectors where a minimum of 50% of products or services revenue is dependent on both the live experience producer and their customers being collocated in the same physical space. The collocated live experience economy incorporates nine sectors, including organized sport, active recreation, arts and culture, food services, retail and personal care services. In pre-COVID-19 Calgary, this included almost 15,000 organizations employing 152,000 people.
The consequences of COVID-19 mitigation measures have been not only the forced closure of many collocated live experiences, but also the explosion of innovations, as organizations sought to engage their customers through alternative means. At a global level, examples of innovations include Michelin Star restaurants offering food delivery, museums providing robotic tours, NASCAR hosting virtual races with their drivers, and musicians live streaming concerts.
There remains a fundamental question of whether entire sectors of our city have pathways to sustainability. The many innovations sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic also triggered a strategic reorientation for these organizations. Those who can develop innovations that are authentic and still generate revenue may then be in a position to further leverage these innovations for sustained growth. The discussion paper considers three questions:
Can innovative business models developed, tested, and implemented during the pandemic trigger a structural change in live experiences?
Will these innovations offer comparative, superior, or inferior value to customers?
Can a more stable and sustained live experience business model be developed?
In this discussion paper, we examine the factors that influence a customer’s decision to adopt or reject innovations in live experiences and the impact this will have on the financial sustainability of specific sectors. No LX producer could have prepared for the unprecedented impact of a global pandemic. Nor could they have anticipated the devastation that COVID-19 would have on the CLX industry. However, these same entrepreneurs and small business owners do control the decisions that will influence their future. To support these organizations, we provide a diagnostic framework for live experience organizations to evaluate their future. Finally, we use this framework to map a series of potential innovation pathways for diverse sub-sectors of the live experience economy, from film festivals, to fitness centres, to restaurants and retail.
The discussion paper can be downloaded by clicking below.