Managing communications for large Church events: Best practices for Krakow 2016 and Dublin 2018

Abstract

Large events present institutions a unique and powerful opportunity to communicate its message. It appears that the Church has recognized this communications tool all through its history, but in a specific way over the last 30 years in which both World Youth Days and World Meetings of Families began. Given the nature of these events as unequalled communications opportunities, it is of equal importance that organizers of large Church events prioritize the communicative dimension, understanding it as key to the success of the event itself. The scope of this paper is not only to aid organizers in understanding the importance of communications, but also to provide the communication directors of large Church events with some guiding best practices. The authors focus on ten best practices specifically, ordered from strategic to tactical, which are based on official reports and past personal experiences, making the work more practical than theoretical in nature.