The city of Joensuu is known as an event city, where numerous events take place all year round. The events show significant regional economic and social meanings that bring vitality to Joensuu and the province. Joensuu strives for more diverse events throughout the year and the city’s own capacity to host major events is being developed. There has not been a systematic and goal-oriented dialogue between the events and the local business community to develop events and related transactions or to create new attractive events. Often, transaction actors’ resources are not sufficient to invest in business cooperation, business services or new business models and ideas. On the other hand, SMEs do not have a direct and organised channel to engage in targeted discussions with the event industry. Most cultural and festival events are also currently suffering from a lack of financial resources and many of them rely on diminishing public support instruments. As a result, dialogue between events and cooperation with the business sector needs to be improved.The “Events” project will increase dialogue between SMEs and, more broadly, between industry and events. The project will bring together a network of corporate, community and private individuals at established events, together with which the conditions for the operation of events, business opportunities, impact assessment tools will be developed and models for the common market and common services will be developed. No similar type of project has been carried out in North Karelia or Joensuu in the past. Extensive support from business associations brings new opportunities for the development of the event sector. The project partners include the North Karelia Chamber of Commerce Association, North Karelia Entrepreneurs ry, Joensuun Yrittäjät ry, Joensuun Popmussikot ry, Joensuun Töminä Oy and Karelia Expert Oy. The project’s objectives are:- To create new ways of dialogue between industry and the event industry, to encourage events to develop business and increase business opportunities for both companies and events- The development of event producers’ content and business know-how in a long-term perspective- Create new innovation platforms for events and small and medium-sized enterprises in the development of events- Supporting and activating new business opportunities for events and event producers. In addition to these, the project develops event producer marketing to promote attractive events in the Joensuu region and creates different tools for impact assessment and regional economic impact assessment.1. Event Forums: • Tools for event monitoring and impact assessment • Development and testing of co-production models • Strengthening the financing base of events, in particular experiments related to event sponsorship and business cooperation (e.g. partner lunches) • Development sessions with companies and experts2. Event clinics: • Event clinics’ content is tailored to the needs of the region, taking into account the needs of event safety, business, sustainable development tools, insurance and marketing • Implementation of event tools • Development of new event concepts, services and business3. Transaction study: • Up-to-date research data collection and assessment of the regional economic impact of events • Create assessment tools for participating events to measure the impact of events (regional, environmental, social, cultural) • Development of customer and consumer research and implementation of tools • Burden down smaller case research needs4. Event Producer Marketing: • Focus on collecting leading events from different sectors to Joensuu, networking and productisation of services • Planning and implementing the regional common market and communication measures together with entrepreneurs and event producers in the regionThe results of the project are:- The events in the North Karelia and Joensuu region can be found in a regular way of meeting and innovation for the development of event business- Events in the North Karelia and Joensuu region create