Assembling urban mega-events: The life cycle of the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland

Urban mega-event research has been largely shaped by studies of premier spectacles, such as the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, where governance is commonly interpreted through urban entrepreneurialism, elite coalitions, and state-of-exception arguments. These frameworks are less suited to second-tier events, whose institutional arrangements are more negotiated, commercially embedded, and contingent. Therefore, this paper uses assemblage thinking and qualitative document analysis (official agreements, planning documents, post-event reports, and media coverage) to examine the 36th America’s Cup (AC36) in Auckland. It traces the event across three stages—forging, stabilising, and de/re-territorialising—to underscore how AC36 was not the outcome of a coherent masterplan, but a provisional socio-material achievement. Its temporary coherence depended on the alignment of legal protocols, alliance contracts, waterfront redevelopment, commercial sponsorship, and a Mana Whenua partnership, as well as on continuous relational labour among public agencies and organisers. Non-human forces were also constitutive: the event Protocol, the AC75 boats, and COVID-19 actively shaped the trajectory of the event. COVID-19, in particular, reconfigured AC36 from a waterfront-based urban spectacle into a broadcast-centred event. While this re-territorialisation enabled the competition to proceed during a pandemic and increase its global visibility, it weakened local economic incentives. As a result, the Auckland hosting coalition fell apart and the next race moved to a new city. This processual and relational account of mega-event urbanism foregrounds how second-tier events are continuously assembled, stabilised, and unmade.