Research of the Russian Event Industry Labor Market: Education and Skills

International events are an integral part of the modern world and nowadays are constantly held in various parts of our planet.The goal of the proposed paper is to identify the crucial requirements for future event managers and to find out whether special event management programs are required to get knowledge and skills needed to become competitive event managers. In order to achieve this aim 12 people in leadership event manager position were interviewed to distinguish what qualities are required in event sphere now and what be demanded in the nearest future. To identify whether special programs are needed HSE students of “Management and International Business” program were checked for the level of skills they possess. To measure the of needed for this industry skills among the HSE students an online survey was conducted. Students evaluated themselves by completing survey which provides several 5 point scale Likert questions. As a result, in this paper it was found out that among the required skills the most important ones are: high level of responsibility, stress resistance, multitasking,creativity, negotiation skills and time management. However, the most important ones are endurance and composure. The analysis showed what skills HSE students lack and need to develop if they want to continue their career in event industry. Moreover, this research makes a theoretical contribution to the field of the Russian event industry and will be a good start for event companies and universities to optimize their event management learning programs and help candidates for event manager positions to have a clear understanding of the situation in the Russian event management labor market. Keywords: event study; mega-events; leadership; management; educational process; event market in Russia, labor market, event industry