The Impact of Hospitality on Air Quality at a Major Sporting Event

Large scale sporting and cultural events attract many spectators to a single site, leading to changed emissions and potentially creating local air pollution hot spots. Here, we monitored the air quality during the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, held from July 28th to August 8th, 2022, with 323,000 spectators attending the athletics events, including during the opening and closing ceremonies at the (open air) Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, UK. Particulate (PM_2.5 and PM₁₀) concentrations in fan areas around the stadium peaked ahead of the athletics events and opening and closing ceremonies with PM_2.5 concentrations up to 10 times higher than at nearby urban background monitoring stations. For a spectator attending a full day of events at Alexander Stadium, this would represent a 125% increase in their exposure to PM_2.5 relative to the urban background. Nonrefractory particulate composition in these periods was dominated by organics. Four factors were identified from Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) analysis of particle composition data recorded using a Quadrupole Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (Q-ACSM): two representing cooking aerosol accounting for 71% of the total PM mass during the athletic sessions demonstrating that cooking sources were responsible for the majority of particulate pollution at the venue. The high particulate concentrations at this venue were driven by fast food production at temporary concession stands, common across many large events, leading to a large increase in particulate matter exposure for staff and visitors.