It’s been a long road, but finally our special issue is complete and out in the (virtual) world at last.

Some lessons learned about special issues and collaborative publishing projects:

1. It’s going to take longer than you want or expect. Everyone is busy, overwhelmed, working on a last-minute project. Budget in more time than you think you need.
2. A clear project plan is your best friend. I made an excel file that had every contributor and every contribution, along with dates of contact and outstanding issues. Lifesaver.
3. Too many cooks is a real problem. We have four co-editors on this special issue, and we suffered at the beginning by not establishing clearer roles at the outset. Next time, I’m going to clarify everything from the start. The problem here was that different co-editors knew different people, so it was natural for them to communicate with the authors they knew best. This result in serious tangled communication later on. Instead, we should’ve made introductions and then passed all communication through one person, and through one channel. Overall, if you can’t do it with fewer co-editors, then I think it’s crucial to spend a long time at the beginning defining responsibilities.
4. I hate it when people say “expect the unexpected”, but unfortunately it’s true. This special issue doesn’t look like we initially envisioned it, and that’s because we couldn’t envision the circumstances that necessitated changes. This required a lot of flexibility and good humor, which is aided by not being married to a rigid schedule (see point 1).

Anyway, this introduction was criticized (gently) for not making a bigger deal of my own contribution to this special issue. I think that’s very sweet, and I take the point, but I found it challenging even to allow (much less to write) too much space in the introduction about my own work. I guess that’s something to work on for the future. But I figure that at the end of the day, people can read and make up their minds for themselves! Regardless, I hope you enjoy reading this introduction and the excellent contributions that make up the issue. It wasn’t easy to bring it into the world but I learned a lot during the experience and we’re all proud of the result. I think the authors have done a great job identifying and exploring some important and understudied aspects of mega-event-led urbanism, and I hope you find our work worthwhile.