13 minute read
GOOD SPORT
Good sports
StandOut looks at trends in the world of sporting events, and chats to the teams charged with delivering UEFA Women’s EURO and The 150th Open
The record books were rewritten when a crowd of 68,871 watched England edge past Austria in the opening game of UEFA Women’s EURO 2022. The attendance is the highest in the competition’s history, elevating the mark of 41,301 set when Germany beat
In January 2022, Great Big Events won the contract to deliver the sport presentation and fan engagement programme of the UEFA Women’s Euro. The creative agency has been tasked with delivering full matchday experiences at each location, including activations on the “last kilometre” leading up to each stadium, as well as the spectator experience inside each venue.
Ollie Hester, creative producer at Great Big Events, explained: “We’re delivering a far more holistic and integrated spectator experience for people in the stadium, right from when they step off the train.”
Every element that Great Big Events produces – pre-match ceremonies, music, vision, and graphic content – must be “family friendly”, assuring the atmosphere is electric so that fans can get the most out of each match experience.
Thousands of items are being given away on the “last kilometre” such as face paint sticks and clap banners and there are stilt walkers and live bands entertaining audiences too.
GREAT BIG EVENTS
Norway in the 2013 final in Sweden. However, this figure is likely to be beaten on July 31 when the 2022 final is played at Wembley Stadium.
London is just one of nine locations chosen to host the football tournament, comprised of 31 games, with Manchester, Milton Keynes, Brighton and Hove, Wigan and Leigh, Trafford, Southampton, Rotherham, and Sheffield also hosting matches. In fact, Sheffield’s Bramall Lane will host one semi-final on July 26 and MK Dons, Milton Keynes, will host the other semi-final on July 27.
EVENT IMPACT
As StandOut writes, more than 500,000 tickets for the competition have been sold (compared to 240,000 tickets at UEFA Women’s EURO 2017 in the Netherlands), and all England games and the final are sold out.
Prior to the tournament, The FA and UEFA released the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 Pre-tournament Impact Report, confirming it’s on track to be the biggest women’s European sport event in history.
The report, produced by EY, expects the competition to deliver £54 million in economic activity to the nine host cities. Furthermore, the host cities are expecting 96,000 international visitors from 95 territories and there will be engagement from fans from all over the world as the international broadcast audience could reach more than 250 million.
Hester said that the public’s reaction to the FIFA Women’s World Cup was a huge catalyst and confirmed that UEFA has been proactively working to develop the game.
EY intends to produce a “flash” report in the autumn of 2022 following the tournament to provide an initial indication of the impacts achieved and a full postevent impact study will be produced in the summer of 2023.
GROWING TRENDS
According to research by Statista, sport events revenue is projected to reach £4.91billion in 2022 and is expected to show an annual growth rate of 2.2 per cent, hitting £5.47 billion by 2027.
Deloitte’s 2022 Sports Industry Outlook highlights growing trends within the market, including the blending of real and digital worlds, non-fungible tokens (NFT), and the role that sport and sporting events can play in inspiring wellbeing, mental health, and sustainable choices.
This opinion is bolstered by the University of South Pacific’s latest research [using the 2019 Pacific Games as an example] which concluded that large-scale sporting events can motivate attendees to live healthier and more environmentally sustainable lifestyles. Also, Hackney Moves, organised by LimeLight Sports Club, launched the first-ever half marathon NFT reward, and Wimbledon was recently immortalised in a new immersive 3D game, WimbleWorld on Roblox.
These examples are demonstrative of the new moves being undertaken by organisers and event owners to engage fans and demonstrate innovation. However, it’s also clear that fans want to see event owners lead from the front by addressing sustainability.
SUSTAINABILITY
The Lawn Tennis Association’s (LTA) recently published Environmental Sustainability Plan states that 93 per cent of tennis fans want to see the LTA’s major events to demonstrate good sustainability practices and 85 per cent would like to see a reduction in waste and phase out of single use materials at LTA major events. The LTA, organiser of cinch Championships at The Queen’s Club, wishes to embed sustainability agreements into contracts and would also like to eliminate the use of temporary power generators using fossil fuel by 2023 and reduce operational carbon emissions from major events by 75 per cent by 2030.
Sustainability is a big issue being taken seriously by many organisers. For example, at The 150th Open, the contractor compound was powered by a solar farm and Bluewater installed a 16-metre-long hydration station, which housed 12 in-line water dispensers. Situated in the Spectator Village, it was designed to hydrate 290,000 golf fans attending the prestigious golf tournament.
The “Wall of Water” alone had the capacity to purify and dispense more than 6,000 litres of water but it was supported on-site by an 18 additional, smaller hydration stations sited at strategic locations around the St Andrews venue.
Bluewater was just one of the many contractors on-site at St Andrews, working on behalf of The R&A. Sunbelt Rentals, MTD, GL events UK, Secutix, Mitchell Bridges, Onsite Communications, Bunkabins, PTL, Mar-Key Group, PDQ Exhibitions, Production Bureau, G4S, and Arena Structures also provided extensive equipment and services to the tournament.
For example, GL events UK provided 15,000 grandstand seats, 1,500 square metres of temporary structures, 39 television camera towers, and scaffold structures for two iconic yellow leaderboards, and Arena provided 93 temporary structures covering 36,500 square metres, including one tripledeck. In fact, Arena has delivered 30 per cent more kit to accommodate demand.
RESPECT THE COURSE
Arena’s triple-deck structure measures 15m x 85m and one of the double-deck structures is 145 metres in length. Ross Robertson, managing director (UK and Europe) of Arena Structures, explained: “The R&A has been building to this moment, The 150th Open, and there has been a huge demand for tickets. We’ve delivered 30 per cent more kit but the build time has remained the same. If you look across the course and what’s been achieved, it’s phenomenal.”
Build began on April 25 and the project has required 53,000-man hours and 150 trucks of kit. As well as providing hospitality structures and entrances, Arena also created a huge shop, housed within a 30m x 70m structure and located within the Spectator Village. Previously, golf fans would visit the event for four days and perhaps, visit the shop once. Now, the event is balloted meaning that each day, a different set of golf fans attend The Open. Demand for merchandise has increased. Hence, the shop is 20 metres longer.
Robertson continued: “Live engagement with sport is massive. The public demand, and crave, to be involved. Next year, will people be able to afford to go to highprofile sporting events? I think regular attendance at football matches will suffer but key events – such as The Open and Wimbledon – people want to be there.”
Brian Martin, account director at Arena Structures, has project managed the delivery of Arena’s vast amount of infrastructure, reporting to Andy Duff, assistant director – championships at The R&A, organiser of the prestigious event.
St Andrews is a tricky site, open to the elements. Six days of the build were impacted by weather and whilst there were challenges during load in, Arena has delivered.
Martin added: “We’re really good at delivering temporary structures. When you look at what we’ve built here, you just go ‘wow’. It’s too easy to look at the snagging list during the build and you’re thinking about a truck that hasn’t turned up yet. But as events professionals, we forget to stop and look at what has been achieved in the same build time.”
Robertson concluded: “I’m really proud to be putting structures out for The 150th Open and I am proud of what Arena has delivered. The Spectator Village is impressive, people will walk in the shop and never know they are in a tent, and the scale of the work and the timescale in which we have delivered is phenomenal.”
ROSS ROBERTSON AND BRIAN MARTIN
Brand new you
Branding experts talk branding trends, best practices, innovation, and how to make your event stand out
CarFest, TRNSMT, LTA tennis at The Queen’s Club, Wireless, Creamfields, and The British Motor Show. They are all different events, but they have one thing in common. They are all sponsored by cinch, the online car marketplace, and many have adopted cinch’s colour palette and brand stamp. Is this demonstrative of good event branding or has cinch weakened these events’ identities?
After a two-year hiatus, organisers are determined to make a statement and come back with a bang. But at what cost? Moving forward, will increasing production costs (which are showing no signs of waning) push organisers to consider non-traditional sponsorship deals next year or will organisers look to amplify their brand by investing in their event community and increasing customer engagement?
According to both Charlie Busby, marketing manager at Visual Architects, and Rory Palmer Rowe, senior strategist at Mustard Media, events that connect to their audiences perform the strongest.
Palmer Rowe said: “With the societal shift towards unique experiences and music festival line-ups becoming homogenised, branding is the only game left in town. It benefits promoters by creating a moat that protects them from the competition. Whilst for fans, the benefits are twofold. On a conscious level, branding is the creative platform that delivers these experiences they are seeking. Subconsciously, it speaks to our primal desire to belong.”
BOOST IMPACT
Event brands and owners are looking to engage their audience in new, visually spectacular ways and organisers are finding new ways to produce live events that surprise audiences, and that includes innovative event branding.
Visual Architects is seeing a higher demand for branded photo opportunities, and for bespoke interactive installations which include seating, lighting, and branded signage rather than simple backdrops. Busby said: “These photo opportunities are unique to the event, and can include foliage walls, swings, beach huts, and other structures, giving events the social media push they need to stand out against other brands.”
Visual Architects is providing branding services to Kendal Calling. Imaginators is working with Latitude, Reading and Leeds festivals, and InEvent Branding is now an official branding supplier to Great Run.
Linzi King, managing director of InEvent Branding, commented: “We work alongside The Great Run Company’s marketing and operational teams on the start and finish line builds at all their major events.
“This is the result of conversations and collaborations that have taken place over the last year. In May, we printed, built, installed, and delivered our first event start and finish lines for the Great Birmingham Run and Great Manchester Run, which was televised live on the BBC.”
InEvent Branding was tasked with boosting the impact of the mass participation events’ start and finish gantries.
Rob Pentland, event branding manager at The Great Run Company, explained: “InEvent’s professionalism and ability to deliver big projects has been critical in our ambition to improve the profile, look and feel of our events. Specifically, we tasked them with boosting the impact of the start and finish gantries at the Great Birmingham Run and Great Manchester Run and we have been very pleased with the end product. We look forward to working with InEvent for our flagship event, the Great North Run on September 11.”
VISUAL ARCHITECTS
King said that organisers are looking for larger key pieces of branding. For example, at sporting events, larger structural and interactive elements are being introduced not just into the villages, start and finish lines but also onto courses. Scrim is slowly being replaced with barrier jackets at the start and finish line as they can be reused and offer a more aesthetically pleasing look for brands. Plus, important messaging can be seen on both sides.
King continued: “Sustainability is becoming a major factor in the events industry and the two key words are recycle and reuse. We provide our clients with factual data sheets that show the true recycled values of substrates, their longevity and their footprint from raw material to recycle plant. We submit data sheets on request that show our energy use, product type, recycle value and carbon and energy footprint. We are actively looking for new facilities in the South to complement our existing facility in the North. This will help to reduce our carbon footprint and fuel costs.”
SUSTAINABILITY
Matt Tydeman, director of Imaginators, concurred. Sustainability is huge and is a key concern. Tydeman explained: “I’m encouraged to see sustainability and environmental impact are questions being asked more frequently and is a growing trend across both large and small events. During lockdown, we used the time wisely to research, develop and introduce new and exciting materials and now have a very wide range of environmentally friendly substrates and materials which are viable alternatives to the usual materials used within our industry.
“We are always exploring new methods of production to improve our products and services. During 2022, we are expanding our LOOP Recycling Scheme – a unique recycling programme we introduced during 2019 to some key clients and we are now expanding this service to all clients.
“After an event is finished and our branding is no longer required, in addition to Imaginators’ storage facility for future reuse, branded items produced and installed by Imaginators can be collected, pre-sorted, collated, and distributed for recycling as part of Imaginators LOOP Recycling Scheme.”
Tydeman continued: “All our materials can be completely recycled and during 2022, we have already hit our target of 100 per cent landfill avoidance. We are understandably very proud of our scheme, which seems to have struck a chord and has been well received.”
Tydeman said that he and his team are noticing how many live events, particularly music festivals, are hosting more than one event across multiple dates to take advantage of the infrastructure from one festival to be utilised by another. He added: “We’re used to this as we’ve often provided solutions which can switch from one event to another, but we are now providing branding solutions which are double rigged so that branding can be removed to reveal another set.”
This is just one example of how event branding specialists are working with organisers to find solutions that make life easier, enable faster turnarounds, and extract value from infrastructure.
PLANNING
Tydeman described the current events marketplace as strong, driven by people wanting to return to normality and experience live events again. He added: “If I am honest, I was not expecting the levels of work we have been experiencing – projects are large, complex, and often exploring new ideas and methods of production as live events and music festivals look to wow their audiences and engage with them in new, visually spectacular ways.”
Like many event suppliers, Tydeman urged organisers to start their event branding planning early. He concluded: “You can’t start planning early enough, no matter what size your event. Working hard to keep in front of your plans for event branding is always important – sponsors, partners and brands often bring delays especially if left to the last minute. As an industry we seem to have become accustomed to solving problems at the last minute, but it needn’t be this way.”
