Producing a calendar of events
I’d like to reveal some of the key reflections I have made over the last 12 years or so of working in Events and especially around the initial setting up of an event. Often, unless in an extremely large case such as the Olympics or FIFA World Cup, the location and venues are rarely questioned except maybe by a sponsor who wants to know about the eyeballs on their brand. When it comes to the participants and fans, it’s usually always taken for granted that the event just pops up and they turn up to enjoy or compete. Yet, for anyone working in events, you’ll know the volume of work and complexity that can be associated long before the event takes place.
It all starts with the selecting of a destination for the event. We are often restricted by what we see in front of us, so arguably it is easiest in many ways to always start out on the event planning journey by looking local. Sticking to what we know and the networks we have on our doorstep certainly lowers the initial expense of setting up an event. You can just drive or maybe even walk to the venue to do site checks whenever you need, communicate with the planners in your own language, add some personal touches for the participants based on your culture and knowledge of the area etc. However I’d like to challenge this mindset based on experiences I have had.
For us, the first major event we planned wasn’t at all like this. Instead, we selected Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A country I had previously visited twice, 13 hours flight time away. Why would such potential complexity be added to our start-up phase you may ask? The answer is simple — people!
We could have selected London as an option or even Prague where an existing community and our head of Operations was based also. However the approach to people and consequently funders also, was met with a degree of familiarity. There was staleness if I was to be perfectly honest, in our approach to partners which meant the struggle to onboard enough sponsors to make it happen would have consumed us.
When I zoom out from the events and activations I have helped create over the years, whilst sponsors and funding have a say in where they want to be positioned to best speak to their target audience, what I have found is that whenever we have been ahead of the curve and promoted to them where we will be going with the events, it has never turned into any degree of concern, only a conversation of activation and maximizing impact.
So, therefore I’m saying that to remove yourself as an event planner from the bubble you operate within, is critical in order to seek the best opportunities for events. You may well end up back on your doorstep, as we have done three times now with major events in London for example, but the journey to get there was made so much easier by opening our minds to new people and cultures.
In the case of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, through a chance meeting in 2009 (which I have mentioned before in earlier posts), I struck such a fantastic bond with the Brainchild Intelligence Agency team locally upon my first visit to the country, that I firstly came away energized and inspired. We maintained talks in a non-intrusive way that allowed us all to get back to our every day business, but then when 1.5 years later I received a call from them to say that had unlocked 100% of the funding from the Malaysian Ministry of Youth and Sport, it gave me the confidence to drop all other conversations for the time being and divert all energy to making it happen in Malaysia.
Sure — I can imagine you already thinking ‘well, this comes back to money and not people’, which yes on one level you’re right. But we could have totally done this event at half of the cost in Europe. Plus there was zero money changing hands either — the budget was kept locally and used entirely by our local agency partners to manage everything. So, for me it was so much more than finances to back it. It was the people I met and the relationship we carved out. It challenged my mindset, presented a dreamy backdrop for the athlete experience and connected us on to some wonderful moments. To add dynamics to this all, this event was also the first time the entire team of the Freestyle Football Federation (as was back then) had actually met together in person, so this entire setup was done virtually until we landed in KL that September of 2011.
Since then, I travel frequently. In fact, any possible moment I can. To trade fairs and Tourism exhibitions, familiarization tours of destinations, networking events in all kinds of sectors outside of Sport, all just to connect to people and see what sticks. I’m constantly amazed not only at the scope of possibilities with alternative venues and small destinations who don’t have the resources to advertise to the masses, but also the warmth of people when you reach out and show interest in their operations. We, especially in the Global North, take so much for granted and lots of people assume the world should work to our agendas and needs. I have never once had this mindset, and really encourage everyone in events to diversify and invest more time in the people at venues, destinations and suppliers too.
We have recently announced the 2023 event calendar for Freestyle Football, which on top of the solid Super Ball every year in August (Prague, Czech Republic) will feature 6 Regional events and 1 major World Championships. Here is how the destination selection came about without $1 of any currency changing hands. In fact to emphasize, it was also done without anyone working full time in our Association and personally not earning one cent from it all too. It was all just coordinated alongside my other work and commitments:
May 2023: Hiroshima, Japan — A British former school teacher, come Sports and Education entrepreneur, Mr Kevin Scott at Mudita Sports connected with me through Linked In in December 2020 to talk about his APP being potentially integrated with Freestyle. His business evolved taking in operations in Japan during 2021 and in March 2022 when he saw our announcement about the tender process for the World Championships 2023, he submitted a bid to bring it to Hiroshima. Whilst the World Championships didn’t work for us in Japan this year, because of the rapport we had built up I had zero concern about offering the chance to build this new style Regional event with him and his team so we offered this opportunity as an alternative and he has been incredible at driving it all forward. Japan is a critical market for the Freestyle Football community so we have been looking for ways to support the local scene more.
June 2023: Mombasa, Kenya — I will come back to this as it was wrapped up in the deal we did for the World Championships at the end of the year.
June 2023: Washington DC, USA — I first met the Head of Tourism at DC completely by chance at breakfast in a conference I was invited to attend in the US back in 2015. We had some nice discussions but not much more was followed up on. Until in 2019 when Mr Lawrence Hamm at Events DC reached out after hearing about our World Championships being in Miami that November. He flew down to check out the event and we immediately connected well. Despite the chaos of the event, he left with some ideas and I felt sure we would do something there in DC together. Then similar to Hiroshima, following the submission of a bid to host the 2023 World Championships, which didn’t work for us geographically having just been to Miami in 2019, we agreed to bring the Pulse Regional event to DC initially and build more together in the future.
July 2023: Riga, Latvia — This was probably the easiest decision made of this calendar year. Ghetto Games with the management of Antons Semenaks have established high impact street sports events, education and roadshows for many years in Latvia. Every summer they host a fantastic festival for local and increasingly international youth, so we simply asked them, based on a long standing friendship, if we could utilise the same stage they already were building and if they could also support with resources to make this an official European Championships. A win win as they aim to keep growing this out as a major International destination and event.
August 2023: Hanoi, Vietnam — When energy is all put in the right way, good things can happen! We were initially in talks to bring an event to Jakarta, Indonesia in September, but with things stalling we started considering other South East Asian destination options. Kuala Lumpur was an instant thought but then through the community network we were alerted to an agency in Hanoi who were making events for the Government and Olympic Committee in Vietnam. The owner of the agency sent us an email explaining their wish to host a major event and the rest is history. A few phone calls later, consulting with the community and we agreed this was the right location and that they could assume the costs of producing it all locally.
September 2023: Cordoba, Argentina — The Latin American network have needed International events and more opportunity for a long time, so doing one event at least in the region was a non-negotiable. The local team in Argentina had been pushing for some time to host a bigger event, but never with absolute clarity on when or where. Cordoba is a small but intimate destination which is exactly the kind of setting where we want to position the sport more. So with again, verbal confirmation alone, we trusted in the relationship we have with our local partners (shout out to Iris and her team).
November 2023: Nairobi (and Mombasa), Kenya — In March 2022 I released an open tender opportunity for any destination to present to us how they would host the World Championships. This was done only through Linked In. One of the eyeballs that fell on it was Jeff Chelpi from MO Consulting who had produced and operated on events for World Athletics and many other major events. He reached out and suggested that his experience of Nairobi for World Athletics with the Homeboyz Entertainment team headed by Mike Rabar was well worth looking in to. Africa for us is a Continent that has needed some solid time and attention to support more, so this instantly became an exciting conversation to pursue. Jeff and I connected really well and then after speaking with Mike and his team in Kenya, the presentation they submitted was too exciting not to progress. After attending site visits there in November 2022, it became clear that they had all resources and desire to also host the African Pulse championships, which would place extra trust in them and the relationship but give extra focus on Kenya and we could then use that as a ripple effect across the continent to inspire growth in the sport.
I will continue to travel and unlock as many relationships with amazing people around the world that I can. If not for events, then for multiple other reasons I haven’t yet thought of that the future will present us.
