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New Zealand Gliding Grand Prix 2006
January 21-29, 2006 Omarama
The GP was a very professionally organised and marketed event. It was a pioneer in many ways and provided an opportunity to test marketing ideas which were not new but to this day not fully explored. For the organisers it was a success in demonstrating how the sport can be taken to the public through television and associated media. This report serves to give an overview of the event and outline key processes involved in putting it together. It does not cover the competition but rather the marketing opportunity it provides. I have also included some personal observations and some suggestions and things to consider if we are to stage a marketing event such as this in Australia. Event OverviewOne of the key goals of this event was to significantly elevate the public awareness of gliding. This event did two things, capture it for TV and then used this to attract spectators to the field for a public event. I will address these two initiatives separately. Firstly the use of TV technology.Using state of the art TV , filming and animation technology spectators were able to see for the first time live footage of the competition and pilots in action. The TV footage was a combination of live footage being captured from the gliders and a helicopter, and also animated footage displaying the position of the gliders and individual competitor information. The animation was very realistic and information displayed both interesting and informative. The suppliers of the various technologies were leaders in there fields and instrumental in bringing the America's Cup to TV and capture for TV such events as Bathurst and Tour de France. It was a very professional presentation. Each of the 11 gliders had three cameras, one looking at the pilot and the other two capturing different angles. Cockpits were also wired for sound. The vision from these cameras was being relayed back to the control centre at the field by a relay mounted on a helicopter that followed the field at height to maintain line of site communications. The following illustration demonstrates how the various technologies worked. This illustration was published in the Souvenir Programme. The second helicopter was fitted with the latest gimbal mounted gyro stabilized camera. Controlled by the operator seated in the back of the helicopter the camera was capturing vibration free footage of gliders racing and close ups of pilots in flight. A documentary film company was also engaged to capture the competition. They were drawing footage from the helicopter, and glider cameras and ground filming crews. I spoke with the producer on a couple of occasions over the weekend and he was very happy and eagerly looking forward to taking it to the US the week after to seek interest from National Geographic, Discovery Channel and the American and British TV networks. In summaryThe advancement in recent years of information transmission, animation and image capture technology and the integration of them is perfect for our sport. The quality of the TV presentation was outstanding and has enormous potential to significantly build awareness of the sport. It has some very positive flow through to attracting corporate sponsorship and equity to the sport. Suggestions for consideration .. This area is very specialised and not to mention expensive and should only be managed by a suitable person with appropriate knowledge. Peter Newport through his company Aerosports is looking to offer this as a bundled product to Australia. I would strongly recommend looking at this as an option. .. This would allow Australian organisers to concentrate on sponsorship, among other priorities. Public EventThe public were invited to attend the last three days of the competition and were entertained by glider aerobatics, skydiving, hang-gliders and model gliders, and the launching of the competition gliders heading off on task and their return. The feature was watching the competition live on a huge TV screen. During the competition excellent commentary was provided by Gavin Wills with the help of a couple of local pilots. To keep the public entertained at other times commentary was provided by a well known personality and also on field attractions such as craft stalls, sideshows, food and alcohol outlets. Regrettably the public days were very poorly attended with numbers being estimated at only 1,200 people over the three days. They were budgeting for 15,000. The reason for its failure to attract public attendance was not the marketing of the event, this was very well done, but rather Omarama's proximity to a sizable population base. Omarama has avery small population and is 3.5 hours from Christchurch (population - approx 350,000) and 2.5 hours from Queenstown (population - approx 9,200). A entry ticket cost of $35 was also sited as a deterrent. During the days there was a lot of dead time where nothing was happening on the ground or in the air while the wait for conditions to be right for the launch of competition gliders. Suggestions for consideration .. Have a well prepared program of activity through the day. Combination of entertainment and things to educate people about gliding. .. Have only one or maybe two public days. Complete the GP competition on the Saturday and focus on the Sunday as a public marketing day. The public don't need to be aware the competition finished the day before. Do the GP presentation on the Sunday with the public. Have competition pilots do short tasks or sprint races close to the field with the intent to entertain the crowd. Talk to a pilot while flying the task to explain tactics. Interview the pilots. .. Layout of the public area is important, insure this is close as possible to the grid / launch point. Obviously it is wind direction dependant but provision should be made to display the comp gliders close to the crowd while the gliders are being prepared. Stage this if necessary. .. Have a late model glider set up so spectators can actually sit in it and have instruments simulating a variety of things. Vario squawking lift with the vario moving and the Altimeter winding up and the ASI fluctuating. Have some prerecorded radio chatter. A task could be running on a IPAQ. Put a parachute on the spectators back and basically give them the feel of being a comp glider pilot while introducing them to the sophistication of the sport but at the same time showing them how a glider fly's. Friends and family could take photographs. Have www.soaring.org.au displayed so it appears in cockpit shots. The following suggestions are in relation to using the TV technology to maximise entertainment and education. .. Have comp pilot take the crowd through the preparation process for a race from pilot briefing to glider prep. Some of this could be pre-recorded. Prep of glider shouldbe live. .. Have suitable non competitor pilots entertaining the crowd with regular aerobatics. Have one of these aircraft rigged with the TV equipment and have the pilot talk the crowd through the different aerobatic manoeuvres. Smoking wing tips would be eye-catching and draw attention to the field. .. Run a crowd competition for a couple of spectators to go for a flight and on there return interview them on the stage. One of the people could be an insider so we could insure all the right and important messages are communicated. .. Have a spot landing competition. Ground Cameras and under fuse cameras showing the main wheel touching down as close as possible to the point. .. A winch launch display again talking to the pilot. Event Background It is important to understand this event was a 'commercial operation' not a gliding club organised event. It was the courage and vision of initially one person Peter Newport that saw this event come together. Peter through his company Aerosports Ltd staged the event. Peter took up gliding as a sport only a couple of years ago and clearly has become obsessed, as we can all appreciate, and now operates a Gliding business from Omarama. Peter's business background is in marketing and TV production. He could see that our sport was well suited to TV and had the contacts to explore it. Peter single handily pulled together the appropriate people to stage the event with little to no help from gliding clubs or New Zealand Gliding. Organising the Event Peter employed the services of professionals to fore fill key roles to ensure the event was of a very high standard that would attract sponsors, media and the attention of the public. The following is the key areas of management to insure the event is successful from a marketing perspective. .. Event Organiser - Ingrid Temple of Event Management Ltd, was responsible for almost all aspects of the event other than the competition. These included - sourcing, procuring and managing all ground services (PA, amenities, food outlets, merchandising, money management (EFPOS and Credit Card facilities for entry payment and purchases), Stall holders, infrastructure providers and ticket sales. .. Ingrid said a very important thing learnt was to insure the people responsible for the managing of the marketing value of the event have close dialogue with the people managing the competition to insure everything works harmoniously over the public days. Respectively the two management teams have different priorities but they need to work together. .. Media Relations / Marketing - Victoria Murray-Orr of EveNZ, was responsible for production of all marketing material, public relations and media management. .. The marketing of the event commenced in September 2005 with focus being at this stage of introducing the event to the media. It was a process of education of what gliding was and achieved through a constant feeding of press releases and media briefings . Once they felt the media realised what gliding was they then, and only then, could they start to educate them about the competition and the event and ultimately get there attention. .. A variety of marketing initiatives were used, these included .. Print material (souvenir program, brochures and posters) - posters and brochures distributed through catchment areas. All professionally designed. .. Editorial - a pre planned flow of press releases were distributed to media outlets up to and during the event. Certain media outlets were targeted such as prominent papers and magazines. They received very good newspaper coverage. .. Radio - there media education strategy attracted quite a few opportunities. .. TV - Channel 3 had a TV crew there all weekend capturing stories for the news, did a live cross to there equivalent of Today on Friday morning and did a segment for there Current Affair style program after the Friday night news. Merchandising included posters, souvenir programme, T shirts and baseball caps. Wireless transacting terminals were used for EFPOS and Credit Card purchases. DL Marketing Brochure Souvenir Programme .. Bus advertising - they only used one bus but had a very good response to it and suggested if they realised the interest it would have created they would have done three of them. .. Community awareness & involvement program - Invited schools to participate in a design a poster competition. .. Web site - www.gp06.com - a well designed interactive site with good information. During the competition streaming video was added. The site received an extraordinary amount of hits, coming from all over the world. This is a testament to the interest in the contest but I think particularly the technology being used to display the event. It should be acknowledged the media interest and coverage was not by way of good luck it was by way of planning and professional management. A media centre was set up providing services for journalists to use and also to conduct post comp press conferences. .. Victoria felt they started the marketing of the event too late and highlighted importance of educating the media not just promoting the event. Professional press releases are important. Sponsorship Being a first time event gaining sponsorship was very difficult. It was an unproven event, the sport had no profile or TV image, and while some potential sponsors were interested they sited this as the reason for not committing funds on this occasion and adopted a 'wait and see' approach. Most of the financial support was received through grants. A $10,000 cash prize was donated by a prominent NZ company (Anaro Investment Group) and a $2500 sponsorship deal from Aviation Co-op. In Summary The true cost of the event and the amount of dollars received through grants and sponsorship was not made available by the organisers. Peter did explain that most of the suppliers of professional services agreed to a 'Success Basis' agreement, and for this they would be favoured suppliers for future events. I understand some were paid a small amount to come on board but final payment would be based on the success of the event. After the very poor gate takings the financial success was riding on securing a TV and or Documentary contract. The success of the Omarama event should not be judged on the ticket sales but rather the milestone it achieved in building awareness of the sport. This is yet to be measured but it was unanimously agreed the sport had just been catapulted into a marketing medium that will revolutionise the sport. Peter Newport will be providing an estimate of what it would cost for Aerosports to provide the technology and equipment required to take the competition to TV and Documentary producers. By outsourcing this expertise, whether it is Aerosports and another local organsation, it allows the local organiser to concentrate on the following. I feel the local organising committee is combined effort of National (M&D and or Marketing Officer) and the hosting club. The following is a suggested break up of responsiblilities and who should manage. .. Gaining and Managing Sponsors - National .. Marketing of the event - National .. Ticket Sales - Club .. Media Management - National .. Coordinate infrastructure requirements - Club .. Competition Management - Club |
#2
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New Zealand Gliding Grand Prix 2006
Great debrief.
Many thanks to Peter Newport for what he's doing for the sport. There doesn't appear to be a web site that sells the DVD--help appreciated. Please let RAS know if we can help get the program aired--RAS'ers could call/write/email decision makers at Nat'l Geo Channel, Discovery Channel, whoever, to try and influence their decision. "Mal" wrote in message ... January 21-29, 2006 Omarama The GP was a very professionally organised and marketed event. It was a pioneer in many ways and provided an opportunity to test marketing ideas which were not new but to this day not fully explored. For the organisers it was a success in demonstrating how the sport can be taken to the public through television and associated media. This report serves to give an overview of the event and outline key processes involved in putting it together. It does not cover the competition but rather the marketing opportunity it provides. I have also included some personal observations and some suggestions and things to consider if we are to stage a marketing event such as this in Australia. Event OverviewOne of the key goals of this event was to significantly elevate the public awareness of gliding. This event did two things, capture it for TV and then used this to attract spectators to the field for a public event. I will address these two initiatives separately. Firstly the use of TV technology.Using state of the art TV , filming and animation technology spectators were able to see for the first time live footage of the competition and pilots in action. The TV footage was a combination of live footage being captured from the gliders and a helicopter, and also animated footage displaying the position of the gliders and individual competitor information. The animation was very realistic and information displayed both interesting and informative. The suppliers of the various technologies were leaders in there fields and instrumental in bringing the America's Cup to TV and capture for TV such events as Bathurst and Tour de France. It was a very professional presentation. Each of the 11 gliders had three cameras, one looking at the pilot and the other two capturing different angles. Cockpits were also wired for sound. The vision from these cameras was being relayed back to the control centre at the field by a relay mounted on a helicopter that followed the field at height to maintain line of site communications. The following illustration demonstrates how the various technologies worked. This illustration was published in the Souvenir Programme. The second helicopter was fitted with the latest gimbal mounted gyro stabilized camera. Controlled by the operator seated in the back of the helicopter the camera was capturing vibration free footage of gliders racing and close ups of pilots in flight. A documentary film company was also engaged to capture the competition. They were drawing footage from the helicopter, and glider cameras and ground filming crews. I spoke with the producer on a couple of occasions over the weekend and he was very happy and eagerly looking forward to taking it to the US the week after to seek interest from National Geographic, Discovery Channel and the American and British TV networks. In summaryThe advancement in recent years of information transmission, animation and image capture technology and the integration of them is perfect for our sport. The quality of the TV presentation was outstanding and has enormous potential to significantly build awareness of the sport. It has some very positive flow through to attracting corporate sponsorship and equity to the sport. Suggestions for consideration . This area is very specialised and not to mention expensive and should only be managed by a suitable person with appropriate knowledge. Peter Newport through his company Aerosports is looking to offer this as a bundled product to Australia. I would strongly recommend looking at this as an option. . This would allow Australian organisers to concentrate on sponsorship, among other priorities. Public EventThe public were invited to attend the last three days of the competition and were entertained by glider aerobatics, skydiving, hang-gliders and model gliders, and the launching of the competition gliders heading off on task and their return. The feature was watching the competition live on a huge TV screen. During the competition excellent commentary was provided by Gavin Wills with the help of a couple of local pilots. To keep the public entertained at other times commentary was provided by a well known personality and also on field attractions such as craft stalls, sideshows, food and alcohol outlets. Regrettably the public days were very poorly attended with numbers being estimated at only 1,200 people over the three days. They were budgeting for 15,000. The reason for its failure to attract public attendance was not the marketing of the event, this was very well done, but rather Omarama's proximity to a sizable population base. Omarama has avery small population and is 3.5 hours from Christchurch (population - approx 350,000) and 2.5 hours from Queenstown (population - approx 9,200). A entry ticket cost of $35 was also sited as a deterrent. During the days there was a lot of dead time where nothing was happening on the ground or in the air while the wait for conditions to be right for the launch of competition gliders. Suggestions for consideration . Have a well prepared program of activity through the day. Combination of entertainment and things to educate people about gliding. . Have only one or maybe two public days. Complete the GP competition on the Saturday and focus on the Sunday as a public marketing day. The public don't need to be aware the competition finished the day before. Do the GP presentation on the Sunday with the public. Have competition pilots do short tasks or sprint races close to the field with the intent to entertain the crowd. Talk to a pilot while flying the task to explain tactics. Interview the pilots. . Layout of the public area is important, insure this is close as possible to the grid / launch point. Obviously it is wind direction dependant but provision should be made to display the comp gliders close to the crowd while the gliders are being prepared. Stage this if necessary. . Have a late model glider set up so spectators can actually sit in it and have instruments simulating a variety of things. Vario squawking lift with the vario moving and the Altimeter winding up and the ASI fluctuating. Have some prerecorded radio chatter. A task could be running on a IPAQ. Put a parachute on the spectators back and basically give them the feel of being a comp glider pilot while introducing them to the sophistication of the sport but at the same time showing them how a glider fly's. Friends and family could take photographs. Have www.soaring.org.au displayed so it appears in cockpit shots. The following suggestions are in relation to using the TV technology to maximise entertainment and education. . Have comp pilot take the crowd through the preparation process for a race from pilot briefing to glider prep. Some of this could be pre-recorded. Prep of glider shouldbe live. . Have suitable non competitor pilots entertaining the crowd with regular aerobatics. Have one of these aircraft rigged with the TV equipment and have the pilot talk the crowd through the different aerobatic manoeuvres. Smoking wing tips would be eye-catching and draw attention to the field. . Run a crowd competition for a couple of spectators to go for a flight and on there return interview them on the stage. One of the people could be an insider so we could insure all the right and important messages are communicated. . Have a spot landing competition. Ground Cameras and under fuse cameras showing the main wheel touching down as close as possible to the point. . A winch launch display again talking to the pilot. Event Background It is important to understand this event was a 'commercial operation' not a gliding club organised event. It was the courage and vision of initially one person Peter Newport that saw this event come together. Peter through his company Aerosports Ltd staged the event. Peter took up gliding as a sport only a couple of years ago and clearly has become obsessed, as we can all appreciate, and now operates a Gliding business from Omarama. Peter's business background is in marketing and TV production. He could see that our sport was well suited to TV and had the contacts to explore it. Peter single handily pulled together the appropriate people to stage the event with little to no help from gliding clubs or New Zealand Gliding. Organising the Event Peter employed the services of professionals to fore fill key roles to ensure the event was of a very high standard that would attract sponsors, media and the attention of the public. The following is the key areas of management to insure the event is successful from a marketing perspective. . Event Organiser - Ingrid Temple of Event Management Ltd, was responsible for almost all aspects of the event other than the competition. These included - sourcing, procuring and managing all ground services (PA, amenities, food outlets, merchandising, money management (EFPOS and Credit Card facilities for entry payment and purchases), Stall holders, infrastructure providers and ticket sales. . Ingrid said a very important thing learnt was to insure the people responsible for the managing of the marketing value of the event have close dialogue with the people managing the competition to insure everything works harmoniously over the public days. Respectively the two management teams have different priorities but they need to work together. . Media Relations / Marketing - Victoria Murray-Orr of EveNZ, was responsible for production of all marketing material, public relations and media management. . The marketing of the event commenced in September 2005 with focus being at this stage of introducing the event to the media. It was a process of education of what gliding was and achieved through a constant feeding of press releases and media briefings . Once they felt the media realised what gliding was they then, and only then, could they start to educate them about the competition and the event and ultimately get there attention. . A variety of marketing initiatives were used, these included . Print material (souvenir program, brochures and posters) - posters and brochures distributed through catchment areas. All professionally designed. . Editorial - a pre planned flow of press releases were distributed to media outlets up to and during the event. Certain media outlets were targeted such as prominent papers and magazines. They received very good newspaper coverage. . Radio - there media education strategy attracted quite a few opportunities. . TV - Channel 3 had a TV crew there all weekend capturing stories for the news, did a live cross to there equivalent of Today on Friday morning and did a segment for there Current Affair style program after the Friday night news. Merchandising included posters, souvenir programme, T shirts and baseball caps. Wireless transacting terminals were used for EFPOS and Credit Card purchases. DL Marketing Brochure Souvenir Programme . Bus advertising - they only used one bus but had a very good response to it and suggested if they realised the interest it would have created they would have done three of them. . Community awareness & involvement program - Invited schools to participate in a design a poster competition. . Web site - www.gp06.com - a well designed interactive site with good information. During the competition streaming video was added. The site received an extraordinary amount of hits, coming from all over the world. This is a testament to the interest in the contest but I think particularly the technology being used to display the event. It should be acknowledged the media interest and coverage was not by way of good luck it was by way of planning and professional management. A media centre was set up providing services for journalists to use and also to conduct post comp press conferences. . Victoria felt they started the marketing of the event too late and highlighted importance of educating the media not just promoting the event. Professional press releases are important. Sponsorship Being a first time event gaining sponsorship was very difficult. It was an unproven event, the sport had no profile or TV image, and while some potential sponsors were interested they sited this as the reason for not committing funds on this occasion and adopted a 'wait and see' approach. Most of the financial support was received through grants. A $10,000 cash prize was donated by a prominent NZ company (Anaro Investment Group) and a $2500 sponsorship deal from Aviation Co-op. In Summary The true cost of the event and the amount of dollars received through grants and sponsorship was not made available by the organisers. Peter did explain that most of the suppliers of professional services agreed to a 'Success Basis' agreement, and for this they would be favoured suppliers for future events. I understand some were paid a small amount to come on board but final payment would be based on the success of the event. After the very poor gate takings the financial success was riding on securing a TV and or Documentary contract. The success of the Omarama event should not be judged on the ticket sales but rather the milestone it achieved in building awareness of the sport. This is yet to be measured but it was unanimously agreed the sport had just been catapulted into a marketing medium that will revolutionise the sport. Peter Newport will be providing an estimate of what it would cost for Aerosports to provide the technology and equipment required to take the competition to TV and Documentary producers. By outsourcing this expertise, whether it is Aerosports and another local organsation, it allows the local organiser to concentrate on the following. I feel the local organising committee is combined effort of National (M&D and or Marketing Officer) and the hosting club. The following is a suggested break up of responsiblilities and who should manage. . Gaining and Managing Sponsors - National . Marketing of the event - National . Ticket Sales - Club . Media Management - National . Coordinate infrastructure requirements - Club . Competition Management - Club |
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New Zealand Gliding Grand Prix 2006
In article ,
"303SAM" wrote: Great debrief. Many thanks to Peter Newport for what he's doing for the sport. There doesn't appear to be a web site that sells the DVD--help appreciated. http://www.gliding.co.nz/ -- Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+- Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O---------- |
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'Gladiators of the Sky' Gliding NZ's Grand Prix 2006
'Gladiators of the Sky' is the name of the new DVD filmed at the New
Zealand Grand Prix at Omarama in January. We have not announced it on RAS as we have run out of stock. The first pressings were completely sold in the first nine days. We expect to resume deliveries next Wednesday. RAS readers can order the DVD direct from us or from the Soaring Society of America which will have stock by the end of the month. This is a phenomenal DVD (75 minutes) which is getting rave reviews from around the world. -------------------------------------------------------------------- JOHN ROAKE 79 Fifth Avenue, Tauranga, New Zealand Phone: ++64 (07) 571-4161, Fax: ++64 (07)571-4171 ===================================== |
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'Gladiators of the Sky' Gliding NZ's Grand Prix 2006
Is there a Trailer on the net ?
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'Gladiators of the Sky' Gliding NZ's Grand Prix 2006
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'Gladiators of the Sky' Gliding NZ's Grand Prix 2006
Link is in unreachable. It requires a login.
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New Zealand Gliding Grand Prix 2006
Great post on a fantastic effort. My question is has it been
considered to package this type of event for sale to an established airshow event? An established event already has the crowd to which we want to market, the booth/food/sideshows in place, etc. I can understand the "desire to do it all" but value of affiliating seems overwhelming. The challenge would be to locate a willing established event in an acceptable soaring location which would inspire the pilots. This could be massaged a little by having the race in the prime flying location (Omarama) and the finish be at an airshow (say in Christchurch). Thoughts? LT Mal wrote: January 21-29, 2006 Omarama The GP was a very professionally organised and marketed event. It was a pioneer in many ways and provided an opportunity to test marketing ideas which were not new but to this day not fully explored. For the organisers it was a success in demonstrating how the sport can be taken to the public through television and associated media. This report serves to give an overview of the event and outline key processes involved in putting it together. It does not cover the competition but rather the marketing opportunity it provides. I have also included some personal observations and some suggestions and things to consider if we are to stage a marketing event such as this in Australia. Event OverviewOne of the key goals of this event was to significantly elevate the public awareness of gliding. This event did two things, capture it for TV and then used this to attract spectators to the field for a public event. I will address these two initiatives separately. Firstly the use of TV technology.Using state of the art TV , filming and animation technology spectators were able to see for the first time live footage of the competition and pilots in action. The TV footage was a combination of live footage being captured from the gliders and a helicopter, and also animated footage displaying the position of the gliders and individual competitor information. The animation was very realistic and information displayed both interesting and informative. The suppliers of the various technologies were leaders in there fields and instrumental in bringing the America's Cup to TV and capture for TV such events as Bathurst and Tour de France. It was a very professional presentation. Each of the 11 gliders had three cameras, one looking at the pilot and the other two capturing different angles. Cockpits were also wired for sound. The vision from these cameras was being relayed back to the control centre at the field by a relay mounted on a helicopter that followed the field at height to maintain line of site communications. The following illustration demonstrates how the various technologies worked. This illustration was published in the Souvenir Programme. The second helicopter was fitted with the latest gimbal mounted gyro stabilized camera. Controlled by the operator seated in the back of the helicopter the camera was capturing vibration free footage of gliders racing and close ups of pilots in flight. A documentary film company was also engaged to capture the competition. They were drawing footage from the helicopter, and glider cameras and ground filming crews. I spoke with the producer on a couple of occasions over the weekend and he was very happy and eagerly looking forward to taking it to the US the week after to seek interest from National Geographic, Discovery Channel and the American and British TV networks. In summaryThe advancement in recent years of information transmission, animation and image capture technology and the integration of them is perfect for our sport. The quality of the TV presentation was outstanding and has enormous potential to significantly build awareness of the sport. It has some very positive flow through to attracting corporate sponsorship and equity to the sport. Suggestions for consideration . This area is very specialised and not to mention expensive and should only be managed by a suitable person with appropriate knowledge. Peter Newport through his company Aerosports is looking to offer this as a bundled product to Australia. I would strongly recommend looking at this as an option. . This would allow Australian organisers to concentrate on sponsorship, among other priorities. Public EventThe public were invited to attend the last three days of the competition and were entertained by glider aerobatics, skydiving, hang-gliders and model gliders, and the launching of the competition gliders heading off on task and their return. The feature was watching the competition live on a huge TV screen. During the competition excellent commentary was provided by Gavin Wills with the help of a couple of local pilots. To keep the public entertained at other times commentary was provided by a well known personality and also on field attractions such as craft stalls, sideshows, food and alcohol outlets. Regrettably the public days were very poorly attended with numbers being estimated at only 1,200 people over the three days. They were budgeting for 15,000. The reason for its failure to attract public attendance was not the marketing of the event, this was very well done, but rather Omarama's proximity to a sizable population base. Omarama has avery small population and is 3.5 hours from Christchurch (population - approx 350,000) and 2.5 hours from Queenstown (population - approx 9,200). A entry ticket cost of $35 was also sited as a deterrent. During the days there was a lot of dead time where nothing was happening on the ground or in the air while the wait for conditions to be right for the launch of competition gliders. Suggestions for consideration . Have a well prepared program of activity through the day. Combination of entertainment and things to educate people about gliding. . Have only one or maybe two public days. Complete the GP competition on the Saturday and focus on the Sunday as a public marketing day. The public don't need to be aware the competition finished the day before. Do the GP presentation on the Sunday with the public. Have competition pilots do short tasks or sprint races close to the field with the intent to entertain the crowd. Talk to a pilot while flying the task to explain tactics. Interview the pilots. . Layout of the public area is important, insure this is close as possible to the grid / launch point. Obviously it is wind direction dependant but provision should be made to display the comp gliders close to the crowd while the gliders are being prepared. Stage this if necessary. . Have a late model glider set up so spectators can actually sit in it and have instruments simulating a variety of things. Vario squawking lift with the vario moving and the Altimeter winding up and the ASI fluctuating. Have some prerecorded radio chatter. A task could be running on a IPAQ. Put a parachute on the spectators back and basically give them the feel of being a comp glider pilot while introducing them to the sophistication of the sport but at the same time showing them how a glider fly's. Friends and family could take photographs. Have www.soaring.org.au displayed so it appears in cockpit shots. The following suggestions are in relation to using the TV technology to maximise entertainment and education. . Have comp pilot take the crowd through the preparation process for a race from pilot briefing to glider prep. Some of this could be pre-recorded. Prep of glider shouldbe live. . Have suitable non competitor pilots entertaining the crowd with regular aerobatics. Have one of these aircraft rigged with the TV equipment and have the pilot talk the crowd through the different aerobatic manoeuvres. Smoking wing tips would be eye-catching and draw attention to the field. . Run a crowd competition for a couple of spectators to go for a flight and on there return interview them on the stage. One of the people could be an insider so we could insure all the right and important messages are communicated. . Have a spot landing competition. Ground Cameras and under fuse cameras showing the main wheel touching down as close as possible to the point. . A winch launch display again talking to the pilot. Event Background It is important to understand this event was a 'commercial operation' not a gliding club organised event. It was the courage and vision of initially one person Peter Newport that saw this event come together. Peter through his company Aerosports Ltd staged the event. Peter took up gliding as a sport only a couple of years ago and clearly has become obsessed, as we can all appreciate, and now operates a Gliding business from Omarama. Peter's business background is in marketing and TV production. He could see that our sport was well suited to TV and had the contacts to explore it. Peter single handily pulled together the appropriate people to stage the event with little to no help from gliding clubs or New Zealand Gliding. Organising the Event Peter employed the services of professionals to fore fill key roles to ensure the event was of a very high standard that would attract sponsors, media and the attention of the public. The following is the key areas of management to insure the event is successful from a marketing perspective. . Event Organiser - Ingrid Temple of Event Management Ltd, was responsible for almost all aspects of the event other than the competition. These included - sourcing, procuring and managing all ground services (PA, amenities, food outlets, merchandising, money management (EFPOS and Credit Card facilities for entry payment and purchases), Stall holders, infrastructure providers and ticket sales. . Ingrid said a very important thing learnt was to insure the people responsible for the managing of the marketing value of the event have close dialogue with the people managing the competition to insure everything works harmoniously over the public days. Respectively the two management teams have different priorities but they need to work together. . Media Relations / Marketing - Victoria Murray-Orr of EveNZ, was responsible for production of all marketing material, public relations and media management. . The marketing of the event commenced in September 2005 with focus being at this stage of introducing the event to the media. It was a process of education of what gliding was and achieved through a constant feeding of press releases and media briefings . Once they felt the media realised what gliding was they then, and only then, could they start to educate them about the competition and the event and ultimately get there attention. . A variety of marketing initiatives were used, these included . Print material (souvenir program, brochures and posters) - posters and brochures distributed through catchment areas. All professionally designed. . Editorial - a pre planned flow of press releases were distributed to media outlets up to and during the event. Certain media outlets were targeted such as prominent papers and magazines. They received very good newspaper coverage. . Radio - there media education strategy attracted quite a few opportunities. . TV - Channel 3 had a TV crew there all weekend capturing stories for the news, did a live cross to there equivalent of Today on Friday morning and did a segment for there Current Affair style program after the Friday night news. Merchandising included posters, souvenir programme, T shirts and baseball caps. Wireless transacting terminals were used for EFPOS and Credit Card purchases. DL Marketing Brochure Souvenir Programme . Bus advertising - they only used one bus but had a very good response to it and suggested if they realised the interest it would have created they would have done three of them. . Community awareness & involvement program - Invited schools to participate in a design a poster competition. . Web site - www.gp06.com - a well designed interactive site with good information. During the competition streaming video was added. The site received an extraordinary amount of hits, coming from all over the world. This is a testament to the interest in the contest but I think particularly the technology being used to display the event. It should be acknowledged the media interest and coverage was not by way of good luck it was by way of planning and professional management. A media centre was set up providing services for journalists to use and also to conduct post comp press conferences. . Victoria felt they started the marketing of the event too late and highlighted importance of educating the media not just promoting the event. Professional press releases are important. Sponsorship Being a first time event gaining sponsorship was very difficult. It was an unproven event, the sport had no profile or TV image, and while some potential sponsors were interested they sited this as the reason for not committing funds on this occasion and adopted a 'wait and see' approach. Most of the financial support was received through grants. A $10,000 cash prize was donated by a prominent NZ company (Anaro Investment Group) and a $2500 sponsorship deal from Aviation Co-op. In Summary The true cost of the event and the amount of dollars received through grants and sponsorship was not made available by the organisers. Peter did explain that most of the suppliers of professional services agreed to a 'Success Basis' agreement, and for this they would be favoured suppliers for future events. I understand some were paid a small amount to come on board but final payment would be based on the success of the event. After the very poor gate takings the financial success was riding on securing a TV and or Documentary contract. The success of the Omarama event should not be judged on the ticket sales but rather the milestone it achieved in building awareness of the sport. This is yet to be measured but it was unanimously agreed the sport had just been catapulted into a marketing medium that will revolutionise the sport. Peter Newport will be providing an estimate of what it would cost for Aerosports to provide the technology and equipment required to take the competition to TV and Documentary producers. By outsourcing this expertise, whether it is Aerosports and another local organsation, it allows the local organiser to concentrate on the following. I feel the local organising committee is combined effort of National (M&D and or Marketing Officer) and the hosting club. The following is a suggested break up of responsiblilities and who should manage. . Gaining and Managing Sponsors - National . Marketing of the event - National . Ticket Sales - Club . Media Management - National . Coordinate infrastructure requirements - Club . Competition Management - Club |
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New Zealand Gliding Grand Prix 2006
In article .com,
HoUdini wrote: Great post on a fantastic effort. My question is has it been considered to package this type of event for sale to an established airshow event? An established event already has the crowd to which we want to market, the booth/food/sideshows in place, etc. I can understand the "desire to do it all" but value of affiliating seems overwhelming. The challenge would be to locate a willing established event in an acceptable soaring location which would inspire the pilots. This could be massaged a little by having the race in the prime flying location (Omarama) and the finish be at an airshow (say in Christchurch). Thoughts? Airshows run to a schedule, glider races don't. That's the biggest obstacle to overcome in having an audience watching a glider race live. What do you do for two hours when the start is delayed waiting for the weather? And gliders finish when they're done, and that might be hours later than expected. -- Philip Plane _____ | ---------------( )--------------- Glider pilots have no visible means of support |
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