Prestige Ticketing, the company with sole corporate hospitality rights inside the London 2012 Olympic sites, has scrapped its complicated scheme that put Olympic attendance out of the reach of all but those with the deepest pockets. It means that, with less than 150 days to go before perhaps the most prestigious event on the planet this summer, there are still great opportunities for businesses to entertain in style.
“Apart from Tom Daley’s diving nights, we still have availability at every event,” says Tony Barnard, Prestige Ticketing sales and marketing director. “We’ve introduced lower prices for some of the lower-category events. Customers can now buy hospitality for as few as two people.” With just under a third of the 80,000 hospitality packages left, prices now start at £495 a head (albeit for less popular events – a ticket to the Opening Ceremony will still set you back £4,500), and Prestige has also begun offering shared corporate boxes for the basketball finals and gymnastics.
Thomas Cook, also an official ticket provider, has about 30 per cent of its 300,000 ticket allocation left. “The highest demand is for athletics, followed by those events in which Team GB stand the best chance of winning a medal, namely rowing, swimming and cycling,” says Stephen Vaughan, managing director of Thomas Cook’s London 2012 partnership. “All events within the Olympic Park are expected to sell out as you get access to the whole park, while interest in the football will peak when the Team GB squad is announced.”
The tickets have been packaged with overnight hotel accommodation and start at £99 a head. Outside London, there are packages available at five football venues (Coventry, Glasgow, Cardiff, Manchester and Newcastle), at Brands Hatch for the Paralympic road cycling or in Weymouth where ten different sailing events will be taking place.
London 2012 presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a host of unforgettable memories
Companies in Surrey, where much of the Olympic road cycling will take place, will be watching closely as the London Olympic Games Organising Committee (LOCOG) debates whether or not to charge for prime viewing areas such as Box Hill and Donkey’s Green, (still undecided at the time of going to press). Though LOCOG has been under heavy criticism for suggesting such a move, it could provide opportunities for DIY hospitality.
After all, you don’t have to buy tickets to leverage the Olympic spirit – from a fleet of Tall Ships sailing daily along the Thames to a pavilion with private garden in the shadow of the Tower of London, every venue in the capital will be offering some combination of Olympic screenings and fine dining. You could even organise your own event by tapping into the free entertainment on offer in Hyde Park, Victoria Park and Trafalgar Square.
“London is a great destination even without a ticket,” says Len Olender, director of hospitality company Sportsworld and a veteran of eight Olympic games. “It will be like New Year’s Eve only with warm temperatures. You just need to be a little bit creative.” One possibility will be one of the estimated 60 or so National Olympic Committee Hospitality Houses that will pop up around the capital, each hosted by and aiming to showcase a particular country. Though the possibilities will vary from house to house depending on the organisers, most will include entertainment and national food and drink in some of London’s most iconic buildings.
“The city will be alive with activity,” says Zanine Adams, head of event solutions and UK sales for the capital’s convention bureau, London & Partners. “Companies can book at table at the French House restaurant at Old Billingsgate or just enjoy a cold beer and watch the Dutch party at Alexandra Palace.” Brazil, host to the next Olympics in 2016, will be creating a fiesta at Somerset House, while Russia, which has its main hospitality house at Perks Field, next to Kensington Gardens, also plans a temporary ice rink to advertise its forthcoming hosting of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
If none of the above tickles your fancy, look out for some of the pop-up clubs that are starting to appear. Forman’s Fish Island, an East-End salmon smokery next to the Olympic Stadium, is taking bookings for champagne breakfasts or late dinners followed by dancing in the venue’s pop-up nightclub.
“However companies choose to maximise the potential of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to reinforce key business relationships and reward staff, London 2012 presents a once-in-a-lifetime chance to create a host of unforgettable memories,” says Ms Adams.
Those memories could translate into hard figures if research conducted by Professor Simon Chadwick, director of the Centre for the International Business of Sport at Coventry University, is anything to go by. A recent report, commissioned by Prestige Ticketing, values Olympic hospitality at more than £3 billion and found that companies investing in corporate hospitality at the Games are likely to earn a return on investment exceeding 12 per cent, valued at an estimated £1.6 billion to the companies involved.
“Compared with other Olympics, London is the perfect storm for entertaining,” says Mr Olender. “Sydney was far, far away, with Beijing there were cultural constriants, Athens was traditionally very much a holiday destination, but London is a very sophisticated city used to big events, with a very sophisticated hospitality industry.”
However, Professor Chadwick warns that companies need to be careful, with two constraints on using the Olympics as a ways of building relationships with stakeholders. First, businesses need to be careful that any publicity does not link their company too closely to the Games by using logos or branding, which was outlawed by the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006, and Professor Chadwick warns that LOCOG is taking any infringements very seriously. Secondly, entertainment of either clients or customers could fall foul of the 2010 Bribery Act. “Under the Act, there has to be a proven business case for every person you invite to your hospitality event,” he says. “You need to create a papertrail for each guest.”
The Act may be a necessary evil, but is no excuse not to celebrate and enjoy the Games this summer. After all the business benefits could well outweigh any administrative headaches. “London 2012 is important in terms of the sports industry and the hospitality around events,” saysProfessor Chadwick. “It makes the UK even more important as a centre for the commercial activity around sport.”
LONDON’S OLYMPIC LEGACY
London already ranks highly as an events destination, according to a survey from IFM Sports Marketing Surveys. It found that 70 per cent of business leaders rank London as the world’s best major events destination for providing return on investment, with 70 per cent saying London’s venues are the highest quality and 58 per cent identifying the capital as an important means of reaching new markets.
So will the Olympics give the city a further boost? Certainly hosting a major sporting event can provide cities with a fantastic legacy; the Olympic Park Legacy Company, a not-for-profit organisation with a 25-year development plan for the site, is hoping London will be no exception. There is already a list of sporting events due to take place in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which will be Europe’s largest regeneration project: the UEFA Champions League Final and the ITU World Championship Series Triathlon Grand Final in 2013, the Canoe Slalom World Championships in 2015 and the Athletics World Championships in 2017. According to Professor Chadwick: “London was already seen as a destination for the sporting industry, and the Olympics cements and reinforces that.”
By 2016, the Olympic Park Legacy Company anticipates up to 2,000 events will be held annually in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. But it’s not the only new venue for the capital. The Multi-Use Arena, which was used for the first Cabinet meeting of 2012 in a PR exercise to show off the site, will become the third-largest arena in London with 7,500 seats. Then there’s the Aquatics Centre with 3,500 seats and the Orbit Sculpture, which is described as “the next London Eye” and is a massive observation tower with a 20-mile view from the top - a great way to entertain customers and clients.
Just down the road from the Olympic Park is 3 Mills Studios, a key location for the Opening and Closing ceremonies, which has already played host to artists such as Lady Gaga, Tim Burton and Danny Boyle. Its flexible studio space is available for business events or corporate hospitality on top of its primary use for recording artists and film makers.
According to London’s mayor, Boris Johnson: “London is streets ahead of previous Olympic cities when it comes to securing a lasting legacy.”
