Maximising the Green and Gold runway for a high-performance event industry
By Board Director, Thomas Staunton
The success of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games was not only 30 days of world-class sport, it was also years of France positioning itself as a global event destination and building a high-performance event industry, both of which were achieved by hosting, delivering and supporting *50,000 pre-Games events across the entire country.
As we celebrate the achievements of the Australian Olympic and Paralympic teams, who trained and practised for years to do their best on the world stage, we should also apply the same high-performance approach to the Australian events industry – educating, practising, innovating and developing the skills required to be the best event practitioners in the world.
The success of the Paris 2024 Games was so much more than the sport on the field of play. The success included bidding, hosting and producing;
- Major international sporting events, world championships and world cups
- Business events
- Arts and cultural festivals
- Tourism and destination marketing projects
- and; a myriad of local community events
This legacy program engaged millions of attendees across France through a wide range of events, years before the Games. Importantly, these tens of thousands of events also helped develop capacity, capability, and expertise within the French event industry, which contributed to the success of the Games.
Partners and stakeholders of the Paris 2024 Games maximised the collective return on investment and achieved significant impact and outcomes for communities and businesses on a national scale, even before the Opening Ceremony commenced.
The LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games now have stewardship of the Olympic Flag and will also have delivered thousands of events and activations for a total of 10 years by the time of the Opening Ceremony. Another proof-point for the power of an Olympic and Paralympic Games to be measured by the success of developing a high-performance event industry through effective planning and delivery of a range of test events, ensuring seamless experiences at Games time when the eyes of the world are watching.
To learn from the immense success of Paris 2024 and grow from what LA28 is currently demonstrating, Australia needs to build a high-performance event industry through events, experiences, activations and engagement programs across sectors such as sports, tourism, business, arts and culture, trade and investment, education.
From live sites and community sports activations aligned to celebrate international sporting competitions; bidding and hosting of major international events, world championships and world cups; designing new tourism and destination experiences; upskilling an entire industry and transitioning to more sustainable event practices; building capacity and capability in local supply chains; and importantly, being prepared to welcome all Australians, and international visitors to Australia, at a world-class level.
In just 3 years 11 months and 8 days, Brisbane 2032 will officially take stewardship of the Olympic Flag, following LA28, leaving a final 3 years, 10 months and 24 days until the Opening Ceremony.
Just as countries recruit, train, upskill and send athletes to compete on the world stage to practice and ensure they can perform their best, so too our events industry needs to be supported through a steady pipeline of events and major international projects that allow the industry to recruit, train, upskill and practice the delivery of major international events at an Olympic and Paralympic standard.
