Being an international man of excess, leisure and absolute pleasure I find myself interacting with a vast amount of people. And therefore I get to do some cool things that other people may not know about or get invited to. Luckily for you, I share it all, with all of you, all the time!
Gary Bailey
So it was with some amusement and excitement that I was invited by my preferred safari operator, Siyabona Africa, to a presentation at Bishops school in Rondebosch with Gary Bailey speaking. Normally entering a school strikes fear into my body because it was a dark time for me. School that is. Anyway, seeing as though the World Cup is going to be played in Cape Town for a few matches, I thought it necessary that I attend this function. I also just attended because I thought a might get a free stay at one of the more exclusive game lodges up country.
Sadly all I got was some information on the 2010 World Cup. But that’s good news for you, because now you will be more informed!
Gary Bailey says that almost every sector of business will have an opportunity to get involved in the 2010 Soccer World Cup and this even includes schools. Looking at the size of the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa, it is clear that it is bigger than anything we have experienced.
Bailey said that there are expected to be 220000 overseas visitors and another 180000 from Africa. This means the 2010 Soccer World Cup will have 10 times more visitors than the 1995 Rugby World Cup and 15 times more visitors than the 2003 Cricket World Cup. Which means that it is going to be something to behold!
Naturally what this means is that every single one of these visitors needs to be accommodated and transported during their stay in South Africa. To do this will require a great deal of planning and co-ordination to ensure that the spectators are able to get to their games on time and also to make sure that they are kept occupied between games.
He said schools such as Bishops can get involved in the 2010 World Cup through the following opportunities:
Making use of the fields(Mini fan camps)
Renting out the boarding section to fans
It was also noted that building relationships with overseas schools with similar profiles to Bishops(Such as Eaton) would be beneficial. This could be done by making their boarding houses available to staff and families of students who may wish to travel to Cape Town during the World Cup. This could also open up opportunities for future exchange programs.
Gary Bailey said mobile phones will play an important part in the planning and co-ordination of such an event. One of the plans Bailey said was being considered was linking a spectators ticket to their cellphone. Therefore a fan will arrive at a certain venue and the ticket with the fans name printed on it will have to match up with the information on the phones SIM card.
The problem I personally forecast for this is the fact that people may lose phones, or forget them somewhere, or batteries may be flat. Technology like this is good but I think there could be considerable problems when we take the various factors into account.
What was interesting though was looking at the use of cellphones for crowd management. A display screen could be used to show organisers where overcrowding may be occurring by sensing the density of active cellphones. In this way the necessary crowd management measures could be put into place sooner rather than later.
Foreign visitors also may have some language difficulties here and Bailey said there is a project to use the online translation program Babel Fish to cellphones which would help communication with foreign visitors.
Another very important point raised was allowing fans without tickets to be able to view games at the various fan parks they are staying at. This involves the use if a special definition TV set which is an inflatable TV screen that can be erected at fan parks.
Gary Bailey said that in Korea and Germany, fan parks had proven to be a big success and that they would be really important in South Africa.
So those were the main points discussed. From my point of view I think fan camps will be a huge factor in the 2010 World Cup and I think they are an integral part of a successful Soccer World Cup in South Africa. However we are all going to need to be more involved in managing our use of electricity.
Fan camps are going to need power but it needs to be as clean as possible. If generators are going to be run they should try to be run on something like biodiesel. At last years Rocking The Daisies Festival in Darling the generators were run on biodiesel. It was made using cooking oil that had been collected beforehand from the food suppliers from the event. Something like this is a simple idea but we need the minds to put it together. We need to also make sure that our transport for fans to and from the various games is cleaner and better.
I will be going into more detail on the environmental aspects related to the 2010 World Cup in the coming weeks and months.
In the meantime, if your business is interested in maximising the potential of the 2010 World Cup, then please visit GAMEPLAN2010.
There you will find information on conferences that are on offer to help you and your business in making the 2010 World Cup a financial success.
Sean Lloyd
Editor
