City Events 2013, 3 Days that Will Shape the Future of Sports Events!

Lausanne, health Switzerland – Crisp fall weather on the shore of Lake Geneva, denture served as the perfect backdrop for this year City Events Conference, ampoule as cities met with International Sports Federations and sports event stakeholders on November 13th-15th, 2013. 

This year, over 250 participants from 24 countries gathered at the Beaulieu Congress Center, to discuss the future of sporting events. The theme, “Sporting Events in the Near Future,” lead to a diverse and interesting set of discussions; hitting on topics such as creating long-term value from your event, venue legacy, and tools and trends of tomorrow. The conference was marked by high quality debates, thanks to our highly esteemed speakers, excellent moderators, and an enthusiastic and engaged audience.

Four main themes were debated during 1 keynote session, 4 plenary sessions, and 4 breakout sessions:

• – Creating value for and from your event,
• – Legacy and innovative venue concepts: Optimising existing and refurbished venues + Utilising temporary venues and considering events without venues.
• – Sport event budget management: Operational budget management and effective procurement + Latest tools to measure event ROI.
• – New trends of tomorrow: Events of tomorrow + Tools of tomorrow.

The opening included great speeches by Leonz Eder, Vice-President FISU, Olivier Ferraton, CEO, GL events and Patricle Iseli, Head of Sports, City of Lausanne, who gave us an interesting point of view of the Olympic Capital and about sports events in the near future.

Another highlight of the opening session was a surprise appearance by the Winter Universiade flame, currently making its way across to Trentino.

City Events: Many Networking Opportunities

In addition to excellent speeches, and rousing debates, City Events is first and foremost an opportunity to meet and connect with individuals from the international sports business world. One of the highlights of the conference is the one-on-one meeting session, which allows cities to meet individually with sports federations, sports events organizers, and sponsors. This year, 35 cities were represented, from five continents, and 28 international sports federations were present. All in all, 147 one-on-one meetings were organized during the two-hour meeting session. This unique networking opportunity was followed by the FISU reception held at the Rolex Learning Center. 

This year’s City Events conference was the most successful conference to date, and we hope it will result in many great sporting events in the coming years. We are already looking forward to next year’s conference, where we hope to build on this year’s success to hold a bigger and better City Events 2014.

We look forward to welcoming you to the 5th City Events, which will be held on November 12th through the 14th, 2014.