“Business as usual” was not the mantra at the World Wrestling Championships September 2009 in the City of Herning. Though wrestling is a sport, rich in traditions, the Danish organisers managed to innovate the event set up in a way that complied with both the International Wrestling Federation, FILAs, requirements and the Danish way of staging events “made in Denmark”.
Thus, the Danish organisers merged the morning and afternoon fights into one, the spectators were seated closer to the mats than is usually seen to create a more intense and intimate atmosphere, and also; for the first time ever, smoke, confetti and flames were unique ingredients of the very exciting wrestling finals.
It is likely that due to these innovations, as many as 99% of the international spectators found the atmosphere at the venue, Exhibition Centre Herning, very good or good.
What was by far the most difficult pre-event view to get across with and obtain acceptance of by FILA was the suggestion to provide for food and drinks at the venue, instead of at the event hotels. In the light of this, it has been extremely encouraging for the Danish organisers to learn from Sport Event Denmark’s post-event survey that this initiative was very well received by the almost 1,500 athletes, team managers and officials. As many as 94% were positive (“it is okay with me”), which meant a lot to the Danish organisers, as one of the ambitions of the staging of the event was to host the best World Wrestling Championships ever, from a participant point of view.
In terms of the post-event impact analysis, President of the Danish Wrestling Federation, Allan Bo Jakobsen says: “It sure is encouraging reading. Ever since we acquired the event back in 2006 we have been dreaming about the way to stage the best World Wrestling Championships ever. Before we hosted the event, we made it clear that we wanted to set new standards from an international point of view. And now, we are very happy that we succeeded in coming across with our new initiatives and especially that we have gotten such a fantastic response to them”.
Chief Executive of Sport Event Denmark, Lars Lundov, also adopts a positive view on many of the survey results: “The survey proves that Denmark is capable of hosting some of the major international events successfully. Wrestling is an Olympic sport, the sport in many countries throughout the world and, actually, the World Wrestling Championships 2009 had more than 350 mio. viewers watching the wrestling finals in Herning”.
The entire survey is available on Sport Event Denmark’s homepage: www.sporteventdenmark.com, under “analyses”.
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