Sport Event Denmark celebrates 10 years in the international sports business and focuses thus on the tendencies of the next ten years with sporting events on this year’s SportAccord in Bangkok.
Sporting events face many challenges in the years to come, according to Mike Laflin, CEO and funder SportCal, who presented his forecast for the future at Speakers Corner in cooperation with SportAccord Gold Partner, Sport Event Denmark. Mike Laflin underlined the importance of innovation and creative thinking in staging major, internal sporting events and as an example, Mr. Laflin mentioned the IAAF World Half Marathon. For many years Mr. Laflin worked with IAAF and – with a humorous twist – shared his thoughts on how the World Half Marathon Championships used to be the most boring event ever. Then in 2014, Denmark staged the event in a new format allowing recreational runners to participate. More than 30,000 runners turned the event into a festive celebration of running and added value to the world championships. Now, this event in its new format in particular appeals to future organisers. Other events are undergoing the same transformation and Mr. Laflin mentioned the multisport events as an example. The International Triathlon Federation (ITU) have thus gathered their world championships in the ITU MultiSport Festival which also embraces recreational participation. Canada staged the first edition last year and Denmark will stage the event this summer based on the experiences cropped through the last 10 years.