27 Feb 2024
The tournament season is very much in full swing with interactive and immersive fan activations at the heart of the major event experience.
Provision Events, industry leaders in the arena of sports simulation and multi-sport activation, is at the forefront of taking action and inspiring change for more sustainable events. Recent activations at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, Ras Al Khaimah Championship and PGA Show in Orlando have kicked the season off in style and Sustainable Golf was delighted to speak with Gary Whelan, Managing Partner, and Sarah Cheverton, Marketing & Client Services Executive, of Provision Events.
In the first of a two-part series, we look at the Provision’s role at events, Provision Green and some of the highlights over the last 12 months.
As a supporter of the GEO Sustainable Golf Foundation, Provision Events is helping accelerate sustainability in and through golf.
Tell us about Provision Events and the role fan activations have at golf tournaments.
Gary: Provision has been going for 20 years now and we've been there from the outset of fan experiences. Events in the past were very much all burger vans, bars and people out on the course watching and then over the last 10 to 15 years the fan experience has increased more and more to what you see today. The BMW PGA Championship, for example, gets bigger and bigger. The first thing you see when you come in as a fan is the fan village - before you even get out onto the course.
Provision works across the golf calendar, in the UAE, the US and across Europe, and the fan village has continually moved higher up the list of priorities when organizing a tournament. The same thing is happening in other sports we operate in – tennis, rugby, equestrian, baseball – as all sports are competing against one another to get the fans to buy the tickets for their event.
So not only does the sport and the experience on the pitch, court or course need to be great, but fans need to be offered a lot more for them to choose one event versus another.
If we can give simulators or chipping challenges or bunker shots which align the fans with their favourite players and give them an experience which brings them a bit closer then that's y really important for us and for the tournaments and sponsors we work with.
What have been the highlights for Provision over the last 12 months?
Sarah: The Ryder Cup was big as we've been working on that for two years and we worked with nine different clients on different activations. It was a hugely successful event and it was great to be a part of that.
As an organisation, gaining our ISO 14001 accreditation, was a huge step for us. The team put in a lot of effort and work over the past 12 months so it was good to have that accreditation in environmental management and sustainability.
And then the expansion of our global team. We have been recruiting across all the areas we work - UK, Europe, UAE and now in Florida. This year is the 20th anniversary for Provision so we are going into it with a lot of success.
The growth across fan activation areas has also prompted an acceleration of your own sustainability journey. Tell us a little bit about Provision Green and how that's evolved.
Sarah: Provision Green policy came about when we partnered with GEO Foundation in one of the first positive steps into our sustainability journey.
Taking that on as a company identified areas across all our operations that we want to improve on. We try to be transparent and acknowledge the fact that not everything we do is the best for the environment and unfortunately does have a negative impact as well.
But what we've tried to do is outline proactive and realistic short-term and long-term goals to work continuously on becoming more sustainable and implementing more environmentally friendly practices across our global operations.
Provision Green also helps us to analyse our impact and implement more transparent reporting. We hope the Provision Green policy becomes a blueprint to inspire and encourage other companies and suppliers that we work with to team together in the global effort.
Find out more about ProVision Green here
You can read part two of the series below:
Part Two - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle for Greener Events
To see more highlights in action, search the sustainable golf highlights gallery now.
