FIFA Fan Fests were a natural development of the large-scale public viewings that were staged by some of host cities during the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea and Japan.
Although FIFA had no official involvement in these events, their high interest and popularity encouraged world football’s governing body to hold the first official Fan Fests at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Thierry Weil
Marketing Director
FIFA
The FIFA Fan Fest is a fantastic way to ensure that both residents of the host country as well as visitors are able to engage with the FIFA World Cup, even if they do not have a match ticket.
With the number of match-day tickets a very limited commodity, we want to ensure that the FIFA Fan Fest is the next best place to see the matches, and therefore hope that by providing these events it helps the city to bring a majority of football fans to one communal location.
Over five million people attended the FIFA Fan Fest in Brazil throughout the 2014 World Cup, turning it into the perfect location for fans to celebrate the game. It was held in 12 locations and was backed at all events by Anheuser-Busch InBev through its Brahma beer brand, Coca-Cola, Hyundai, Kia, Itaú, Johnson & Johnson, Oi and Sony.
The focus of the FIFA Fan Fest has always remained on the spectator experience. What drives fans to the event locations is the fact that matches can be watched on a high quality screen, with high quality sound, surrounded by a large group of football fans ensuring a great atmosphere and experience.
The FIFA Fan Fest is designed to be the best place for fans to watch the FIFA World Cup outside the stadium, and it is recognised as a safe, secure, family friendly and highly entertaining event for all football fans.
Credit: FIFA on YouTube
As the FIFA Fan Fest is part of the obligation of the host city it becomes part of the host city budget. Each host city must provide a stadium to host matches, as well as provide a FIFA Fan Fest to host football fans that do not have match tickets. However, FIFA does provide financial support to the host cities, in terms of promotion of the FIFA Fan Fest as well as ensuring that our project team can be onsite to provide expertise and support to the local teams.
One of the key pillars of the FIFA Fan Fest is that the event is free of charge within the host country, therefore at this point we do not envisage an entrance fee being introduced.
The main responsibility for the organisation of the FIFA Fan Fest lies with the individual host cities, therefore FIFA does not face too many logistical challenges. In saying this, however, it is our responsibility to liaise with the 10 to 12 host cities, all of whom have different management structures, expectations and capacities to host such a large-scale event.
Due to this, there can be challenges faced in ensuring consistency for each of the FIFA Fan Fest events across the host cities and in ensuring they are proving fans with the best experience possible.
Security matters are left with the host cities and host country, as they are the experts in securing locations and events within their own region. FIFA will provide some generic guidance and recommendations from past experiences but, for the most part, the security of the FIFA Fan Fest will remain a responsibility of the host country.
We see the evolution of social media being important in future Fests, and we hope to engage with these types of platforms to ensure a better experience for fans in 2018.
To continue reading SportBusiness International’s Fan Zones sector focus, please click the links below:
1. All for one, one for all: Greg Bowman, managing and creative director of Great Big Events, talks about the planning process and operational challenges of fan zones. Whilst Fuse account director James English and TRO’s European group account director Ben Goss reveal how to create fan zone concepts that reflect the profile of sponsors
2. Safety First: With fan festivals attracting huge populations of the host city, the top priority for rights-holders is safety. Helmut Spahn, director general of ICSS (the International Centre for Sport Security), explains how difficult it is for event organisers to address concerns in this area
3. Case Study: Holland Heineken House