CORONAVIRUS INNOVATION AWARD: PROTECTION

EVENT360

Working in collaboration with the Premier League, Liverpool FC and Sky Sports, EVENT360 were engaged to produce a memorable COVID-19 safe End of Season Trophy Presentation for the Premier League at Liverpool Football Club, allowing the players to celebrate their victory in a controlled and safe environment without spectators.This was achieved through a bespoke stage built into The Kop at Anfield Stadium, which allowed for a socially distanced stage build and install, reducing number of crew required onsite for matchday. The scale of the stage allowed for social distancing of players, and operationally staff were able to work within recommended COVID-19 safe guidelines when onsite due to location of the stage. The resulting presentation was enhanced with an impressive lighting and flame FX design using the entire Kop end as a backdrop, and large scale pyrotechnics off the roof of Anfield Stadium to ensure that LFC fans could still witness the celebration, from a safe distance away from the stadium across Liverpool.

Everton Family – Everton Football Club

The Everton Family signalled its dedication to protecting players, staff, fans, and the wider community by closing all sites on March 13 – ten days before the national lockdown Everton was able to act swiftly thanks to robust risk and governance processes and CEO Professor Denise Barrett Baxendale initiating scenario planning from January 2020 The Club and its charity Everton in the Community was the first to mobilise its response to serve the community – Blue Family – which to date has seen 17,000 vulnerable people and families supported with their physical and mental wellbeing Health, wellbeing and education content was created and shared across all Everton website and social media channels reached more than 24 5m people in the first four weeks, and more than 16,250 check-in phone calls have been made Staff welfare was also a priority, with the launch of Everton Connect, an online engagement programme designed to protect the physical and mental wellbeing of all members of the Everton Family, keeping them connected, informed and active The Club and charity has used data to inform its response to protect staff and fans, and worked with health authorities to deliver key public health messages.

Imagineear’s SafeSpace at Arsenal Football Club’s Emirates Stadium Tour

In July, Arsenal Football Club resumed its Stadium Tours with a new socially-distanced visit using Imagineear’s SafeSpace™ – a proximity-based technology that ensures guests remain a safe distance from each other whilst onsite. When a visitor’s, or family group’s space is compromised by another visitor, SafeSpace™ triggers an audio, haptic and/or visual alert on the user’s device prompting them to keep a safe distance from each other.A one-way system was also introduced through the stadium to help regulate the number of people in an area at a given time. Imagineear edited the tour content in ten languages, including British Sign Language (BSL), to support social distancing and the new visitor flow, and added visual reminder prompts on the device’s screen to help visitor awareness on the tour route.Imagineear is a leading innovator in the provision of multimedia content and technology solutions. We design and produce multilingual multimedia self- or group-guided tours and visitor experiences in long-term partnership with sports clubs, stadia, sports museums and heritage attractions worldwide. Our tours help control the message delivered to all visitors and bring the excitement of events, clubs and venues to life, deepening the connection with visiting fans from around the world.

Lancashire Cricket

As the ECB sought to salvage the International Cricket this Summer – crucial to securing £200 million in broadcast revenues in 2020 alone – Emirates Old Trafford became the centrepiece venue in their plan.With little chance of supporters returning to cricket for the start of the cricket season, the team at EOT created a 50-page proposal outlining how the venue would operate a bio-secure event, based on the experience and comprehensive knowledge of the site The operational plans that were put in place were to ensure a ensure a safe environment for the resumption of international cricket at the venue behind-closed-doors.In June, EOT was selected as a host venue for the proposed Test Match Series with the West Indies Due to the success of the security and protections measures put in place, the venue went on to host 21 days of international cricket played behind-closed-doors.Not content with protecting staff, players, media, operational and technical teams on-site during this period, Lancashire Cricket and EOT launched the ‘Safe in One Place’ campaign with sharing best practice with the wider UK events industry as it prepared to return on October 1.

Professional Darts Corporation

It was darts, but not as you’d know it! The Professional Darts Corporation led the way in sport’s safe return with the hugely successful staging of the PDC Summer Series in July. The tournament which was staged within a bio-secure “bubble” saw almost 130 players and up to 70 staff from right across the globe come together for the five-day tournament of elite level darts, after almost four months without competitive in-person action.The five one-day Players Championship events were staged in a protected environment, which included all players and staff being subject to Covid-19 tests and placed in isolation until being cleared to participate.The Summer Series took place under strict guidelines agreed with DCMS, including significant changes to standard playing protocols, the operation of the events and sanctions in place should players not observe regulations.Extensive pre-tournament planning created a playing area which ensured appropriate social distancing was in operation, clear signage to keep all personnel within the “bubble”, having reserve players on stand-by as well as health & safety measures which included the appointment of a medically-trained Welfare Officer.The events featured live worldwide streaming and attracted international media coverage.

UK Active

ukactive is the not-for-profit membership body for the physical activity sector and exists to improve the health of the nation by getting more people, more active, more often We work with our members and partners who share a common ambition to improve the health and wellbeing of the nation On March 20th, gyms and leisure centres were forced to close This had a catastrophic effect on the industry, but also the nation’s health and wellbeing including deteriorating mental health and deepening of inequalities The focus of ukactive’s work was to embark on a campaign of lobbying on the sector’s behalf to give the Government the confidence it needs to recognise and support gyms and leisure centres towards reopening This included the publication of Covid 19 secure guidelines, policy calls to government, accelerating a digital transformation , providing business modelling/mitigate risk and increasing consumer confidence (including Covid 19 myth busting) This involved a array of stakeholders to whom ukactive were communicating to – government departments, leisure site operators, sector professionals and the general public Following months of lobbying and at its climax, site visits by Government and public health officials, the physical activity sector was granted reopening on the 25th July.