At the first day of at Olympia London today (18 February), Brinkworth talked about the opportunities for the event industry as part of this year's . It is the third largest global sporting event, with 460,000 visitors from overseas expected to attend and more than two million tickets available.
He explained international rugby fans, from regions such as Australasia, the US, Canada and South Africa, would be staying for long periods as part of the 44-day-long tournament. "There will be 20 days where no rugby matches will take place so for fans there will be plenty of time to explore the country between games," Brinkworth said.
He added that while Visit England had no plans to explore standalone experiential opportunities as part of the RWC 2015, there will be good opportunities for brands to explore experiential activations, but they will have to take a different approach from the 2011 tournament in New Zealand where much of the consumer-facing activity was localised in one main area.
"There was a big venue down on the waterfront in Auckland, which was the epicentre of all the activity for the last tournament," he explained. "But I don't think there will be anything like that here in the UK - it will be much more spread out. But I think sponsors like Heineken who have done activity as part of the Champions League will find ways to activate nationwide."
Brinkworth said London's Trafalgar Square had been talked about as an opportunity to execute experiential activations, however, he cited the destination could not host screenings of rugby games due to licensing restrictions.
He added the Festival of Rugby, taking place between 10 June and 31 October, will be a big opportunity for brands to host events outside of those from sponsors. Each city will also host fan parks, and a 20-minute-long opening ceremony will take place before the first game and will be directed by Kim Gavin, who was involved in the opening and closing ceremonies for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
RWC brand sponsors include , , and Emirates, with Toshiba, Canon and Coca-Cola recently being announced as being part of the tournament.
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