Over the last couple years we have been filming at events like the Teva Mountain Games, Gorge Games, surf contests, etc and one characteristic of the the successful (success in terms of gaining and retaining sponsorship) events is that media is a primary, if not the main, consideration.

Teva has been the gold standard. The entire weekend is planned with media and viewership in mind. So many times we heard "losing crowd" on the organizers radios when there was a gap in the action between events. Organizers quickly redirected spectators and media to the next event or to some point of interest. The event is a carefully orchestrated plan of moving crowds and media from one area of interest to the next. Yes, this is a different kind of an event than a sailing regatta, but the point is the same, the sponsors and media coverage are at least on equal footing with the event organization.

I get asked to come and shoot video a lot, usually at most a few weeks or maybe a month or two before the event. There is usually no budget, and for the most part, no overall media strategy. We realize shooting video at a sailing event is not a profit motivated undertaking. You do it to help the sport and hopefully have some fun. I think most people like myself however, are not willing to take a loss over the expenses. On top of that, were missing work if its during the week which is another loss. There needs to be some budget, which means sponsors, which means a media plan.

One of the events that did get some decent viewership was the F18 Nationals that Tracy Hawks ran years ago. We started working with her well in advance and even though we had problems like the internet troubles, we got a large about of videos out during the week. At one point we had power boats running tapes back and forth to the beach so that we could edit in parallel during the day and post videos each night. When we realized our internet link wouldn't work, we made a deal with a local homeowner to outfit his house with a new wireless router if he let us set up a link from his house to the beach for the week. The point being, the event organizers kept media coverage as a main focus.

I know this is easier said than done, and can be a lot of extra work. Its quite often hard enough just to get enough people to run the event, but just thought Id add my 2 cents as we really enjoy filming at these kind of events.