Rugby sevens organizers arrive
Site inspection crew working out logistics for tour stop originally scheduled for U.K.
Normally you do the site inspection first and then award the event.
But having already awarded Edmonton the former London stop on the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series tour, five officials are in town for the next three days to begin building the
Sept. 25-26 event featuring 12 of the top nations in the world.
World Rugby has already decided on a 12-team format instead of the normal 14-team slate because Great Britain combines into one team on Olympic years.
“We think it will be a great event in Edmonton — definitely unique. We believe there will be an appetite for a unique festivaltype environment major sports event here,” said Gareth Rees, Rugby Canada's point person for the event who is here heading up the delegation.
Rees is the only Canadian rugby player in the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. He co-chaired the initial bid to secure a tour stop in Canada six years ago with John Furlong, head of the organizing committee of Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
At a Commonwealth or Olympic Games, Rugby Sevens has two to three draws per day, each separate ticket events. At a Rugby Tour stop there are only two types of tickets, single day or two-day.
That's part of the appeal, he insisted.
“A ticket gives access for the entire day. There will be lots going on away from the pitch. That's half the fun at Sevens events. There generally are lots of costumes and lots of characters.
“Currently, the key nations are scheduled to play in the Olympics so we'd expect to have the medal-winning teams here.”
One of the items on the to-do list will be to determine different stadium location ticket prices. They'll likely go on sale in the next dozen days.
“The two-day passes will be reasonably priced,” he said.
Rees is not making any attendance predictions or projections, but Edmonton events expectations are that they should meet or beat the combined two-day turnstile totals of 72,000, 76,116, 77,096, 73,819 and 74,560 for the five editions held in Vancouver so far.
“Rugby Sevens has been a huge success with the development of this tour at the Commonwealth Games and is about to return for a second time to the Olympics.
“It's already proven itself to be exceptionally exciting, engaging, high scoring and the two-day tournament format has been a big part of the package.”
Rees said the stadium will be fitted out with various social areas for fans who want to go to their seats and catch only Canadian games and other matchups involving specific teams.
Rees said the teams will not be announced until a later date but that he expects the core countries from the Olympics to compete in both Vancouver and Edmonton in back-to-back stops to relaunch the rugby series.
Olympic gold medal winners five years ago in Rio, the Flying Fijians go into Tokyo favoured to defend their title over Great Britain. The other 10 Olympic sides in Tokyo will be Argentina, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Korea, New Zealand, South Africa and the U.S.
There's a lot involved. This is no small-scale production.
And the challenge is to make it as successful as the annual HSBC series events in Cape Town, Sydney, Hamilton, N.Z., Los Angeles, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Paris and Vancouver.
This year, due to the pandemic, it'll be reduced to six stops, leading off with back-to-back weekends in Canada before proceeding to Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and Cape Town.
“This week, we've invited World Rugby officials and their partners to get up to speed with the facilities. There are obviously some time restraints because of the late Covid-affected announcement, but we're excited that we can deliver a first-class entertainment experience,” said Rees.
Figuring out dressing rooms is always a challenge with 12 to 16 teams, but the teams involve rosters that can fit into the same minivan and not two buses like the CFL teams that normally occupy locker-rooms here.
“The teams need smaller spaces and spend less time in them,” said Rees, a Rugby Sevens international TV commentator.
“Once they head to the field, they return to recovery spaces provided during the event days.”
They'll settle on a host hotel and other hotels for staff.
“Transportation is a key part of the week. There are serious levels of logistics required to move this many teams around. But we have models from Vancouver over the last five years that we know will work.”
Volunteers ought not to be a problem in the volunteer capital of Canada, he suggested.
“We have already had strong exploratory conversations with Explore Edmonton and we have a strong, experienced rugby community in Alberta.
“One of the reason's we're here so soon after making the announcement is we are building our needs based on the stadium and the advice from World Rugby.”
We believe there will be an appetite for a unique festival-type environment major sports event here