A space for athletes to enjoy the World Championships

While multiple world records fell during July’s World Athletics Championships, held in Oregon, we might have set a record of our own for “largest distance between multiple sites of the same event.”

Working alongside USA Track and Field (USATF) and NBC, our Production team produced a series of “watch parties” for USATF taking place over the two weekends of the World Championships.  The first, on July 16, took place in Louisville at Norton Healthcare Sports and Learning Center. The second in both New York City (at the Armory Track in Washington Heights) and Los Angeles (at UCLA’s Drake Stadium) on back-to-back days, July 23 and 24.

Asked to create an exciting environment for track teams and young athletes from the respective areas to watch the World Championships on a large screen, each watch party featured multiple memorable moments for those in attendance, including a red-carpet entrance, relay and obstacle races, photo moments and poster making stations. At each location, past Olympians and Paralympians served as emcees, entertaining the crowds with trivia, questions, giveaways, and dances.

Throughout the broadcasts of the World Athletics Championships, broadcast on NBC and its family of networks, NBC Sports would “cut in” live during its primetime coverage to each watch party to showcase the fans in attendance. Despite the distance between locations and the production team having to “divide and conquer” across two coasts in the same weekend, each event was deemed a huge success.