COVER FEATURE was extremely good , it really felt like a partnership .”
Arena Group also opened its ‘ Arena House ’ as a meeting point in the city for networking and hospitality provision . Says Berger , “ We wanted to leverage our engagement with Paris 2024 , and particularly in overlay , so we used the house to host visiting delegations from all over the world , including friends of the company , suppliers , and employees , to thank them and acknowledge their efforts . It proved to be a huge success , the number of visitors we had on a daily basis was remarkable .”
With so much money , time , product development and technical expertise having been invested in the Paris 2024 project , Berger says there will be a lasting Olympic legacy for his company .
“ It is not just about coming to Paris and delivering 14 competition venues , 75,000 seats and 40,000m2 of structures . We have invested in structures , we ’ ve invested in fencing , we ’ ve invested in flooring , we ’ ve invested in new seats as well . All of that will go into our regions where it will be reused again and again at major global events .
“ We are very much , as a business , invested in overlay and we ’ re taking it seriously with a dedicated team .”
Global impact Another key official supporter of Paris 2024 , ES Global was heavily involved
The North Paris Arena
“ IT IS PROBABLY THE STANDOUT PROJECT WE HAVE DONE , GLOBALLY , AS A COMPANY .”
- ARENA GROUP CEO PAUL BERGER
in the Olympic and Paralympic Games working across no less than 57 sites , most of them competition venues but also noncompetition sites such as the Olympic Village and training facilities .
The company provided three different strands of overlay ; tents , containment , and scaffold structures . While its containment work involved providing cable protection , above and below ground , ES Global ’ s scaffold structures ranged from camera platforms to the presidential box and the Régie Annexe control room at Stade de France , as well as the climbing walls at the Le Bourget Sports Climbing Venue .
ES Global joint CEO and founder Jeff Burke says that its involvement with Paris 2024 was the result of a company strategy to focus heavily on major events , build a local presence well in advance in the host city , invest heavily in the bid , win it , and then maintain a strong presence in the territory for years to come . He uses the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as an example , with ES Global having set up in Japan ahead of the Games , and now having a business there boasting a turnover of more than £ 100 million .
In the case of Paris 2024 , the first meeting ES Global had with its organisers was way back in 2021 . With the work now complete , Burke says LS Global will maintain the Paris office as its European headquarters from which it will look to win major contracts with events including the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics and the French Alps 2030 Winter Olympics . The French HQ is headed up by the company ’ s European general manager Cyrille d ’ Estienne d ’ Orves .
“ That strategy has worked really well and now we ’ re repeating that in France and wider Europe ,” says Burke . “ As a touring company , Brexit impacts us greatly , and so this is one of our key mitigation measures .”
At the outset , ES Global stated it would reuse 90 % of overlay items in its Paris 2024 delivery , with the rest either upcycled or recycled . Burke says that the full sustainability report is yet to be produced but he is confident the result will be very close to the target figure not least because the equipment used is modular and the material recyclable : “ When you ’ re reusing 100 % of the equipment and you ’ re keeping it in packaging that ’ s reused it ’ s very difficult to find waste . If something does gets damaged , it gets recycled . We ’ re using steel , which is a very recyclable material .
“ My job is to convince the next user of the kit to do as little to it as possible in terms of adaptations to get the best return , both in terms of sustainable accessaa . co . uk 23