LAVER CUP
Involving a complex in-arena production that takes 450 crew members nine days to build, the Laver Cup and its famous black court will return to The O2 arena in September. The tournament’ s CEO Steve Zacks talks us through the complexity of the event, and its multi-faceted evolution since it was last staged in London.
Laver Cup back in black
Named in honour of Australian tennis legend Rod Laver, the Laver Cup pits six of the best men’ s players from Europe against six of their counterparts from the rest of the world over three days of team competition.
Since its debut in Prague in 2017, the Laver Cup has been staged in cities across Europe and North America including London in 2022. It has not returned to any of them until now, with the tournament back at The O2 arena from 25-27 September.
Illustrating the complexity of the event delivery, some 20 production trucks will arrive at the West London venue ahead of the nine-day build. The rigging and truss installed for the event, including lighting, audio and LED, will be one of the largest in-arena productions at The O2. The tennis is played on a dramatic black court that will be constructed within The O2, and the production will also involve more than 2,000 LED panels spanning 1400m2, a bespoke LED ribbon around the court and more than 380 moving lights installed around the arena.
Here, Steve Zacks outlines why the event’ s production and delivery is now focused on far more than framing the on-court action.
This September you are bringing the Laver Cup back to London, the first city in the event’ s nineyear history to stage it twice. Why The O2 and why London again?
The O2 arena is one of the world’ s great entertainment venues. When we first staged it there, in 2022, it had hosted the ATP World Tour finals for many years. When that left, AEG really wanted another professional tennis tournament at its arena, and so it as a great opportunity for us.
When selecting locations, we have the players, fans, sponsors and broadcasters to consider, as well as the host city deal. There are so many aspects to take into account, and to find those sweet spots where everything is right is rare. That’ s the case with The O2 arena, and why we picked it the first time.
We were very successful there; it was an epic event being Roger Federer ' s final professional competitive match. Team World won for the first time. We set a record in merchandise sales, and we sold out every seat.
Do you know what the economic impact of bringing the event back to London will be?
We do an impact study after every event, in terms of all the money spent by people coming to the city on the likes of their hotel rooms, travel and restaurants. Last time we were in London, we did the research and the impact was just short of $ 80 million.
26 accessaa. co. uk