Simon: Welcome everybody to snow business in Lillehammer. This is our third edition,
and we are talking about the Olympic Park in Lillehammer. In the room with me is:
Kai: Kai from Germany.
Tereza: Tereza from Czech Republic.
Eliska: Eliska from Czech Republic.
Gerard: Gerard from Spain.
Andrea: And Andrea from France.
Simon: Wonderful. Early on in the term, we had a lecture from the CEO of Olympic Park,
Lillehammer, and then we had a site visit, where we went and saw the main elements of
the Olympic Park, plus in the room, we have someone who's doing the internship at
Olympic Park. Can you tell us a little bit about your internship?
Gerard: We made like, first of all, they, I contacted them because I went here last year on
a exchange week, like, coming from Spain and Norwegians come came to to Spain, also
to visit a bit of the country and the complexes that we are having. We did like three or four
days and Oslo and Lillehammer, and what one of the things that impressed me the most
is Olympia Park, and the capacity that they have of taking all the sports to the complex.
Then I started to move some contacts with my teachers, Jordi Barrés, that he already
came here to make some speeches, and he helped me to reach the boss from Olympia
Park that it was at that time, Per Olev Andersen, that we are now knowing, thanks to
Simon, that he is not working anymore on the company. Then this year, I came and I
started to have a meeting with Trijbørn who's the events boss, and he reached me in two
weeks from a startup internship to go to Davis Cup to subcontract. They subcontracted
our services to make all the marketing budget, stickers and all on the Davis Cup. We went
to Oslo, to the Fjellhmar Arena, if I remember, well, we went with three people more. One
was the driver, and we were two more that it was Haakons and Mads. And then we stayed
three days over there, watching and helping all the people on the logistics and marketing
and installations. And it was a great experience, because we saw all the tennis players,
like professional training and all but the most important is that we started to build on the
all the budgets, the stickers and all while we're working the arena. And on the other
concepts, I went on the volunteering on the World Cup, also to help Mads also, and I had
two or two or three meetings with Trijbørn to see all the events that I had to join, or I will
be able to join. And since, from now, I think it's quite enough, because they are not having
a lot of work right now, and all the work that they have, it's quite long ago, from quite from
far, from ago, and I cannot have that transport to go and reach there, so it's difficult for me
to join.
Simon: So what was fascinating there is that we have some insight of what the Olympic
Park has become so, Kai tell us about what the Olympic Park is.
Kai: Yeah, Olympia Park is the company or the organization behind some of the Olympic
venues. Right now, Olympiaparken, the company, still owns five venues, the Håkons hall,
Birkebeineren and the iconic ski jump in Lillehammer, the Lillehammer snow Park and
the Lillehammer Bob and skeleton arena. Yeah, and they operate these arenas since the
Olympics and maintain them, renovate them, reinvest in those facilities to keep them
open, not only to the public, but also for other sport events that they host at those
Olympic venues.
Simon: And who owns the Olympic Park?
Tereza: It is a public company, and it is money from all the sources, one of it is the
Lillehammer municipality, and then some other fundings, like Ministry of Culture and
Sport, or the region of Inland.
Simon: Yes, I recall the all the venues are owned by the municipality and the funds come
from all those you listed there, and who backstops that, then who do they make enough
money Olympic Park to cover all the venue costs?
Eliska: Maybe they are not. That's why they need like sponsorship. They are getting
sponsorship from…
Gerard: Yeah, they also reach some subventions from the Norway government. And also
they reach their own subcontracted events, as I told you that I went to Davis Cup to work
there, and they only have to move some workers, and they earn a lot of money for
developing some events that they are not from their own part. So that's another way of
making money. They are starting some ways, some new ways to move, to start
equilibrating the money that comes and takes.
Simon: The crux of the problem is, though, that after the Olympics, for a period of time,
the national government agreed the funding of the venues. This was extended after the
Youth Olympics, and then about five years post Youth Olympics, the obligation for the
funding of the Olympic Park was left to the municipality of Lillehammer. During this time,
when the national government underpinned all the funding, there were a few seasonal
events that happened, like the biathlon and Nordic skiing, the ski jumping and a little bit
at the sliding center. However, the main problem it appeared that Lillehammer town
would have to pay the costs of the venues, so the taxpayers in Lillehammer would have
to pay for these venues that perhaps they wouldn't use. So what was the real solution that
went on?
Andrea: To remain operational, the Olympiaparken focus on hosting large sport events,
as that is where most revenue come from. They also expand into commercial activity and
summer event to keep the venue, the venues active year around.
Simon: Yeah. So, they definitely started on a program of events. More so than they
traditionally had. And some of the events we've already heard the Davis Cup. What's that
got to do with the Olympic, Winter Olympic events?
Gerard: They don't have any type of relation, but Olympiaparken can be developed as a
great company, and they know how to work in a big scale events. So Davis Cup is one of
them and I think that if you want to have the things well done by a company. It has to be
someone that has already made that before. And Olympiaparken is already all the years,
making some events like that, making their marketing. They have the great workers over
there. So I think that they subcontract the services from Davis Cup from Olympiaparken,
because of that, because they know how to work, and it, at least, is not their own sport to
be remarked. For example, tennis is not a sport that Olympia Park dominates, but it
engages from the sport marketing. So I think it's well done.
Simon: So they've developed some expertise in in hosting events. What other events do
they do that they don't have themselves in Lillehammer?
Kai: Some of the other events that Olympiaparken now also helps to organize and to host
is, is also the in Trondheim, the cross country World Cup is also where they played a role
in organizing and hosting the events. But also later in 2025 they will also host a new event,
which is called a “Døds diving” like “death diving” , which is then hosted here in
Lillehammer in one of the big halls it's a jumping competition which has nothing to do
with the original snow related Sport. But since we already heard, Olympia Park has
developed such expertise in hosting and organizing events, they also try to diversify into
different events, and so do that, not only here in Lillehammer, but also where, nationally
in Norway all around and also, I believe, also expanding to other countries such as
Canada for the next Olympics.
Simon: Yeah, So we've definitely got this impression from the CEO that they've developed
this expertise of hosting events. And we know that recently at the Nordic World
Championships in Trondheim, a lot of the staff went there. And actually, he talked about,
many of the staff will go to the Olympics, Winter Olympics next winter that are in Milan
plus, of course, they are diversifying into arguably, a little bit left field events, such as this,
death diving, what other and then they also involved in Davis Cup, which said they don't
host, and plus, was there other events they were looking to get involved in?
Gerard: I think they work at last years on handball, like they went on the World Cup of
Handball I think. And they did some work there. II don't know exactly the work that they
did, but I think that they still helped on reaching the event, I think I if I remember well.
Simon: So they so in this development of expertise concept, they host events themselves
in their Olympic venues such as ski jump, cross country skiing or biathlon, we had the
World Cup at the sliding centre for the first time in a very long time, because they had to
update the tracks there. But Plus, they also are able to go elsewhere and deliver events
where they do not have a venue themselves. They go to other venues. And what this
means is that even though the company is based in Lillehammer, they can deliver events
anywhere, because they have this expertise that they have developed, okay. And this has
taken some time to get into place, but it allows them to keep the people engaged. They're
not only focused on local winter events, they can deliver events of all kinds and anywhere.
How else are they diversified? What else goes on there?
Gerard: They have their own installations, but they used to rework the installations. For
example, they have their own gym. The first idea was to make only for the athletes, but
now they are taking profit of them, to engage the people, to come there, to pay a pay a
monthly payment, and they can train there. They also have school for professional
athletes, that future professional athletes, that is NTTG, they have the Eidsvia Arena,
where the Hockey team can train there and play there, and also creates a revenue from
all the stands and all the fans. I think that I'm not missing some… Ah yeah, they have also
the football course that they are climatize outside. So for example, with January and it's
snowing and all the fields has to be like snow and icy, and you put the climatization on
the field and it starts to not be wet and not be icy, so you can play there.
Kai: Yeah, what also is really interesting is what I believe is that they own their own athlete
team, where you touched upon it, that also plays in a tremendous, a huge role in the
improvement of the expertise that they develop. Since with their own athlete team, their
feedback loops are really short, and they can be flexible and adapting and also
developing their product offering and better at develop it and make it better for other
athletes. That's also something that I believe is quite interesting.
Tereza: And they also, because you spoke about like sports activities, or like activities for
sports oriented people, but they also do some things for like public people, like the snow
Park, where you can go “tobogganing” , what is the word? Tobogganing. Where it's like,
next to the ski jump, and you can go with the T-bar up, and then there's a track that you
can go down. And it's very nice in the winter, and during the summer, there is a place
where you can go with some karts, but it's maybe more for the kids. But they also do like
activities for people that are not into sports.
Simon: Yeah, so they've developed some attractions, haven't they, and with that, are
activity based?
Gerard: Yeah. They also do some ludic activities, for example, the sliding circuit. They
also do some concerts on their installations, on some parties, for saying like this, for
example, the other day, I went to the gym and I saw like, literally, a market inside the
pavilion of the Olympia Park. And it's quite nice to see something like this, because it's
like, how can you see, like, one day is a pavilion and the next day is like, a whole market
with activities to do there. It's like, really nice that they can organize that in 24 hours. And
it's quite crazy to think that they have these professionals to be there in 10 hours, organize
it all be all the people on site. It's quite expensive to reach all that and quite hard to do it
in time. So it's has to be remarkable the work that they do, and the faster they reach their
work.
Simon: Yeah, there's this constant kind of low level of activity, such as the gym you talked
about that they use the Håkons hall, the main venue. It just turns over for it, and it could
be a handball practice for a team. All of a sudden, it's some kind of market they host. It's
the end of the Birkebeineren races. That's where everything happens for the three
different Birkebeineren races that happen every year here in Lillehammer. And they're
able to have this kind of very adaptive diversification. They've built attractions that
people, the public, can do, and they're looking for different ways. So one of the very
interesting things with the ski jump is in the summer, tourists love to come there, whether
they seen it on the TV show Lilyhammer, or they just want to have a great place to park
the camping van. And it's absolutely full of camper vans in the summer, because you get
great view over the Mjøsa, the Inland fjord we have here and then, and it's just really, really
nice, but it's just another way to make revenue, because the car parks were just empty,
you know. And then so there is this kind of very commercial diversification at a low level.
And then we have this kind of higher level are hosting their own events, but also being
event host elsewhere where they can go. What else did we? Was anything else you saw
there from them?
Gerard: Maybe I like the way that they train their athletes with some programs, like, for
example, the youth level, they have like some because I have been talking some days of
training with one of them, and they told me that there is like, they have their own program.
They live almost there and it's quite crazy to think that they graduate. There is two dudes
there, they also train there with, like a physical level, a sports level, like a practical level,
theoretical level also. And it's quite crazy to think that they are past all the time there to
be like this.
Simon: That was an interesting thing. Great point is that it's become a sporting Centre of
Excellence. So they have a team of physiotherapists and all the kind of people that you
need to help athletes perform and their performance develop. So it's drawn people in
nationally, into Lillehammer, to be part of what's going on there. So not only do they have
their own teams, which have their own coaches that they use within Nordic activities to
project their name around, but also fantastic feedback loop from what's going on. But
they also attract lots of people to come and move to Lillehammer because sporting
expertise is developing there. So not only the hosting of sports or events, but also sporting
expertise is also developing. It comes to the real question is, with all this additional new
activities that's been developing over the last 10 years or so, does it pay the bill annually?
Gerard: I think that only the activities that they do, they don't pay the bill of
Olympiaparken, because they have a very big installations, very big payments to do, even
with when, when the events are created, when you have to pay the persons that has
contract, all the staff, everything, the material, the light, the water, everything, I think it's
not worth enough. I think that they need some help, like subventions from the government
of Norway, also the municipality of Lillehammer, some sponsors also, like Eliska said
before, and they can also do literally revenues from everywhere. For example, one thing
that we can, we didn't talk about, is the cantine, where they make bake food for the
athletes, but they also use the space for people that come to visit the installation. They
can take some lines there, and they take also a big, not a big revenue, like a small profit
from there. But they also do some this type of things, to take some profit additionally,
what of what they have.
Simon: Yeah. So ultimately, in spite of all the commercial activity happening at the
Lillehammer Olympic Park. This has lessened the burden on the municipality, but hasn't
completely covered the annual costs of the venues. And of course, many of these venues
are quite old, because they were built specifically for the Olympic Park, for the Olympics
in Lillehammer. And so there comes a question is so new investments will need to happen
to keep these venues up modern, so they can host events still, and also to for the upkeep.
So somewhere there is still money needs to be poured into the venues, but the success
of the Olympic Park is that that burden is smaller than it once was. As we come to the
end, is there anything else that really grasps and took your attention?
Gerard: For me, one of the things that I guess took my attention the most is that they are
trying to reach young people to work there. And it's not like all the all the companies,
because you want, you want to some workers to work there. You want people with
experience know how they do they work. But from Olympiaparken view is that you need
to create the worker for seeing like this, and that he will be happy to be there, and then he
will grow with the company. And it's something that they are making so well, because, for
example, as I told you, Mads and Haakons, they are like almost my age, 23, 25 26 and they
are workers from internship also now they are recruited for the company, and they are
like, going to the all the events. And they told me that they are really nice with the
company. And they are feel like this, their house, their family. So if you start with young
people like this, they will know how to work there. They will know how the work is done,
and they will be happy because they are approached to the company. They are near from
the town, because they live there, and they will just grow with the company until many
years to work there. So it's one thing that impressed me the most.
Simon: Yes, it is a common strategy for some large companies to take on interns that
perhaps who have made work there. So I definitely know my times I previously visited
Adidas, and every time I went, there was a new person I had to deal with because they
were on internships. But part of the strategy there is to get young, fresh ideas, always in
new people. Young people see the world differently than those, perhaps who have
expertise, but it allows this kind of flow of ideas, and this is how you develop expertise.
You don't stay as the guru on the mountain. You have a community of people who you
discuss ideas, and it comes in, and some ideas may be developed into products. Some
ideas may develop into events. And it could be this is flow and dynastm is that I can see
from your own self. And when you talk about the Olympic Park, it lives within you and your
experience there, and the other young people who now work there after having
internships. So in many ways, it's interesting. It's not some old office bound gentleman
trying to do something. Is a whole energy and ethos and the values that underpin the
Olympic Park that makes it extremely interesting. Anything else guys from the room?
Kai: Yeah, for me, what was striking is, was when we went to visit the Olympiaparken you
could really see that also, what the CEO told us the day before in the lecture is that they
really want to return their investment into the venues. For example, when we went and to
Olympia Park to Håkons hall, you could, we saw that they had just got a new cube, they
called it, which was, yeah, hanging in the middle of the big hall, which is used to stream
or to show points, and yeah, you could really see that they also return their investment
and reinvest to keep and maintaining the venues open and to keep them up to date as
much as possible.
Simon: Anything else to add from the room?
Andrea: If you want to I can say to without the Olympics games Lillehammer will be
completely different. With the Olympics, of global recognition, tourists and sport
infrastructure, with that, that will be continued to benefit the region for the future.
Simon: I mean, the very room we're in, it was built for the Olympics, and that is where the
university is, sits on the north side of Lillehammer, which was effectively the press area
for the Olympics itself. And on that note, thank you very much, guys and Goodbye.
Everyone: Thank you, Goodbye.