SITEWORKS
@MargiesPro
TOM WILSON, THE SITE MANAGER FOR THE DRUG AWARE MARGARET RIVER PRO IS CHARGED WITH THE MAMMOTH TASK OF TURNING THE CAR PARK AT SURFERS POINT, PREVELLY INTO A TWO-STOREYED VILLAGE FOR 10 DAYS EVERY MARCH. THE SPORTXCHANGE PROJECT RECENTLY SAT DOWN WITH THE EVENT LOGISTICS VETERAN TO GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF HOW HE FITS ALL THE PIECES OF THE JIGSAW TOGETHER WHILE CONSTANTLY RACING AGAINST THE CLOCK.
TIMELINE
What is the timeline for the Pro in terms of set-up? The event starts for me the October the year before and I’m on the case right through to the 10 days in March. During that time I’m getting quotes for equipment and materials, which I take back to Mark ‘Laney’ Lane (Surfing WA CEO) and Tim Thirsk (Surfing WA) so we can discuss what we want to do and more importantly what we can afford to do with the site. In the meantime they’ll often come up with some pretty crazy ideas and I’ll work out whether it’s possible and if it can be accommodated into the budget. Then there is the paperwork. I’ve been working on this event for five years so it’s at that point where I can just ring up the relevant organisations and say “I want the same as last year”. It’s not a lot more than that. There are alterations where we improve or change
things, but a lot of the jobs have been standardized. They’re not complicated, but there’s a lot of them so it takes some time. Another facet is finding the best people for the job and sorting contracts. Over the last five years working on the Pro we’ve gradually gathered a world class crew around the event with many running all the international festivals in Perth. The difference with our event is it’s more like a holiday for them. They don’t get paid as much, but we accommodate them, feed them and there’s beers in the arvo, it’s a very relaxed job. We try our best to make it a social event for the work crew and make them feel like they are part of our surfing “fraternity”. The event philosophy and something my dad taught
me as a kid is to say “hello and welcome to my home.” At this year’s event all our team deliberately said hello to everyone when they walked in first thing in the morning. That’s just part of the ethos to make sure everyone working on and attending the event is relaxed and happy. At the end of the day I want you to work more hours for me - if I treat you like a fool, you won’t, if I treat you like a friend, (which you are) then you want to work really hard to make our event successful, you want to come back next year, you want to promote it during the other 11 months of the year. There’s no one at the event, including Laney, Tim, myself, all my foreman, none of us are too big to not say hello to everyone walking in and this attitude, this philosophy, makes our event feel like the friendliest in the world.
THE EVENT PHILOSOPHY AND SOMETHING MY DAD TAUGHT ME AS A KID IS TO SAY ‘HELLO AND WELCOME TO MY HOME’.
PREPARATION IS KEY
So it’s mostly paperwork pre-event? It’s costing’s and paperwork but you’ve also got to organise your team, draw up their briefs, get them on board, commit and book in that time. You’re dealing with about 120 people who are involved with the event and there’s a main point of contact for the different teams involved. For example with traffic control there’s probably 20 or so people in that area, but we only have to liaise with the head traffic controller. Tim (Thirsk) handles this, but I get briefed into the program to know how the traffic control is going to be moved around town. Also, there are certain tasks, like signage, which you can’t really begin until February as we have to wait until all the sponsors are on board and deals are worked out. So usually that is left until the last minute, fortunately we have someone in Margaret River that makes our signs for us and they can do it at short notice.
SETTING THE STAGE So there’s a variety of tasks and jobs to consider and to get ticked off. Every year there’s different problems - every year someone we have a relationship will leave and a new person will come in who we have to reestablish that level of trust. Another regular occurrence is that the Augusta / Margaret River shire will tighten things up and you’ll have to jump through a new hoop to reflect those changes. It’s all pretty standard stuff and you have to go in accepting that’s what’s going to happen. My job is keeping Laney and Tim in the loop and ensuring they don’t have to worry about the paperwork and administration of the logistics. They get down to the site the week of the competition and everything is set-up so they can get on with their respective roles without any other worries.
With the setup, when is that done and dusted? I start the physical setup on site the Friday before the event starts. So I need seven days for the build. Once I’m on site, we have three crews. One crew builds the double storey, one crew sorts all the single storeys and there’s my crew. How many are in each crew? It varies as to what’s needed but generally the doublestorey and single-storey crews are around 6-8 and I have 10 on my crew who handle the huts and all the crane movements. Then the carpenters get involved and they do the stairs and railings, then we have the fencing crew come in, (the security fencing actually gets done first) to do all the bunting once the site is set-up. On the Wednesday before the Friday start the signage crew arrive who are responsible for all the sponsors flags and exit signage. .
THAT’S WHY YOU’VE GOT A SITE THAT LOOKS SO CLEAN AND TIDY DURING THE MIDDLE OF EVERYTHING, BECAUSE YOU’VE GOT SUCH A PASSIONATE GROUP OF PEOPLE LOOKING AFTER IT.
The double and single-storey tent crews do their work, set-up those structures and then they go home, only coming back to dismantle it. My crew work throughout the whole event so I have to start resting them around the Wednesday prior. When you go three weeks with 12-14 hour days the stress and strain gets a bit much so you have to rotate your team to ensure you get the most of them. Laney, Tim and myself don’t get any rest, but everyone else does. Once the event starts how many staff are on site? It’s at this point that the total headcount moves up to about 120 people. You’ve got caterers, bar staff, and then there’s the car parking, about 16-17 people come from the footy club to help with that as well as half a dozen people from a professional company so even just car parking is quite an extensive cohort.
There’s the competition crew, consisting of six judges, around 10 commentators and TV crew which is about 20 people and 10 plus photographers . We also have our own media crew which is another five who look after all the other media personnel from the newspapers, radio and TV. The Christian Surf Riders group do an excellent job, voluntarily doing the toilet cleaning and all the rubbish pick-up with a crew of about 10 people. That’s why you’ve got a site that looks so clean and tidy during the middle of everything because you’ve got such a passionate group of people looking after it. Last but not least you’ve got security staff which can be up to 10 on-site at any one time, including overnight.
AS OPPOSED TO JOBS FOR THE BOYS, IT’S “WHAT’S YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO WA SURFING?”
PACKING DOWN
Once the event is all over how is the pack-up managed? This year was tough as we had Easter the following weekend so we only had from the Sunday afternoon to the Thursday. Usually we have a little longer to pull it all down. That process is the reverse of the set-up, so whoever came in last to set-up, comes in first to pack down. The signage guys are in first, they’re ready to pack up as soon as the competition is over with the help of my construction crew, so on the Sunday night nothing can be stolen. Then the Reece (events hire company) crew come in for Monday morning followed by the crane drivers. The tents and temporary buildings are all dismantled and the stairs and railings taken down. We draw up the order that everything goes out so we can book the trucks and have the gear packed down and ready for them to pick up. The whole packing-up of the containers and the trucks then putting it into storage usually takes around a day. After that, its rubbish collection, making sure we don’t leave anything behind and ensuring the site is left how we arrived.
LOCAL INVOLVEMENT
What involvement does the local community have in the siteworks? I try to employ the local community wherever I can, as an example all the electrical work is done locally. From there, we look to tap into the surfing community. If you contribute to the future of the sport in Western Australia, then we’ll do what we can to give back. As opposed to jobs for the boys, it’s “what’s your contribution to WA surfing?” Having said that my main construction crew aren’t connected to surfing, they’re given a job because they are the best in the state at what they do. They are a world class crew that work on all the Perth festivals. For example, one of the team that work’s on the Pro, is involved with 20+ festivals throughout WA. He turns up with a small truck with welding gear, carpentry units, the works. He can pretty much do anything and we need him for his specific expertise and knowledge. By having this team of event experts sourced locally and from around the state the siteworks are in effect self-contained? That’s correct.
I’M DOWN TO THE INCH IN MY MEASUREMENTS - IT HAS TO BE THAT EXACT. I CAN’T SQUEEZE ANY MORE INTO THE SITE THAN WE DID THIS YEAR.
The media centre in particular is an impressive set-up, with its floor to ceiling windows running the length of the room looking out over Surfers Point. In the early days all we had was a site shed with a little window maybe a metre wide and a few power points. We were lucky if we could accommodate 6-8 people from the media. We realised that had to change because, getting back to my philosophy of “welcome to my home”. If we want you to write great stories on the Pro, and you’re sitting in a room where you’re looking over the surf and you’re thinking “I’m stoked that I’m here” what do you think you’re going to write stories about? You’re going to write about how wonderful this is. So the changes that have occurred in recent years have all been about….”how do we take things to the next level?” bearing in mind we can only take incremental steps because we have a limited budget. A lot of it is a balancing act. For example with the media centre, yes it costs more to get a longer,
glass-fronted building freighted in, but the result is we get a media centre with spectacular views that everyone’s stoked to work in. I should point out that another addition is private offices for the senior contest management, so they can sit in their own private room and do their thing uninterrupted. With respect to the corporate hospitality, how long has that been in place? The corporate hospitality facility has grown. It’s 50m long now, it was 25m when I first started but it was always two storeys. It’s something Tim (Thirsk) has developed and the structure you see was a facility that was available at Reece’s which was reasonably cost effective. Tim brought that into the event and we’ve gradually extended it. The good thing about having it as two storeys is that it creates more room, you can have the surfer’s board storage underneath and then have a chill-out area up top.
It seems you’ve crammed about as much as you can into the space available - is that the case? I’m down to the inch - it has to be that exact. I can’t squeeze any more into the site than we did this year. Will the re-development plans for Surfers Point help with the issue of space? By the time it’s all finished, we will have created a better facility for the community of Margaret River, not just the contest. In the future when we come to the area we will damage the environment less, our footprint will be less because we’ve now got an 80x20 metre flat area to build the site on, and when we leave, it becomes a BBQ area for families to have picnics during the rest of the year. The intention was to build something that’s a once off, get the Premier involved, see how positive and productive we can be and how we can make the site and the event sustainable for the next 20 or so years. If you were to visit the site right now, that’s what’s happening.
Looking to next year’s event, when do you expect to get involved? This year, I’m hoping by July or August I’ll be given the brief of what needs to be built. One thing that will be different is that it will be the first year the event will be held under the new ASP management and they’ll give us a list of requirements in terms of what sort of facilities we need to have. For next year we’ll have to sort this and set it all up how they want it. Once that’s out the way everything will already be down in Margaret River waiting for us. What can we expect for next year? Right at this moment, it’s too early to tell. The event is in an unusual situation, firstly with it becoming a full World Championship Tour event for both the men and women. Secondly, there’s been a change in the ASP (Association Surfing Professionals) regarding all the World Tour events, so we don’t really know what the effect of those changes is going to be.
As we’re a pre-established event, negotiations are underway with respect to the ASP changeover. From all reports that’s going well. The new ASP management are on a steep learning curve and we’re just waiting to see what shape their involvement will take. We’re thinking that it might turn out they want to standardise the WCT events and have them look and feel the same at all locations. If that ends up being the case and we need to build change rooms and multi-storey structures with stairs on them or whatever facilities they require, then there’s going to be a load of extra work initially. All the new facilities will need to be given permits and then they need to be physically made and shipped to Margaret River. So it will be costly initially, but then after that we’ll just have to pay to freight it in. I’m really excited and positive about the changes that are brewing, but the bottom line is, I don’t know how the event is going to look in 2014 and beyond because we haven’t seen the brief.
The one thing I can tell you is that where the twostorey structure finished on the northern end this year, is where it will start next year. So where that goes from there, whether that’s just one big corporate hospitality facility, or whether there’s another big section for the surfers, how that all works, is anyone’s guess at the moment.
APPLES AND ORANGES
Having previously worked on the Bells Beach and Gold Coast events, how does the Margies Pro rate alongside its Australian World Tour counterparts? That’s an impossible question to answer. The top tour events in the world are unique in their environment and design, every beach and every wave is different. Bells Beach has a different feel, different water temperature, different community. It’s an Easter event, so there’s a focus on the holiday aspect. The Gold Coast round has a tropical vibe, they’re chasing the cyclonic swell and it’s earlier in the year. Margaret River is all about the amphitheatre.
THAT LEVEL OF UNPREDICTABILITY MAKES SURFING UNIQUE, IT’S UNLIKE ANY OTHER SPORT. Surfing has its own distinct way of doing things that is unlike any other sport. A lot of people just don’t understand how surfing works particularly when it comes to the fickle nature of the weather and swells. We’ve had to convince journalists and the media from outside the sport that waiting for those big waves is actually worth it. This unknown, unpredictable nature of the sport is part of the fun - it’s not like you know that at 3 o’clock on Sunday you’ve got the men’s final of Wimbledon. With surfing you’re getting to work in the morning and you’re switching on your computer, phone or tablet thinking..... “Is it on today? Are they going to run today?” That level of unpredictability makes surfing unique, it’s unlike any other sport. Lay-days are difficult to deal with but it has to be remembered that if there’s a surfer on a 15 foot wave it’s going to get you a lot more publicity, interest and exposure than someone thrashing about on a one-footer. Television companies are starting to understand that if there are big waves and the top surfers riding then you can cancel everything else and run with it as viewers will tune-in and be mesmerized. My prediction is that the sport will continue to grow, they’ll get smarter with the technology and create apps where you get notifications on your phone about the conditions in real-time. The bottom line is, that if you can connect with surfers across the globe and say Teahupoo’s on and its 20 foot, then the only thing they’ll be doing is following the action for as long as it lasts.
www.margaretriverpro.com www.surfingaustralia.com/wa/
www.sportxchange.com.au www.imagexchange.com.au Siteworks @MargiesPro is published by the SportXchange Project in partnership with Surfing WA, promoters of the Drug Aware Margaret River Pro. Written by Jordan Slight and Stu Williams. All images by ImageXchange and Relentless Sports. (June 2013)