Simon Wakeman - marketing, public relations and digital communications

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@jangles - that said, it outputs as <ul> or <ol> so that wouldn't work as you need a dropdown. i'll think again!

A very big news conference indeed

Thursday, October 26th, 2006 at 9:56 pm

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I’ve been in Paris today at the route launch for the 2007 Tour de France at Le Palais des Congres.

This is where the full route of the world’s largest annual sporting event is announced, and I was there as next year the race starts in London, and finishes in Canterbury. I’m working on communications around the race when it passes through Medway.

The announcement of the route is a big deal for the French national and cycling media. The launch was attended by around 3,000 people, mostly journalists, and more than 50 TV crews from around the world.

The sheer scale of the news conference was much larger than anything I’ve seen before. The quality of the on-stage production was extremely high, with multiple projection sources including stills, animations, flythroughs and live video.

One particularly chaotic moment was at the end of the formal part of the conference when a fair proportion of the media in the audience rushed towards the stage for the open question and answer part of the session. The quality of the overall presentation fell a bit here as a stagehand produced a small wooden easel on which to put a route map for a photo opportunity.

The arrival of the tour next year will be a real spectacle, with more than 200 riders and a supporting entourage of around 3,000 people. It represents a great communications challenge as we look to maximise the benefits from such a world-class sporting event coming to the south east of England.

Tags: news+conference, tour+de+france

Comments on “A very big news conference indeed”

Le Tour de France - it's finally here | Simon Wakeman
Saturday, July 7th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
[...] There have been more media launches than I thought ever possible for a single event, including a huge media conference in Paris last [...]

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Simon Wakeman

I've been on the web since 2001 and have been blogging about marketing and public relations since January 2006.

I'm currently Head of Marketing at Medway Council as well as a freelance marketing and PR consultant.

The content and opinions expressed on this website are not endorsed by nor reflect the views of any company or organisation I work with.

Simon has worked for our company on several occasions over many years. He has constantly delivered the desired outcomes, on time and to budget. Nick Bentley, Ether-Ray

I highly recommend Simon. He is an experienced marketing manager with excellent digital channel skills. He thinks strategically, is exceptionally reliable - always delivering on time and with good quality - and is also a good team player…It was great to have him on the team at Egg. Wendy Schratz, Egg

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