Episode 5
· 57:08
[Speaker 2]
Alright, so I just wanted to welcome Tom Ravenhill . He's from Keith Prowse. He works specifically with the Wimbledon.
He's here based in London, England, and we appreciate having you here, and tell us more about yourself. And then I'll be asking you questions throughout the presentation, but we look forward to your experience economy presentation.
[Speaker 1]
Awesome. Yeah, thank you for having me. So, Shireen and I connected actually on LinkedIn, as you were looking to buy Wimbledon hospitality, right?
And here we are. So yeah, I'm Tom, so yeah, living in London now, I've had an interesting, interesting life this far, I guess. So I'm from Birmingham in the centre of England, which is like the second city.
Went to University of Birmingham, studied sports business management. During that time, I lived in South Carolina, actually, I did an internship on Hilton Head Island. So I was involved in a PGA tournament that they host there, etc, etc, graduated and moved to Canada.
So I lived in Vancouver, Canada for eight years. Got dual citizenship, met my wife there, and then, whilst I was over there, actually, I worked in Major League Soccer. So I worked for the Vancouver Whitecaps.
I've always been in sports marketing, in and around. And yeah, this job came, I wanted to move back to England, wanted my wife to experience living in a different country like I have. And here we are.
So kind of, yeah, I had Wimbledon hospitality for Keith Prowse, so a little background on Keith Prowse, so 220 years old. Mr. Keith and Mr. Prowse, 220 years ago, they started selling theatre tickets in London's West End, which is where all the kind of the theatres are, like kind of Mamma Mia, Dirty Dancing, Les Miserables, etc, etc, which you might have seen when you were in London. So that's where we started.
And now we're kind of the official hospitality partner for kind of various concerts, various rugby, stadia, various cricket offerings that happen around England, as well as tennis. So those are kind of core offerings. And obviously, the chief of all of those, and maybe the jewel in our crown, is Wimbledon.
I think everyone on this call has heard of Wimbledon, I hope they have. Your lecturer just had a nice experience at Wimbledon with us. So it's lovely to welcome her to Wimbledon, so kind of interesting timing, actually, because we, so the day after Wimbledon, so Wimbledon just finished on Sunday and on Monday.
So two days ago, we went on sale for Wimbledon 2025. So with Keith Prowse, we offer the ability to come to come to Keith Prowse and you can book your court and your day of choosing at Wimbledon. And that's not really something that's offered elsewhere.
The key way is that people buy tickets for Wimbledon is via queuing up or you get entered into the ballot where you could you could be given tickets for any day in any court, just at will kind of thing. So via hospitality, via Keith Prowse, you're able to lock in your kind of your your date of choice in advance kind of thing. So we have a five week American Express pre-sale, which is running at the moment.
So American Express are a partner of Wimbledon, same as us. And and that's kind of where we see a lot of a lot of bookings and a lot of traffic come from from America, particularly. Yeah, our key markets are the UK and and America.
So, yeah, it's a little little background. I have a have a white paper that we recently launched about, as you can see on the screen, about kind of why people are in general buying premium, why they're why they're attending events and why they're opting for hospitality and then kind of the trends and their drivers around that. So hope you find some value here.
We launched a white paper, 45 pages long. There's a QR code at the end of this or throughout where you could download it yourself, obviously completely free of charge. It's 45 pages.
So it's some some good bedtime reading for you all. But, yeah, a lot of value in there, but kind of this presentation, short presentation just kind of takes you through the the key learnings and then kind of, yeah, hopefully, hopefully you take the white paper and kind of and read in full. We interviewed, did a survey with hundreds of people around the around the UK, representative kind of surveying pending to be high net worth individuals, which is who we typically speak to.
Obviously, hospitality comes with a sizable price point, especially for Wimbledon. But we do actually have some some accessible offerings. So kind of our cheapest offering is 90 pound per person.
And then that that rises up into the into the thousands for Wimbledon. But, yeah, kind of what we asked a group of kind of respondents, we asked them what matters when it comes to booking an event. Why do you book an event?
And then why do you why do you choose to go premium? So kind of what came back was personal motivation, social circles. So kind of being able to say that you're at Wimbledon, being able to say that you're at Event X and you're in hospitality has a lot of cachet along with it, as I know that various events in the States do as well.
The Masters, US Open been been two that come to mind straight off the bat. Culture and heritage and then being purposeful and conscientious. So kind of just touching on that.
I know I think this was experienced worldwide. Obviously, we we just had a little global pandemic. And I think during that pandemic, people really started to think kind of what matters, what matters to them and how do they want to spend their time after lockdown and after all this stuff goes away.
So kind of what we're what we're really seeing is kind of people have they're now prioritizing events and experiences over material objects. So people people saving up for some of our some of our events, people who aren't necessarily high net worth individuals. And they're kind of splurging on this Wimbledon experience because, say, it's 60, their mom's 65th birthday or something like this.
So they're really kind of been more more conscious about how they're spending that time and with the people that they love. And then you'll see, obviously, on the right hand side, kind of the generations of the respondents are kind of mainly mainly kind of boomers, Generation X and millennials. But kind of we tried to get a good cohort across the border.
Obviously, Generation A, those 14 to four year olds, they're they're not exactly buying premium or any events at the moment. So that they are our future customer.
[Speaker 2]
These are all of the these are all of the attendance. It's just respondents. So it could be a higher number in terms of the generations.
[Speaker 1]
Also, for attendance of our events. Yeah, it'll be very different across across events. This this was literally for respondents to our survey to get to this white paper to to create this insights paper.
[Speaker 2]
Do you see more of do you see more of millennials or Generation Z, Generation A in attendance?
[Speaker 1]
Generation A, only if their parents are bringing them along with. Oh, but yeah, as you'll see later and as we touched on yesterday, sharing kind of a key trend is kind of what we're seeing multi generations of people coming to events. So at Wimbledon just gone and especially at the concert series that we just did where we had Kings of Leon, Morgan Wallen.
Country music is growing over here as well. Lots of American artists. We're seeing like grandparents bringing their kids and their kids, kids, sometimes their kids, kids, kids to events.
So kind of multi-generational attendees. So it's very interesting. But yeah, this this on the on the right hand side here is kind of the the respondents to our survey.
Going back to what I just said about kind of people prioritizing experiences is a trend that we're seeing is going out is in. So key learnings. And obviously, we're starting at the end before.
Let's say kind of we'll get into some of these learnings. But yeah, key learnings from the survey, some of which aren't exactly mind mind blowing, but good to kind of be grounded. So kind of attention spans are always getting shorter, as we know.
Social media is leveling the playing field. So people, again, they want to go to Wimbledon because they can post on social media and make their friends kind of jealous that they're experiencing hospitality at Wimbledon kind of thing. Experiences equals happiness.
Impact informs kind of kind of there's lots of social issues at play. As you guys know, in the UK and the US, they're affecting affecting events. Teen teams are kind of this is sports in general kind of like teams, teams attending events and also on that on that point, kind of we find that in the teenage years, in the early teenage years, people are kind of picked their sports and pick their teams that they're going to follow for the rest of their life.
It's really at that early age where kind of people are going to. And like I said, with Generation A, they're not attending their events at the moment, but we need to be reaching them and talking to them because they are a future customer and they're really making decisions that impact the rest of their lives at this early stage and then elevated experiences. So again, why people would buy hospitality versus general admission.
Insights, what does leisure time mean? So kind of obviously going back to the basics, kind of when you're at an event, typically you're in your leisure time. We do have a lot of kind of corporate hospitality attendees, so kind of people who aren't necessarily in leisure time.
They're kind of attending whilst they're entertaining their clients or future clients. And Keith Sprouse are kind of known in the UK from a B2B perspective, like a lot of businesses, especially businesses that like to entertain lots of law firms, kind of big finance corporations, etc., etc. They often entertain their clients and have healthy entertaining budgets.
Keith Sprouse are quite known in that space, but we're really seeing the growth area being kind of personal bookings. So kind of exactly as Sharon attended Wimbledon in her leisure time on her own or with friends kind of thing. It's really these kind of B2C, so business to consumer markets that we're trying to attract because that's the growth area.
So insights, obviously, and this is again back to our survey. So kind of why people buy experiences and then also why they might upgrade to premium. So kind of a key piece here is at the top guaranteed time together.
So kind of at Wimbledon, one of our USPs is obviously unique selling points is obviously you get to guarantee your court and date at Wimbledon, but you're guaranteeing a whole day that you'll have time together, be that with your clients or colleagues or be it with your grandma or your mom or your sister or your friends kind of thing. So Wimbledon is a full day out. So we open our hospitality doors at 1030 a.m. in the morning. People are welcomed into hospitality. They have a welcome drink and then lunch and then they head off to the tennis at one o'clock and then they're kind of at the tennis for a couple of hours and then they come back to the hospitality facility for afternoon tea, which is a very, very British thing, including tea, alcohol. Very British thing again.
A very nice kind of afternoon tea spread, which includes kind of roaming plates by Michelin star chefs, sandwiches, various kind of seafood offerings and strawberries and cream, of course. I mean, another thing as well is mid down the table. There is kind of closer to the action.
So that's something that we really speak to in the sense that you're you're literally kind of you're in hospitality right next to Wimbledon's Centre Court. And then you're kind of it's just a short walk away to your Centre Court seats that are. A plus plus seats on the court reserved for the day.
You're also mingling with kind of celebrities in some in some kind of facilities. For example, last year at Wimbledon, we had Mel C from the Spice Girls in one of our facilities. We had Summer Rae, who used to be a WWE superstar, etc, etc.
So and then British celebrities as well. But I won't bore you with those, but kind of, yeah, closer to the action is a key is a key piece for hospitality as well.
[Speaker 2]
The second one for the learning new skills or capabilities. What were they specifically talking about there when they're talking about this?
[Speaker 1]
Yeah, so kind of not necessarily hospitality specific, but kind of people, people learning new sports. We also get a lot of people that attend as our competitors kind of thing, and they're like, like, I'm going to attend Wimbledon with Keith Pouse to see what we can do to make our experiences better at various different events and sports. Maybe it's not in a sport.
Maybe it's a company that puts on conferences. But they're attending hospitality with us to kind of get inspiration. And so these kind of things to obviously a key driver there as well.
This one was about where people seek inspiration when buying hospitality. And there's a nice little grid there for you. So kind of obviously baby boomers in the older generation, they're still kind of tied into to print.
So kind of newspapers, etc, etc. And then reviews. So I know over here, we use Trustpilot quite a lot.
And I know that in the States, it's it's a lot of kind of Google reviews and stuff like that. So kind of and I think that's that's the same across the board. But baby boomers, especially, are kind of tied into to these kind of things.
Generation X are kind of getting a little bit younger. They're maybe more tied into to digital. But then obviously, when you get younger, very much so social media, millennials, very tied into social media and Generation Z even more.
So it's a kind of tick tock, influencer, etc, etc. So this is where we're seeing people taking inspiration from. And that's why, as Keith Baus, we we kind of take a multifaceted approach across the board.
So kind of we still do print advertising where some advertisers don't. We definitely reduced our budget in print because it has less impact as kind of digital channels. We rely mainly on not rely on, but we mainly use our budget strategically with emails, so kind of tying in with publishers, tying in with various kind of email clubs and groups.
That's how we kind of reach our customers or potential customers directly. Social media obviously has a part, but that's kind of more at the top of the funnel. So from an awareness point of view, but we see kind of direct bookings off the back of kind of targeted emails and series of emails kind of speaking to kind of the benefits, the reasons to buy the USPs, etc, etc.
Once people have made their mind up to attend events, why do they then book hospitality? So kind of better seats is a key one. Guaranteed seating is a key one as well.
Like I said, when you buy through Wimbledon and all of our events, really, you've got guaranteed seating that's reserved for your day. So you know that if you nip back to hospitality for afternoon tea, for some strawberries and cream, you know that when you come back to the court, no one's going to be sitting there because that's your seat for the day. Quality and ease of access to food and drinks.
I'm sure we've all been to events where there's long queues, there's long lineups, there's high pricing in stadiums for food and drink that kind of leads us, leaves us a little bit wanting for more. So I've attended many, many events across the states where I'm paying like twenty dollars for a hot dog and a drink kind of thing and leaves you wanting a little bit more. So obviously all of our hospitality experiences are kind of like all inclusive, including food, drink, ticket price, etc, etc.
And then also the key one, a big one there is admission to a sold out event. So kind of hospitality benefits when general admission sells out. So kind of obviously for general admission at Wimbledon, there's a huge there's a huge demand there, but you can guarantee your ticket with hospitality.
And we see that concerts as well. So we last week we had an Andrea Bocelli concert that we did the hospitality for and general admission sold out. So kind of one of the only ways to to guarantee your ticket to Andrea Bocelli was via hospitality.
So we benefit in that in that scenario as well. So kind of what would be your ultimate experience day? So this is another word cloud.
So on the on the left hand side, you've got that younger generation, 18 to 24, kind of what their ideal experience would look like. And then on the right hand side, you've got a little bit older. So kind of 35 to 44 age bracket, some interesting comparisons and then some interesting differences.
So obviously on the left hand side, you'll see Wimbledon. And then on the right hand side, the older generation, they really want to guarantee the Wimbledon final, not just Wimbledon. They want to go to the final.
So with regards to events, there's new formats, especially in the UK that are taking place actually worldwide. So if you look at, I'm sure you've all heard of live golf, which is kind of the there's lots of controversy around it. But basically what they wanted to do was take the game of golf, which is very traditional and sometimes a little bit stuffy and make it more fun.
And we've we've experienced that over in the UK with cricket, which I don't know if you guys know too much about cricket, but it's very yeah, very traditional and kind of the some long winded versions of the game, which take five days. And now there's new formats that are coming to the to the forefront, which are much quicker, much more fun over in a couple of hours kind of thing. So kind of again, reaching new audiences and younger, younger demographics with with lowering attention spans.
And as you'll see here on the right hand side, concerts is a big, big growth area. And that's why we've recently gone back into concerts. So kind of like I said, 220 years ago, we started in arts and culture and then we've moved into sports.
But now we're kind of going a little bit back into music, arts and culture because that's it's a key growth area for hospitality.
[Speaker 2]
Is this only for the UK or is this for do you do that? Do you do events outside of UK? You mentioned to me about the cricket final that was actually held in New York this year.
[Speaker 1]
Well, I was I was saying that just because it's interesting to me that cricket is growing in the States because I never thought it would because you guys love love your baseball so much. I didn't think there'd be room in American culture for cricket, but I have been proven wrong. Yeah, so you guys have got major league cricket on the horizon.
So it's already started, actually. So franchises in in New York, I think LA as well, or definitely the Southern California area. And then, yeah, the cricket World Cup was recently hosted in the States.
But yeah, but Heath Mouse, we we only operate in the UK. But we have we have dabbled in American sports. So kind of when the NFL comes to London, we've historically done the hospitality there when major league baseball comes to London as they do early now.
We've we've we've done the hospitality there. Lots of concerts. I think we did Beyonce last year.
Kind of core offerings are still that tennis tennis rugby and cricket and all in all in the UK and all in the southeast of the UK, except except for cricket, actually. So we kind of we speak to definitely that that London market in the southeast. And I guess you could you could kind of Oxford in there as well with regards to kind of people, people definitely commute or will travel to London from Oxford to come to one of our events.
Yeah, people are a lot in the US. I know that kind of jumping in the car and driving for eight hours to go to an event or something like that is not out of the ordinary, whereas in the UK, people would typically not do that unless it's a really it's got some really strong gravitas. And some of our events do do have that.
[Speaker 2]
I know for the Wimbledon, there is a lot of Americans, but others from different countries. I do have a question about sports tourism, especially because it relates to economics. How does this kind of like contribute to sports tourism?
But the economic development and can you explain more about where your company comes into place for this?
[Speaker 1]
Sure. So, yeah, I mean, Wimbledon is one of the one of the biggest sporting events economically and financially for the UK. At the moment, we don't offer we don't offer full tours for Wimbledon, but we are looking into the ability to kind of maybe tie in with, say, a hotel company.
So you could book your hospitality for Wimbledon. And as part of that purchase journey, you can book your hotel. But we don't currently offer that.
But our sales team and online as well, we we pride ourselves like our tagline is the experience experts. So we've helped a lot of kind of especially American customers. But then we have a lot of French, Italian and Canadians come over as well and kind of they're asking us kind of, where would you go to do this?
Where where would you stay? How would you commute? Have you ever been to Germany before?
Because I want to hop over to the the Euro championships. Have you been to Paris before? Because after Wimbledon, I'm going to go over to the Olympics kind of thing.
So as I was saying to you yesterday, Sharon, we're really blessed over here at the moment. We've got like a bit of a celebration, a sport going on. So we've just had the Euros.
England sadly didn't win on Sunday, but we're not going to mention that. We've just had Wimbledon. And now I think next week or in two weeks time, the Olympics is starting.
So suffice to say that we are looking into kind of like the ability to offer kind of hotels as part of a as part of a journey. But interestingly, actually, so we have a sister brand called the Experience Golf and they offer tours. So kind of your flights, your hotel and your golf package is all included, all booked through Keith Prowse or through our sister company, the Experience Golf.
So they offer like sports tours at prestigious kind of heritage golf courses across Scotland. So kind of the old course and kind of St Andrews that you may or may or may not have heard of. It's where where golf was born, actually.
And now we offer tours in England, Wales, Northern Ireland as well. So kind of the whole UK and Ireland. So, yeah, and that's actually a predominantly US business.
So we have a we have a small team of salespeople in the US based out of New York who kind of focus on that kind of that sister company. They can sell Wimbledon as well. But so they do a full kind of tour package.
And that's obviously really trying into the sports tourism piece that you say. And then I mean, exactly like you guys have done, you specifically have done show and so you've flown to London, you've gone to Wimbledon and now you've gone to Oxford and Cambridge and then you're going to Birmingham to fly out. So kind of you're experiencing all of England and kind of you're spending your hard earned US dollars in British pounds kind of thing.
So kind of because England is so compact, you're typically not just flying into London and then leaving. You're really kind of seeing different areas. So there's the kind of maybe it's it's Wimbledon that's the honey part and that's attracted you.
But then you're going to other areas of the UK and helping helping their economies as well.
[Speaker 2]
Just curious, because I did a little research and I saw that basketball is kind of like a growing sport here, but it's not up there. Do you think that there's going to be a market here for basketball or not really?
[Speaker 1]
It is growing because we've got the the British Basketball League, which is actually I met the CEO of that about six months ago. He used to work for the NBA. He's from New York.
So it's a growing area. But I think it's a little bit behind American football, which is really growing over here. Like, I think you could sell out Wembley Stadium or Tottenham Hotspur Stadium when the NFL comes to town three times a year.
You could literally sell those stadiums out three times over. Like, it's really growing. And I'm sure you guys might have seen in the news cycle that there's even been talk about a franchise coming to London, which would present various logistical issues.
I think the I think the conversation is kind of why it's the same the same length of a flight from Miami to London as it is from Miami to Seattle, let's say, kind of thing. So I think there's I can definitely see that happening in years to come. Like a US like an NFL franchise in London.
But yeah, I think basketball is maybe a little bit behind. But I know that they've done international series of basketball. They've had NBA kind of regular season games over here.
And yeah, the British Basketball League is growing. But I think it's yeah, over in England, we're so kind of locked into our soccer, our cricket, rugby and then tennis in the summer. And that it's hard to kind of have space for another sport kind of thing, but that's not to say that it's not growing.
Interesting, interesting comment there, because I hadn't even thought about why basketball isn't on here. So this is kind of like a key learning and I've already touched on this. So kind of as the wealth gap grows, it's the older generations that have the money.
So kind of I'm sure you guys have all seen because it's the same over here as it is in the states, kind of the especially heightened by the the property market kind of people can't get on the people can't get on the property ladder. People have been impacted by covid and layoffs, etc, etc. So kind of the parents generation kind of thing and not as wealthy as as their parents were.
And then less younger people are struggling even more, maybe. Some more than others, obviously. But yeah, suffice to say, it's the older generations who have the money.
As I mentioned earlier, we're seeing a trend of multi-generational days out. So kind of some events more than others. We're seeing kind of that full generation of kind of a grandparent is taking their kids, their kids, kids and sometimes their kids, kids, kids to events with Keith Rouse, with hospitality kind of thing.
So again, going and tying back to kind of you've got a guaranteed day out with your whole family. It's red circled in the calendar months in advance that people can't say no to. It's all inclusive with hospitality.
So you've got your food, your drink, your your tickets. And the whole experience is kind of taking care of for you. So, yeah, a new trend that we're seeing and especially for concerts, actually.
So, yeah, we we just had Andrea Bocelli, like I said, and we literally had those kind of four or five generations of people coming in together, which was really nice to see. But in good old fashioned British tradition, it rained like biblical levels of rain. So that dampened the experience, pun intended.
But it was nice to see regardless.
[Speaker 2]
I feel like your hospitality kind of captures different consumers preferences. That's how we use it. And we learned about the concept of maximizing utility.
And it's like, we're not just going to the game, but you're having like this experience and, you know, an older generation. They want to have this hospitality, certain hospitality. The younger generation might not want certain other aspects that you have.
So you're really capturing all of the consumers, basically, their behavior and their preferences.
[Speaker 1]
So I find that interesting. Like you said, people have different preferences. We we even have we even have people who buy Wimbledon hospitality and they have court tickets, but they they don't actually go over to the tennis.
They watch it in our in our garden on the big screen with their foot in the foot spa and they've got their drink in hand and maybe their strawberries and cream kind of thing. So so we cater to that kind of person. We cater to the tennis enthusiast or the sport enthusiast who the day like the hospitality is a nice extra, but they're there for the sport.
Or also, like I've been saying, kind of it's a family day out where people are there predominantly for the entertainment, but they're there with their loved ones or or maybe they're entertaining their big potential client kind of thing. So we really we really cherish that kind of like catering for all kinds of occasions and people from all walks of life and different regions of the world, etc, etc. So it is really it is really cool to just stand there at one of your one of your events and just see it all coming together.
All these walks of life, people with different stories and they're there for different reasons. And it and it all just meshes together kind of thing. Yeah, just to conclude on my the white paper and then we'll open it up for questions and and etc, etc.
But kind of just to conclude on the white paper and you can download it via this QR code. Innovation is changing experiences fans, followers, friends and family want purpose when they book, as I've just mentioned. And as I've just alluded to new formats, meaning more choice and and also kind of very high price point packages.
But then you've got your very entry level packages from 90 pounds per person, which includes full hospitality. We're wealthier, wiser and attendee groups are more diverse, as again, we just mentioned. And then values as to why people attend are very wide ranging.
But we we do a pretty good job, in my opinion, of kind of catering to anybody from any walk of life kind of thing. So that's something that we that we really focus on. And then I'll leave you with a little quote.
So kind of this is a quote from one of our contributors with the white paper. So we got some some pretty good contributors that added to kind of the the cache of the white paper that we put together. But yeah, hopefully you'll you'll see the full thing in the flesh by downloading it.
Yeah, did you have any more questions?
[Speaker 2]
So you mentioned that you have different packages. I actually didn't even know that. So in the beginning of this class, we there's a quote about from President Obama, you might have seen is how they should make tickets available to everyone to everyone, you know, not just the wealthier.
Is this is this kind of what you guys cater to? Like you want more people from you mentioned several times about how different walks of life like is that what you your goal is?
[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I mean, things are changing. Like we we used to really only speak like years and years ago. Keith Peltz would only really speak to high net worth individuals or companies with big entertaining budgets kind of thing.
But now we're trying to really, really attract and kind of make a splash in this personal market. That's why we've offered the kind of like the 90 pound per person packages at the very low end. Obviously, we still cater to the to the kind of the bulk of our market and that kind of that high net worth individual who wants all the bells and whistles out windward and kind of thing.
Yeah, we're really trying to evolve and kind of offer a package for everybody. Obviously, when you do have we don't just offer tickets. So kind of there's always that ability to go and buy general admission tickets.
But we offer obviously the ticket plus at most events and all inclusive bar and all of your food as much as you want kind of thing at some in some scenarios where you've got roaming plates and everything like that. And then you've got, yeah, some three, four or five course menus. Obviously, we're not going to be able to offer that at the like bottom of the barrel pricing, because it does come with a cost.
But we are trying to stretch to kind of like offer packages for some events at lower at lower price points so as to attract the younger generation, potentially less wealthy people, et cetera, et cetera, and families as well.
[Speaker 2]
Yes, I mean, in economics, it's a there's always that gap, whether it's income and health care and anything. But no pun intended. You guys do mind the gap.
You guys actually like take that into account.
[Speaker 1]
Did you hear that a lot on the tube?
[Speaker 2]
So I do have a question where we've seen a lot of the data about, you know, how much is going into sports, like how much money is going to sports. But from your perspective, where do you think sports is going? Do you think there's going to be anything that's just going to be like you talk about innovations, but any new things that you can see that maybe could impact the economy, but just in general, how does it look?
What's the prospects?
[Speaker 1]
I mean, I think the trend of what we've seen with live golf taking a traditional sport and making it more fun. Potentially to the younger generation, I think that's going to continue. And there's been talk of kind of Saudi investment in tennis and what they're going to do with regards to shaking up that sport.
And actually, we're already seeing it with tennis, like the live golf version of tennis is UTS. So Ultimate Tennis Showdown. And we've actually just gone on sale with that the other day, which I completely forgot to mention in this presentation.
But that literally is like the fun. Less formal, more entertaining, more engaging, more interactive version, again, with the younger B2C audience in mind. So kind of, I think, I think.
Yeah, innovation within the sports that we know, maybe there's going to be a I can see a version of baseball that isn't so long, maybe an innovative version of baseball, because I know that that's a that's a sport in the states that they have a couple of worries about with regards to an older an older an aging audience kind of thing. So kind of they need to attract younger people. And that's what we've seen in cricket as well.
An aging an aging demographic. So how do we address that? Well, we we need like more digestible, short, fun, fast versions of the game.
So I can see that as a big trend. I mean, at Wimbledon, we've seen them. Obviously, it's doesn't doesn't get much more traditional than Wimbledon.
But we've seen them in recent years. They're now they did an an e-sports championships. So kind of alongside the actual tennis, they had e-sports kind of people competing in a video game version of Wimbledon.
That's that's a real growing trend. And that's something that actually whilst I was working at the Whitecaps in Major League Soccer, when there was no football or soccer going on during the pandemic, we focused on e-sports as a way to attract new audiences, entertain our current audience who are set at home with no soccer going on kind of thing. So I think kind of more technology.
I think it remains to be seen. Obviously, AI is the big buzzword in the world at the moment and the marketing world at the moment. But I think it remains to be seen how AI can attract audiences and kind of work within sport.
So I think that's going to be a key piece. Yeah, but I think I think the sports are already set. I don't think there's really that much room for any new sports, but kind of innovation around said sports.
So there's pickleball isn't there, which is like growing massively from an attendant from a from a people playing it. But it's not really an attendee sport. Like there's no people going to watch pickleball being played.
And obviously, that's a different version of tennis kind of thing. So yeah, I hope that answers your question in a really long winded way.
[Speaker 2]
Now it answers it. You also discussed Covid-19 and how it impacted the sports. And we just read about the English soccer teams, the project restart.
There is a case study about that. So we have a little bit of background on that. We do have a question from Jonathan.
It's in the chat. I'll just read it out loud. Why do you think average consumers, particularly younger consumers, are purchasing more experiences?
Do the motivations of higher net worth consumers and looking for experiences differ from the average consumer?
[Speaker 1]
So kind of why younger people are buying premium, basically. Yeah, I think it's the people love to bloat on social media. You want to create the FOMO factor amongst your friends and kind of your followers.
People love to kind of create a pretty picture around their life on social media kind of thing. So I think that's a key driver. And again, kind of younger generations focusing less on spending their money on material objects and focusing more on experiences.
I think those are the two the two key pieces. So when I was growing up, I knew that I wanted like the new the new soccer boots that Christiana Ronaldo or David Beckham was wearing. I wanted the new jersey that my team just put out and my team's Birmingham City, by the way, so not very good.
Yeah, now I think the younger generation are less focused on that. And now they're more more keen to spend their money on kind of experiences. Thank you.
[Speaker 2]
Are there any other questions? I just want to ask a question because it seems like from the analytics that the younger generations are leaning toward social media. And I wanted to ask if, Keith, and your guys, this business is going to go into influencer marketing, or that's something you guys are going to stray away from just for the exclusivity aspects.
And if you think that it's going to, you know, utilize to monetization by having people come in and create content or just keeping it as exclusive as possible.
[Speaker 1]
We do do influencer marketing for Wimbledon just all comes down to marketing budget and how you want to how you want to split it up. But yeah, we did we did some some good influencer marketing, mainly UK based kind of reality TV celebrities. So last week we had some people from Made in Chelsea, which I don't know if you guys would have heard of.
Somebody from Love Island, which again, I don't know if you guys have heard of. Like reality TV shows that just capture the British population. And I know you guys over in the States have some reality TV shows as well.
But yeah, we we we had some kind of some celebrities that we put into our experiences comes at a significant cost. And then the the return on investment is kind of subjective. So kind of and hard to track as well.
So, for example, last year we had Summer Rae, who's a WWE superstar, so I'll use her as an example. So she came to hospitality. We gave her tickets as well.
And then she created content of her experience and of her day. So we didn't necessarily pay her to come. We provided the experience, which comes at a cost, like I said, and then provided a tracked, a tracked link, basically, which we could attribute any leads or sales that came through directly off the back of her following.
But because we're not necessarily paying, you can only ask for so many deliverables back. So she created some amazing content, but didn't necessarily push the link that I had given. And so you're kind of hard to track ROI and then hard to then get the budget to do the same thing next year kind of thing.
But I think it's yeah, influencer marketing, I've often referred to as like the necessary evil of marketing. It's kind of a little bit. It's a little bit of a weird, a weird space.
And sometimes it's like herding kittens, like people, people dropping out the day before and stuff like that. But it's definitely it's definitely needed. And then actually the experience and the facility that Sharon was in, the treehouse at Wimbledon, that's that's our key kind of celebrity space.
So that's where we always put influencers. That's where Mel C was last year from the Spice Girls. That's where Summer Ray was as well.
And then our British influencers. And then that's part of our package. And part of our marketing is kind of like you're in hospitality, you're getting Michelin star food, et cetera, et cetera, and tennis tickets.
But then you're also brushing shoulders with celebrities. So, again, that was a really long winded way of answering your question.
[Speaker 2]
Would you be ever branching out to the United States or any other other countries to bring in more tourism?
[Speaker 1]
With regards to marketing versus like hosting events in the States. Yeah, I've done a fair bit of marketing in the States. I think we have some limitations with what we can do.
But I was working last year with a company called Front Office Sports, who I don't know if you guys are familiar with. So they're if you're into the business of sports, then I'd recommend you follow them. They sometimes speak to English sports as well, but it's mainly US focused.
But they do a newsletter twice a day all around the business of sport. And I subscribe to that. I read it on the bus on my way home daily, actually.
Yeah, we did have a couple of kind of influencers with the US reach. The thing is that the influencer is there and creating content one year before they can buy the next event. So I think that has that has a struggle attached to it.
For example, if you're seeing melcy at Wimbledon on the first day, typically an American customer is not going to be like, oh, I want to be there next week. I'm going to book a flight and come straight over the kind of thing. So as we know, a shorting attention spans.
People are inundated with content. Like I can't even remember what I saw on Instagram yesterday kind of thing. So let alone a year ago.
So I think that comes into it. Suffice to say, you could use said content and repurpose it throughout the year, which we do do as part of our advertising strategy. But kind of when the influencer is there and they're creating stories, they're creating grid posts, reels, et cetera, et cetera.
And kind of their content machine is in flow there at Wimbledon, which is then when we're like we sell out of Wimbledon well in advance. So kind of it's really when they're there, they're talking to kind of the experience and that you can book for next year. But it's kind of a long way out.
Yeah, there's definitely ways that you can do it. Again, the ROI, the direct return on investment isn't necessarily there. Like we don't necessarily see influencer X posted X.
And then we got XYZ bookings kind of thing. Like the direct bookings aren't there. So it's tough sometimes with tight marketing budgets.
It's tough to kind of really put a handle on kind of the return on investment.
[Speaker 2]
Just from the other perspective, I know that, you know, some professionals for tennis players like Ben Shelton, he's like a Gen Z influencer and obviously really good tennis player. Just to share my last question, do you think that the players having a platform has made a better impact to like broadcasting media and just overall marketing from that sense?
[Speaker 1]
From our perspective, Ben Shelton is playing tennis. So he's not exactly coming over to our hospitality for drinks, let's say. But he's definitely creating content furthering the narrative around like Wimbledon, he's at Wimbledon, he's in London.
Maybe he's gone to, I don't know, one of this tourist attraction that he might be able to influence his followers to go and see or engage with. And yeah, Wimbledon did an amazing job from a content perspective of really harnessing kind of and creating content all around the kind of both the the audience, the people attending, the people watching on TV, the people around the world, the tennis enthusiast and then also the player as well. So kind of they did a really good job of kind of capturing all of that content.
And and yeah, they they had like a content machine going for two weeks. The players are obviously that's they're the they're the main attraction. Right.
Like hospitality is, again, depends on depends on the person. Some people are there for the hospitality. The lion's share of people are there for the tennis.
So it's kind of the it's the tennis player that is the main attraction.
[Speaker 2]
We have a few questions in the chat. So Jack has a question about what is the most difficult part about connecting with the high net worth individuals and conveying your experience to them? How do you build the trust with your potential clients, especially when it's a high end package?
[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's a really good question. So high net worth individuals are typically how I like to say cash rich, but time poor. So they're busy, hard to nail down for a conversation, hard to reach digitally sometimes inundated with emails.
So if you're a CEO of a big of a big company, you're getting so many emails at work in the day. The last thing you want to do is respond to my email. When you get home kind of thing, so their time and their business and their attention span is is tough sometimes.
But it's all about kind of like the right message at the right time and kind of shortened message as well. Like if I was to send if I was to send like a dedicated email to that's going to say like see sweeters in Deloitte kind of thing. I wouldn't have like the email wouldn't be like two pages long.
It would be like very short, very sweet imagery led. Just make it really simple. They have an they have an acronym in the states, which are in in the UK, which I don't know if has made it into the states called KISS.
So keep it simple, stupid. Yeah, just being succinct, making content digestible. So instead of like writing long paragraphs about why you should buy Wimbledon hospitality through Keith Prowse, it's in bullet points.
So just really simple stuff. But just knowing that, yeah, high net worth customers are typically inundated with digital messaging. Everybody's trying to sell to them.
So how do you kind of break through the noise and make it simple?
[Speaker 2]
So we have another question. I believe it's from Brandon. How do you see the experience economy evolving in the next few years, especially in the context of sports and hospitality?
[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's definitely growing. And like I said, like I said, kind of it's now no longer just like corporate clients entertaining their customers with white tablecloths and kind of see like sit down dinners. We're doing kind of like informal, informal hospitality where there's kind of like no reserve seating.
It's a bit more of a rowdy atmosphere, actually, as you might have seen in the treehouse here and kind of roaming plates. So the food comes to you and you can select what you want and where the drinks might come to you. But you can head to the bar if you want kind of thing.
So definitely more of these informal offerings, but still premium. So kind of, yeah, literally premium informal, we call it. So, for example, next year, it's my mom's 65th birthday.
So I might like take her out to an event and I can be like, right, we're going on this day. I've guaranteed my ticket. You don't have to worry about anything.
It's all paid for. Let's just enjoy ourselves and kind of view the day is all sorted for you. Whereas some some events, as we've all seen, I'm sure when you're going to the general admission, sometimes like you have to think of every little thing like where am I going to eat before?
Where's the best place to get a drink before? Where's all these things that you have to think of as part of your day? And then there still might be queues, there's lineups, like, et cetera, et cetera, that you just don't have to think about with hospitality sometimes.
So I think that ease and convenience factor as well, like people will people will pay for convenience.
[Speaker 2]
So I have one last question. We have a partnership with L.A. Rams just recently, but we've learned that partnerships and partnerships and working with other companies is a very big part for the team or the league or even just the sports organization. But how how important are these partnerships?
If you're working with Wimbledon there, Wimbledon has a lot of like, for example, as it works with Amex, but how important is partnerships in sports, especially in terms of revenue, profit and going forward for their sustainability?
[Speaker 1]
Very similar to influence, a kind of collaboration and reach right now. We're working with American Express on the presale. So kind of like, whilst we don't necessarily have a reach in, say, well, obviously in the States is a key one, but like it's a global campaign in Panama, in El Salvador, in Ireland, in Spain, Italy, India, China, like we don't necessarily have that reach, but Amex do.
So kind of you're tapping into kind of new markets and new reach exactly the way that you do with influencer. I think that's the key, the key piece. And obviously then there's also there's a reason why Wimbledon is working with like Range Rover, Barclays, kind of Stella Artois, like these premium brands just to further Rolex been one of the big ones, right?
Like they they're putting themselves in the same bracket as some of these premium brands. So kind of it's all very well Wimbledon or Keith Krauss driving a message. But if you're furthering that through collaboration, I think it's just so much more powerful.
[Speaker 2]
Thank you so much, Tom, for being a part of our class and appreciate you presenting this and answering all the questions.
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