iJournals: International Journal of Social Relevance & Concern ISSN-2347-9698 Volume 6 Issue 8 August 2018 Case Study: Spectatorships during Doha 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships Authors: Al Anoud Al Meraikhi; Asil Al-Bardawil; Al Anoud Shabana Qatar University Table of Contents I. Case Synopsis II. Target audience III. Teaching objectives IV. About IPC(International Paralympic Committee) V. About IPC Lyon 2013 VI. About Qatar VII. About QOC (Qatar Olympic Committee) VIII. The 2015 Doha IPC World Championships IX. The Beyond Incredible campaign X. The Arena experience in Qatar XI. The problem –issue of Spectatorship: XII. Survey & Focus group XIII. Conclusion XIV. Case Questions Al Anoud Al Meraikhi; Asil Al-Bardawil; Al Anoud Shabana, Vol 6 Issue 8, pp 142-154, August 2018 iJournals: International Journal of Social Relevance & Concern ISSN-2347-9698 Volume 6 Issue 8 August 2018 Case Synopsis Qatar is focusing on becoming an international attraction to many tourists by successfully staging a number of major international sports events. Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) organized all of these sports events andin 2013, QOC won the bid to host the Doha 2015 IPC Athletics World Championshipson 21-31 October which was held at the Suheim Bin Hamad Stadium.QOC used different integrated marketing communications tools to help deliver a successful event. The problem is that in a stadium that holds almost 15,000 spectators, only 500-1000 fans showed up each day during the 10-days international event. Organizing committees have been paying fans and especially labor to act as spectators during international sports events to populate the stadiums. For a sports event to be successful, spectators need to be present in stadiums, but the people of Qatar are not interested. In this case study, we have used Doha 2015 IPC Athletics as an example to support our argument and to exhibit the general issues of spectatorship in Qatar. We aim to answer questions like: how can an organizing committee attract spectators to the stadiums and what do fans expect when attending sports events in Qatar. Target audience The case study is targeting the committees and sport managers who are organizing and hosting different sport events in Qatar. The case explains the reasons why spectators attend or do not attend sports events in Qatar, which could be taken into consideration when hosting an event. Also, the case is targeting marketing students; sports‟ marketing in specific and it clarifies the overall spectatorship experience and how it can be enhanced. Teaching objectives To understand the obstacles facing event organizers in attracting spectators like cultural barriers. To understand the appropriate marketing tools used in attracting spectators like sponsorships, social media activities and outdoor advertising. To understand the spectators‟ attitude toward sports events in Qatar and the reasons they do or do not attend these events. About IPC (International Paralympic Committee) IPC is short for International Paralympic Committee, which is a non-profit organization,founded in 1989 and based in Bonn, Germany. The wordParalympic refers to being parallel to the Olympic games and they illustrate how the two move side-by-side. Sir Philip Craven is the president of the organization. The goal of IPC is to create hopes and develop sport opportunities for all people with disabilities from beginners to elite levels. The Winter Paralympics games in Norway were the first Paralympics organized by IPC in 1994. Year after year,the number of participants increased and the game it self got more popularity among spectators.The Paralympics took place previously in cities like Tokyo, London, Berlin and Lyon. Paralympic athletes compete at elite level competitions, which are classified by disability; the key athletic disciplines include running, wheelchair racing, jumps and throws. Based on Paralympic official webpage1, Sochi winter Paralympics in 2014 took place and there were 541 athletes from 45 countries and 316,200 tickets were all sold. The worldwide partners of IPC are Toyota, Visa, Panasonic, Samsung, Ottobock and Atos. © 2018, iJournals All Rights Reserved www.ijournals.in Page 143 iJournals: International Journal of Social Relevance & Concern ISSN-2347-9698 Volume 6 Issue 8 August 2018 About IPC Lyon 2013 Lyon, France won the bid to host the 2013 IPC athletics world champions from 19 to 28 of July. Over one thousand athletes from nearly one hundred countries competed over 207 events. The championship was staged at the Stade du Rhone in the Parc de Parilly that has a capacity of 40,494 seats. 52 world records were broken; more than ten partners participated during IPC Lyon such as Sytral, HandiCap, Aggreko, AXA and Nestle. IPC provided live video coverage on its website, clips from the event andrecorded interviews on IPC YouTube channel.Based on Paralympic official page 2, ahuge marketing campaign have been carried out to increase the exposure of the event and to spread the awareness via using marketing communication tools such as live broadcasting, printed posters, billboard ads, social media tools, official webpage and TV broadcasting.Numbers of community programs involving schools and sports clubs were set to take place to promote the championship.According to Mr. James3, aneditor in inside the games electronic magazine “the stadium‟s seats were full during the ten days IPC event with French and foreign spectators who came to encourage the participants, bond with the family and enjoy the event by living the whole experience”. About Qatar Qatar is located in the heart of the Arabian Gulf and it‟s a modernized country with incredible facilities and infrastructure to welcome visitors from all over the world. According to an article posted by The Worldfolio4the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex and the Aspire Zone Foundation are two of the most striking examples of Qatar‟s huge investment over the past decade. Qatar‟s time zone CET 2+ provides an excellent condition for media coverage during press conferences or global events particularly for international broadcasting during the prim-time hours in many regions of the world. The first language in Qatar is Arabic and everyone mainly speaks it but many people speak English as their second language. Based on the Qatari Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics5, total number of population in Qatar is around 2.5 million, including both Qataris and non-Qataris. 85% of the population is foreigners and expatriates, mainly coming from India, the Philippines and Nepal. Male group dominates around 1.9 million of the total population, while females dominate around 62 thousand of the population.As for Qatar‟s traditions and culture, it is considered a conservative country and there is a separation between men and women in all aspects. About QOC (Qatar Olympic Committee) QOC was created in 1979 and was recognized in 1980; the president is H.E. Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad bin Khalifa al- Thani and the Secretary General is Dr.Thani Al-Kuwari. QOC is a semi-government committee and it hosted many internationalsports events (Refer to Exhibit 1). QOC aims at making Qatar a leading nation in bringing the world together through sustainable sport development. QOC is a monopoly at what they do, there is no other organization in Qatar that hosts regional and international sports events6. The 2015 Doha IPC World Championships During the IPC 2015 bid, Qatar and mainly QOC improved and re-designed many places to making it more special needs friendly and was fully prepared to win the bid. Some of the partners further upgraded to better cater to people with disabilities and these included Hamad International Airport and Ezdan hotel (the official hotel for hosting the event) that designed special elevators for athletes with disability and special signs for blind people.When the head of IPC Athletics Mr. Ryan Montgomery was delegated by IPC to visit Qatar and have a final update, he said that everything was perfect and QOC was fully on track. He met with Dr. Thani Al-kuwari who said that Qatar is really proud to host the IPC Athletics; especially that it‟s the first time in history the event will be hosted in the Middle East. Doha 2015 IPC Athletics was held in Qatar sport club‟s © 2018, iJournals All Rights Reserved www.ijournals.in Page 144 iJournals: International Journal of Social Relevance & Concern ISSN-2347-9698 Volume 6 Issue 8 August 2018 Suhaim Bin Hamad stadium, that has around 15,000 seats for spectators. The Champions featured around 1,300 athletes from more than 100 countries covering 210 medal events. Lastly, it served as one of the last major competitions before the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. Ticketing During an interview with Mr. Abutalha Khazi7, he said:“The ticket price was just for 20 QAR and all proceeds were donated to charity. Children under the age of four and elder people above the age of 60 can enter for free. All this was done to attract spectators to attend the event. Money and support was always there; we had strategic corporate partners that helped deliver a successful event.An estimation of around 500-1000 spectators attended the event everyday among these were people brought from embassies, families and friends of the athletes, volunteers, organizers and school kids”.The tickets to the Doha 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships were sold two months prior to the event through the official event website and in stores, while during the games tickets were also sold on the website and in stores, in addition to selling through the venue ticket box offices. The ticket categories included the following six: Finish Line, Wheelchair Access, Family, VIP, General, and Morning Session. A total of around 9000 tickets were printed and issued everyday and around during the 10-day event period, a total of around 16,000 tickets were distributed to sponsors while only around 5000 tickets were sold at the end of the event.