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The place to be

Sit down with Greg Albrecht
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"I remember calling my mom from the show on one of those old brick-size cell phones and saying the last four years were basically wasted, that this was what I wanted to do with my life."

By Andrew Mitchell

Back in January the Whistler Events Bureau — a partnership between the Resort Municipality of Whistler, Whistler-Blackcomb and Tourism Whistler — announced plans to change the way the resort attracts, plans and facilitates major events.

Historically, the response to events in Whistler has been mixed, with some hugely successful properties like Crankworx and the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival drawing large numbers of visitors, while other events have been met with less enthusiasm. Still, partners agree that Whistler has all the pieces in place to host more and bigger events in the future.

Relaunching WEB as Events Whistler, the partners looked at different ways to improve how they work with event producers, sponsors and resort partners to grow existing events and bring new events to town. At the same time Events Whistler would serve as the central point of contact between event organizers and resort partners, providing those organizers with information, advice, documentation, and marketing and logistics support to ensure their success.

Although there is an Events Whistler budget to plan homegrown events, most event organizers find sponsors to finance their own operations. Events Whistler will help them to make those events successful by making it easier to navigate the bureaucracy and complete the paperwork required to host events and competitions.

In April, Events Whistler hired events planner Greg Albrecht as general manager of Events Whistler. Although he’s still in the process of putting the nuts and bolts of the organization in place, he has no doubt that Events Whistler can achieve its goals and draw more visitors to the resort.

Pique Newsmagazine caught up with Albrecht to talk about the new position and the future of events in Whistler.

Pique: You’ve been doing this for a while, and most recently organized the 2005 Grey Cup in Vancouver. How did you get into events planning?

Greg Albrecht: I was at UBC studying international relations and a group of guys I went to school with got together and decided to put on a concert, which was the first Arts County Fair. We booked the Barenaked Ladies and Spirit of the West, just before the Barenaked Ladies broke. Four months later they were playing the Coliseum, and the Spirit of West were opening for them.

I remember calling my mom from the show on one of those old brick-size cell phones and saying the last four years were basically wasted, that this was what I wanted to do with my life.

Pique: What other events have you worked on?

GA: Other than Arts County Fair, I worked on Virgin Mega Store and Planet Hollywood openings in Vancouver, I worked on the Grey Cup three times with the league before running the show last year, I’ve run the technical operations of the Vancouver Sun Run for the past 14 years, my production company worked on the Princess Di exhibit in Toronto and Fort Lauderdale, we were part of the A Channel launch in Calgary and Edmonton — I’ve been doing this 14 years so it’s been a lot of events, and it’s been a lot of fun.

Pique: What brought you to Whistler?

GA: I was living in Toronto for seven years, and had the opportunity to come out and do the (2005) Grey Cup. When I left Vancouver in 1998 the economy wasn’t doing well, when it was just the opposite in Toronto. Now it was the opposite again — during the Grey Cup I saw the energy in Vancouver and I gave the idea of moving back here a lot of thought.

I decided to give B.C. a chance again. The economy is definitely increasing, and here I had a chance to shape events in Whistler, and how events are produced.

Pique: Events Whistler is still new to a lot of people, as is your position. How would you describe your role?

GA: Basically we’re the main line of contact to event producers. Events Whistler’s job is to attract them here and help them to put on successful events by bringing the resources of the big organizations — the municipality, Tourism Whistler and Whistler-Blackcomb — to bear.

We won’t do that for every event, but when we’re sure it’s the right idea and the event makes sense for us… when it relates directly to attracting more guests to Whistler. If it’s a Whistler-only event, put on by residents for residents, we probably wouldn’t be too involved. If it doesn’t have that external reach it would be more difficult to support those events with our resources.

Pique: Do we have any idea of the dollars or number of visitors that events bring to Whistler, in terms of their value to the local economy?

GA: Yes and no. We do host successful events, but right now they are more individual events produced on an ad hoc basis and do their own economic impact studies. We did a survey and study for Crankworx this year, which we recently released, and they do one for the World Ski and Snowboard Festival, but otherwise we don’t really have those numbers.

We’ve started the process of bringing in an external measurement company… to get the measure of events individually and as a whole, and we’ll be starting to collect that data in 2007.

Pique: In your short tenure as manager has Events Whistler received a lot of inquiries about hosting events?

GA: I’d say we’ve had between a dozen to 18 inquiries at least, but these things don’t happen on the same day. There’s a lot of figuring out how things are going to run so we don’t know which ones are going to go ahead. A few inquiries have been local but most have been external to Whistler.

Pique: What about the issue of sponsorships? There have been a few issues in the past with competing sponsors and the resort partners — has that come up?

GA: Not so far. When we talk to people there are always sponsors, so that can be a bit of a minefield, so we have to work closely with sponsors and partners on these issues. Some sponsors are already entrenched, so we always need to go back to those sponsors with the ask, so they always have the opportunity to get the first rights to host something (unless) event organizers already have those sponsors. It’s a challenge, but it’s not something that’s going to prevent events and sponsors from coming here. Those are things we can work around.

Pique: Are there any major obstacles to hosting events in Whistler, like insurance, bylaws, facilities, that kind of thing?

GA: I’m still quite new, but my perspective is that there are no major obstacles to bringing events to Whistler. Nothing that’s going to shut down anything anyway, because there’s always a way to work around it. The partners on the board are helpful when it comes to finding solutions, as opposed to just saying “we can’t do this.”

When it comes to bylaws there are some challenges but as we evolve and create a culture of hosting events, those challenges become less and less. Once we do something once, as hard as it might be, it’s always easier the next time. Some bylaws need to be eased or changed, but that’s not going to happen overnight. Again, it’s not something that’s going to prevent events from coming here.

When it comes to facilities, Whistler is really challenged with venues. There’s no outdoor venue to hold ticketed events, for example, that makes real financial sense. We’re looking at the opportunities to change that, and to host more things like outdoor concerts in the future.

Pique: Are you involved in the Lot 1/Lot 9 discussions?

GA: I was asked my opinion on different concepts, but I’m not directly involved in planning whatever will fill that site. Once it’s complete, my job will be to make sure that the legacy gets used and that event producers are aware of the facility.

Pique: Is Events Whistler involved in organizing the test competitions for 2010?

GA: We’ve met with VANOC a number of times, starting in early June, and they’ve given us a schedule of test events, what’s coming and when. Right now we’re working to make sure we have the facilities, the organizers, the sports organizations, the volunteers, and the strategy to make it all happen — not just the events themselves, but all the other things that could happen around those events. There will be opportunities to do lots of things around Whistler when that gets underway.

Pique: Can we pull it off? Does Whistler have the resources to host all these events, the volunteers and things, or are we at risk of event fatigue?

GA: We’ve actually looked at that possibility. If we had to host the 2010 Olympics right now it would definitely be a challenge to find the resources and talent in the resort to do it. What we’re doing now with the test events is building that capacity in terms of event management. All the major events, like Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival, the Whistler Music and Arts Festival, Crankworx, they all build that capacity and get the structures in place where we can meet the demands of organizers and events. We get better hosting every event, just as the events themselves get better organized over the years.

In that way we’re not just looking at bringing in new events, but at ways the events help us build capacity.

Pique: Is the priority to make the events we have bigger or to bring in new events?

GA: Our plan for 2007 is not to increase the number of events we host, which could cause some fatigue from partners and sponsors, but to increase the size of current projects we have and raise the bar quite high. Then we can start looking at creating new events, usually around things we have already like Canada Day, the Turkey Sale — how can we increase awareness of Whistler during those times?

Pique: What events can we see grow in the next few years?

GA: The Music and Arts Festival is one event that will likely expand. Right now it’s four days and it’s all free, like the Art Walk component. We could increase that by bringing in some A-list talent, and ticketed concerts.

Crankworx itself expanded from five days to nine days this year. We’re not going to make it longer again, but will look at ways to boost the number of things that are happening during the festival to appeal to more people.

There is an opportunity to do something with Canada Day. Right now the only event is the Chamber of Commerce parade, and there is a lot more we could be doing to make Whistler the place to be on Canada Day.

In September we created the Month of Pain out of existing events, which was really a Tourism Whistler and Outside Magazine project to connect all the existing events. Next year we’ll be looking at ways to fill in the weeks between weekend events, maybe by hosting things like training seminars, or an expo to show off new gear. Maybe there can be an arts component.

As to why we would try to create new events when the resort is already busy, there’s a benefit in establishing Whistler as a place that hosts great events, both for the organizers and the people who come up to take part in the events themselves.

Pique: How aware is the resort that we have an Events Whistler, and what its role is in the community? Are people welcoming the idea?

GA: So far I haven’t had any negative comments on Events Whistler, or our plans or what our mandate is, everyone I’ve spoken to is supportive. In the next couple of weeks I’ll be meeting with hotel operators and retailers in town. Through their comments I’ll get to know what their ideas and aspirations are for hosting events so we can work together on some more projects. We can’t do everything that comes our way — we’re too small a community for that — but the feeling is events are an important draw to the resort and we could be doing more.

Pique: How do you leverage the Olympics talking to event organizers?

GA:. I have used the Olympics in some of my pitches to potential events looking at coming to Whistler, but that said, to be ultimately successful, the Whistler brand must be able to stand on its own.