Kingsmen pledges $3m support for SEA Games

With most of the sports events at next year's SEA Games held at the Singapore Sports Hub, it would appear that the logistical task is easier, compared to that of hosting the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG) here in 2010, when the venues were scattered islandwide.

However, local communication design and production group Kingsmen Creatives, who was named by the Singapore South-east Asian Games Organising Committee (Singsoc) as the official venue planning provider of the biennial event yesterday, feels there will be other new challenges to surmount.

While hosting the events at three sporting clusters - the others are Marina Bay and Singapore Expo - will make the SEA Games accessible for fans, containing a huge number of people in a single area will require meticulous planning to ensure that the venue is safe and conducive.

Anthony Chong, managing director of Kingsmen Exhibits, said: "At the YOG, we had different venues to work with but now the challenge is to accommodate so many sports in one venue.

"But our expertise and experience in supporting regional events will enable us to carry out effective and efficient venue planning, so that space and purpose-built facilities can be maximised for the Games' competition and training venues."

The event will be held from June 5-16 next year.

Kingsmen's services come as part of its $3 million Tier 2 sponsorship deal with Singsoc.

Of the $3 million, $1.8 million is devoted to venue planning services at over 50 competition and training venues.

Kingsmen will also extend its LED screen at Wilkie Edge for SEA Games advertising, a service that is valued at $1.2 million and expected to reach out to about 4.5 million people a month over a 52-week period.

Toh Boon Yi, Singsoc's chief of community and corporate outreach, said Kingsmen's track record in other major local sporting events - like the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix (construction of temporary seats around the race circuit) and the 2010 YOG - meant that the company can better understand "the challenges of dealing with different venues".

"Singapore is a space where land is scarce so we have to pack a lot of things into a small footprint.

"The challenge confronting us is how we integrate all our requirements and how we space them out in terms of geography and time duration.

"We may use the same hall for, say, basketball and netball... (but) we will need to bring in different logistics for them so that is something we have to deal with."

Following Singsoc's inking of Tier 1 deals with NTUC FairPrice Group, SingTel and Deloitte earlier, Kingsmen is now the fourth sponsor to partner the Games, bringing the total sponsorship to $28 million.

This deal also brings Singsoc closer to its sponsorship target of $50 million.

terong@sph.com.sg

This article was published on Sept 5 in The Straits Times.

Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.