Alisa Walsh Reports: World Cup from An Event Pro Perspective

Our Director of Business Development Alisa Walsh is a true soccer fan - so much so that she made the trip to Russia for World Cup, the globe's biggest sporting event.
It's not her first attendance at the most international athletic event either. Alisa previously traveled to South Africa and Brazil to celebrate the sport.
As a soccer player and passionate traveler she had a wonderful time. As an event professional she returned to Los Angeles with a number of mega-event observations she is happy to share.

Here above Alisa with her dad and her niece at the first game, supporting our neighbors, Mexico.


Alisa: "My love for soccer started in childhood. I grew up playing soccer. My best girlfriend and I had so much fun during our first World Cup in South Africa that we decided to attend all World Cups moving forward. Russia was no exception. It is a great way to see a country and to visit a place that wasn't necessarily on our bucket list. For this trip we invited other soccer playing friends and family members to join us. Every World Cup is different and Russia was certainly fantastic.

FIFA deserves a lot of credit for being such a well-oiled machine when it comes to this huge world event. They are very well organized. They made the process of obtaining tickets for the games very easy. They also provided each ticket holder with a "Fan ID" in advance. This ID served as an access badge to enter the stadium for the games but furthermore it served as a visa application for international travelers to enter Russia. Not having to go through a separate visa application process saved us a lot of time and it offered a really unique opportunity to see Russia. The country certainly opened its doors.

World Cup is such an incredible event environment. It brings together literally everyone in the world. You sit down in a stadium or a local pub and you will be next to someone from Australia, Spain, Japan, Senegal, Portugal.... Of course there is soccer rivalry but everyone gets along and it is such a fantastic reminder that events really do bring the world together. World Cup is probably the biggest example of that.

It is obviously one of the busiest times to ever visit a country and I think Russia had a lot more visitors than it anticipated. Everyone has seen the headlines about the beer shortage.

I was able to attend three matches. The Mexico-Germany game was great. it was such a unique environment. Of course we were sad that the USA did not qualify. So the Americans in Russia rallied around our neighbors from the South. There were more Mexican fans than I have ever seen before in a stadium and the team pulled off a surprising win against defending champion Germany. The atmosphere in the stadium was electrifying. It was an incredible experience to witness that.

We also spent some time touring the sites. We visited the Kremlin, the famous Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, we saw the Hermitage Museum in St.Petersburg and a Russian ballet. It was a really good mixture of a fun soccer trip and a cultural trip.

My event eye caught many interesting aspects, especially the branding opportunities. Budweiser is the sponsor of FIFA and you could not miss it. They had so many huge activations as soon as you walked into the stadiums, especially the main stadium in Moscow. They had DJs, VR Photo Booths, Soccer Score board opportunities, all things we are familiar with in our industry but taken to enormous scale. You couldn't avoid it if you tried. It was everywhere in the country and it actually started the moment you boarded the Russia-bound plane. There were FIFA World Cup logos all over the place. All restaurants and bars were happy to show off their country and celebrate the World Cup.

Less exciting but extremely important: security at the events was a big concern. It was handled very efficiently for these stadiums that hold 80 to 90 thousand people. We did feel very safe. They had a lot of staff on hand and despite the crowds it did not take long. They did a great job running everyone through. Everyone had to show their Fan ID and it had to match the name on the ticket. We had to turn on our cell phones to show they were really a working device and pass a scanner. Despite the many steps they did a good job at moving the attendees along fast. It was handled very well for such a large international crowd."

Germany is already out of the World Cup but we continue to root for our neighbors Mexico!

Thank you for reading - and HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!