Global Sports Week

Challenge

Create a customized platform to host virtual and hybrid events for sports leaders and engage change-makers communities globally.

Solution

Sports Week has chosen Vonage Video API and inwink.

Strategy

Founded by three international sports marketing experts, Global Sports Week (GSW) is the first international forum in France dedicated to Sport. GSW offers a unique setting and platform for influencers and decision-makers to come together to ‘Shape, Shake & Share’ the future of sport, providing the tools and insights to inspire new ways of thinking.

“Sport is facing a global revolution and around the world, the speed of digitization is matched only by the pace of societal change,” explained Marie Jaillant, Executive Director at Global Sports Week. At GSW, we are convinced that sport, in this context of transformation, can play a bigger role in addressing the major social challenges of our age as we curate, inform, connect and empower a community made of all the actors who shape the future of sport.”

In 2020, the inaugural international forum took place at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, and brought together more than 2,000 people over the span of 3 days. GSW has since emerged as a meeting place for organizations across the global ecosystem of sport – in person, virtually, and in hybrid experiences – committed to establishing a more innovative and sustainable future for sport.

The team behind GSW needed to quickly pivot after the inaugural event, as the global pandemic shut down in person events. In 2021, the team embraced a hybrid model that shifted their strategy for the future.

“With the success of our hybrid events in 2021, we realized that the way people interact with and consume events has shifted irrevocably,” said Marie Jaillant. “In order to keep growing and evolving to not only meet the needs of our GSW attendees but to also build a true community that interacts year-round, we knew we needed a stronger event platform and scalable video capabilities. We found what we needed with the Vonage Video API embedded into the inwink solution.”

Vonage + inwink = A Winning Combination

A Vonage API partner, inwink is the BtoB Audience Engagement Platform that allows enterprise-level event and community industrialization from a single, unified platform fully integrated into the company’s data. With an intuitive UX, users can build event and community websites and experiences with their content, branding and URL in just a few clicks. Built into the inwink platform is the Vonage Video API, enabling inwink users to leverage the global performance and scalability of Vonage for video sessions and broadcasts that are easily accessible across web browsers, mobile devices and desktops with no additional downloads or plugins needed.

“Our legacy event platform was not very user friendly and we knew we needed a more streamlined experience for our community if we wanted to expand virtual and hybrid events in the future,” noted . “The inwink platform is very easy to navigate and having Vonage integrated directly into the interface allows us to create dynamic video experiences, meeting our needs not only for enhanced digital events but also to support our community throughout the year with digital content.”

“The partnership between Vonage and inwink is seamless, which translates to the user experience – one account to log in, manage the event, interact with speakers – all in one simple interface,” noted Pascal Laforest, Head of Sales & Partnerships at inwink. “And because the Vonage Video API is built into the inwink platform, the interactive experience can be fully branded and customized to match the overall Global Sports Week look and feel which enhances the attendee experience beyond a simple out-of-the-box video conferencing solution.”

Building Community

The GSW team believes that the future of sports and entertainment is one of hybrid experiences, increased physical interactions with virtual engagement layered on top to gather more people, increase reach and build community around the world. By switching to the inwink BtoB Audience Engagement platform and leveraging the Vonage Video API, the GSW team has access to enhanced video capabilities including interactive broadcasts and intimate group discussions.

“With a reliable global platform in place, we have the ability to keep our community engaged between events by hosting smaller virtual gatherings focused on specific topics and inviting interactivity and discussion,” said Jaillant. “The flexibility and scale of the Vonage Video API gives us the freedom to expand and evolve how we connect with our community as we invite big thinkers to shape the future of sport.”

The Future of Fandom

The pandemic ushered in a new era of video communications and connections and changed how we interact with one another daily. The team behind GSW recognizes that these new ways of interacting will lead to innovations in how people connect with each other and the things they love.

“In 2022 we hosted concurrent in person events in both Paris and LA alongside hybrid virtual experiences on the digital platform to gather community members and attendees all over the world,” recalled Marie Jaillant. “We have an active community of about 15,000 people engaging regularly with our platform and smaller, more intimate sessions throughout the year. None of this would be possible at this scale, and at this high-quality, without the inwink solution and the Vonage Video API.”

Results

An interactive platform for virtual and hybrid international events, hosting an active community of 15,000 and growing, ability to coordinate large and small scale events, panels and conversations year-round from a single platform