USEF Network

2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games January Update

RELEASE: January 17, 2008
AUTHOR/ADMINISTRATOR: Brian Sosby

Lexington, KY—The following is an update on our collective progress toward the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

GENERAL/MILESTONES
On December 29th, we celebrated the “1000 Day Countdown” to the Games’ Opening Ceremonies and turned on two Countdown Clocks in downtown Lexington on the pedways crossing Vine and Main Streets on either side of Broadway. We also took part in a halftime presentation at the University of Kentucky basketball game that afternoon. The events were well attended by the media (with six television stations included), and we received a significant number of published stories in state, regional and national publications, including an Associated Press story picked up by both msnbc.com and usatoday.com. We also had a great deal of other “year-end” update coverage.

We are also very pleased to have Kate Jackson joining us in our office at year end. As many of you are aware, Kate is coming on board as our Competition Director, as well as her service as an Executive Board member of the FEI. Kate will, among other things, be overseeing our discipline managers and will work to create the best competition environment possible for the 2010 Games.

In a look back at 2007, it was determined we made 150 speeches to a total audience of 10,000.

OPERATIONS
We continue to develop the master overall park layout, adding increasing focus and detail to individual areas, most specifically including the media village, the broadcast compound, and our main hospitality areas north of the planned stadium. Venue architect consultants will be in our offices throughout January to further develop these areas to allow us to best create meaningful budgets for them. All told, we will have six different function area consultants here this month. These include such areas as transportation, security, medical services, etc.

Scott Lowery and Rob Hinkle will be attending the National Western Stock Show in Denver later this month, to observe the setup, their trade show, and the stock shows, as well as to meet with Reining discipline manager Brad Ettleman.

We will also be hosting the first on-site meeting of all of our discipline managers on January 14th. The meeting will include a frank discussion of the Games philosophy and goals regarding our commitment to producing the best competition environment possible, as well as optimizing the experience of spectators and TV viewers. The competition schedule will be reviewed with a look to coming closer to a final schedule. Individual discipline issues will also be addressed and resolved.

Lloyd Landkamer will now be the discipline manager for both Para-Dressage and Dressage.

National Diversity Solutions has formally signed on to help us register, validate, and qualify potential suppliers for all of our key purchase and supply areas and to help us generate RFP’s for major purchase areas as needed. We will have a link to this registration process on our website, and a press release is forthcoming. This process is also intended to allow us to be aware of the broadest and most diverse range of potential suppliers.

We continue to work on identifying sources of budget-reducing in-kind products and services (BRIK) as well as identifying potential sponsorable items and areas from our expense budget. We are beginning to make real progress here.

SPONSORSHIP/HOSPITALITY/MARKETING
We announced Rolex as a Platinum Sponsor of the Games.

Sponsorship negotiations are in process with approximately 30 companies.

We have developed with Alltech a “Platinum Pavilion Partnership” program for the potential participation of countries in our international village. This concept would combine major sponsorship with the parallel providing of a specific country pavilion.

OTHER REVENUE
As of this date, we have 135 spaces already commited for the Trade Show, with orders continuing t