How Big Events Get Done
How the Olympic Authority is an Active Local Organizing Committee for Year Round Major Events
After the snow guns start blowing, after the ski lifts start turning, and after the hotel rooms and restaurants start filling up, that’s when it’s game on for event organizers.
Since its earliest days, the Lake Placid Region has been a home to heroes. Many in the spotlight, of course, and many other heroes working behind the scenes, too. From coaches to parents to the dedicated people who worked hard to bring the Olympic Winter Games to the region twice, all have benefitted from these hidden heroes. They are people who achieve great things for others yet go largely unrecognized.
Among them are event organizers, including the Olympic Regional Development Authority (Olympic Authority) team. Throughout the region’s long history, many good people working with passion have organized extraordinary and memorable events, and their hard work has proven vital to our community, our region, and our state.
Now, the renewed venues, in combination with the region’s worldwide reputation for excellence in event management, are once again bringing back major World Cups and World Championships. Along with them come the athletes, the coaches, the media, the spectators and the tourists. They come together from all over the world to witness or participate in healthy competition and to celebrate extraordinary moments of often inspirational human achievement. All of it creates powerful, positive ripple effects across North Country communities.
The People, Their Values, and the Process
Making it happen takes a team of people who – much like the athletes themselves – are dedicated, focused, and enormously hard working. Whether it’s an annual event, such as the Flaming Leaves Festival and USA Nordic National Championships in October or a giant new first time competition like the WHOOP UCI Mountain Biking World Series coming this September, each one is a massive undertaking. At the Olympic Authority, they are organized by a team of highly skilled people with a unique blend of passion, commitment, and business acumen.
Each event is unique and requires months of intense focus to successfully organize and accomplish. Securing the event on the calendar is always the first challenge. Forging and maintaining connections and communication with the national and international governing bodies of various sports is key, but even then, it’s their calendar and their interests that determine when and where an event happens.
Before a determination, however, each possible event is carefully analyzed by the Olympic Authority team from many perspectives, including its fit with the venue, its budget impacts, and the array of potential benefits to our communities. “How does it utilize our venues? Is it good for athlete development? Will it be good for our community and economic development? We really look at it through many different lenses,” says Olympic Authority Director of Events Jeremy Freeman. The suitability of an event is determined only after an extensive review of the facts and dialogue with numerous stakeholders.
What follows is the serious work of developing a bid for the event. With a successful bid, the international or national sport governing body make it part of their calendar, and the Events department moves forward, drawing up detailed plans. A series of actions, responsibilities, and resources are mapped out for that span of months and days before what will officially become “go-time.”
“My team is most heavily involved in the major events,” says Jeremy. “World Cups, World Championships, National Championships and other events are those sport governing bodies rely on us not only for the field of play but also for the large scale support, including officiating, timing, and scoring.” For those events, the Olympic Authority takes on the role of organizing committee, taking on the full responsibility for execution of the event on behalf of the national or international federation.
Essentials and Uncertainties
Both the Events department and the venues maintain experts focused on the different disciplines (Nordic, Sliding Sports, etc.), and venue staff who know their sport exceedingly well are directly responsible for the course or field of play during competition. These Olympic Authority team members collaborate closely as there are nuances for each sport and each venue as well as changing rules and requirements. Says Jeremy, “The sport governing organizations make modifications to adapt to athlete needs, to meet emerging safety standards, and to improve the spectator experience, too. The changes are driven by the people who compete in each sport but also by the people who watch them.”
In many sports, such as basketball, every court in the world is the same length and the rim the same height in accordance with international standards. “In winter sports,” says Jeremy, “we have what are called homologation standards, but there are differences at different venues. Today, our Olympic Ski Jumping Complex is the only facility in North America that meets the standards for summer and winter competition, but we still have no control over weather, wind speed, or other aspects of the environment. It’s the unknowns and intangibles we have to be ready to adjust to.”
Those uncertainties come with the added pressure to make experiences as nearly perfect as possible, and toward that end, the Olympic Authority team expertly prepares for all the known aspects of an event as well as the more unpredictable contingencies. Toward that end, the team remains flexible problem solvers with an ability to respond effectively when the unknown arises. “We’re working in an international environment with different sports, different languages, and time zones,” says Jeremy. “For example, this year just before the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup, the two main airports in Germany went on strike and closed two days before our event. We had to work quickly and collaborate with the teams at the last minute to reroute their transportation and get them here. We aren’t normally involved in air travel, but in this case, we had to jump in.” At the event a short time later, spectators simply enjoyed the watching the jumpers soar through the sky above Lake Placid, never aware of any last minute challenges.
Support Comes from Inside and Out
Make no mistake about it, however, with core team of just six full-time individuals, the Events department expands with the Olympic Authority venue and administrative teams to constitute an effective organizing committee and make it all work at such a high level.
The Olympic Authority, which operates alpine ski resorts at Whiteface, Gore and Belleayre mountains as well as Mt Van Hoevenberg, Olympic Jumping Complex and the Olympic Center, employs approximately 1,500 staff (full-time, part-time, and seasonal) throughout the Adirondack and Catskill Region. The organization is a full operation with a structure to support and work in collaboration with the events department on each event. These departments have seasoned professionals across functional areas that support each event.
For example, the Olympic Authority’s marketing, sales, and communications department with the venue marketing manager offers support in building awareness and promotion of the event. The in-house creative design team, as well as sponsorship, retail, food & beverage, IT, legal, finance and more also build into the organizing committee to execute their respective areas and achieve the goals set forward.
“Event planning is a team approach and it comes naturally for us because these events are part of our Olympic Authority’s core mission, and we all play a part of making them a success.”
“The other part of it that’s just as important is our volunteer base,” says Jeremy. “There are different reasons people volunteer. Some have a passion for winter sports or for a particular sport. Others are just eager to help their community. Overall, the numbers are staggering.”
The total hours worked by volunteers this 2023-24 winter season was nearly 8,000. The number of four hour shifts worked by volunteers was nearly 2,000, and over the course of the season, the number of individual volunteers contributing to events was 345. “In a community this size,” says Jeremy, “that is really amazing. The reality is it takes a team. It takes a lot of good people to make it all work, and we could not do what we do without them.”
Lake Placid’s Event Legacy
Historically, winter sports are what made Lake Placid what it is today. That’s made winter the traditional busy season for recreational winter sports tourism and also for competition at every level. That’s both our winter sport heritage and our Olympic legacy.
As a result, Olympic Authority event organizers have always encountered their peak of activity in the winter months. Nevertheless, big winter competitions require careful planning throughout spring, summer, and fall to create the best possible events for everyone, and that means the team doesn’t have an off-season.
More often today and for more reasons, in fact, the expertise and experience of event organizers and other Olympic Authority staff is increasingly in-demand year round. The new era brought about by the renovation and renewal of the venues is raising the stature of Lake Placid around the world as a major event host. In addition to indoor skating championships at the Olympic Center this summer and ski jump competitions at the only jumping facility in North America homologated for winter and summer competition, this year will also have the team making first time preparations for the new WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series at Mt Van Hoevenberg.
While singular events most often have specific impact, a big new one like this will ultimately contribute in new ways to Lake Placid’s long heritage. In general, events like this make an especially positive impact on the region’s image around the world and further elevate our stature as an event host while also elevating our region’s brand in terms of the particular sport. In this particular case, the resulting bigger and bolder new mountain biking image will attract new guests from all over.
Ultimately, it will contribute to the continue flourishing of our community pride, and that makes a new mountain biking World Cup more than a sporting event to drive economic development. It’s also a celebration of who we are and our remarkable evolution.
As we move forward in this bold new era, the professionals on the Olympic Authority team will be continue their longstanding and always vital role in Lake Placid’s ongoing world leadership in sport and recreation.