From many perspectives, the ISPO can be considered an eventful and successful happening. The few days in Munich were full of action, adventures, and the one or other personal “annihilation” at the after-parties. Hence, our cozy booth 128 was the perfect meeting point for the masses to relax from the exhausting fair-hustle and bustle while watching some really cool freestyle pics and clips. Among others, also QParks chief Jan seems a little harassed in the wake of the ISPO: “The fair was extremely exciting this year and besides our tight schedule, also fun stood in the foreground which is very important in this business. Several of the guests took it too serious though and, referring to the amounts of tasty booze we provided, some were as blue as our booth itself ;)”.

“Grand Dame” of our events department Lisi was responsible for the QParks booth and showed herself really impressed by the convention: “The build-up phase was extremely long winded and sometimes seemed like slow-motion. But eventually on Sunday afternoon, all the hard work was rewarded by perfect vibes and happy faces, supported by the pushing sounds by DJ Masstrixx and our speaker MC Lix who let some masterful raps about our parks flow across the hall!” Shootings- and multimedia coordinator Migl also spent a day in Munich: “The interest in QParks was enormous. You’re running around the whole day long and everyone wants to talk to you. I just tried to concentrate on those whom I haven’t seen for a while or just know from telephone talks and never met in person. Our boot was always occupied, since there were permanently guys just hanging around our booth and our couches. Many of them had dark circles under their eyes, which was obviously due to a more or less severe hangover from the Sunday parties”.

Indeed, our “Park-of-the-day” parties were a great joker for the overall atmosphere: On Sunday, the Swatch Snowpark Sölden party with special bread, bacon, cheese and of course beer and schnapps all stemming from the Sölden region. On Monday, at the DC Area 43 party people couldn’t get enough from a traditional Kitzbüheler “Brettljause” (coldcuts with bread) followed by a homemade schnapps by Lisi herself! QParks media-lady Karin still enthuses “This was one of the most delicious I’ve ever had!” Tuesday was the day of the Horsefeathers Superparks party with styrian delicacies, original Schladminger beer and some fine glasses of wine from Styria. The international folks were delighted by…) the excerpts of Austrian culture and, with the beautiful scenery of our xx-large pictures of our snowparks in the background, everyone was confident about coming to our regions for one or another visit!

However, also the business side should be mentioned, as this was certainly the most important aspect of the fair. At the 1^st European Snowpark Conference, European providers of freestyle were able to bring in their concerns at the gathered industries, and as the largest of these, we took it serious and likewise saw it as our duty to step into the foreground. We have achieved a lot for freestyle in the Alps already and there is no sense in hiding anymore. For instance, apart from all the efforts already mentioned, we have prepared thousands of QParks folders that were distributed by three of our promotion girls. Moreover, members of the QParks team of all departments were all around to be available for questions and discussions. We are already in cooperation with almost all of the relevant media in Europe, but as a pleasant detail, also the media we hadn’t been in contact before knew us already. And target number one was also a success, namely enhancing the dialogue with the industries. Within the whole turmoil dozens of prolific talks between individual resort runners, representatives of the industries and QParks took place at the different billboards of our respective park projects. Many contacts were established and the freestyle network has been augmented and reinforced.

Now there’s no need to mention that we are looking back on a very intense but exciting couple of days. Some of us are happy to be back home having survived the busy times at the ISPO 2010, others still think back in melancholy to some really fine days out in Munich. Chin up Clemens, for sure there will be other women crossing your way :-)

Pictures:
1. QParks afternoon atmosphere and DJ Masstrixx warming up
2. Q-Camera man Sean Balmer calling home to Australia
3. MC Lix in his element: Women, booze and vocals
4. QParks "God-of-Cinematographics" Clemens with QParks "God-of-Shape" and mc-talent Jonel Fricke
5. Bottom: QParks stand overview