First week of July, Marstrand is transformed into a boiling kettle of the world’s best sailors, artists, vacationing families and the top notch of the business society. Match Cup Sweden has become Sweden’s largest international sailing event and one of the very hottest summer places.

“The interest for Match Cup Sweden has increased heavily, twelve of the world’s best sailors are coming, well known artists are performing all week, and we are counting on more than 100.000 spectators”, says Jan Torstenson, managing director for Brandspot, who is arranging the Swedish stage of the World championship in Match racing.

Match Cup Sweden was given official World championship status last year, as one of the nine stages of the WC-series World Match Racing Tour. At the same time, the event management company Brandspot entered a long term agreement as commercially responsible for the event, in sports cooperation with GKSS.

Twelve of the world’s best male elite sailors and eight out of the women’s world top sailors will offer Match racing at a world class level in Marstrand. The sailing legend and three time World Match Racing Tour winner, Peter Gilmour from Australia will be accompanied by, not only the Swedish top names Björn Hansen, Magnus Holmberg, Mattias Rahm and the top ranked names on the World Tour, but also by the surprising newcomer from this year’s season opening, Frenchman Damien Iehl, who won the qualification event GKSS Spring Cup. That entitled him to the last spot in the star filled starting field at Match Cup Sweden 2008.

The sponsor quota is also filled with more companies than ever before, and since 2005 Brandspot has more than doubled the turnover, which for the 2008 event will be almost 2 million Euros. Ten companies name the race boats, AB Volvo, SEB, Duni, Castellum, Santa Maria, Pelle P, Stena Line and Childhood Foundation as the official Charity. One boat is branded Onico and the tenth boat is still not made official.

At an early stage the regional organisations were contacted. Kungälv county, Gothenburg&Co, and Team Marstrand are now organising partners together with West Swedish Tourism, Business Region Gothenburg and South Bohuslän Tourism. The common objective is to establish Match Cup Sweden as the summer’s meeting spot, an exciting visit filled with experiences for families, youth, sailors, celebrities and business executives.
“We have filled first week of July in Marstrand with some of Sweden’s best artists and activities for everyone – and not to forget the world championship stage of match racing sailing with thrilling sailing duels”, Jan Torstenson explains.

The event area is enlarged with a complemented Event Arena for public activities focused on families and Try out activities. The Event Arena will also present performances by famous Swedish artists every night. Some of the artists are Rongedal, Amanda Jenssen and Calaisa.
Event Arena at Kungsplan will be open every day between 11.30 a.m. and 7.30 p.m. Here you will be able meet and listen to artists and elite sailors, play Beach volleyball, attend Childhood charity Sailing school and play Nintendo Wii and Guitar hero, plus visit all the exhibitions and activities from the sponsors’.
Marstrand has in short time become the new meeting spot for Sweden’s leading corporations and their clients. Some 6 500 corporate guests have been invited to Match Cup Sweden and the different arenas where the sponsors can host meetings, among them the Business Lounge with a first class view of the racing arena. Where the well known tavern-keeper Mats Nordström and his Wasa Allé in Gothenburg take care of the West coast inspired catering.

During the Match Cup Sweden week a top level corporate seminar is taking place. Corporate Event Marketing Forum with for example speakers as Leif Johansson, Dan Sten Olsson and Robert af Jochnick. The topics are Social responsibility and sponsoring - hand in hand, and the Volvo Ocean Race – billion dollar event.

The media coverage is increasing. TV8 broadcasts the seminar Corporate Event Marketing Forum and Studio Virtanen is broadcasted directly from Marstrand, Wednesday to Saturday. But also Swedish television as well as Swedish and International press is covering the event.

“Our goal is to establish Match Cup Sweden as one of the very large international events in Sweden, together with our athletes and strong sponsoring companies”, ends Jan Torstenson.