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Presenting FIS Partners: NUSSLI
During the off-season months, FIS presents some of its most important partners in a series of interviews in the FIS Newsflash. In this interview, Florian Isler, Project Manager for the Business Unit Planning, provides an insight into NUSSLI and its projects. NUSSLI is a leading international provider for temporary event infrastructures and an official 'FIS Partner' since 2008. NUSSLI supports FIS and its local Organizers in questions on temporary infrastructures for winter sports events of all kinds and sizes.
Founded in 1941 as a carpentry shop in Hüttwilen (Switzerland), NUSSLI entered the market for grandstand constructions in the 1960ies. NUSSLI developed proprietary modular systems - initially in wood, later in steel. Today, NUSSLI employs a total of 350 staff in 15 branches of the group. The group is active around the world, erecting temporary structures of all kinds: from exceptional pavilions at world fairs to sports stadia with a capacity up to 25'000 people.
Q: NUSSLI implements a wide variety of projects for all types of events around the world. What are the actual core competences of the Group?
Florian Isler: NUSSLI specializes in temporary and modular structures for sports and cultural events: We plan and construct modular stadia, grandstands and stages. Our core business also includes trade fair stands, pavilions, and exhibition constructions. Our structures will stand for exactly as long as they are needed. They are then dismantled, and the material is reused in other projects. Instead of concrete, we use materials like steel, wood and aluminium. Our overlay planning department has been making a name for itself for sustainable concept development for tender submissions and implementations for the Olympic Games and FIFA Championships. For the FIFA World Championships 2010 in South Africa, NUSSLI took on the planning of the implementation for all overlay infrastructures that were necessary to meet the FIFA standards.
Q: Which are the most important factors in temporary structures?
Florian Isler: We need to be fast and flexible, and must be able to handle even the most difficult terrain. These are the basic requirements for success in our line of business. Naturally, quality is also a major issue: Our temporary structures rival permanent ones in terms of safety and comply with the highest safety standards.
Sophisticated planning is another key ingredient for success. For large-scale projects, for example, NUSSLI practices the construction of individual elements at the Hüttwilen construction hall to know exactly, how many hours will be needed for the actual installation. Individual parts are then loaded in correct sequence onto trucks and containers for transport to the construction site.
NUSSLI stores construction modules for a total of 250,000 seats, which are used in around 1,000 projects per year - primarily in Europe and the US. Highly sophisticated software directs the material flow between individual locations and construction sites. It is of critical importance to ensure that the right components are available at the right location and at the right time.
Q: How was it that of the many providers, it was NUSSLI has ultimately become a household name in temporary event structures?
Florian Isler: NUSSLI has been developing smart and sustainable concepts for event infrastructures for considerable time. Implemented at Olympic Games or World Cups, these concepts lived up to the expectations of the Organizing Committees. In order to leave a pleasant memory instead of causing follow-up costs, it is vital to plan events in an integrated way. The environmental compatibility and cost efficiency are both basic criteria to the planning - at a local concert as much as at the Olympic Games. NUSSLI therefore plans and realizes the infrastructures appropriate to the size and the duration of the event.
Q: What experience does NUSSLI have specifically with regards to winter sports events?
Florian Isler: Our specialist knowledge has developed during long years of cooperation with Organizers of initially small World Cup events. The FIS Alpine Ski World Championships at St. Moritz 2003 and Bormio 2005, the FIS Nordic Ski World Championships 2009 in Liberec, the Olympic Winter Games 2006 in Turin, and the Audi FIS Ski World Cup Finals 2007 in Lenzerheide, as well as the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver are just some examples for winter sports events, which NUSSLI has successfully supported in the capacity of planner or supplier of temporary infrastructures. Specifically in large-scale projects, like the Olympic Games, or FIFA World Cups, NUSSLI tends to get involved in the project at a very early stage. The Business Unit Planning creates feasibility studies and masterplans at the time of the candidature of the relevant Organizing Committee, and is familiar with all requirements, once the project reaches the implementation stage.
Q: How important is the partnership with FIS for NUSSLI?
Florian Isler: Our long-term partnership has helped solidify the relationship between FIS, the individual Organizing Committees and NUSSLI. We are informed early of the direction in which winter sports events develop, and can therefore include this important information in our consulting and implementation services. The ski and snowboarding industry are among our most important clients in the sector for winter sports. Over the past few years, orders for the classic alpine winter sports events were increasingly boosted by those for trendy events with fresh ideas, like the Snow Show event in Barcelona. In 2009, NUSSLI constructed a 35metre high Big Air ramp for acrobatic presentations by freestyle skiers and snowboarders in the middle of the city.
Q: How does FIS and its members benefit from this partnership?
Florian Isler: We provide FIS with expert advice in the area of temporary infrastructures and arrangements for the finish area. The basic requirements for the success of complex events are forward-thinking and resource-saving planning. The valuable know-how which we have gained in numerous winter sports projects on the one hand and in the close partnership with FIS on the other is incorporated in its entirety in our activities as a planning and implementation partner of the Organizers. That is how FIS, the Organizers and ultimately the entire ski community benefit from the continuing development of sports events. To ensure safe and entertaining events for the spectators in the finish area to those watching at home in front of their televisions is ultimately another aspect and objective of the partnership.
Contributed by Mari Mathews