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The 2024 Paris Olympics is building on the legacy of recent Games and increasing the use of existing and temporary structures and sites. The idea has been to take this process a big step further, and this time 95% of the venues will be existing or temporary, with only 5% 鈥� essentially the aquatics centre, which will become a swimming pool for the residents of Saint-Denis, and the climbing wall, of which more later 鈥� being highly sustainable new-builds.

London arguably pioneered this approach in 2012, with a number of the city鈥檚 landmarks used as backdrops for demountable venues. One striking example was Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall, which was transformed into a beach volleyball venue in just 36 days.

Such an approach to staging the Games may sound simple, but it requires careful design and planning 鈥� and specialist contractors to deliver. Olly Watts is joint CEO of ES Global, one of the world鈥檚 leading firms specialising in the delivery of temporary staging and venues for rock concerts and major sporting events.

Watts first got involved in this globetrotting world of work as 鈥渁 fantastic holiday job鈥�, while he was studying for a photography and film degree in 1980s London. 鈥淚t was great,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 was working outside, touring around Europe, and it was really well paid.鈥�

It was not long before the holiday job became a career. 鈥淚t was hard work, 12- to 14-hour days, seven days a week,鈥� he explains. 鈥淏ut I kept on getting offered more and more jobs.

鈥淟ike, 鈥極h, do you fancy going to Brazil for a month?鈥� or 鈥楧o you fancy going to Japan?鈥� It was really hard to not fall into it.鈥�

 

 

ES Global had started out as Edwin Shirley Staging, which built stages for a number of large concerts including Live Aid in 1985. But, when a splinter company was established, backed by financing from the band U2, more than half the staff left to join the new upstart. Watts stayed on and, with many old hands no longer there, he found himself rapidly promoted.

鈥淗aving done two summers, I was invited to be in charge of a Rolling Stones tour,鈥� Watts explains. 鈥淚t was quite an enormous jump up, but I enjoyed it, and so I never looked back.鈥�

Around 13 years ago he had the opportunity to be part of a management buyout with partner and joint CEO Jeff Burke.

From MTV to the Olympics

鈥淪ydney 2000 was the first Games we did,鈥� says Watts. 鈥淲e did the staging for the opening ceremony. And that was a natural extension of what we were doing in our music business.

鈥淎part from Beijing in 2008, I think we鈥檝e done stuff on pretty much every Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games and Asian Games since.

鈥淭he biggest amount of work we鈥檝e done in one go on the Olympics was in Tokyo, where we ended up doing around 拢120m-worth of work. And it has expanded, from staging the opening ceremony elements to venues and other aspects of the Olympics.鈥�

ES Global will be working across 57 venues and structures for the Paris Olympics. Many of these are back-of-house facilities and temporary elements within the athletes鈥� village.

Watts dates the company鈥檚 involvement in venue delivery back to the 1994 MTV music awards, when it was tasked with providing a 3,000-capacity theatre in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.  

鈥淚t was a live show with a clear wall that you could see the Brandenburg Gate through,鈥� he says. 鈥淔rom that, we kind of stumbled into the venue business.

鈥淲e have all sorts of clients and different types of events, but a big part of that is the Olympics, where we do things like whole delivery of shooting venues, golf venues and water polo. The Olympic Games is now very much a central part of our business.

鈥淲e鈥檙e working on Paris, and we鈥檙e already starting to bid on the Milan Winter Olympic Games [in 2026],鈥� he explains. 鈥淲e鈥檝e also got our eye on LA 28 [Los Angeles will be the host city for the XXXIV Olympiad].

鈥淚n fact, we鈥檝e got quite strategic now and we鈥檝e actually set up a company in Australia specifically for the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games. That sounds a long way off, but the gestation period is significant leading up to that.鈥�

A premier league of architects and engineers

鈥淲e have an in-house design department,鈥� he explains. 鈥淏ut we pride ourselves on working with a lot of the best engineers and architects around. We鈥檝e worked with everyone from Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid to Richard Rogers and Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands.

鈥淎nd we work with the premier league of engineers around the world 鈥� people like Buro Happold, Arup, Mott MacDonald and Momentum. But we always tend to work with them on the basis of our standard equipment, which we designed,鈥� Watts says. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got a truss system and various other types of construction systems that we designed.鈥�

Over the years the company has developed its own well-honed approach to design and delivery, based around a robust kit of parts 鈥� much of it demountable and standardised components. 鈥淲hat we would do when we鈥檙e collaborating with these designers is we鈥檇 start very much from a position that this is how we want it to work.

鈥淪o, we don鈥檛 go and say, 鈥楾here鈥檚 a blank piece of paper.鈥� We鈥檙e very much pushing it down a route, and we鈥檝e developed these relationships with people over the years where we understand each other and work in a very collaborative way.

鈥淏ut we really enjoy the fact that we work with different sorts of engineers and designers, who all have different opinions 鈥� we find it very productive. We鈥檙e working with some of the best engineering and architectural brains in the world.鈥�

One of ES Global鈥檚 key collaborators in Paris this year is Momentum, the Bath and London-based engineers. 鈥淚n specifically demountable or relocatable architecture, they鈥檝e become real leaders in the field,鈥� Watts says.

Paris climbing wall

Another key collaborator in Paris is London-based WOO Architects, the practice founded in 2014 by Kevin Owens and other members of the team who led the design of the 2012 Olympics on behalf of the London organising committee. 鈥淜evin really is a pre-eminent specialist in the world of sports architecture,鈥� says Watts.

鈥淲e have a great relationship with them and we鈥檙e working with them on Paris and on the [Expo 2025].鈥�

WOO is involved in a number of the Paris 2024 venues, but is working with ES Global primarily on the climbing wall at Le Bourget. 

Along with the aquatics centre in Saint-Denis, the Le Bourget climbing venue is the only sports facility to be built specifically for Paris 2024. Five climbing walls will be used during the Games: an indoor wall for warming up and four outdoor walls. The outdoor walls will then be disassembled and used elsewhere while the indoor facilities will become a legacy venue for the Seine-Saint-Denis area, which has a severe shortage of sports facilities (ranked 103rd out of 105 departments in France for such facilities). 

鈥淭hat鈥檚 the most exciting project that we鈥檙e doing in Paris,鈥� says Watts. 鈥淚t鈥檚 assembled already and, even if I say so myself, it鈥檚 magnificently iconic. 

鈥淚t will definitely get the attention. It will be in our brochure for the next 10 years and we鈥檙e very, very proud of it.

鈥淭he actual structure is 100% based on existing pieces of equipment. We refer to it regularly as being the giant Meccano set, where you have a series of standard components.

鈥淭here鈥檚 no foundations at all 鈥� the entirety of the structure is built on the ground, so there鈥檚 no waste even in the groundworks or the foundations. Even the weights that hold it down are actual steel plates. When the event is over, they will be returned and have an entirely different use afterwards.鈥�

Rapid delivery

Although ES Global typically gets involved in discussions with the Olympic cities around four years before the event begins, actual construction of its temporary venues takes just a matter of weeks. 鈥淚n Paris we started the climbing wall structure in early April and it was more or less finished probably two weeks ago,鈥� says Watts. So it鈥檚 about a six-week construction period.

鈥淏ut, in terms of planning and design, we were probably contracted six months before that and so we鈥檝e been working on design and planning prior to that. Our engagement would usually start for something like the Olympics about four years out from the actual event in terms of the first dialogue on preliminary designs.鈥�

Sustainability

Watts has a first-hand appreciation of the transformation that the 2012 Games brought to London. 鈥淭he Olympics was a vehicle to regenerate a part of east London,鈥� he says. 

鈥淚t was a complete tip before the Olympics 鈥� and we can say that without qualification, because our old yard and office was actually on the site of what became the main stadium. So we were right in the middle of it.鈥�

Although London was not the first major sporting event to make use of temporary structures, Watts believes that the UK capital was a pioneer in 鈥渞eally embracing the whole sustainability approach鈥�.

He continues: 鈥淣o permanent venues were built unless they were going to be required in the future. There were a whole load of venues 鈥� including basketball, water polo, shooting 鈥� which were conceived from the outset as temporary or relocatable buildings.

鈥淏ut we were actually feeling that it was just catching up with what we had been doing for a long time,鈥� says Watts. 鈥淎nd so we鈥檙e hitting a sweet spot in terms of the opportunity because lots of people have cottoned onto the same thing.

One particular Olympics stands out as the event that led to this change: 鈥淚f you go back to Athens in 2004, it鈥檚 the classic example of how not to do it. They built I don鈥檛 know how many venues that were white elephants and that now just sit there with tumbleweed blowing around. The whole thing was just completely and utterly a waste of money and an ecological disaster.鈥�

Watts sees the approach that ES Global has long pioneered as a gamechanger for countries and cities that may in the past have felt they could not host big sporting events like the Olympics because they had become so expensive. Now there is scope to get better value for money. 鈥淥ur equipment is reusable in multiple different sorts of configurations. And so that underpins how we鈥檙e achieving low carbon and just inherent reusability. That is basically what the projects that we deliver are based on.鈥�

鈥淓veryone assumes that you鈥檝e got to spend 拢10bn on new venues,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hen you get rid of that mindset, it changes the possibility and the opportunity for different places that couldn鈥檛 necessarily afford to put on the Games before.鈥�

In an era when starchitects are finally taking a back seat to the need for reuse and sustainability, new approaches to venue design are really coming to the fore. Paris may not be doing anything entirely new but, with its adoption of ambitious targets for temporary and reusable venues, it is taking the process to another level and seeking to set standards for all the Olympic Games of the future.