Summer 2022 - Media Operations at LTA British grass-court tennis events

In early Spring the Lawn Tennis Association, the governing body for tennis in the UK, asked us to provide media operations management during their marquee summer grass-court events. These seven tournaments comprise the prestigious cinch Championships at Queen’s Club, Ilkley Trophy, Surbiton Trophy, Rothesay Open Nottingham, Rothesay Classic Birmingham, Rothesay International Eastbourne and the British Open wheelchair tennis showcase and surround the Championships, Wimbledon. They attract strong media interest, including multiple TV rights holders onsite in the case of Queen’s and Eastbourne and are importance showpieces for the sport. Ours was a broad remit, taking in everything from coordinating pre-tournament PR, to accreditation, ongoing stakeholder and media relations and providing whatever support we could to the LTA teams involved. Running media operations for seven events in five weeks, with three tournaments in three different parts of the country running concurrently at one stage, is a big challenge but one we feel that we met. We are incredibly grateful both for the faith that the LTA put in us and also for the excellent, experienced media operations team that we were able to put together to help us. Special thanks to Sandra Nel, Charlotte James and Alex Hyman, who all did a fantastic job as Tournament Media Managers and to bright young things like Taylor Toney-Green, Mamoun Hazmoune and Liv Moore, who rode the incredibly steep learning curve of working onsite in a busy media centre for the first time and always came up smiling and willing to learn.
The task now is to look ahead to those events in 2023 and see where we can improve and deliver an even better service for the LTA next year and beyond. We believe that it is really important to ask for and listen to feedback from broadcasters, journalists and photographers to find the small details that can make their working lives easier. We are always look for ways to enhance the media services that we provide to our consumers - the media - so that we can keep improving the service that we deliver to our clients.