oraganising a comp

[guest]

Hi all
I was wondering about approaching some of the local building owners and asking them whether they would be interested in hosting a BASE event like the petronas towers. They would recieve local airtime and virtually free advertising, all jumpers would sign agreements so the owners hold no liability, all it need its a good landing are and its set, free ad's, a company that shows faith in people and attention of the locals, it will also attract alot of locals that could be charge or the local business' woulld also benefit from increased potential customers. I havent thought about this much, but was rolling this idea around, and best of all, it provides an opportunity for lots legal base jumps.
any info would be appreciated
Nathan

[guest]

Which country / area were u thinking of doing this in?
What sort of entry parameters would u set?

[guest]

I would also like to ask that same question: Where do you live? I'm afraid that if you are here in the states, I'm gonna have to take you in for further questioning, as well as a urinalysis...You people are gonna have to give up on anything like that happening here in the lawsuit capital of the world. :-(

[guest]

.............although I must add that it's a great thought, and a shame that "the land of the free" can't experience something like that...

[crwper]

I'd be careful with that. Where I live, we enjoy a situation in which very few people know base jumping occurs in the city. It's possible that makes roof access easier, and it might make other things go smoother as well. If you start asking building owners if they will let you jump off their building, they have the option of saying no, and then they know that someone has been looking at their building. Could make it harder to get up there "the other way" if you want to in the future.

Michael

[d-dog]

Honestly, in our local area roof access is so bad right now (and even worse after Sept. 11th), that I don't think it could get much worse. So, conceptually at least, asking permission to jump from buildings where we don't have much chance at all of getting roof access the "old fashioned" way probably wouldn't hurt.

And, who knows? Maybe a building owner decides a little good publicity is worth alot and you've got a chance to do something great. One never knows if one fails to ask. On the liability front, that can be handled with good waviers. What people would really freak about, I think, is the chance of someone going in during the comp/demo - that'd be horrible publicity for the business owner and a real scandal in the town.

So you'd have to make a really strong argument about the skills and experience of jumpers, high standards for who gets to jump in the event, example of Petronas and the safety demonstrated there and at KL Towers, etc. That seems like it'd be the toughest sell, not simply the liability wavier issue.

FWIW, the guys I jumped with in the Netherlands told me that from time to time they get permission to jump a few local Bs by wading through the bureaucracy and asking permission. They weren't took keen on it as it took heaps of time and paperwork, but it got me thinking. We assume, here in the States, that the answer would be NO 100% of the time. That's probably wrong - it might be 99% or 96% or 90%, but I doubt it's 100%. There IS a building owner somewhere in the U.S. who would allow a well-run, safe, well-publicised comp.

Just my $0.02, and a paw to boot.

Peace,

D-d0g
ddog@wrinko.com
www.wrinko.com

[guest]

If you're in the States, you'll need liability insurance not just waivers and so forth.

Second, from what's been written on this Board during the last year, you would be well-advised to steer clear of the IPBC, Mark Hewitt or Johnny Weasil. They seem to cause a lot more problems than they solve.

Finally, the successes of people in Europe has not been with competitions -- where the focus is on the jumpers personal glory -- but on demonstrations and exhibitions, where the focus is on entertaining spectators and showing the building in a dynamic light. So you would be well-advised to NOT seek to duplicate the mess made at Petronas. Demos bring out the professionals; competitions drawselfish, self-serving egotistical punks.

LM

[guest]

Yeah, and opinions are like assholes, everybody has one.

[guest]

Yeah, and you're an assshole with an opinion that shows what a stinking assshole you really are.

[guest]

You know Robin, you give anon posters alot of shite when in fact, you are one of the most anon posters I know....

Take a hike...

[guest]

I think, as in all sports, competitions bring out the best in people, the olympics are one giant example of why competition is needed. Also advancements are made through competitions as one jumper tries to gain the upper hand, the rest can follow in his/her steps. In reference to being asked where i live. I stay in Australia and there are only 2(maybe4) jumpable building around(my city), and as previously mentioned, there is no way anyone will be jumping those "the old fashioned way"

If you think comps are a waste of time, I say you need a swift boot up the rectum, only the best would compete and only the very best would win. Although other jumpers that do not wish to compete must also be catered for. Demos and displays would have to be part of something like this, it attracts the crowds and make for awesome viewing.

Nathan
and this anon posting should stop, its for barrel assed pansies.

[Tom B]

Nathan

If you are considering anything in Australia, please talk to me beforehand.

Although the idea is good, you face a multitude of obstacles before you could get an event like the one you are considering, off the ground.

Also, what is your BASE, skydiving, demo jumping, and event organisational experience? The slightest hint of unprofessionalism and inexperience will turn building owners off forever.

Please contact me if you are interested in pursuing the venture.

tombegic@hotmail.com
(0409) 712 490

Tom Begic
Director of Safety & Operations of The Australian BASE Association.

[guest]

Hey Exposer, any time someone criticizes those whose boots you lick, you think it's me.

As a matter of fact, I agree more with Nathan than LM.

Nathan's RIGHT that comps CAN bring out the best in people -- PLUS they advance the sport in the eyes of the public by changing the focus from "who will die?" to " who will win?"

But doing comps on BUILDINGS is a whole different thing. Like LM says, you have to make it worthwhile to the building owners and comps DON'T do this!

Comps are focused exclusively on the participants, not the venues, and at this point in our development, that is not a good mix because, as Petronas in fact proved, we, as a SPORT, are NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME in this regard.

It is a long way from 400 feet of dirt in Moab to 1500 feet of stainless steel in Kuala Lumpur.

For the near term, competitions need to be held in venues where we are not just trying to gain a foothold of acceptability.

Think about skydiving. As a sport it began in the mid- to late 1950s and there were very few places people could actually jump. So, like Nathan's proposing to do, jumpers would go around to airports and ask people if they could jump from their planes.

Most pilots thought they were crazy, but slowly it became accepted.

Competitions came LATER, after the pilots had accepted the general notion first.

SO Nathan, whatever you're planning, you need to get access first, and get people used to the idea first, and THEN, after you establish a level of organizational and participant professionalism, you develop and propose a comp.

You might also withdraw your comment about "a quick boot in the rectum" to LM... and reconsider your assertion that "only the best would compete and only the very best would win."

That was NOT what happened at Petronas. Most of the best boycotted it and a weasel won. This happened because, like you, I thought a comp from a building was a great idea, not realizing how both the nature and character of the event and the people who wanted to participate would turn things into a big clusterfucck.

And that is why (as LM pointed out), the several legal buildings jumps made last year in Europe worked out extremely well and didn't have all the chaos and backstabbing that accrued to the Petronas competition... they were demos, not comps.

Competitions need to be developed outside the corporate world, along with the appropriate "behavior sets," and only THEN take them into prime time.

Finally, as I have said repeatedly on this Board and in SKYDIVING Magazine, the IPBC has done a good job organizing comps from 400-foot cliffs in the Moab dirt. They do, however, still need to work on the "behavior sets" as many of itstop participants -- and organizers -- remain "outlaw-oriented" even when they are the invited guests of a government and corporation.

In fact, those outlaw behavior sets were second only to my promoter inexperience in creating the Petronas chaos and screwing up such a good thing.


So if I was you, I'd definitely call Tom Begic and talk at length with him about your ideas, and definitely absolutely DON'T do a comp to start with... it's just so much more complicated not only in terms of the competitors and their personal agendas but in pure logistical and organizational terms.

If I had to do it over again, I would never have tried to achieve my dream of jumping Petronas through Dann Lee's idea of a world championships. I would have said "festival-festival-festival" until both corporation and BASE community got to know each other better.

But keep on dreaming, Nathan. Petronas would never had happened without my dream and the thousands of dollars and hours I put into it to make it come true. It didn't come out as well as it could have, but it did happen and that has inspired people like you to create your own dreams. I'm just saying you should try to learn from my mistakes and experience and that of others, which of course you are doing or you wouldn't have made your post!
:D

So good luck to you, and if you have any questions for me, feel free to write to me at robinheid@hotmail.com.

Robin Heid
BASE 44

[guest]

Robin,

You are such a narcissistic sniveling whining little psycho. You think everyone owes you something and that anyone who does not follow your egotistical god-complex ideas is a selfish fame seeking "punk". Also the way I understand it is that many of the best and top people you claim were backing you up and boycotting the Kuala Lumpur event were actually not faithfully backing you up but instead had better things to do or other plans than going to Petronas anyway, so you can use their names if you like but the fact is that you are not very well like by most of these people. They seem to tolerate you and they might even respect some of your ideas but I'm sure they do not think you are a suitable leader for the worldwide base community. You have burned so many bridges and are so condescending to so many good people that have helped you or worked with you in the past, and even people you were friends with at one time. You are running out of people to hate. You are a base-board terrorist.

Anonymous because you are psycho :-(

[guest]

The fact is, a lot of those people made those other plans as soon as they heard that Dann Lee was scamming me and not heeding my advice to lower his sights since permission to jump came too late to secure sponsorship. The fact is, they knew, as I did, that the event was rapidly turning into the clusterfucck it became and didn't want to waste their time messing with it. So they made other plans... duhhh.

And I don't hate anybody, especially over this Petronas thing. I'm just sadly and intensely disappointed in the ugliness and childishness exhibited by the people I trusted and gave opportunities to on the project.

As for my "god-complex," it was in fact my project. Without my dream and my vision and my thousands of dollars of money spent and hours contributed, there would have been no event on New Year's Eve 2000 or the August clusterfucck.

I invited several people to join in those efforts, as part of my project and IN SUPOPORT of my ideas and goals. They all agreed to participate according to those terms -- pretty standard in any business agreement, you know -- then back-stabbed and double-crossed not only me but the whole sport just so they could get their free surfing trips and all-expense paid strutting sessions and bragging rights to being the world chUmp.

Those who participated but weren't part of the backstabbers who betrayed the project... I have no problem with them. As one of my very strong supporters said, "Hell, if I had the time and money, I'd've been there too."

And I wouldn't blame him for that -- and I don't blame any of the kids and others who did in fact take advantage of the opportunity so badly corrupted and compromised by Weasel, Dweasel, Surfer Boy and the Butch Goddass. None of them pledged any kind of allegiance to me and hey, it's a pretty amazing building.

So yes, feel free to call me a psycho because I expected that the people who pledged to be loyal professionals and help support my project were actually telling the truth. I was indeed way out of touch with reality to think these people were honest and honorable.

Feel free to call me a psycho because I felt betrayed and intensely disappointed when they caused me to not only lose thousands of dollars and not get to jump Petronas again but made a colossal disaster of a five-year plan none of them even had a clue about because their job was not to think and act independently but to follow my lead and my direction -- which all of them solemnly pledged to do.

In significant part, this happened because the event in question was a competition instead of a demo and competitions tend to attract people of a different mentality.

This was my caveat to Nathan, and as evidenced by the continued nasty comments I get from charming individuals like my anonymous friend, it's clear that I'm absolutely right about this.

Part of the problem, of course, is that BASE jumping itself tends to attract people who think they're smarter than everyone else in the world, won't follow orders, and definitely don't understand the team concept except in the most narrow sense of themselves and their closest boogie buddies.

Again, events other than competitions lessen the problems associated with this mentality, and of course there is considerably less costs and demands when there aren't judges and rules and rounds and scoring to deal with.

In any corporate environment, you DEVELOP processes, collaborations and events, and build them up according to the resources and opportunities available at the time.

There was a clear and cogent Plan B that would have been a significantly better outcome than the world chUmpionships. Unfortunately, Weasel and Dweasel couldn't have been heroes in the Plan B and so they lied and cheated and scammed the clueless Surfer Boy and the brain-dead Butch Goddass to help them and pretty much demolished the overall plan. They all still think they're big time heroes, of course, and Surfer Boy did in fact do exactly what I brought him into the project to do -- keep everybody alive -- but they managed to screw up everything else and for those few of you who know just how comprehensive and multi-faceted that "everything " truly was, what these people did to the event and the opportunity and the sport itself goes way beyond disappointing. It's criminal-level blunder that far outranks the Yosemite fiascoes on 1980 and 1999 as examples of BASE jumpers shittting their own beds.

My anonymous friend also reveals his true nature with his characterization of me as a terrorist: Just another punk with absolutely no sense of perspective or priority who thinks that shitt he just dumped in his bed doesn't stink.

But who cares what I think? I'm just a psycho.

Robin Heid
BASE 44