Without a doubt, the New Zealand Ocean Swim Series is one of the greatest open water swimming events in the world. Race Director Scott Rice and his team at Quantum Events have broughts waves of professional event management experience, vision and passion to open water swimming and several iconic locations in New Zealand.

Combined with an easy registration process and sponsorship partnerships to clever marketing of the sport, Scott delivers and packages a great product – and quantifies his deliverables:

During the 2009-2010 season, the New Zealand Ocean Swim Series saw over 5,000 swimmers participate in six different locations that were broadcast 36 times. From participation by Olympic athletes to children doing a 200-meter Sovereign OceanKids event, there was something for everyone, including a Golden Goggles membership.

Scott provided a variety of interesting demographic information on his events:

59% of the participants were male and 41% were female with 95% of the participants judging the event either good or excellent in a post-race survey.

Age distribution among the women was fairly even across generations: 15% of the female participants were over the age of 50, 19% were under the age of 19, 23% were between the ages of 40-49, 23% were between the age of 30-39 and 20% were between the ages of 20-29. On the men’s side, over half of the participants (54%) were between the ages of 30-49.

In an interesting indication of the trends of open water swimming, 56% of the participants had purchased a wetsuit during the last 12 months. Like liberals and conservatives in the political spectrum, the wetsuiters and traditionalists in the open water world have their stark differences of opinions, but they all share a love of the open water and the inherent challenges it brings.

Wetsuit or not, experienced or beginner, competitive or fitness, young or old, the New Zealand Ocean Swim Series brings every spectrum in the open water swimming world together in a innovative mix.

Copyright © 2010 by Steven Munatones