Our relationship with Barclaycard began in early 2008 when a new venture was set up between Urban Freeflow and their business management team, AOB (www.allourbusiness.com) to develop a World Freerun Championship series. Barclaycard came on board as title sponsors and helped to deliver the ground breaking event at the iconic venue of the Roundhouse in London. The event was staged to a 2000 capacity audience and featured 20 international athletes representing their respective countries. All of which was captured exclusively by Sky Sports for TV broadcast. In addition, Barclaycard sponsored the Mayor’s Thames Festival. This saw the Urban Freeflow performance team delivering a series of shows on a purpose built structure, right in front of the London Eye to 750,000 people over a 2 day period.
Sony Ericsson came on board as a sponsor which coincided with their ‘Off The Wall’ UK tour. The tour saw them engaging the Urban Freeflow performance team to deliver a series of bespoke Freerun/Parkour performances in key UK cities, to help promote the release of two of their new handsets. One of which had exclusive embedded content showing a number of Freerun/Parkour tutorial techniques along with an action edit.
Adidas first got involved with Freerun/Parkour when they sponsored the Urban Freeflow performance team exclusively Worldwide in 2004. This led to the first ever shoes for the discipline being specifically designed along with bespoke apparel. From there, they engaged a variety of different film projects, advertising campaigns and workshops around the world. Their involvment as partners in the World championships was a logical step up for them as they’d been involved from the grass roots stage. Adidas sponsored the ‘Best Trick’ category at the event.
Electronic Arts released a video game titled ‘Mirror’s Edge’ just after the World Champ’s and came on board to raise awareness leading up to the launch date. The game itself features a charachter called Faith, who uses Freerunning skills as part of her job. Set in the future where cctv cameras have become commonplace, a team of highly skilled Freerunners are employed as couriers to deliver important documents across the cityscape rooftops, where the authorites have less of a chance in intervening. EA’s involvement in the World Championships saw the competitors playtesting the game and providing feedback on film. Click the read more link below to see the video.
