In Your Court: Australian Open is playing smart with SafetyCulture

We’re no strangers to tennis here at SafetyCulture. We’ve swung into action to support local legend Thanasi Kokkinakis, worked with Tennis Australia on operational activities since 2017, and today, we’re delighted to announce our newest partnership….

The Australian Open, one of the world’s biggest sports and entertainment events, has appointed SafetyCulture as its official Workplace Operations Partner. Together, we’ll make grand plans a reality!

The multi-year partnership will see SafetyCulture’s technology expanded across the running of the AO - from training for ballkids, through to weather alerts and construction inspections.

The beginnings of greatness start with SafetyCulture in your court

When it comes to some of our favourite events, tournaments and TV shows, there’s more to operations than meets the eye. In recent times, we’ve partnered with The Block, Brentford Football Club, the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team and Sydney Festival. We couldn’t be more excited to apply our experience to help deliver a high-quality Australian Open in 2022. We continue to tick off these new challenges by focusing on great teamwork underpinned by great tech.

With the hope that crowds return to a pre-pandemic level, the AO sets the benchmark for sporting events in our new normal. And this requires a new, innovative approach to the day-to-day running of the Grand Slam.

It goes without saying prototyping what a sporting event of this scale looks like requires tenacity, agility, and a healthy dose of imagination. We chat to Darren Winterford, CEO of EdApp by SafetyCulture, about what it takes to serve up the greatest Grand Slam yet.

Why the Australian Open?

The Australian Open will be one of the biggest sporting moments of next year. It’s a moment where Australia takes to the global stage and shows the world how to stage a global sporting event. Making sure this innovative event goes off without a hitch is absolutely essential.

We have always admired the innovative approach the AO takes to this global event. Having also welcomed both Thanasi Kokkinakis and Craig Tiley into the SafetyCulture family this year, partnering with Tennis Australia and supporting them to make the 2022 Australian Open the best yet, felt like a natural next step.

AO preparations must be in full swing! Can you give us any behind-the-scenes intel?

We’ve been working with Tennis Australia for five years now, but this new partnership will change and streamline many operational aspects of the Australian Open. This multi-year partnership will see us support the event across a range of areas, from monitoring weather conditions and ensuring courts are in perfect condition for global TV audiences to daily auditing and inspections of essential equipment including generators and mobile cranes.

That’s massive! What about the people-side of operations?

SafetyCulture’s mobile-first platform has helped streamline processes for the hundreds of staff that make the AO so successful. The nature of the work is fast-paced and logistically complex, so simplifying inspections with iAuditor has gone a long way in helping keep operations in check. And given the challenges of face-to-face training with COVID in advance of the event, our mobile training solution EdApp has been used extensively for training. They say after the players the biggest stars are the ball-kids, so we have developed lessons to help the ball kids brush up on skills, using videos and gamification to refresh their techniques—similar to interactive activities for kids found on DIY learning platforms.

Learn more about how the Australian Open is playing smart with SafetyCulture here.