Worcestershire CCC have scooped one of the awards at the ECB Business Of Cricket Awards (BOCA) for the second time in three years at Lord's today.
In 2014 Worcestershire lifted the County Recognition Award – a reflection of the overall work the winning county has done to improve their business model against the principles of the Transformation Programme.
This year the County have won the Business Change And Innovation Award as a result of the success of their two Outdoor Cinema Events and the Concert Of Legends at New Road last summer.
The awards recognise and reward off the field excellence across the first class game.
The Worcestershire CCC business plan is to diversify the business model to place greater focus on non-cricket events.
The two cinema events, the screening of 'Lion King' and 'Finding Nemo' in late June and early August respectively attracted a combined audience of around 4,500 – the equivalent of a sold out home game in the NatWest T20 Blast.
It was a similar picture with the Legends Concert – a 12 hour musical extravaganza which was head-lined by UB40 and also included artists such as Lulu, Heather Small of M People and The Lighthouse Family.
More than 5,000 attended and, as is the case with the Outdoor Cinema, the plan is for the events to become regular highlights of the Worcestershire CCC calendar.
Employing methods specifically designed to mitigate against risk and financial exposure, the County delivered three hugely successful events and in the process significantly expanded its database while broadening the demographic of its customer outside traditional cricket audiences.
All three events generated profit while helping establish New Road as a key events venue to a wider audience, paving the way for outdoor events to become annual highlights in the County's ever-growing calendar and to bring new customers back to both cricket and non cricket events.
Worcestershire clearly impressed the BOCA judges, one of whom said: "Well executed successful events delivered without financial risk."
Another one said: "The submission is strong on demonstrating change. The cinema programme in particular matched the audience and objectives articulated, providing a platform for similar future events."
In total seven awards were presented and the ECB's Chief Executive Officer, Tom Harrison, said: "It’s very exciting to see the different ways in which our First Class Counties are developing stronger links with their existing fan-base – and reaching out to potential new supporters too.
“Improving fans’ match-day experience, making more effective use of digital channels and taking cricket to new audiences are all important parts of ECB’s broader framework to grow the game – Cricket Unleashed.
“There was intense competition for these awards – with a high quality of entries in all categories."
