Recently, we had the Open De France De Squash and it was one of the most vibrant, thriving events I've ever see.
According to Joey Barrington, 80% of the audience at the event who were watching were non-squash playing people. This is literally unheard of in squash and I couldn't believe that stat when I heard it.
These viewers came from all over the surrounding area of Nantes and produced one of the best atmospheres of any squash event.
The tournament was a massive success from start to finish and I think that there's a lot we can learn from it...
Let's dive in!
I recently focused a blog post on Victor Crouin, the upcoming young french pro who's had a phenomenal start to the season (if you're interested in reading this blog post, click here).
I talked a bit about his performance in the then ongoing Open de France de Squash, which was being played as I wrote the blog post. Crouin ended up winning the tournament on home soil in front of one of the best crowds I've seen in squash history.
Of course, a huge congratulations to Crouin for taking the men's title and also to Nele Gilis who won the women's event, both played phenomenal squash and were fully deserving of the titles. I believe this was indeed both player's biggest title of their career so far.
But, I wanted to talk a bit more about that crowd, and indeed, about the Open de France de Squash overall, as I think the world of squash needs to take some notes from the sheer success of that tournament...
The venue, the entertainment, the theme, the players, the coverage, and the interviewers, all contributed to hyping up an absolutely amazing crowd, and all of this made the Open De Squash De France one of the best squash events I've ever seen.
The Venue
The versatility of being able to set up a squash court pretty much anywhere has led to some incredible tournament venues and locations throughout the years, and the Open De France are always coming up with something new...
Every year, the tournament is played at a different venue and this year;s location was kept a secret until the last minute which built up some great suspense and speculation.
It was eventually revealed that the location was 'Hangar 24', an abandoned aircraft hanger located just 10 minutes from the centre of Nantes.
This urban-style location greatly matched the overall theme of the event and organisers even put out a teaser trailer (linked at the bottom of this blog post) featuring some of the best players in the world showcasing this theme...
The Entertainment and Theme
This is where the tournament really differentiated itself from all the other on the PSA World Tour.
The theme of the tournament was described as 'Peaky Blinders meets Fight Club' which essentially led to the name 'Gang of Squash'. There was merchandise and branding all over the venue.
The PSA put out a video of Joey Barrington walking through the event whilst talking about it, you can see just how busy the venue is before the squash has even began (I'll include links to these videos at the end of this blog post).
There's live music being played by the world-famous DJ One Up, people are socialising with a few drinks, there is even a betting station in which you don't bet actual money, but if you win, you receive tokens for drinks.
There were pop-up photo booths for families and even a tattoo parlour providing attendees with temporary 'Gang of Squash' tattoos.
This is all before the squash had even started!
During and between matches, we saw even more local artists and creators being celebrated. There was more live music from various artists and there was incredible breakdancing performances with choreography that kept in with the 'Gang of Squash' theme.
The whole vibe and atmosphere looked really urban, trendy, and modern and the amount of effort that organisers put into everything was absolutely astounding.
The Crowd
As I mentioned in the intro, a huge percentage of this crowd were pretty new to squash. I originally thought that this could be a recipe for disaster but I was completely wrong.
If you watched any of the matches on SquashTV, you'll no doubt have heard the crowd's reactions to rallies, they were so loud and vibrant and they weren't just supporting French players, they were supporting pretty much everybody!
In the final between Nele Gilis and her sister Tinne Gilis, it seemed as though they were cheering for Nele at first, but then when Nele went 2-0 up and Tinne was trying to make her comeback, the crowd started cheering on Tinne.
Even when French players such as Lucas Serme, Gregoire Marche, Auguste Dussourd, and of course, Victor Crouin were playing, the crowd would never celebrate their non-French opponent's mistakes and would roar after every big rally or shot.
It sounded electric and I wish I was there if I'm being honest!
I'd also like to give a special mention to the MC of the event who interviewed the players between matches and kept the crowd entertained and informed on the game by talking all about squash, however, I couldn't actually find any information on him (including his name)!
If anybody has some information on him, please send it our way as I'd like to find out a bit more about him!
Anyway, he would give players a flat peak cap (or some other old-style cap) to wear while interviewing them after their matches and he was fun and charismatic throughout the whole tournament.
He was easily one of the main highlights of the tournament for me.
The Trophy
Seen being held in the Tweet shown a little further up, you might be thinking that the trophy looks a little different to a normal trophy, and you'd be right...
The Gaïa Gallery, partner of the Open, invited sculpture artist Go Segawa to create the Open trophy and it came out awesome!
Segawa's work focuses on combining 'two dimensions, three dimensions, and gravity to disturb the perception of space', according to the Open De France De Squash website.
You can view a better image of the trophy in all its glory on the website by clicking here.
What Can We Learn From This?
By no means am I trying to discredit any of the other tournaments in the PSA World Tour, as there are of course an absolute bunch of phenomenal events throughout the season.
The main aspects of the Open De France that I think we need to take note of was the overall focus on entertainment and making it an exciting social event.
The event managed to shine squash in a really cool light and also managed to showcase the local culture and local artists from Nantes, it's just a win win really.
Overall, 6000 tickets were sold for this event and the quarter-finals were around 85% sold with 750 in the stands. Often, stands don't appear too busy until the finals in a lot of tournaments.
There's absolutely no question that this tournament was a success and the fact that 80% of the crowd was somewhat new to squash is really sticking in my head.
These are the people that we should be targeting to ultimately grow the sport and introduce it to new people from all over the world.
Again, the effort put in to organise the event was unbelievable (and I know I've said that already), replicating it will be no easy feat, but I think it's very doable.
If more tournaments can emulate that vibe and atmosphere of the Open De France De Squash, I think it has the potential to grow the sport at an incredibly fast rate.
Links:
"Gang of Squash" : Teaser Open Squash Nantes 2022
Joey Barrington tours the incredible Open De France venue!
What a week at the Open de France de Squash
This article was taken from our On The 'T' Newsletter, if you're interested in receiving more content like this, please feel free to sign up using the subscribe section located at the bottom left of this page (or underneath the article if you're on mobile), thanks!
