Saturday at Sharks was hailed as a huge success for a whole range of reasons as the NRL team snuck home to beat the Bulldogs and 1900 dancers dazzled he crowd at the half time Dance Spectacular.
The action on the field was fast and furious in a match which proved to be a nail-biter as the Sharks maintained their position near the top of the NRL ladder.
However as exciting as the game was, the work done behind the scenes was perhaps equally impressive, with the Sharks delivering an outstanding game day experience on the night.
While plenty of organisation and hard work went into coordinating the 1900 dancers, representing 39 different dance schools, there was a lot more to celebrate in relation to the way in which the 20,000-plus crowd was catered for and entertained.
The team work on the field got the boys home buy a point and it also took exceptional team work away from the playing arena in making everything run as smoothly as it did.
Game day itself started at 4am with the media’s outside broadcast trucks bumping in and the preparations went from there.
Staff and service providers on the day totalled 500, which included;
90 Leagues Club staff
60 plus Football Club staff and casuals
22 Police
106 Security staff in the Stadium, Club and precinct
101 Game day staff
12 game cleaners
2 maintenance staff
40 plus stadium food truck and kiosk staff
4 St John First Aiders
25 NRL Refs/timekeepers and ground managers
2 Player Paramedics
4 groundsman
50 Salvation Army Collectors
4 Woolworths staff
and numerous Shark Crew volunteers.
Add to that media reps from Fox Sports, 2GB, ABC radio, newspapers, magazines and websites, a sell-out crowd which included 1200 corporate guests, one of those being the Federal Treasurer, with 540 catered for on the Terrace and the ET Suites full to capacity.
Just getting the playing surface and stadium ready took 22 hours of field preparation and 250 hours of cleaning.
Then while 20,400 turned up to watch, another 232,000 viewers tuned to see the game via Fox Sports.
Merchandise sales approached record levels and 25,571 beers were sold (pleasingly there were only two evictions for intoxication) and 12 Food Outlets distributed 383 ice creams, 116 Burritos, 400 Berlin Bangers and 200 Pizzas. Over 100 meals were delivered to media areas while the Leagues Club provided 600 meals to members and guests.
The Sharks conducted a stadium tour for Platinum members earlier in the day and looked after a group of 19 men on a Bucks Party, which included a photo on-field prior to the game.
The win may have been the highlight, the Chad Townsend field goal in the 78th minute confirming the victory, but similarly the half time Dance Spectacular will be long remembered by those who saw it.
It was a Game Day production to rival any sporting code, featuring an incredibly talented choreographer in Jacqueline-Lee Elliott, 1900 dancers and 170 teachers from 39 dance schools
See our video presentation of the Dance Spec, now playing on Sharks TV.
The night was a great news story for our Club.
