PortAventura World. November 8, 2022
PortAventura Convention Centre was transformed for the second year in a row into the official stadium and broadcasting centre for the Balloon World Cup. The pioneering world balloon event, organised by streamer Ibai Llanos and the company Kosmos, brought together nearly 1,000 people at the PortAventura Business & Events Convention Centre for over four hours of entertainment and fun.
The tournament, which returned with a new revamped format just a year after the success of the first edition, brought together representatives of 16 national teams after a first qualifying round. Although the podium was won by Spain’s Miguel Imbroda, followed by France’s Clément Dumais and Brazil’s Claudio Lassance, the championship also featured vibrant duels from countries such as Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Turkey.
More than 1.1 million individual users followed the competition live from Ibai Llanos’ Twitch account or from one of the Twitch channels of seven top streamers from different countries, who also broadcasted the event to increase its international audience and global reach. Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, the United States, the Netherlands and the Philippines were some of the countries from which most internet viewers commented on the competition.
In total, the competition clocked more than 3 million live views. In addition, the tournament was the most watched broadcast of the day on Twitch. Such has been the reach of the tournament that the tweet in which Ibai Llanos himself announced the date of the final, and the opening of a draw to attend the grand final live in person, was retweeted around 20,000 times and received nearly 17,400 likes in just a few hours.
Thanks to an impressive deployment of technical and audiovisual infrastructure, the PortAventura Business & Events team transformed the multi-purpose Sala Alexandria, measuring over 2,000 m2, into a real sports stadium. To this end, the stage was equipped with a 64 m2 glassed-in playing field, a broadcasting table, bleachers, VIP area and press area.
The general manager of PortAventura World, David García, explained that “organising an international tournament that is broadcast live, such as the Balloon World Cup, a pioneering sporting event on a global level, requires the deployment of our entire technical and human infrastructure. A challenge that, for the second consecutive year, has been possible thanks to the versatility of our spaces and the professionalism of our team”.
Also participating at the broadcasting table were the tournament’s regular contributors, such as Rafa Guerrero, the popular former football referee; Nacho Tellado at the helm of the “Ojo de Globo” (Balloon Eye) super-slow motion camera, and, alongside them, Sandra Adell and Franc Tormo, rounding out the team of judges. The event was also attended by streamers and content creators such as El Xokas, Perxita, Paula Gonu, Illo Juan and Gerard Romero.
