BOTY Partner Meeting 2016 in Zurich

The international BOTY Partner Meeting 2016 for Europe and Africa took place in Zurich (Switzerland) from 22 till 24 January and was organised by the team of "Central Europe" under the direction of Nicole Benggeli aka Miss Nicc. Many BOTY partners, external guest speakers and new cooperation partnes came to take part.

After arriving in the afternoon on Friday all guest were welcomed with a classical Swiss cheese fondue in the evening. On Saturday conversations and discussions already started during the communal breakfast. Afterwards all guests marvelled at a part of the exhibition which Walter Petrongolo aka Crazy created for his 50th Birthday Party and which he brought with him specifically to the BOTY Meeting. That offered a great start for the meeting.

BOTY spokesman Mario Roth greeted everybody in his easy-going way and gave an overview of the agenda. A short introduction round of all guest as well as current information and feedback on the BOTY year 2016 followed. Marco Sabbatini from BOTY Italy Team presented the concept for the BOTY History Conference and gave an insight into the implementation of the last BOTY Italy in Rome. Then he explained the idea and first examples for the new BOTY partner website. A further important point on the agenda was the discussion on the battle format 2vs2 Mixed Style and BOTY Kidz as well as a possible integration into the general BOTY concept.

The 2nd part of the meeting started with presentations of some guest speakers. First Markus Leonhard from Solid Management spoke about the main topics such as marketing, sponsoring and ticketing. This speech was very informative and provided a lot of important general knowledge for the BOTY partners. Afterwards Patrick Grigo and Dominik Fahr presented the new judging system "and8 Judge" and gave additional insights into the possibilities with the platform and8.dance. Niels Robitzky aka Storm closed the round with a short speech on his recent project "B-Stand". This project shall document the history and the existence of the breaking szene worldwide during the next years. At the diner table many topics were deepened once again and intensified in working groups on the next day.

The aim of the BOTY Partner Meeting is to come together and to exchange ideas and views in order to start motivated and with new inspirations into the new dance and event year. Also this time it was a good success. In the end Mario Roth and Thomas Hergenröther from the BOTY Head Office thanked all guests for their participance and the Central Europe Team for the smooth organisation. Beyond Thomas was very grateful for the many impressions and results which had come up during these 3 days and found the meeting to have been one of the most productive of the last year. This way we can look forward to the things which will develop during the next weeks.

More about the Battle of the Year network and its activities can soon be found on the new international partner website at www.battleoftheyear.org