Paris–based luxury goods house, Louis Vuitton, has had a long standing relationship with the America's Cup and back in 1983 they decided to formalise the relationship by presenting a trophy, the Louis Vuitton Cup, to the winner of the Challenger Selection Series. Since then, it's become well known that "to win the America's Cup, one must first win the Louis Vuitton Cup."

Business Challenge

Since the event is so prestigious and is covered by the world's media, the America's Cup Louis Vuitton Media Centre, the media centre in Auckland for both the Louis Vuitton Cup (Challenger series) and the America's Cup, not only needed to manage the influx of media attending the event but also needed to disseminate information quickly and efficiently to those journalists.

Thanks to technology like FileMaker Pro, the America's Cup Louis Vuitton Cup Media Centre has been able to keep the world's media informed at all times of all the action on the water. In fact, the media are sometimes even more informed than some of the racing teams themselves, giving journalists the opportunity to file their stories while some of the racing is in progress.

With up to 5,000 international media contacts stored in the America's Cup Louis Vuitton Media Centre's FileMaker Pro database, and many of them flooding through the media centre with last minute questions and requests for interviews, the Media Centre knew it had to have the best administrative package behind it to ensure every press query could be handled with accuracy and speed. The Media Centre realised that, in effect, there really was only one option for a database — FileMaker Pro.

Successful Solution

"FileMaker Pro is integral to almost all our operations for the media centre," says Maria Ryan, America's Cup Louis Vuitton Media Centre. "With FileMaker Pro all our contact information is centralised so we are more efficient. At a time when information is required on demand, FileMaker Pro gives us a fast application which integrates well with our other systems."

Ms Ryan says that in the past, there was no centralised data source at the media centre, which meant that a number of tasks that FileMaker Pro takes care of now, previously had to be performed manually. With nine international challengers, from six different countries, this greatly impacts the media centre.

"With FileMaker Pro the media centre is more automated now, the operations are completely streamlined which in turn has led to greater efficiency, allowing us to be able to instantly find the names, numbers and local contact details of specific groups of press," Ms Ryan explains. "With FileMaker Pro I'm also able to use that information over and over again in conjunction with other essential records already stored on the system, allowing our staff to quickly generate full reports about the media who have been accredited. It's as flexible as we want it to be."

Another advantage of having FileMaker Pro installed on the media centre PCs is that all the press have been registered via an online accreditation form, from which a photo ID badge can be generated.

With FileMaker Pro all our contact information is centralised so we are more efficient. At a time when information is required on demand, FileMaker Pro gives us a fast application which integrates well with our other systems.

— Maria Ryan, America's Cup Louis Vuitton Media Centre