Testing the limits
Extreme sports are gaining a foothold in Poland, and many executives are finding the best way to relieve stress from the office is with a few rounds of paintball or a session on the rock-climbing wall.
There are different levels to extreme sports. At the more tame end of the scale is go-carting and snowmobiling. The fear factor increases with sports such as climbing and firearms-related games, and peaks with activities such as free-diving or le parkour, a dangerous and often illegal way of traveling across a city, namely by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, or from balcony to balcony.
The cost of danger
Usually the more extreme, dangerous and unusual the sport, the more expensive it is.
"The best time for events is now," says Piotr Dutkiewicz, CEO of events organizer Everal. "During winter we organize twice as many events, sometimes even five to six events a month, while summer is usually a dry spell."
Event companies are now targetting corporate clients with a wide range of team-building services, and during an event it is possible to have various types of personnel tests done. For example, a firm's employees can meet with a psychologist, perform evaluation tasks that reveal leadership abilities, or enhance communication skills. Sometimes such services are free, especially when an event takes place over more than one day and is organized for a large company.
"The biggest event I have ever organized was for 1,700 people," says Adam Kamiński, an events organizer. "The company was a bank and it spent several hundred thousand złoty on this."
To the limit
A high pressure work environment usually translates into a high-pressure leisure environment, but the most extreme clients may be disappointed. "Once we had clients who wanted to fire crossbows. At that point I refused because it is too dangerous, they pushed the line a little too far," says Adam Kamiński, CEO of Madsheep, which organizes events and has a chain of stores selling extreme sports equipment. "Some folks want paintball, others require rally cars. Once we had to organize a battle between two ships, so the crew of the first could try to take over the other, and we provided two real war galleys."
As customers demand more and more, even event organizers are unsure what tomorrow may bring.
"Paintball is past nowadays," Piotr Dutkiewicz says. "Currently people choose things like laser guns, BB guns or even guns that shoot pellets made of sulfur. These are 'cool' because not only does it hurt to be hit with such pellets, but also, the [resulting] mark looks as if it were [real] blood. The more extreme and closer to reality, the better." Despite what Dutkiewicz says, paintball appears to be sticking; Tomasz Czarnowski, CEO of Warsaw's Imola events stadium, says his company hosts approximately 20 paintball games a week.
Scaling the heights
Climbing, even if not extremely profitable, is still very popular and there are many companies that offer climbing walls along with professional training and equipment. Sometimes companies go further and offer open-air climbing events.
In the 1990s climbing was very popular among business people, but now it is gaining popularity among university students and kids.
"At the turn of the millennium climbing became popular among families, schoolkids and students," says Karolina Karkoszka, CEO of Wrocław's climbing center. "Of course, corporate customers still like it."
"Among my sporting passions, there are two I am really fond of: running and climbing," says Sławomir Lachowski, BRE Bank's CEO. "I am quite proud to have reached the summits of mountains such as Cotopaxi [5,900 meters high and the highest active volcano in the world] and Aconcagua [at 6,900 meters, the highest peak in South America]."
