WorldSkills London 2011 by Numbers . . .

Visitors and participants

Nearly 200,000 people participated in the event over four days at ExCeL

London (between 5 – 8 October 2011) *Excludes Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

WorldSkills London 2011 was the 41st

WorldSkills Competition.

Over 2,300 school, college and community groups visited the event

On Friday, 7 October 352,424 passengers travelled on the Docklands Light Rail - the busiest day in the history of the DLR and a 35% increase on a normal

weekday *Source: DLR

51 Countries/Regions competed in 46 skill areas at WorldSkills London 2011 from 5 - 8 October 2011.

One ‘Host Member Skills’, Stonemasonry was part of the Competition at

WorldSkills London 2011.

Nearly 1,000 Competitors aged between 18 and 25 competed for Gold, Silver

and Bronze medals in their specialist skill area.

Team UK achieved a record 5 Gold, 2 Silver and 6 Bronze medals

92 young people from schools across the UK entered the Medal Design competition.72% of WorldSkills London 2011 visitors were aged 14-18 years.

At the event

Over 180 Sponsors helped to make WorldSkills London 2011 the best Competition yet, offering £17m in financial and value in kind support.

More than 81% of the WorldSkills London 2011 competition infrastructure was provided by sponsorship.

112 exceptional Showcases took place across the four days of competition, demonstrating the very best of vocational talent from across the United Kingdom.

An estimated 37,000 people received information and guidance from one or

more careers advisers during the four days of the event.

1,500 delegates registered to attend the Premiere Experience conference and

seminar programme.

Over 15,000 guests and ticket holders saw the Opening and Closing

Ceremonies at London’s O2 Arena.

Over 600 young performers from UK Colleges and organisations took part in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies along with five choirs from across the UK.

One million opportunities to Have a Go at a skill were created around

WorldSkills London 2011.

Over 2,000 volunteers helped make the event a success doing everything from meeting Competitors at the airport to giving the media and VIPs guided tours at

the event. At least 250 Volunteers completed their Level One qualification in Event Volunteering.

27 Routemasters drove in convoy to ExCeL London, the largest number ever to drive together and over half the total number of Routemasters in the UK .

Media and PR achievements

74 trade media partners were secured to ensure media coverage of WorldSkills

London 2011 before, during and after the event.

957 individuals from the UK and overseas registered to use the media centre.

The total Advertising Equivalent Value reached £3m against a target of £1.5m –

this far exceeds any other WorldSkills Competition.

We enjoyed the equivalent of over £610,000 of (UK only) print coverage in just

the first two weeks of October (excluding broadcast airtime).

worldskillslondon2011.com experienced record levels of web traffic during the event, averaging over 10,000 unique visits a day, with complete stability of

hosting and zero downtime.

Time spent on the site was above average and 60% of visitors were new,

suggesting it was an effective tool for promoting the event to new audiences.

The worldskillslondon2011.com website was voted by .NET magazine in their top 20 responsive websites i.e. sites that work equally well on desktop and mobile.

Twitter drove a lot of traffic to the site and was an important engagement tool throughout the event – the @WorldSkillsLDN twitter page has just under 2,500 followers, adding 300 followers in one hour by live-tweeting the Closing Ceremony results. Other related Twitter activity soared with #WorldSkills being mentioned in over one tweet per minute for the duration of the Competition.

WorldSkills London 2011 Facebook page ‘likes’ expanded rapidly to over 5,500 during the event with an overwhelmingly positive sentiment and support across all message posts on the wall.

Over 17,795 photos were loaded onto Flickr by WorldSkills International and there have been 1,198,671 views during October.

WSTV added 112 videos from the Competition and there have been 32,103 views on WorldSkills TV's YouTube channel in October.

Skills, jobs and Apprenticeships

Vocational qualifications are worth more than ever - Britain's self-made vocational elite is worth over £17.6bn. *Source: City and Guilds Vocational Rich list 2011

24 of the top 100 vocational millionaires have made their fortune following an

engineering Apprenticeship. *Source: City and Guilds Vocational Rich list 2011

£180m of investment in apprenticeships was announced in last month’s budget,

coinciding with WorldSkills London 2011.

According to research carried out on behalf of WorldSkills London 2011, millions of UK adults have second skills estimated to be worth more than £7.6

billion.

Over 1,300 new Apprenticeships were announced by sponsors and exhibitors to mark the start of WorldSkills London 2011.

Starbucks used WorldSkills London 2011 as a platform to recruit 1,000 new permanent salaried trainees.

Operations and logistics

WorldSkills London 2011 took over the entire 90,000m2 of floor space at ExCeL

London making it the largest and most complex event ever to be held at the

venue.

In delivering WorldSkills London 2011, the event team managed the contracting and operation of six venues across London, ensuring that they were used in the

most effective way.

The WorldSkills London 2011 team managed the catering, accommodation and transportation of over 3,000 Competitors and delegates, ensuring their stay was as pleasurable as possible.

As part of the plans to get visitors into ExCeL London, four coach parks were managed which allowed provision for the 650 coaches that arrived on each of

week days.

The United World Restaurant in ExCeL London’s Capital Hall almost 100 staff from catering specialists Leith’s served over 5,000 meals per day to competitors, staff, delegates and volunteers, and over 57,000 meals in total

from 29 September to 9 October.

On the busiest day of WorldSkills London 2011 Competitors, staff, delegates and volunteers consumed: 2,000kg of diced chicken, 1,500kg of diced lamb, 6,750 tuna steaks, 32,000 Geo bars, 120,000 milk jiggers, 52,000 coffee sachets, 18,000 apples, 20,000 plums, 14,000 bananas and 250kg of butter.

While open, the United World Restaurant was the largest temporary restaurant in the UK, with seating for up to 1,800 people at any one time. It offered six

separate choices with no two menus the same.

The production kitchen where the food was prepared was also vast, taking up almost 1,800m

2 of space, including an 80m

2 cold room.

28,500 litres of drinking water was consumed in the Skills areas over the 4

days.

29,000 room nights were booked in 21 London hotels for the duration of the

event.

No major Health and Safety issues arose during the event, a testament to the

hard work of the team.