Touch the Clouds 2024: The team wins

The countdown for the Touch the Clouds Festival 2024 is on. This is not a matter of course. Because the biggest ttc festival ever needs strong partners. Chief organizer Matthias Schimmelpfennig on the somewhat crazy challenge of finding sponsors.

There were some who declared me crazy. After the ttc festival, which was launched in 2007, had to bake rather small rolls in recent years due to the pandemic, we wanted to really ramp it up again this year. And to live up to our claim of putting on the biggest, best and most personal pole vault festival on the planet: on three facilities, with over 250 athletes from an international field of starters, with over 1,000 visitors – and for the first time with world ranking points for the top field. As I write this down, the suspicion dawns on me that the skeptics might have been right .

But we accepted the challenge, perhaps precisely because we are crazy – crazy about pole vaulting, one of the most fascinating and complex sports of all. So we sat down and mapped out what the festival had to offer and put together sponsorship packages – always with a calculator in our heads to see what we needed in terms of funding to make our dream event a reality.

Laying the foundation with proven partners

The first route took us to our long-standing, loyal partners: Kreissparkasse München Starnberg Ebersberg, Vennekel and, of course, Schmidbauer. Schmidbauer, the gold sponsor, not only made the largest financial contribution, but also provided a gigantic mobile crane with a viewing cage and a container with a huge LCD screen.

webasto, a global company from the automotive sector with its headquarters in neighboring Stockdorf, also joined as a bronze sponsor, as did top4 running from Berlin, our favorite outfitter for running shoes, spikes and athletics outfits.

Sponsorship money does not fall from the sky

This laid the foundation and we knew that the sponsorship concept worked and was attractive for our partners. However, it’s not as if the financially strong companies are suddenly running us ragged and acquisition becomes a no-brainer. And there was that thought again – is it perhaps too crazy what we are planning?

And just then I received an email from the neighborhood in Lochham from GREFIS, the new lifestyle hotel and insider tip in the west of Munich. As the organizer of an international three-day sporting event, you are of course always dependent on partners from the hotel industry. We quickly struck up a conversation, during which I was able to extol our silver package and various other benefits. At the beginning of January, we agreed to enter into a great partnership for 2024. The festival began to take shape.

On the move with Local Heros

Our long-standing athletes’ hotel Würmtaler Gästehaus directly on the sports field is also back in the game as a junior sponsor, so we now have two hotels as sponsors for TTC 2024. When the Wittmann company came on board as a silver sponsor, it was a huge load off my mind. There were also supporters from neighboring businesses such as the Augenthaler butcher’s shop and the Sickinger bakery, the cool Würm restaurateurs from Wilden Hirschen and friendly clubs such as Naturfreunde Würmtal, who will once again be at the event with a climbing tower.

The time had come at the beginning of the year. We have now even been able to realize our secretly hoped-for dream of the TTC Festival 2024 as a World Athletics Continental Tour Challenger. World ranking points are awarded in Gräfelfing. Crazy!

Crazy: Matthias doesn’t have time to have fun at the lake in spring after all….

And then there’s the James Bond thing

But the craziest thing was yet to come: Through personal contacts in Formula 1, I got in touch with Aston Martin Munich. James Bond’s regular car dealership has become a silver sponsor, which was a big surprise not only for the team of helpers. It is already pretty certain that the luxury sports cars will be a show in their own right on the festival grounds. You don’t necessarily have to be crazy about cars. It’s enough to make you pole vault crazy.

Guys, I’m really looking forward to the ttc festival and all the partners who are making our sporting dream possible. Thank you so much for being there.

Would you like to be involved as a sponsor, donor or supporter? Very good idea. It is never too late. Every contribution is welcome, whether large or small. Write to me: Willkommen in the team.