The Royal Parks Foundation

The Opportunity

Limelight Sports is the UK’s leading grassroots sports marketing and event management company, specialising in the creation and delivery of high profile, participation based sports events and programmes.

On 12 October 2008 Limelight, in conjunction with The Royal Parks Foundation, the charity for the eight Royal Parks, launched central London's first ever half marathon, starting and ending in Hyde Park. The Half Marathon celebrated the wildlife, history and heritage of the Royal Parks with sustainability a central theme of the event.  Limelight needed to source approx 13,000 t-shirts for registered runners and the product needed to support this theme.  They approached us.

The Solution

At Crewroom, we are adept to working with a range of fabrics and sports garments and share a common interest in developing sport in the UK.  With experience of working on large projects within designated timelines, we were extremely well placed to deliver a unique product to Limelight.

We proposed to develop and supply 13,000 ‘green-friendly’ bamboo-based shirts to tie-in with the sustainable theme and offer the technical wicking properties of a true running garment. Our key objectives were:

• To manage the project’s carbon footprint by sourcing a yarn, fabric and manufacturing base within close proximity   and shipping by sea, not air
• To ensure the product reflected the theme of the event by using a renewable and sustainable resource
• To offer natural antibacterial & wicking properties to deliver a true ‘technical’ garment for the athlete
• To create a shirt which athletes would be comfortable in and enjoy wearing
• To deliver the finished products within the specified timeline

To work on this project we created a specialised team, bringing together a range of experience in the sports clothing market.  We worked with an established manufacturing base, fabric mills, fabric technologists, designers, pattern makers and athletes to create a unique garment for London’s first half marathon.  By working closely with Limelight throughout, we worked to a realistic timeline and delivered the finished products, ready for distribution, prior to the event. 

We also introduced initiatives to help ‘add value’ to The Royal Parks Foundation brand via a number of initiatives:

• Attended race day with a retail booth to sell The Royal Parks Foundation branded garments – 25% of ex VAT sales value donated to the Foundation
• Created an online shop for athletes to purchase additional kit and raise money for the Foundation
• Designed a range of RPF branded garment for sale through their retail outlets

The Results

Limelight and the Royal Parks Foundation were supplied with a finished product which reflected the theme of the event – sustainability. Runners were supplied with a true performance garment designed for them in both fit and function. 

On the day of the first Royal Parks Half Marathon, around 13,000 runners participated and spectators saw a sea of maroon running through the park – the majority of them were wearing their official running shirt supplied by our team.

Based on the success of this project we have continued to work with Limelight and Mizuno (kit sponsor) to supply running shirts for RPF Half Marathon and, by 2011, we will have supplied almost 70,000 sustainable running shirts for the event.

"We love Crewroom’s creative, flexible and forward thinking approach to sportswear – as well as their friendly, reliable customer service. We have particularly embraced their innovative bamboo range which fits very well with our sustainable charity ethos.”