After the wild success of the Red Bull Cape Town Circuit on Sunday, June 2 2019, the City says there may be other international motorsports events on the horizon for Cape Town.
The City of Cape Town’s Executive Mayor Dan Plato and Mayoral Committee Member for Community Safety JP Smith hosted a media briefing with the aim of outlining the City’s Events Calendar for the rest of the year. Here, the City announced its intentions to add a brand new international motorsport event to the calendar lineup.
The Cape Town Formula E Consortium approached The City of Cape Town about the possibility of bringing the Formula E to the Mother City.
Formula E, a class of motorsport in which only electric-powered cars are used, sanctioned by the International Automobile Federation (FIA), has been operational since 2014.
Under the support of the City, the Formula E Consortium will conduct a feasibility study this month in order to test the practicality of hosting their event in Cape Town.
“While we are excited to present this event to the residents of Cape Town, we have not yet taken a decision and our residents will be asked to give their input once the feasibility study hopefully confirms that we can indeed host Formula E in our beautiful city. We will follow all the stringent procedures and requirements that we have in place for events to ensure that all those who will be affected are satisfied with the process,” said Mayor Plato.
In other countries such as Hong Kong where Formula E has been hosted for the past three years, it has contributed approximately R1.4 million to the economy.
“An economic injection and the accompanying job creation opportunities for our local communities are just some of the benefits of bringing Formula E to Cape Town. The cars run on 100-percent renewable energy and having such an event here would also assist us in raising awareness and taking action against air pollution,’ added Plato.
The Mother City has proven its motorsports-event-hosting chops with the success of the FIA Rallycross Championship at Killarney over the last two years, as well as the annual Drift City at the iconic Grand Parade.
“We are already in discussion with some organisations about possibly bringing more ocean-based events to Cape Town. An announcement on these developments will be made in due course,” said JP Smith.
Today, the City officially launched its events e-permit system, an online tool that allows event organisers to submit their permit application without the trouble of paperwork. This forms part of the administration’s efforts to modernise events bookings and to enable event organisers to conduct business with ease.
“Our support of events – whether through financial means or services – is also increasing every year. In this financial year, we have already supported 120 events. If one thinks back to 2012, when we first established the Events Department and adopted the Integrated Events Strategy, we only supported 28 events. The department has a budget of R50 million a year to support these events, but the return on investment is exponential each year. The top eight events in Cape Town generate over R3 billion of economic activity and every new event creates the environment for many new sustainable jobs in our city,” said Alderman Smith.
Picture: Unsplash
