Exerpts from a Waterfront Newsletter sent to all commercial tenants ...

 "Yesterday  marks the 100 day countdown of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the excitement is rising. On 11 June 2010 the Soccer World Cup kicks off and we are continuing to develop plans to be the perfect host to the 500 000 international and 180 000 domestic visitors we anticipate during this period. The impact on the V&A Waterfront during this period is that of a typical day over the December festive period and most likely will host more than 100 000 visitors per day. While this legacy event is both exciting and historic, and your staff will have the benefit of stepping out into a festive and secure atmosphere during their lunch hour, we know that you might have concerns regarding how this will impact your business operations during this period.

 As part of our plan to ensure an extraordinary experience for our V&A Waterfront tenants and visitors during the World Cup and beyond, we have put up temporary pedestrian bridges at Coen Steytler and outside Ferryman’s to help the traffic flow. Our brand new Information Centre, housed in the old Kraal Gallery Building, will be a central hub for all tourism queries and footfall-related information.

Some interesting World Cup 2010 flash facts

Hospitality Sites; Live sites and Event Space

We are developing some key hospitality sites to ensure local and international visitors can celebrate the experience. Two of the confirmed sites are North Wharf, which will host the Brazilian fans and the Canal Gateway site, which will be used by English fans – the site will be known as Cool Britannia.

In addition we plan to provide 2 hosted “Live Sites“ sites where the matches will be broadcast live on large screen TV and customers will be able to buy food and drink and watch the games (these will be similar to the Sports Central site we  set up at the Paulaner last year during the Tri Nations Rugby.)

Further the new Granger Bay Events and Exhibition Park is almost completed and will be the location of a major international entertainment and hospitality facility built for the World Cup period.

Media centre

The V&A Waterfront plans to welcome the world’s media to the exclusive World Media and Legacy Centre. Located at Portswood House, the centre will offer visiting media a fully resourced media hub and has the potential for some great positive spin-offs for the V&A Waterfront on the global stage, benefitting tourism for years to come.

Ticket Sales

Soccer fever has swept the world with over 2million tickets sold and ticket requests from 192 nations which show the huge global appeal of the world's largest sporting event. The leading nations for ticket sales have been the USA (35,262); the UK (21,614) and Australia (11,804). In South Africa, residents have bought 413,072 tickets so far, with a new phase of ticket sales now started and sure to generate new interest.

Match Schedules

The next scheduled test event at the Cape Town Stadium is a Prayer Meeting for 60 000 people on 22 March 2010.

Match fixtures for Cape Town during Soccer World Cup 2010 are:

Uruguay VS France                                  11 June 2010

Italy VS Paraguay                                     16 June 2010

England VS Algeria                                  18 June 2010

Portugal VS Korea                                   21 June 2010

Cameroon VS Netherlands                        24 June 2010

Winner H VS Runner E                            29 June 2010

Quarter Final                                          03 July 2010

Semi-Final                                               06 July 2010