On Thursday and Friday, Rune and Anders from Rubic attended the Club 5 Ski Classics workshop in Italy – one day as guests at the Autodromo di Monza to learn from Formula 1, and one day on a panel with FIS and the organisers behind the World Cup’s biggest alpine races.
On Thursday and Friday this week, Rune Solholm Bakken and Anders Retterås from Rubic attended the Club 5 Ski Classics workshop in Italy – one day as guests at the Autodromo di Monza to learn from Formula 1, and one day on a panel with FIS and the organisers behind the World Cup’s biggest alpine races, where we gave our own presentation. Here’s what we experienced, and what we told them.
From Club 5’s own story: “Norwegian company Rubic giving us some interesting insights on accreditation and volunteer management”.
Club 5 Ski Classics is the association of the classic alpine World Cup organisers. Kitzbühel, Wengen, Val Gardena, Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Val d’Isère founded the club in 1988, and today it has around 25 destinations – with Kvitfjell, Åre and Levi as the Nordic members. Every other year the organisers gather for a workshop like this one to share experiences and solve common challenges.
This year’s workshop took place on 2–4 September at Lake Garda and at Monza, and Rubic was invited as the only technology supplier on the programme. We were there on Thursday and Friday.
Thursday: guests at the Autodromo di Monza in Formula 1 week
On Thursday we joined Club 5 as guests at the Autodromo di Monza – in the middle of Italian Grand Prix week. This day wasn’t about Rubic, but about learning: how is one of the world’s biggest sporting events run?
Thursday’s accreditation: Race Club at the Autodromo di Monza – with Club 5 Ski Classics on the pass.
SIAS, the company that runs the circuit, welcomed us in the hospitality lounge. Formula 1 chief Stefano Domenicali dropped by with a short greeting, before the circuit’s operations director, Umberto Andreoletti, gave us a walkthrough of the entire machinery behind a Grand Prix: marketing and communication, ticketing, logistics and security, mobility plan and crowd management, athlete management and sustainability. Afterwards the fan zone opened, and we got to walk through the paddock and pit lane ahead of the weekend’s race.
The entrance to the paddock.
Pit lane – the day before race weekend.
What struck us was how recognisable the problems are. A Formula 1 race and an alpine World Cup weekend share the same basic structure: a small permanent staff, an army of temporary crew for a few days, thousands of people who need to get through the right gates at the right time – and zero room for outdated lists. The scale is different. The mechanics are the same.
Friday: on a panel with FIS – and our presentation
Friday was panel day in Lazise, with strategy and future operations as the theme. FIS Secretary General Urs Lehmann opened with the federation’s direction and its expectations of the organisers – then it was our turn, with the agenda item “Rubic: Volunteer Management & Digitalisation”.
We called the presentation “The event behind the event” and emphasised three things:
One person, one register. The volunteer, the accredited person and the app user are the same record. That’s the part that is hard to buy separately – and the one that gets rid of the spreadsheets that collide at the same fence.
Rules, not typing. Card type, zones and days are assigned automatically based on category, function and organisation. People handle the exceptions.
The value isn’t the shift schedule. It’s what you still have in May: a staff that survives the year, so next season starts with your best people – not a blank sheet.
Why this matters to us
Everything we showed in Italy has been developed together with World Cup organisers, and today it runs everything from a single race weekend to the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2025. The next milestone is the World Ski Championships in Narvik 2029, which we are already building for.
Getting to present it to the organisers in Kitzbühel, Wengen, Cortina and Val Gardena – with FIS in the same room and Formula 1 fresh in our minds from the day before – confirms that the problems we have solved in Norway are the same problems all major event organisers struggle with.
Want to see it live?
Thirty minutes of screen sharing is worth more than any slide. We’re happy to show the whole solution to any Club 5 organiser – and share what we’ve learned the hard way. The mistakes are free.
Book 30 minutes directly with Rune – choose a time that suits you:
Thanks to Club 5 Ski Classics for the invitation, and to SIAS and the Autodromo di Monza for their hospitality.