The Juneau Empire
Juneau Inks AWG Proposal Deal
Juneau, AK – City hires Anchorage marketing firm to form required bid materials
By CHARLES BINGHAM
The City of Juneau signed a contract with Anchorage marketing firm Mad Dog Graphx to develop materials for Juneau’s bid to host the 2006 Arctic Winter Games.
The $37,000 contract was signed Wednesday. The contract is to help Juneau prepare its required bid packet in time for the Oct. 15 deadline.
“The city has been working since April to develop a bid to host the 2006 Arctic Winter Games,” said Juneau Assembly member Jim Powell, who chairs Juneau’s ad-hoc bid committee and also serves on Team Alaska’s Arctic Winter Games board of directors. “Today the city cut a contract to help us move forward in developing our bid contract.”
Mad Dog Graphx owner Michael Ardaiz said most of the text for Juneau’s bid packet will be produced by Barbara Sheinberg of the Juneau firm Sheinberg and Associates. His company will provide all the graphics, logos and other bid items needed to help complete required materials for submission to the Arctic Winter Games International Committee.
“We’re really looking to provide material that shows the color and cultural benefits of Juneau,” Ardaiz said. “Personally, as Alaskans, we’re excited to be a part of this process. Juneau is an area that’s gifted with phenomenal beauty.”
While Ardaiz said his company has never produced an Arctic Winter Games bid packet before, it does handle the advertising and marketing campaigns for groups such as the Anchorage Convention and Visitors Bureau.
According to the contract, the bid packet will include a narrative about Juneau provided by Sheinberg, architectural sketches of potential event venues, technical information, budget information and related data.
The Arctic Winter Games is an athletic and cultural event that takes place every two years in locations around the north. The event began in 1970 as a way to help develop young athletes from Alaska and the Canadian provinces of Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories and northern Quebec. Over the years, northern Quebec (Nunavik) dropped out of the Games for a few years while northern Alberta and the new territory of Nunuvut joined the competition. Also joining the Games were Greenland and the Russian regions of Chukotka and Magadan.
The 2002 Arctic Winter Games were co-hosted by Iqaluit, Nunavut, and Nuuk, Greenland, last March, the first time the Games have taken place in more than one community in a single year. More than 30 athletes from Juneau and other Southeast communities took part in those Games.
The 2004 Arctic Winter Games will take place in Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo, Alberta. The last time Alaska hosted the Arctic Winter Games was in 1996, when they took place in Chugiak-Eagle River.
Alaska is scheduled to host the Games again in 2006, and three communities have announced bid plans – Juneau, Fairbanks and the Kenai Peninsula. All three received $45,000 from a state grant to produce their bid materials. Previous Alaska-hosted Games took place in Anchorage in 1974 and in Fairbanks in 1982 and 1988.
Last December, Chugiak-Eagle River 1996 Host Society President John Rodda told the Juneau Chamber of Commerce that his community budgeted $1.6 million to put on the Games, although that budget grew to $2.1 million. However, once the Games were over the hosts were able to give $2.4 million of its seed money back to the Municipality of Anchorage. He said a University of Alaska Anchorage study showed the communities of Chugiak-Eagle River had a direct economic benefit of $3.4 million and an indirect benefit of $4.3 million.
In Alaska, Arctic Winter Games host cities usually receive grants from the state to help organize the Games, plus there are many corporations and individuals that provide financial support. Rodda said the Chugiak-Eagle River Games had nearly 3,000 volunteers, with about 20–30 paid staff members.
Powell said Juneau’s bid is “under a time crunch,” and Ardaiz’s company is expected to make a presentation to the Juneau Assembly in September before the final bid packet is submitted on Oct. 15.
After that, the AWG’s International Committee will make site visits to each of the potential Alaska venues in February or March. The International Committee will make its final decision on the 2006 host city in late 2003, although the traditional announcement won’t be made until the closing ceremonies of the 2004 Arctic Winter Games.