A prayer for Kollen -audience and Oslo Municipality:
Help us keep Marka clean and safe!
Kollen -Visitors leave over 120 million kroner in Oslo's shops, hotels and nightlife every year. But they also leave enormous amounts of trash in Marka. Holmenkollen Skifestival has so far picked up the bill for cleanup and public safety. It amounts to up to 1.5 million kroner – money that should have gone to skiing. We pray loudly that the public and the municipality will join in and pick up the bill.
Support Holmenkollen's MarkaVipps campaign - vipp number #907358.
The big public festival of the year for Oslo and sports-Norway is approaching, when the world's ski elite are back in Holmenkollen. The World Cup races in Holmenkollen attract thousands of tourists to Oslo every year, and the TV images from Marka go around the world. For over 130 years, the ski races in Kollen created joy and excitement for both the audience and performers, and the event can safely be considered part of the Norwegian cultural heritage.
Inside the arena, we at Holmenkollen Skifestival are responsible for the audience and participants. During the two weekends of the World Cup races, around 50,000 people gather for a family party inside our national ski arena.
But outside the arena there is also a party. It takes place in Marka, on municipal land. Around 20-30,000 people gather there, enjoying themselves along the trails and some staying overnight in tents. The vast majority of people enjoy themselves together and provide real Kollen atmosphere and good Oslo advertising in front of the TV cameras and runners.
What happens in Marka is basically at your own risk. But we at Holmenkollen Skifestival and the Norwegian Ski Association strongly wishes that Kollen should be a family party, where everyone feels safe and cared for. That's why we pay for help from the Red Cross and security companies every year, and we coordinate the work of the police, agencies and many other parties involved. These are there to look after and take care of all those who contribute to the public life in the free areas around the trails.
In addition, there is the bill for the clean-up job after the party has ended. "Every year, large amounts of rubbish are left in Marka. Last year, we spent over three weeks on the clean-up job.
All in all, this work cost us almost one and a half million kroner. That's a lot of money for an organizing company that relies heavily on volunteers, without commercial purposes.
The consequence is that Kollen -races are being operated with negative margins, and money that could have gone to cross-country skiing and the development of young athletes is being lost. This is a development that we are concerned about.
We have approached Oslo's former city council several times to ask them to join a joint effort for Kollen . The response has been poor. We have been met with statements like "if you hadn't made ski racing in Kollen ", there wouldn't have been people there either - this is their problem."
We generally have a very good relationship with the City of Oslo, and we hope the new city council sees the value of the festival to a greater extent than its predecessors.
According to a report from Sponsor Insight, the total economic ripple effect created by Holmenkollen Skifestival in the local community is almost NOK 240 million. Visitors alone spend NOK 120 million. The event attracts visitors from Germany, France, Sweden, Poland, Finland, Denmark and many other countries, bringing together over 70,000 people over two weekends. And almost every year we get "Norway advertising" in some of the world's most famous newsrooms.
Holmenkollen is world-famous, one of our national symbols. Five thousand in Kollen is part of our cultural heritage. And we have the best audience in the world. That's why we hope that the municipality of Oslo will join a clean-up team to clean up after the medals are handed out and the TV cameras are turned off.
In the meantime, we're asking the public to join a clean-up campaign to take care of Marka. There are two easy ways to participate: Preferably by being a good guest and picking up after yourself when you leave Holmenkollen - we'll be handing out garbage bags and setting up plenty of collection points. Or you can contribute via our MarkaVipps campaign - tip number #907358 - and support the work that needs to be done. If you're heading to Holmenkollen this year, you'll also find information on how you can participate. You can do this on our website.
The money from the Vipps donation goes to local sports teams who help us pick up litter and to the Red Cross, who make sure that your loved ones are safe when they are in Marka. There will still be a public festival, but we all have a responsibility to ensure that Marka is clean when the party is over.
