Anyone who thinks of a vigorous workout in the fresh outdoors thinks of Mud Masters, Thousands of participants storming the muddy course, pushing themselves to the limit. Last year, the organisers decided to do something new: Mud Masters Indoor. Founder André Skwortsow tells us more about the event.
Mud Masters, that's right outside in the mud, isn't it?
"Yes exactly. With Mud Maters, we have been organising outdoor obstacle courses with lots of mud, water or ice since 2012. It is a work-out inspired by our background in the Marine Corps and we have made that accessible to a wide audience. As Mud Masters, you run an obstacle course of various distances, based on real military assault courses. We have since built a large community of 50,000 participants."
But this event was in.
"True. Mud Masteres Indoor was a pilot to see if we could also serve our target audience in winter. Normally the temprature has to be somewhat okay, because when it's the middle of winter, you don't go outside in an ice bath. With an indoor event, we can keep our community alive and also offer seasonal work-outs. To my knowledge, this is the first time something like this has been organised indoors in the Netherlands."
So there was no mud in Jaarbeurs?
'Haha no, this was Mud Masters without mud. We did build a complete course in the hall. Think of a kind of athletics track, with all kinds of parts in the middle. The participants started with a running lap and then walked the obstacle course in the middle. This included swinging on a monkey bar or running up a quarter pipe, for example. So unlike a running race or an outdoor course, here everything stayed very close together.'
Weren't you worried it would be too different from a 'normal' Mud Masters?
'It was definitely a challenge. Because how do you deal with people's expectations? They are used to us setting up Mud Masters literally on a grand scale. Normally it takes place on festival grounds of around 200 hectares. Our keywords there are intensity, heights, cold, water and mud. But we solved that by positioning it as an indoor workout event. Our aim was to offer a cool preparatory workout that you could never do yourself at home. Basically like a kind of monkey cage for adults. Including DJ and cool lighting effects.'
And why did you choose Jaarbeurs and not a sports hall?
'It had several reasons. The team at Jaarbeurs thought along with us from the first meeting. From electricity to waste and from security to first aid. They acted as colleagues, rather than the classic customer and supplier approach. We also thought the image was important. This was our very first indoor event, so you have to exude a bit of credibility, don't you? The Jaarbeurs brand reinforces that.'
And...was the pilot successful?
'Yes, we are happy with how it went. The cooperation with Jaarbeurs went well and actually everything with the organisation ran smoothly. The participating Mud Masters also gave positive reactions.'
Besides positive reactions, did it generate anything new?
'We saw that a number of companies used this event to exchange their Friday afternoon drinks for a sporty Friday afternoon. People came in their company shirts to do a work-out. We also saw that it was a good boarding event. We sometimes deal with people who are initially mud-fearing. In Jaarbeurs, we were able to give them confidence and make the event more accessible. So we also gained a new target group.'
