Sports Trader reports back : The GoPro Experience Cape Town

The GoPro team at Omnico, the local distributor of GoPro, recently introduced the new Hero 3+ action camera to retailers through GoPro Experience Roadshows across the country, where guests were filmed while participating in various fun activities. Sports Trader attended the third leg in Cape Town on 5 November 2013.

The new GoPro makes it easy to share images with tools such as the GoPro App that is free to download and GoPro Studio that is used for Mac and PC edits, explained De Jager. These are compatible with Android and Windows 8 devices.

The New GoPro Hero 3+ camera stand

The latest camera in the range has a more compact and lighter waterproof housing, a much longer battery life and has a Super View option that offers HD viewing in wide and tall screen. The auto low light facility gives better quality images indoors and at night, while the new lens ensures sharper images.

The GoPro camera allows users to do anything anywhere, while filming. “It is only limited by your imagination,” De Jager said.

Guests each received an accreditation pass in order to take part in activities that were filmed on GoPro cameras by the Omnico team.

Apart from mountain biking and archery, activities included blow-carting (a cart that has a wind sail like a yacht and can be adjusted by tilting the sail against or away from it in order to increase or decrease speed), Go-Pro Studio (where one could interact and view the features of various GoPro products), hot laps (in this activity an experienced driver took guests onto the race track at high speeds), mechanical surfing (a surfing board is attached to a device that moves, replicating the experience of surfing on water, with participants trying to stay on as long as possible), and zorbing (at the top of a hill, participants got into a large, inflated plastic ball and rolled down without being able to control it).

Participants pushing the Zorbing ball to the top of the hill

At each activity station, they received a sticker indicating that they completed an event and the accreditation passes were later entered into a draw to win a GoPro Hero 3+ camera or a pair of limited edition Oakley Jordan sunglasses.

GoPro brand manager, Dewald de Jager, showed a short video with extracts from around the world that was filmed with the GoPro Hero 3+ in HD quality. It gave the audience a taste of the GoPro experience and different views, with the camera being attached to the front of bicycles, on monkeys, a surfer’s arm or a skier’s helmet.

GoPro brand manager, Dewald de Jager (left) and MC, Max Cluer (right)

Other entertainment for the day included skateboarding tricks, performed by John Mark Johannes (“the little ninja”), who is one of the top 50 skaters in the world.

John Mark Johannes perfoming for guests

The guests eagerly queued to take part in the activities. At the zorbing stand, where one gets into a large plastic ball on top of a hill and rolls down (causing the world to spin), participants nearly rolled over the mechanical surfing stand due to the speed of the ball.

At the mechanical surfing stand, participants had fun trying to move their hips to the same speed and side of the board, but most toppled over in less than a minute. “It’s all about the fun,” said Glynice Williams from Totalsports in Paarl.

Glynice Williams (Totalsports Paarl) tries to ride the waves at the mechanical surfing

The blow carting event was slightly delayed by the wind and meant that many doing the event ended up pushing themselves to the finish line, while those doing the mountain biking came between trying to pass. “The wind was not in my favour at all,” complained Waylon Booysen from Totalsports in Cavendish Square.

With little wind, Waylon Booysen (Totalsports Cavendish Square) had to push himself along

At the archery stand, participants were instructed by a GoPro team member who helped them stretch out a bow that was quite tightly wound.

By lunch time the venue had turned into a sauna and the tar tracks were too hot for the cars to take participants out for a racing experience, but the show kept going with teams from various retailers lining up to challenge one another in a blow cart race.

Urban Ninja and Totalsports in the blow-carting race

In three heats, teams from Omnico, Cape Union Mart, Totalsports, Outdoor warehouse, Urban Ninja, Sportsmans Warehouse and Chopper battled it out to win a chance to take part in the drifting car show that took place later the afternoon.

Omnico won the first lap, Cape Union Mart the second and in the third and final lap Urban Ninja and Cape Union Mart tied, because Urban Ninja took a shortcut, but the event assistant decided no rules apply and both teams won.

A surprise performance by the band Goodluck kept the crowd cheering and literally jumping to the beat. The band specialises in live-electronic music and performed a few songs including their new deep house song - Figure of 8 - that was filmed in the Namibian desert with a GoPro camera.

Goodluck members: Juliet Harding, Ben Peters and Raiven Hansmann

The band’s lead singer, Juliet Harding, filmed the entire performance with her GoPro camera attached to her microphone. The band also gave away one of their new albums, which was won by Outdoor Warehouse’s, CJ Kopperman, for showing the most enthusiasm in the crowd.

The crowd gathered at the track to watch performances by the drift car drivers, who performed various techniques on the track. Goodhope FM DJ Reddy D, drove his car with one foot on the gas and the other out the door, while drifting in circles on the pitch.

The day ended with the draw for the GoPro Hero 3+ and Oakley Jordan limited edition sunglasses. Taquin Pietersen from Outdoor Warehouse won the sunglasses, while the Go Pro 3+ Hero went to Dylan Swanson from Cape Union Mart.