Event

Time to Play it Smart

Where data meets facilities

We experience a pressure on running sport facilities, both indoors and outdoors. Costs are rising, regulations are changing and expectations around accessibility, sustainability and community impact keep growing. For sport companies and municipalities, this creates a daily challenge: how do you keep these facilities running smoothly, financially sound and socially valuable at the same time?

Time to Play It Smart is an ESWAM event focused on one clear theme: using data to improve facility management. From swimming pools, sports halls and gyms to football pitches, hockey fields, athletics tracks and more spaces. Data can bring clarity to what is actually happening on and around your facilities: real usage, peak moments, capacity, catering, maintenance, staffing, energy and water consumption, user experience and commercial opportunities such as events, meetings or hospitality.

On June 4, we move beyond the theory. Together we explore practical, real-life examples of how data supports better daily operations, smarter maintenance planning, stronger investment decisions and clearer reporting on social return. If you work in a sport company or within a municipality responsible for facilities, this event will provide fresh insights, proven approaches and concrete ideas you can apply tomorrow.

INSPIRE

INTERACT

IMPACT

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June 4, 2026

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Online

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Registration

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PROGRAM

A webinar packed with ideas, concepts, insights and people to discover how data improves facility management. (last update: May 21, 2026). All times are Central European Time, please take this into account.

09:55	Informal welcome
10:00	"Word of Welcome" Arno Hermans (initiator @ ESWAM / co-founder @ Sports+Vitality) You are invited to (re)present your organisation. Together we investigate the most important challenges.
10:10	"Using national participation data to unlock local sports facility potential" Maja Pilgaard (chief analyst PhD @ Danish Institute for Sports Studies (IDAN)) Maja Pilgaard explores how national participation data can help unlock the potential of local sports facilities. The session will highlight the growing tendency among Danes to participate in multiple sports through multisport memberships and flexible activity offerings, as well as the relationship between multisport participation and physical literacy. It will also examine how sports facilities can move beyond traditional single-sport models by offering more accessible and flexible opportunities that better support young children, late starters, and adults aged 60 and above.
10:35	"........." ......... (......... @ City of ........., Denmark) ...
10:55	"Bringing focus into sport facilities policy to support broader sport policy goals" Nathan Geurink (researcher @ Mulier Instituut, Netherlands) Local sport policy is gradually shifting towards broader sport and physical activity policy, with increasing attention to reducing social inequalities and reaching underrepresented groups. In Dutch municipalities, this shift is clearly reflected in sport participation and activation policies, but much less in sport facilities policy. At the same time, adapting facilities policy is far from straightforward. Investments in sport infrastructure are long-term, budgets are often already committed and facilities cannot simply be relocated when policy priorities change. So what can policymakers still influence in the short term? Which strategic choices remain available to better align sport facilities policy with evolving social and participation goals? And what kind of data and insights are needed to make these decisions in a well-informed and evidence-based way?
11:20	"Sport Vlaanderen: Driving change through data and innovation" Sarah van Laeken (project manager innovation @ Sport Flanders, Belgium) / Jasper Truyens (scientific researcher @ Sport Flanders, Belgium) In an era where data-driven insights continuously elevate excellence and efficiency, Sport Vlaanderen continues to advance its data acquisition and management capabilities. This keynote explores how centralized data and a robust innovation strategy converge to create more active environments and more active people.
11:45	"Surface intelligence for municipal sports" Christian Theil (CEO @ turfcoach, Germany) With Turfcoach, municipalities manage all sports field maintenance and operations through one central digital platform. Their solution combines maintenance planning, task tracking, compliance, quality control, machinery management and reporting into a single streamlined workflow for municipal teams. Powered by AI-driven weather logic, rain alerts, disease-risk forecasting and fertilisation insights, turfcoach helps cities make smarter operational decisions while reducing resource usage. By digitising daily processes and providing real-time operational insights, municipalities can reduce water, energy, fertiliser use, machine downtime and administrative workload. Discover how turfcoach helps municipalities improve field quality, increase operational efficiency and achieve measurable cost savings.
11:55	"Insight in all operational data" Sander ten Broek (founder @ KnowUr.Biz Netherlands) KnowUr.Biz is a data management pioneer born from the insight of making better use of already existing business information. We improve the operations of our customers by helping them to collect, enrich and analyse business data more efficiently and to find development opportunities there. We are known for our ability to find and identify anomalies, their causes and opportunities to sharpen business. By applying advanced AI and machine learning with anomaly detection, KnowUr.Biz is able to discover hidden patterns that would otherwise not be visible. Sander will show some great results in Sportsfacilities in The Netherlands.
12:05	"Closing the capacity gap: real facility usage meets booking data" Susanne Ingemann (CEO @ HallMonitor, Denmark) By combining real usage data from indoor and outdoor sports facilities with booking data, municipalities and facility operators can move from assumptions to actionable insight. HallMonitor reveals where booked time is actually used, where no-shows create hidden capacity, and where unbooked activity impacts maintenance, cleaning and planning. Susanne will show how data can uncover the gap between booked capacity and actual use, including which associations, activities, facilities and time slots drive usage, helping municipalities optimise access, dialogue with clubs and make better decisions about capacity, operations and future investments.
12:15	"From online booking to building automation" Bas Heuvelmans (co-founder & CPO @ Aqqo, Netherlands) European municipalities are increasingly challenged to manage sports facilities more efficiently while improving accessibility and reducing operational costs. In this session, Aqqo demonstrates how cities can centralize bookings, automate administrative and financial processes, and connect sports facility usage directly with access control and building management systems. From online booking and invoicing to automated lighting, heating and door access based on real-time occupancy. Bas will show how municipalities can create smarter, more sustainable and user-friendly sports facilities with less manual work and better data insights.
12:25	"Wrap up" Arno Hermans (initiator @ ESWAM / co-founder @ Sports+Vitality) A final thought to conclude the webinar.
12:30	End

Speakers overview:

Arno Hermans

founder @ ESWAM

Bas Heuvelmans

co-founder & CPO @ Aqqo

Christian Theil

CEO @ turfcoach

Jasper Truyens

scientific researcher @ Sport Flanders

Maja Pilgaard

chief analyst PhD @ Danish Institute for Sports Studies (IDAN)

Nathan Geurink

researcher @ Mulier Instituut

Sander ten Broek

founder @ KnowUr.Biz Netherlands

Sarah van Laeken

project manager innovation @ Sport Flanders

Susanne Ingemann

CEO @ HallMonitor

Get your Ticket

Register yourself for this webinar today as we have limited capacity, only 60 participants. You receive an email after registration with a link to join. Presentations will be available afterwards in the ESWAM mediacenter on LinkedIN.