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World
Chess Championship in BonnThe World Chess Championship took place from October 14 – 30, 2008, in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn. The match was scheduled for twelve games, played under classical time controls: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61. The prize fund is 1.5 million Euro (approximately 2.35 million US Dollars) including taxes and FIDE license fees, and is split equally between the players.
The match was won by the reigning World Champion Viswanathan Anand, who thus retains his title. Anand beat the Challenger Vladimir Kramnik by a score of 6.5:2.5. The games were broadcast live by FoidosChess, with video and commentary for €10 per game; and on Playchess.com.
The Universal Event Promotion (UEP) would like to state herewith that the World Chess Championship 2008 was a great success. The resonance that followed this Championship was worldwide enormous. The battle for the highest chess title, taking place in Germany first time after 74 years, between Viswanathan Anand from India and Vladimir Kramnik from Russia, has attracted a huge attention and interest in Germany and all over the world.
World Chess Championship has hosted 3,780 spectators in these eleven rounds who purchased their tickets to witness the match. 4.400 tickets were available to be sold for eleven rounds, so that 85.9 % of the tickets have been sold. We would like to mention that UEP could offer not more than 400 tickets per day, due to the fact that the event hosted many journalists and also organization as well. During some of the rounds the playing hall was completely full with spectators and there was still a queue of people who wanted to purchase the entrance tickets.
During three weeks the World Chess Championship 2008 was fully covered by the mass media from all over the world in different formats. Many journalists from main international news agencies, well known newspapers and magazines, TV and Radio channels and Internet websites came to Bonn to cover the Championship live. 427 journalists from 28 countries were officially accredited for the World Chess Championship. A huge interest to the match was shown of course by the mass media of Germany and the countries of the competitors: India and Russia.
Thousands of articles and reports were published in respect of the match all over the world. Such worldwide well-known huge news agencies as Associated Press, Reuters, DPA, SID were providing the day-by-day reports to many people from many countries through other mass media they work with.
Such big German TV channels as ARD, ZDF and others sent their teams to Bonn to witness the match, and also the Indian and Russian TV teams. Reuters TV was sending out their reports on the match to the mass media all over the world.
The same coverage was made in Internet. Articles and reports on the Championship were also published on many web sites of well known mass media.
The live coverage from each round was given free on a daily basis for the attention of all chess fans on the official website of the World Chess Championship – presented with the Corporate design. Ten servers that were provided by UEP have counted 1,271,000 visitors who were watching the match live. 45 other international media portals used the World Championship applet to provide the transmission of the games live. Taking into account all these figures, one can assume already that during the whole event between 20 and 30 millions visitors followed the games of the World Championship live.
One of the innovations that were presented at the World Chess Championship 2008 was the FOIDOS.TV broadcasting system. UEP has given before the rights for broadcasting the championship live on Internet to the Chess Media Services (CMS). Therefore, CMS has for the first time used the new chess broadcasting system at this Championship. All chess lovers all over the world had the opportunity to pay and watch the FOIDOS.TV –several cameras were installed in the playing venue, showing both participants, game live, pictures and live comments of the official commentators in four languages: English, German, Russian and Spanish. UEP is convinced that such a system to broadcast has obviously a great future in the commercialization of chess events.
UEP has obtained the recognition in many respects. Many international experts have expressed their absolute assurance of a success of this event, underlining that this was the best-organized and presented chess event so far. FIDE Honorary President Mr. Florencio Campomanes, who was present at the event, basing on his own experience, has confirmed that the match was very well organized. He said: “I am very much delighted. UEP has done all its efforts to give to chess a new dimension. I am looking forward for the future possible cooperation between World Chess Federation and UEP”.
UEP would like to express that the event of this high level could only be possibly organized with the help and cooperation with professional partners. Therefore, UEP would like to thank the Finance Minister of Germany Mr. Peer Steinbrück – the patron of the match, the main sponsors Evonik Industries and GAZPROM, the World Chess Federation FIDE, Art and Exhibition Hall of Federal Republic of Germany and the City Bonn for their close and efficient cooperation.
Concluding our statement, we would like to give you one remark as an example from many statements made about this World Chess Championship. We are very pleased to quote an extract from an article written by the chess legend Dr. Robert Hübner, well-known German chess player, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: Mr. Hübner stated in his article that the presentation of the World Chess Championship was organized in a way, so that all attention and concentration were paid only on what is going on the board, and not to other non-chess issues. Hübner expressed his wish, that this is an example of chess organization which should be followed by others.
[Universal Event Promotion GmbH. UEP Statement World Chess Championship. October 29, 2008.]
