I spent yesterday afternoon in a circus tent on the Central harbourfront, using LIVE! Matters as both a learning and networking opportunity for everything I care about in live sport. Surrounded by venue operators, brands, agents and rights holders, it was one of those rare days where you can sit back, listen and quietly test your own assumptions about where events in this city are heading. Today’s piece pulls together the ideas, side comments and post‑panel conversations that really stuck with me, and how they might shape the way we all think about building and selling live sport in Hong Kong and across Asia.

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LIVE! Matters returned to Hong Kong at the AIA Carnival’s World Circus Big Top Tent on the Central Harbourfront, bringing together people from across music, sport, gaming and media who all believe one thing: live still really matters in a world obsessed with screens.

Jasper Donat (CEO, Branded) opened by saying Hong Kong has “a once in a decade chance to reset what live looks like in Asia,” which set the tone for the whole day. Set against the backdrop of rides, lights and the harbour, the whole set up was a reminder that experience design starts long before a panel and a PowerPoint; walking into a circus tent to talk about audience engagement and event innovation immediately put everyone in the right headspace, playful, curious and open to new ideas.

Along the way there were some really sharp examples from outside sport, like Alfons Mensdorff Pouilly (CEO, Jebsen) talking about how Blue Girl campaigns are built around real Hong Kong drinking occasions and dai pai dongs, and how marketing a brand only works if you stay honest about the people who actually consume it. Blue Girl has been the No.1 selling beer brand in Hong Kong for 17 years, so he knows what he is talking about! These stories might not be “sport” on the surface, but the mindset translates directly into how we build and protect live sports properties.

A big through line of the day was how AI and event tech are changing the way we design and measure live experiences. In the “Tech Matters” and “Re(AI)lity Bites” conversations, Stephen Wong (Head of Industry, Xiaohongshu) and Haymans Fung (Global Head, Wealth and Retail Banking Marketing, Standard Chartered Bank) dug into how they are already using data signals before, during and after events to shape everything from programming to product offers.

Edward Eremyan (Co Founder and CEO, Teleport) described how they use immersive, tech art driven experiences to turn audiences from passive spectators into participants, and made the point that “AI should choreograph the moment, not replace it.” Xi Xeng (Chance AI) added the machine learning side, using AI to read behaviour and sentiment across channels in real time so organisers can tweak experiences on the fly, from content pacing to on site staffing.

On infrastructure, Robbie McRobbie (General Manager, Sports Content and Development, Kai Tak Sports Park) spoke about designing Kai Tak as a data platform as much as a stadium, wiring connectivity, wayfinding and content capture into the bones of the venue so AI and analytics actually have something meaningful to work with.

“Culture Matters” leaned heavily into Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area as a live hub, not just a venue market. Michael Patent (Founder, Culture Group) framed it as a competition between cities for cultural relevance, not just event count, and argued that the only defensible edge is deep local storytelling that global artists and brands actually want to plug into.

From a sports lens, Bryan Rennie (Executive Director, Hong Kong China Rugby) and Robbie McRobbie both hammered home that bringing in global IP is not enough if it does not sit on top of strong local ecosystems of schools, clubs and communities. One line I liked was that if your big weekend does not feel like the pinnacle of something that happens every week, it will always feel like a travelling circus (very apt for the setting). Anyone who has tried to build a tournament or league here knows exactly what that feels like.

Victoria Penman (Foundation Director, Laureus Sport for Good Hong Kong) added the purpose and impact angle, making the case that the most resilient partnerships are those anchored in clear social outcomes, not just logo exposure. When she talked about using events to bring young people and community programmes into the heart of the story, and about measuring confidence and opportunity as seriously as media numbers, it felt directly relevant to how we should be thinking about sports events in this region, not just charity galas.

The “Content Matters” sessions were basically a masterclass in how to treat events like media products. Paul McNeill (Managing Partner, Skye Digital) put it bluntly, “If you are not thinking like a broadcaster, you are leaving money on the table,” arguing that pre event build up, live day coverage and post event storytelling should all be designed as one continuous narrative rather than three disconnected tasks.

Akshat Rathee (Managing Director, NODWIN Gaming) brought in the esports perspective, explaining how they architect formats around “clip ability”, every segment is designed to generate highlights, memes or shareable moments in seconds because that is how their fans consume content. Richard Cowley (Head of Operations APAC, HYROX) then translated that into the fitness world, describing each HYROX race as “an event, a content shoot and a community meetup in one,” and challenging everyone to ask how many layers of value they are really extracting from a single live moment.

In the panel with Lesley Murphy (SVP, Regional Director Asia, Wasserman) and Victoria from Laureus, that content conversation met the commercial and social reality of sport. Lesley talked about looking at deals in multi year, multi channel terms, and about the role of an agency in making sure the live event, the athlete stories and the digital content all pull in the same direction. Hearing that agent view, sitting between brands, rights holders and talent, made it very clear that if you want authenticity and long term value in sport, you cannot treat live, content and community as three separate aspects.

Sustainability was not treated as a closing slide, it had its own “Sustainability Matters” focus. Kirsten Bell (Founder, Sustainevents) spoke very practically about what greener events mean in 2026 and beyond, from supplier choices and materials to travel policies and measurement, and warned against one off offsets.

Jessica Chan (Head of Sustainability, MTR Corporation) brought a big infrastructure perspective, talking about transport, accessibility and how major hubs can either multiply or mitigate the footprint of live events depending on how early they are brought into planning. Hearing Joshua Myers and Matthew Yau from Great Entertainment Group talk about how they are trying to bake sustainability into the AIA Carnival and the Big Top itself made it all feel much more real, fun and responsibility in the same sentence rather than a trade off.

Across the day, there was a clear sense that Hong Kong wants to position itself as the “Events Capital of Asia” and that venues like Kai Tak Sports Park, brands like AIA and Cathay, and agencies and organisations like Branded, Culture Group, Wasserman and Laureus will be central to that. The circus tent felt like a metaphor in itself, slightly chaotic, highly curated and built around shared moments you cannot replicate on a stream.

For someone operating at the intersection of sport, media and partnerships, three ideas stuck with me.

What I liked was that this did not stop when the panels ended (as you can see from the above photo). A lot of those conversations carried on over drinks at the Etihad Harbourside VIP Lounge at the AIA Carnival, looking out at the harbour with rights holders, brands and venue people all in the same room, and then later at Happy Valley races, where “live” in Hong Kong looks and feels very different, but taps into the same mix of community, entertainment and commerce. For all the talk of AI and digital, the day under the Big Top was a reminder that the real edge still comes from doing live experiences exceptionally well, and using everything else to amplify, not replace, that moment when people come together in the same place at the same time.