A month has passed since our landmark, record breaking White Collar Boxing event at Suntec Exhibition and Convention Centre in Singapore. Over 1,000 guests attended the IFS White Collar Boxing® Singapore for what was the largest White Collar Boxing event ever held in the world. It was a spectacular night kicked off by 12 piece percussion and drum band Wicked Aura Batacuda. This had the guests feet tapping and hearts beating faster as our 14 boxers for the night came out through flame throwers and pyrotechnics. The audience were then treated to a great nights boxing including stoppages in bouts 3 and 5 as every boxer gave us a great display of their newly acquired pugilistic skills.  We have had rave reviews as you can see from the quotes with the main feedback being “how will you top of that?”. Well, you won’t have long to wait to find out as we are all booked for October 2nd at Suntec and we promise you another spectacular.

IFS Singapore took place two weeks after the sell-out IFS White Collar Boxing® Hong Kong which saw six bouts contested at the InterContinental Hotel. This was our first time in this venue, having previously been at the Conrad Hotel but we could not have been happier. The layout of the room was perfect for boxing and this combined with some fantastic performances from our boxers cemented the twice yearly event into the Hong Kong social calendar. This event saw Budgie Wright, a pioneer of the sport in Asia, compete for the final time and once again in winning style which saw him add another regional WWCBA to his previous wins.

At both of these events we got the opportunity to raise funds for Children’s Surgical Centre in Cambodia and it was great pleasure that Vanda was able to donate $113,275 to this fantastic charity. Dr Jim Gollogly, the founder and Principal Surgeon at CSC was able to be present at both events and it is our intention that we continue to support his incredible work at future events this year.

What else is planned for 2009?

We have more events planned in Singapore and Hong Kong for which we are just closing the applications for participation so be quick! Bangkok in October and Melbourne in November are progressing well with applications just being accepted for anyone interested in participating.

Last week the Singapore National Boxing team were competing at the Arafura Games in Darwin Australia. Vanda Promotions and Vanda Boxing Club were pleased to finance and support this trip as we look to help develop boxing in Singapore. The team put on a great performance against international teams from Ireland, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia to name but a few. It was invaluable experience and made all the more enjoyable with two bronze medals coming home with us to Singapore.

Our professional boxing in the last 12 months has concentrated on the management of our boxer rosta rather than our own events. That is about to change and we will back out with the news as soon as we complete the commercial contract phase with the media and sponsors. Boxing fans in Singapore have waited a long time for credible, world class boxing but not for much longer.

We continue to develop ideas centred around sports events and we are actively working on bringing to another sport the Vanda treatment we have given to boxing. Our recipe is simple, give your everday person a world class participatory experience and they will put on a performance that will have the crowd coming to watch. Add the opportunity to raise some funds for childen’s charities and the list of where we can take this is endless. Maybe you have an idea for a sporting event that we could deliver? Email me, Ian@vandapromotions.com and I will be more than happy to have the team here see what we could develop your idea.

Keep checking back, it is a hive of activity at Vanda Promotions and we will keep you all updated here.