Adidas engaged global brand experience agency Jack Morton Worldwide to produce the Adidas Football Creator Dock, a working stadium with a specifically sized pitch. We were no strangers to this bespoke requirement, having previously worked with Jack Morton Worldwide on numerous other projects on the Thames, such as the spectacular Candy Crush Soda Saga launch.

Due to the current climate on the river, no suitable pontoons for the job were available. To overcome this, Livett’s sourced a 66m x 20m flat top pontoon from Holland via our trusted agents Baars. Livett’s arranged for the delivery of the vessel to our berth at Tilbury Docks, where an intensive two-week build was undertaken by Jack Morton.

Livett’s provided regular liaison with the PLA to ensure the required permissions for the stunt were granted. There were many questions regarding health and safety and stability of the vessel, especially given a floating stadium of this nature was a first for the River Thames, which were all answered. Once the arena was built, we provided tugs Steven B and Christian to deliver it to our Butler’s Wharf Pier and secure it in position using our facilities.

Tickets for the event sold out in a staggering 45 seconds and on the night over 500 people were in attendance. This included many world famous footballers from Adidas’ stable, including Dele Alli, Lucas Moura and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who arrived in style on high-speed RIBs. We also provided a safety boat and camera boat to ensure the producers could get as many eye-catching shots of the stadium as they desired. The event itself was also streamed live in full on YouTube, which can be watched in the video below.

The four-hour event went without a glitch and in the early hours the pontoon was towed back to Tilbury Docks in preparation for the derig. Once this was completed, the pontoon was safely returned back to Holland.

This was a stunningly successful product launch on the Thames with a truly unique event space at the heart of it. Butler’s Wharf Pier recently gained approval for a number of events to be held there, with the Adidas Football Creator Dock marking the first of these. For a project of this size and magnitude to go off without any hiccups was a great success and the client was extremely happy with the result.