BRITISH KITESPORTS ASSOCIATION (bksa)
Organisation Name: The British Kitesports Association (BKSA)
Location: National
Organisation Overview: British Kitesports is the National Governing Body, or ‘NGB’ for kitesurfing and other kitesports in the UK. They are formally recognised by the home countries sports councils as the national governing body for kitesports in the UK and invest in the long term growth and sustainability of all forms of the sport.
They are a not for profit organisation and all funds are invested into the sport. They work non-stop to ensure a future for all kitesports disciplines and participants. Their work encompasses a huge range of areas and that includes keeping beaches and other flying sites open.
BKSA’s mission is to promote safe and sustainable kitesports participation across the UK on land and water.
Events: In February the BKSA announced its 2025 BKSA British Championship Series –with a strong desire to widen participation through out the UK
“Eight awesome events happening around the country from April to October, bringing together Juniors, Amateurs and Pro’s from across the UK kite and wing community.”
Competitors will compete for the crown of British Champion in three separate disciplines:
Championship race categories include
· Big Air
· Wingfoil Racing
· Wave Masters
What Buccaneer Does with The British Kitesport Association (BKSA)
Buccaneer first worked along side the BKSA at a well established Kitesurfing festival held on Hayling Island in 2021, called the Kitesurfing Armada, owned and run by Armada Events. This was a 3 day festival featuring: Extreme sports activities and presentations, Live music, great food, equipment brands, retail village and camping. The main feature of the festival was the annual British Kitesurf Freestyle Championships where the top UK Kitesurfing talent would compete for the prestigious title of UK Champion.
Buccaneer was partnered with Armada Events to operate a live event schedule, information and comms platform for the event participants and festival goers.
As the competition heats and rounds took place, live commentary and information relating to the activity on the water was run through the app in real time.
Unfortunately, 2021 was to be the last year that the Armada event ran due to planning challenges with the new Owners of Armada Events and Havant Council.
The BKSA needed a new home for its Championship event, which it found and remained at Hayling Island and Buccaneer was super keen to stay involved. We felt we had found an exciting evolution of our action sports community platform, facilitating action sports events and competitions as part of its feature set. Over the last 3 years, we have continued to work with the BKSA to refine the functionality specifically to accommodate competition schedules, event comms, to support the audience and competitor information service, as well as live commentary and visual representation of the competition ladder.
Bring us forward to 2025 and Buccaneer is once again partnering with the BKSA to help deliver their event series.
“We’re once again partnering with Buccaneer to deliver our 2025 event series communications. We’ve stepped things up so that not only will all the competitors have once clear place to keep updated on running logistics, spectators will be able to follow their favourite athlete’s progression through the competition.”
