QA Venue Solutions Rwanda (www.QAVenueSolutions.com) has signed the biggest arena naming rights deal on the African continent with BK Group, a holding company with four subsidiaries: Bank of Kigali Plc, BK General Insurance, BK TecHouse and BK Capital Ltd. The agreement, worth USD $ 8 million, provides the holding company, with naming rights to the venue formerly known as ‘Kigali Arena’. The 10,000-seat venue will be known as ‘BK Arena’ with immediate effect and for the next 6 years. This was announced during a press conference held today at BK Arena.
The agreement, signed between QA Venue Solutions, BK Group and the Government of Rwanda, will set the benchmark for the future of venue management and sponsorship in the industry.
BK Group CEO, Dr Diane Karusisi, noted that the naming rights partnership was part of the Bank’s strategy to get closer to their customers.
‘’We are proud to see our name on the iconic BK Arena through this partnership with QA Venue Solutions and the Government of Rwanda. At BK Group, we are constantly devising strategies to get closer to our customers and today we are starting an exciting partnership that will strengthen BK Group’s positioning in Rwanda and on the continent, and allow sport and entertainment fans to enjoy the best experiences while also promoting cashless payments’’.
BK Arena will become a platform for both local and global athletes, promoters, entertainers and other industry players to perform at the highest level.
Inaugurated in August 2019 and managed by QA Venue Solutions since 2020, the multi-purpose BK Arena has successfully hosted sold out concerts headlined by international artists, provided the venue for international conferences and has welcomed the 2021 and 2022 Basketball Africa League (BAL) Finals among other events.
The 10,000-seating capacity BK Arena can host live concerts, sporting events, beauty pageants, gala dinners, product launches, exhibitions and much more. With the BK Arena comes a host of meeting rooms, open spaces and VIP Suites. With its state-of-the-art facilities, BK Arena is the ideal home for Africa’s events and sport industry.
Commenting on what the naming rights partnership means for the industry, QA Venue Solutions Director, Kyle Schofield, noted:
“We are investing 100% of this deal back in the industry, developing talent and investing in the overall infrastructure by implementing international systems and standards to not only benefit the fans but also partners and other industry players across various levels. This game changing naming rights deal, which we aim to implement across the multiple African venues that we manage, is proof that QAVS’s revolutionary venue management model works.”
BK Arena could not have become a reality without the support of the Government of Rwanda. With sports and entertainment tourism becoming more and more central to the government’s MICE strategy, QAVS and BK Group easily received government buy-in for the partnership.
Zephanie Niyonkuru, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer at the Rwanda Development Board had this to say about the investment:
“The Government of Rwanda is happy to be a partner in this deal. Since its inauguration in August 2019, the arena has hosted a number of successful events that have provided lots of opportunities for Rwandans. With this new sponsorship from BK Group, we hope that the BK Arena will continue to position Rwanda as an African hub for sports and entertainment. It is our expectation to bring the best of events from around the world to Rwanda, which will ultimately boost the tourism sector.”
As part of the deal, Bank of Kigali – a BK Group subsidiary, will be firmly established as a future facing bank that provides cutting edge digital products and services to its clients. With a special focus on the youth market, the bank will act as a conduit to the rest of the world through financial inclusion. The flagship product of this new era is the BK Arena Prepaid card that will allow the unbanked youth to easily load money onto a prepaid wallet that can be used like any other bank card. To make the BK Arena card easier to acquire, BK accounts will not be a prerequisite to own a card.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of QA Venue Solutions Rwanda – Kigali Arena.
For media enquiries please contact:
Bob Rutarindwa
Corporate Communication Manager, Bank of Kigali Plc
Email: brutarindwa@bk.rw
Uwase Mutimura
Marketing Manager, QA Venue Solutions Rwanda
Email: uwase@bkarena.rw
About BK Group Plc:
BK Group Plc is a home-grown, award-winning Rwandan institution with deep roots in the African financial space since inception in 1966. Over the years, BK Group Plc has gradually transformed into a premier one-stop-shop, with a full range of financial services offered under a single roof. Today, it stands as the largest commercial bank in Rwanda by total assets and has strategically positioned itself as the leading commercial financial institution in Rwanda, boasting a diversified portfolio of services that allow it to seamlessly serve a wide breadth of clients, including individuals, SMEs, large corporations as well as other financial institutions in the region. The Group’s activities range from retail and corporate banking to asset management and investment banking as well as offering a comprehensive range of non-life insurance products as well as innovative enterprise solutions that stimulate growth in the Rwandan digital space. BK Group Plc is currently listed on both the Rwandan Stock Exchange (RSE), having floated 45% of its shares in 2011, and the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE), five years after the successful launch of a representative office in Kenya in 2013.
About QA Venue Solutions:
QA Venue Solutions (QAVS) was established by an experienced, dynamic group of people whose philosophy is based on developing a new model of Venue Solutions across the African continent and beyond. The company comprises a team of proudly African individuals who together possess decades of experience in the events, entertainment and hospitality industry, in addition to venue management, design and operations.
Source: Apo-Opa
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