Sim Racing is a booming phenomenon and hitting the mainstream like never before. Even as recently as the year prior, we wouldn’t have expected to be hired to provide our superb rigs at the 2024 MTV EMA Awards! In this post, we take a look at this growth in interest – and what it means to provide the very best staff to a whole range of events.
The Origin Story of a Unique eSport
The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 will be forever etched in our memories and has changed our lives in countless ways. However, one bright spot during this otherwise dark time emerged in the world of sim racing. A perfect combination of reliable servers, an accessible and popular sim racing platform, and many people spending more time indoors created the ideal environment for virtual racing. Frustrated fans of motorsport, along with events like the now-laughable F1 celebrity Sim Races, showed that sim racing could serve as a convincing substitute for our favourite sport. While the real-life Grand Prix events faced indefinite postponements, we found a way to keep the racing spirit alive—and we could go racing again, albeit virtually! Unlike many ‘corona-hobbies’, however, sim racing has not only stuck around but continued on an exponential growth pattern.
There’s nothing new about competitive gaming for prizes – there were big-money Pac-man tournaments back in the dark ages – so sim racing has been pretty late to the party. Where sim racing stands out, however, is that its ‘real-world’ equivalent has a baked-in reason to invest – partly because the skillset crossover is so similar, but also because motorsport has comparatively few opportunities for businesses to gain such huge exposure to a loyal motorsport audience.
Photo via SimStaff
Sim Racing’s (Ma)x Factor
Not only can big-name track drivers challenge gamers in the sim (have you heard of Max Verstappen’s Team Redline?), but it can also work both ways, with the hottest sim drivers given opportunities to prove their mettle in Formula 4, GT Racing, and the Race of Champions (which last year ran a parallel sim racing event to whet appetites for the main event). In no other esport are the skills and controller inputs as similar, nor can they be considered a training platform for their physical counterpart. The likes of Jann Mardenborough, Lukas Blakely, and Jimmy Broadbent have proven that they can compete with the best on-track racers.
“You wouldn’t put a pro Call of Duty champion into a war and expect them to be as good as a Navy Seal.” SimStaff’s Head of Operations
Even in traditional broadcasting, the lines between sim and track racing are blurring: it’s not unusual to see livestream comments like, “Is this a sim?” Sims can also feature alongside conventional coverage; 2024 saw Jamie Chadwick take the wheel of a Williams F1 car to give a perfect, multi-camera Silverstone track guide for the UK Channel 4 coverage— all on a SimStaff rig, of course!
Photo via Channel 4
Stand-Out Equipment Requires Expertise to Match
Another differentiator for sim racing among other esports is, naturally, the equipment required to compete. With this comes the technical know-how necessary to set up, combine, operate, and maintain these increasingly complex rigs. Enter SimStaff once again, with our proprietary training, passionate team, and OEM affiliations to take the mystery out of the perfect cockpit for any given application. Whether it’s a rugged combination needed for a touring seat to be used by the general public (even in a taxi!) or a one-of-a-kind, bespoke VIP install, SimStaff has the expertise for every sim racing activation.
Photo via Channel 4
Our Versatility Ensures a Perfect Fit
At SimStaff, we know that there is no such thing as two identical events; we range from huge, multi-client festivals to bespoke private installations and so staffing comes down to having a huge breadth of expertise at our disposal.
Naturally, a staffing decision comes down to working with a client as early as possible and presenting our best options. But if at least one of our premium rigs is involved, an Event Manager is the bare minimum. Once the Event Manager is on-site, both the rig and client communication become their responsibility, freeing up any Event Technicians to operate the rigs and talk to the players themselves. They are trained in communicating about equipment, sim platforms, driving techniques, and the motorsport or brand being represented, such as for our Williams FanZone activations. While the majority of our bookings involve the popular official F1 platform, we make every effort to align our excellent team members with events that utilise their unique combinations of passion and know-how.
Because we base our whole company around a passion for sim racing, our team’s wealth of knowledge is infectious. We know our people’s skills and interests inside and out, so we can find the right person to talk in detail about anything and everything—be it WRC, F1, PC specs, comparing pedals, or forthcoming competitions.
Don’t take our word for it; our social feed includes direct client testimonials speaking to our expertise, approachability, and passion.
We believe only sim racers make the best staff for sim racing events.
Our Secret Source
Sourcing talent is best done via the sim racing community itself, in our view, coupled with an informal interview process to ensure we match the very best-suited people to the event in question. Post-event, we strongly encourage debriefing and feedback from the team and clients; we also recently added a team recognition referral system internally to reward stand-out, extra-mile customer service. One of our major successes is how we have team members trained in multiple disciplines, ensuring that on-site we have cover for all eventualities. You might see our Head Steward adjusting bolts on prep day, or a Sim Technician standing in for a Spotter; a Host may be driving the van—whatever it takes, SimStaff get the job done.
