How to Create a Vision That Actually Guides a Major Event

A practical case walkthrough: Winter World Masters Games 2028

Every major event project starts with a similar goal:

Organise the event successfully.

So teams tend to write lines to their strategy deck like:

• “Be the biggest.”

• “Be the best.”

• “Be the most sustainable.”

Good ambitions. But they’re not good major event visions.

A goal tells you what to do. A vision tells you why it matters, and what changes if you succeed.

A clear vision gives your event direction and emotional pull. It connects people across cities, teams, and cultures to one purpose. And it keeps that purpose visible when things get complex.

Without a vision, you plan activities. With a vision, you plan change.

This is how we approached the vision for the Winter World Masters Games. And how any event team can do the same.

Before vision making, get the narrative right

I say this by experience.

You cannot write a useful vision until the team shares the same mental picture of the event.

Not a slogan. Not a positioning line.

A working narrative you can say out loud in a meeting and hear people nod.

For the Winter World Masters Games, the turning point was this realisation:

We are not organising a winter sports event. We are organising a reason for people to keep showing up to sport.

That reframed the narrative for the strategy for my example event in this post.

To introduce you the event of our example in brief, it goes like this:

Winter World Masters Games (WWMG) is the world’s largest winter multi-sport event for masters aged 30+, held every 4 years. It welcomes all skill levels—from recreational enthusiasts to ex-pros—for competition, community, and lifelong fitness under the “Sports for All” ethos.

For WWMG, the key question was not: “What kind of event are we organising?”

It was: Who is this event really for, and why does it matter to them?

This is the output of this thinking.

Masters athletes are:

• Paying their own way

• Training around work, family, age, injuries

• Returning to sport by choice, not obligation

They move because it makes them feel alive.

Plans beat excuses. They train, adapt, participate and keep momentum.

They stay young at heart forever.

Their podium is a personal victory.

Longevity is their real medal.

Showing up is their winning habit.

They love time with like-minded people.

Nothing stops them. Because they are masters.

The key outcome was understanding that in this event, the participant isn’t a segment. They’re the whole business model. A strategic filter that later decisions could use.

Once that clicked, decisions got easier:

• The event had to feel welcoming, not intimidating

• Formats had to reward participation, not just winning

• Social moments mattered as much as results

• “Come once” thinking was a failure condition

Once that narrative was clear, vision work became possible.

If the team can’t answer who this is for in one sentence, vision work will stay abstract.

Vision vs. vision statement (where most teams get stuck)

This distinction is what makes vision usable in real event planning, and delivery.

Vision is the North Star. The future state you are trying to create because this event exists.

A vision statement is the sentence that carries that future through daily work.

Short. Repeatable. Testable.

Many teams just simplify this. ““Be the biggest. Be the best. Be the most sustainable.”

Many teams jump straight to the statement. That’s why it ends up irrelevant to stakeholders real motives.

For WWMG2028, the vision was clear before the wording. The main motives were already discussed and agreed during the bidding phase of this major event.

In short, it was this:

Finland becomes the number one winter destination for master athletes.

That is directional. It names a future state.

The vision statement had a different job.

It needed to carry emotion and meaning.

That’s how we landed on:

Nothing Stops Us.

WWMG 2028 makes Finland the #1 winter destination for master athletes —
where nothing stops them from competing, connecting, and coming back for more.

One line for energy.
One line for strategy.

The statement supports the vision.

It doesn’t replace it.

How the WWMG vision was built, step by step

This wasn’t done in a branding workshop.

It was done inside strategy work.

Through these six steps.

Step 1. Define success before language

Before writing anything, we answered one question clearly:

If this event works, what is different after it?

Not during.

After.

We wrote it down in plain terms:

• Athletes choose Finland again within two years

• Host cities gain repeat events in single sports

• The event is talked about as something people want return to

That ruled out a lot of shiny but empty ideas.

Step 2. Write a working sentence

We wrote an ugly, practical sentence first.
Not for the public.
For alignment.

The first version was not elegant.

It named:

• The target group

• The position we want to own

• The reason people would return

It was long.
It was clumsy.

But it gave us a compass.

Every idea was tested against it.

Step 3. Find the shared mindset (emotional force)

At some point, planning language stopped working.

So we asked a different question:

What mindset connects both masters and organisers?

The answer wasn’t sport.
It was behaviour.

They keep going.

They train despite setbacks.
They organise despite complexity.
They show up again.

The answer was obvious once named:
They keep going.

“Nothing Stops Us” wasn’t invented.

It was recognised.

That mattered.

Step 4. Test the sentence

We pressure-tested it:

• Does it sound true to participants - both masters and active movers?

• Does it still work if something goes wrong?

• Can you say it without cringing?

• Does it help us say no to bad ideas?

• Does this work for other stakeholders?

• Host Cities?

• Volunteers?

• Partners?

• In two years?

• Under stress?

If the vision or vision statement fails any test, it needs to be re-considered.

Step 5. Translate words into decisions

We broke the sentence apart:

Competing
→ sport quality must be credible for masters athletes

Connecting
→ the event must create shared moments beyond results

Coming back
→ the experience must justify repeat travel and cost

If an idea didn’t strengthen at least one of these, it was questioned.

This is where the vision started earning its place.

If an idea didn’t support one of those, it was questioned.

Step 6. Make it usable

The vision shouldn’t be parked in a strategy deck.

A good vision should be used:

In program design

In partner discussions

In volunteer briefings

In decision meetings

A way to say no. If a vision can’t reject work, it’s not finished.

If someone proposed work that didn’t support it, the burden was on them to explain why. That’s when a vision becomes real.

What this means for your event

You don’t need a clever line.
You need clarity.

You need:

• A shared narrative

• A named future state

• A sentence that helps you decide

• The discipline to use it under pressure

Vision work fails when it’s treated as communication.

It works when it’s treated as infrastructure.

That’s it.

If you want to get more insights of how you or your team can define the vision and vision statement for you event check this page: https://www.jessekiuru.com/vision-creation-guide-major-events

Bonus: A Strategy Context Checklist and Workshop Prompt you can steal

Use this as a 60-minute workshop or a solo sprint.

First, fill the Strategy Context Checklist so we agree on the event, place, people, constraints, and ownership.

Then use the prompts to write the vision statement in plain words—and circle the lines we’d actually say out loud.