Inside The Tribe

Tribal Clash in the time of Corona: what now for live events? In this episode we talk about the past six months and the challenges we navigated as a company: Australia, South Africa, a missing leg and a missing container, and our plans for 2021. As a live events company we were directly in the path of the Covid-19 pandemic; with large public gatherings restricted or banned for the foreseeable future, what does that mean for Tribal Clash? This is an industrywide problem that only has one solution: we press pause and wait for the lights to be turned back on.

We had a chat with Mark and Ben of Team Hood & A Pirate (CrossFit Nottingham) after their third consecutive Tribal Clash Portugal victory on Praia Almargem. Mark and Ben gave some insights into the unique chemistry and work ethic in their team; “You always hear when someone does well that it was because they gave it their all and work hard, but that’s a given. Everyone does that, it’s just a foundation.” “When we hear what the wods are, we get together before our heat and discuss how we are going to approach the workout, we discuss the flow of the workout and break it down to sections. Mark will have a plan and we probably will adjust it a bit, we think about the positions of each team member on the equipment if there is a worm involved. There are no egos in this team, you could give any role to any team member and they would do it without questions. At the end, we have six people who all want the team to do well and who will do anything to make that happen.” It was a real pleasure talking to the boys and we look forward to seeing them again on a beach, in the sand pit, somewhere in the world!

Billy Hannah is the Voice of Tribal Clash. He is the MC on the beach ushering the athletes into their lanes, shouting ‘rotate’ several dozen times, and calling ‘time time time!’ at time cap. His bad jokes and announcements have been a fixture at Tribal Clash ever since the first event on Blackpool Sands Beach in 2013. Billy has seen Tribal Clash grow from a small local beach throwdown into a global competition series, so he has dozens of hugely entertaining stories and memories from the past six years. We asked Billy what his top tips are for teams entering Tribal Clash, and how he copes with the dreaded Tribal blues.

Paulo Matos was the team captain of the 2nd placing CrossFit Aberdeen team in Tribal Clash Portugal 2018. His team was at the centre of one of the most memorable moments in Tribal Clash history; at the end of a brutal 50-minute Final, where teams got eliminated along the way, until there were two teams left and their last job was to flip a giant 350kg tyre up the beach. CrossFit Nottingham’s Team Hood had already clinched the title but when Paulo and his CrossFit Aberdeen team mates were fighting with all they had left to get that giant tyre over the line, the crowd stormed the arena, gathered around them and cheered them home. Paulo is originally from Portugal but worked in Aberdeen for years to support his family in Portugal, during this time he discovered CrossFit and made CrossFit Aberdeen his home. He has now returned to his home town in Portugal and opened his own affiliate, CrossFit Leziria, and he was back on the beach in Praia Almargem this year with a new team. Listen to this heartwarming story about resilience and triumph, and how he decided to get the Tribal Clash mask tattooed on this back! “I did it because Tribal Clash is important to me, it makes me happy, it brings people together, and it feels like I was made for it”

We met with Charlie Cust, to talk about team training, why it is important to have your style game on point, and how he got hooked on Tribal Clash. Hear about Charlie’s plans to assemble a team to take on Australia next year, and their approach going into Tribal Clash Portugal 2019.

Event by event recap of how the biggest Tribal Clash ever unfolded! 188 teams gathered on Praia do Almargem to run, lift, paddle, carry, climb and haul for two days under the sun. Listen to event director Andrew Barker talk through the programming and event design, why swimming will always feature at Tribal Clash and what set the top teams apart from the rest.

In this episode we preview the upcoming Tribal Clash Portugal, the biggest Tribal Clash to date! We give some fun facts about the teams competing, talk through the format changes and new twists in the competition, and of course discuss who are the teams to watch! If you are competing on Praia Almargem on the May 4-5 weekend, this is a must listen!

What makes a successful Tribal Clash team? What are the characteristics, what skills do the athletes need that are different from solo competitors? Find out what Andrew Barker thinks is the most important skill above everything else.

We discuss our plans for Tribal Clash, and some of the challenges in growing an international event series. What is primal fitness and why primal fitness is inclusive for all? What are the business models available for organisers of participatory sports events and where do we sit? We also discuss the state of sponsorship and how we plugged the funding gap to scale fast.

In this episode we talk about team programming. What is team work capacity? What is a true test of team fitness, as opposed to a test of 6 individuals? Find out!

Welcome to Inside The Tribe podcast. In this first episode of our brand new podcast we introduce Inside The Tribe, the themes we will be covering, and we talk about how Tribal Clash came to be. Got something you want to ask us? Share with us? Email heidi@tribalclash.com // andrew@tribalclash.com – we’d love to hear from you!