All Out Games functional fitness tilt eyes bigger venue, trilogy

MANILA, Philippines -- A bigger All Out Games (AOG) looms on the horizon. 

Entering its fifth year, AOG is eyeing a much-bigger venue – and something that has never been seen in the functional fitness competition in the Philippines before. 

In an interview with Philstar.com on Saturday, AOG director Paulo Gonzales said that they are eyeing to make the biggest functional fitness competition bigger moving forward. 

“In terms of the size of All Out Games, we're limited kasi to the venue… Since four years na kami, next year we're planning to do a bigger venue para we could have more athletes talaga,” Gonzales told Philstar.com in an interview. 

This year, Gonzales said there are about 420 athletes competing in the AOG. But the number of qualifying athletes rose to 740 from last year’s 650. 

They are also eyeing to have a trilogy event next year.

“So, actually, with our events. Ngayon kasi, we're really professionalizing our events sa All Out. So, right now, actually… we're actually doing a trilogy event which hindi pa ginagawa sa Philippines,” he added. 

“So, it's something original. It involves three competitions next year. Kasi usually only do one. So, next year, we'll do three.” 

The prize purse for this year’s event is at P272,000 cash. 

For his part, Ant Haynes said the growth of AOG the past years is “amazing.” 

“I was just actually talking to [Gonzales], talking about we need a bigger venue for next year and he said he’s already looking at something bigger,” Haynes, part of the Process Programming, which handles the programming for the AOG, said. 

Haynes, who has been working with the AOG the past three years, said he could imagine a venue “two, three times the size” of the Filinvest Tent. 

“Like the fact that they're selling out the tickets. They have so many spectators, they have so many teams, they have so many individuals it just feels like they don't have enough time,” he said. 

“So if we can solve that problem with a bigger venue… you can potentially have like two different stages going on and just open the doors up to more people. I know Pau has spoken about maybe adding some sort of like a hybrid event along with a crossfit event, you then start to cater to two different crowds there as well.”