Head Start: Recent Episodes

Race Directors HQ

Head Start is a podcast for race directors and anyone involved in the business of putting on races.

It doesn't matter where you're based or how many years experience you have or whether you're putting on a running race, a triathlon, an obstacle race or whatever. If you’ve got an interest in planning, organizing and growing endurance events, this is the podcast for you.

The focus of the podcast is twofold:

1) we bring you the latest and coolest innovations hitting the mass-participation endurance events industry, and

2) we bring you tips and actionable advice from industry experts to help you improve your race - one episode at a time.

Head Start is produced by RaceDirectorsHQ.com, an online resource platform and community network for race directors and race management professionals.

Welcome to “The Future of Running” podcast on Head Start presented by Brooksee and hosted by Phil Dumontet.

In this episode, Phil sits down with Scott DeRue, CEO of the Ironman Group — a brand so deeply rooted in endurance sports that thousands of athletes have tattooed its logo on their skin — to discuss how community, identity, and experience are driving Ironman’s next chapter.

What does it take to turn a race brand into a global lifestyle movement? Why is Ironman focused not just on being the biggest, but also the most loved brand in endurance sports? And, as technology, access, and expectations shift, what will it feel like to stand on an Ironman start line in 2035?

Also in this episode: how Ironman is doubling down on emotional connection, and storytelling to fuel long-term growth, and what lessons endurance events can learn from Taylor Swift fandom, Formula 1 drama, and NBA player-driven narratives. Don't miss this thought-provoking conversation!

Send us a text

Welcome to “The Future of Running” podcast on Head Start presented by Brooksee and hosted by Phil Dumontet.

In this episode, Phil sits down with Bill Quinn, Futurist at TCS — the global tech force behind the New York, London, and Sydney marathons — for a bold exploration of what’s next in race technology. From drones and AI to digital twins and smart hydration systems, this is a deep dive into the future of major race experiences, including what that might look like for Boston.

What if AI could assign your start corral? What if digital twins could simulate entire races before a single step is taken? Could drones and robotics revolutionize everything from aid stations to medical response? Bill shares how these technologies are being prototyped today — and how soon we might see them in a race near you.

We also unpack the big-picture questions: How can new tools make marathons more inclusive and accessible? What role will spectators play in an era of real-time, hyper-connected cheering? And what can wars and rapid global crises teach us about how quickly sports technology can evolve? A must-listen for anyone shaping the next era of endurance events.

Send us a text

Welcome to "The Future of Running" podcast on Head Start presented by Brooksee and hosted by Phil Dumontet.

In this episode, Phil sits down with Jack Fleming, President and CEO of the Boston Athletic Association and the driving force behind the Boston Marathon — the oldest and most storied marathon in the world — to discuss how this legendary race is embracing innovation, inclusion, and intention to shape the future of the sport while honoring its 127-year legacy.

What happens when the world’s most historic marathon sets its sights on the future? Jack shares how Boston is breaking new ground while keeping its iconic character intact — introducing para programs that redefine inclusion, celebrating every finisher with the roar of a stadium, and putting mental health at the heart of the next running wave. He also reveals which classic distance is poised for a revival, and how charity running is transforming from a fundraising obligation into a powerful community opportunity.

Packed with rare behind-the-scenes insights, this conversation offers race directors and event leaders a front-row seat to the strategies powering the Boston Marathon’s next chapter. Whether you lead a local 5K or a world major, Jack’s approach to balancing legacy with innovation will leave you inspired to lead your own event into the future.

Send us a text

Welcome to "The Future of Running" podcast on Head Start presented by Brooksee and hosted by Phil Dumontet.

In this episode, Phil sits down with Mike Nishi, Chief Operating Officer of Chicago Event Management and a legendary force behind the Bank of America Chicago Marathon for over 30 years. It’s a masterclass in leadership, legacy, and long-term thinking from one of the most respected figures in global marathon production.

What do you do when your race is already sold out? How do you keep innovating when demand is at an all-time high? Mike reveals a strategy that’s redefining what value means for major events — and why it’s just as relevant for smaller races. He also shares his full race operations playbook, packed with practical insights every race director can take home.

From turning volunteers into VIPs to building one of the world’s most sustainable marathons, Mike walks through the smart, intentional moves that have made Chicago a global leader. And he doesn’t stop there — he also unveils his bold 100-year vision for the Chicago Marathon, offering a powerful example of legacy thinking in action. Don’t miss this inspiring conversation.

Send us a text

Welcome to "The Future of Running" podcast on Head Start presented by Brooksee and hosted by Phil Dumontet.

In this episode, Phil sits down with Rob Simmelkjaer, CEO of New York Road Runners for a supercharged deep dive into the future of running.

What will the next decade of running look like? Why is NYRR producing a film for Tribeca? Can races go fully carbon neutral — and how soon? From media savvy to mental health, fan engagement to climate action, Rob shares visionary insights and hard-earned lessons from his Olympic broadcasting days to his current leadership of the world’s largest running organization.

Also in this episode, how one smart registration question can unlock a content goldmine, what race directors can learn from ESPN, and two bold ideas that could reshape the entire sport. Don’t miss this inside look at where the sport of running is headed — and how you can be part of shaping it.

Send us a text

Welcome to "The Future of Running" podcast on Head Start presented by Brooksee and hosted by Phil Dumontet.

In this episode, Phil sits down with Dawna Stone, CEO of Abbott World Marathon Majors. Together, they unpack the latest milestones in global marathon events, including Sydney’s entry as the seventh major and the tantalizing possibility of Cape Town joining next. What does it take to become a World Marathon Major? And what’s the bold vision behind a possible Nine Star Medal?

Dawna and Phil also dive into some of the biggest trends shaping the future of running — from the rise of Gen Z runners and their mental health-driven motivations, to tech innovations like real-time glucose tracking and performance-boosting nutrition strategies. What does the future hold for race formats, participation, and the marathon experience itself?

This episode is a must-listen for race directors who want to stay ahead of the curve. With insider insights from one of the most influential leaders in the sport, plus practical takeaways on race excellence and community impact, it’s packed with ideas to inspire your next big move.

Send us a text

In 1897, the Boston Athletic Association, then only ten years old, decided to organize the first ever Boston Marathon, thus giving birth to the longest continuously running marathon in the world. Of the 15 people who took part in the race, ten finished. And to commemorate the achievement of its members in that inaugural Boston Marathon, all ten finishers came away with a medal, thus giving birth to one of the most enduring traditions in mass participation sports: the finisher medal.

So, what makes a great medal? How should you choose a medal that works best for your race’s theme and budget? What kinds of things should you look out for in designing your medal and managing those all-important order quantities and delivery timelines? And how can you use your most important race bling to attract new participants to your event?

That’s what we’re discussing today with my guests, mother and daughter, Kim and Morgan Ashworth of veteran medal suppliers’ Ashworth Awards. Now in its third generation, Ashworth Awards has been the go-to medal supplier for some of the greatest races in the United States for over 60 years. And with Kim and Morgan’s help we’ll explore every aspect of race medals, from production and design to order management and - seeing as the world’s heading that way - the effect tariffs may already be having on the price and availability of that all important finisher bling.

In this episode:

Pros, cons and costs of different types of medals: die-cast, stamped, acrylic, wooden medals.
Medal platings and colours
How race medals are produced
The popularity and versatility of utility medals
Made in the USA dimensional steel medals
The effect of tariffs on medal imports and costs
Working with a vendor to design your race medal
Obtaining samples before a production run
Managing order quantities and lead times
Tips for reusing and recycling leftover medals
Pros and cons of ordering through a vendor vs ordering directly from an overseas manufacturer
Using your medal in your race marketing
Offering personalized medals

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Brooksee, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 28,000 events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Brooksee are the timing technology industry-leader, bringing affordable real-time tracking and timing checkpoints to races with their patented iPhone-sized micro checkpoints. Find out more and get 50% off your timing for your next event at https://www.brooksee.com/headstart.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about liability waivers or anything else in our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/racedirectorshq/

Send us a text

Welcome to "The Future of Running" podcast on Head Start presented by Brooksee and hosted by Phil Dumontet.

In this episode, Phil sits down with Stacey Embretson, Senior Director of Operations for the LA Marathon, to go behind the scenes of one of the most iconic races in the country, exploring how the LA Marathon has evolved since 2008 and where it's headed next.

What does the future of major city marathons look like? How do you innovate in an event with decades of history, while keeping pace with the new technology and runner expectations? And, how do you navigate complex, multi jurisdictional logistics while adapting to climate change and wildfires?

Whether you're a race director and event organizer or just passionate about where endurance sports are headed, this episode is packed with insights into what it really takes to put on the races of the future.

Send us a text

Today we have something a little bit different for you: we are announcing the upcoming release of “The Future of Running” mini podcast series, a limited, five-episode podcast series hosted by Brooksee CEO, Phil Dumontet, here, on your Head Start podcast feed.

Many of you may know Phil personally or may have heard of his work (or may even have listened to him on this podcast discussing the growth of his Boulderthon race). If you have, you would know Phil as a very energetic, forward-looking leader in our industry. So putting him in the driving seat of his own mini interview series and benefitting from his perspective and that of the great guests he’ll be hosting I’m sure will add a lot of value to the podcast and to your listening time.

Send us a text

RunSignup’s annual RaceTrends report is the closest thing we get in the endurance events industry to a market-wide survey of what is happening in events and event participation. And the latest RaceTrends report for 2024 is out, shedding a unique light into the long-term trends taking shape in the race management industry.

So, how are we doing? Is the COVID-era hangover well and truly behind us? What do the numbers say for current and future participation growth in endurance events? And are the bullish pricing trends we saw in 2023 still holding up in 2024?

With me today to discuss all this and more is RunSignup’s Director of Marketing, and person responsible for this very important piece of research, Johanna Goode. And with Johanna’s help we’ll be making sense of the numbers, diving deep into some of the most important factors driving industry trends, and thinking through some of the implications of these findings for the future of endurance events.

In this episode:

On the right track: strong growth in participation carries through to 2024
Repeat participation across different event distances
What is holding back growth in larger events?
Understanding regional differences in event participation growth
Promoting locally: reaching out to local running clubs, other events and timers
Using referral rewards to grow your race
Are events getting better at attracting younger runners?
Registration patterns: are runners really procrastinating in signing up?
The importance of keeping registrations open as long as possible.
Year-on-year entry fee changes across different event distances
Keeping race costs down through optional swag
Could introducing more price increases lead to more registrations?
Mobile registrations: using Apple Pay vs storing credit card details
Price transparency laws: what they are, and how they will affect the presentation of registration prices for your race
The decline of social media traffic to race websites

You can download the full 2024 RaceTrends report for free: https://runsignup.com/trends

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Brooksee, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 28,000 events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Brooksee are the timing technology industry-leader, bringing affordable real-time tracking and timing checkpoints to races with their patented iPhone-sized micro checkpoints. Find out more and get 50% off your timing for your next event at https://www.brooksee.com/headstart.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about liability waivers or anything else in our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/racedirectorshq/

Send us a text

When it comes to putting on races, obtaining a permit (or permits, as the case may be) is one of the most fundamental aspects of the race planning process. However, with increasingly busier local event schedules and ever-changing permitting requirements, obtaining a permit for any event is becoming both costlier and more complicated than ever.

So, how can you best navigate the event permitting process? What things do you need to prepare for and focus on before reaching out to your local council or police department? And how do you manage the timeline of permit approvals alongside the 10,000 other balls you’re juggling in delivering your race?

That’s what we’re discussing today with my guest, Glass City Marathon award-winning race director, Clint McCormick. It’s a pleasure to welcome Clint back to the podcast for our first episode of 2025 and to be able to share in his expertise in the topic of permitting.

With Clint’s help we’ll be looking at all aspects of the permitting process, from figuring out whom to contact first and when, understanding what authorities might expect from your event, preparing your application in a way that gives you the best chance of success, as well as managing a denial of permit deep into your event planning cycle, should you be unfortunate enough to have to face such an eventuality.

In this episode:

Do you really need a permit to operate your race?
Who issues permits and where to go to get started.
The curious case of the the Malibu Triathlon permit switch.
How the proliferation of events strains local communities and increases competition for permits.
What things you need to have ready to get started with the permitting process.
How early should you look to start the permitting process?
How to handle the uncertainty of permit approvals while planning your race.
Does your experience as a race director factor into the permitting process
What other factors can improve (or hurt) your chances of obtaining a race permit?
Does securing a permit this year give you a head start in securing a permit next year?
Alternative routes and weather contingency plans in your permit application.
Appealing against a permit application rejection.
What to do if your permits are rejected at the last minute.

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Brooksee, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 28,000 events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Brooksee are the timing technology industry-leader, bringing affordable real-time tracking and timing checkpoints to races with their patented iPhone-sized micro checkpoints. Find out more and get 50% off your timing for your next event at https://www.brooksee.com/headstart.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about liability waivers or anything else in our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/racedirectorshq/

Send us a text

Running USA’s annual Global Runner Survey has always been an important gauge of runner attitudes and trends for the endurance events industry. And in 2024, following some key content additions, the report is more valuable than ever.

So, how can you leverage runners’ fitness and social habits to increase the reach of your event? What is it that runners really value in a race? And how can you remove obstacles holding back your race’s growth from its full potential?

That’s what we’re discussing today, alongside a plethora of interesting data points from the 2024 Global Runner Survey with the help of my guest, Running USA Director of Operations, Michael Clemons. Michael - soon to be Dr.Clemons PhD - is an endurance events man through and through, having held various roles in the industry in a career spanning over a decade, and in his latest role at Running USA has been responsible not only for Running USA’s marquee industry conference, but also all pieces or Running USA research, including the Global Runner Survey.

And with Michael's help we’ll navigate the most important findings of the report, tracking annual trends in runner habits and preferences as they evolve over time, as well as trying to make sense of what the numbers mean for your race, in terms of concrete, actionable takeaways.

In this episode:

The Global Runner Survey: what it is and how it is compiled
Demographics of survey respondents: age, gender, income, ethnicity
What increased inclusion means for running events
Making group runs part of the event lifecycle
Promoting your race where runners are: gyms, fitness centers, race expos
The growth of recreational running vs competitive running
Runners' top criteria for choosing what race to enter
What runners value in a race: swag, water stations, hygiene facilities
Runner's entry fee expectations
How far runners will travel for 5Ks, marathons, ultras
The importance of solid pre- and post-race communications
Income-based entry fees and other ways to broaden race participation
Understanding runner sub-segments with the help of runner personas

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Brooksee, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 28,000 events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Brooksee are the timing technology industry-leader, bringing affordable real-time tracking and timing checkpoints to races with their patented iPhone-sized micro checkpoints. Find out more and get 50% off your timing for your next event at https://www.brooksee.com/headstart.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about liability waivers or anything else in our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/racedirectorshq/

Send us a text

A couple of episodes back, we looked at event liability insurance: why it’s important that your race is covered by a robust liability insurance policy, the circumstances under which a liability policy would kick in, and what happens when it does.

But there was a significant part of that discussion we only briefly touched on in that episode, and that was the importance of supporting your liability protection with the use of a liability waiver.

So, what is a liability waiver? What needs to be in it? And how does a waiver protect you, the organizer, should a participant or volunteer decide to pursue legal action against you?

That’s what we’re discussing today with my guest, industry veteran Laurel Park. Laurel is not only an experienced academic researcher in data analysis and survey design, but also an incredibly active member of our industry, having served as the President of the Ann Arbor Track Club and a long-time contributor to Road Race Management.

During her work, Laurel has developed a keen interest and expertise in liability waivers for races and with her help we’ll take a look at what waivers can and cannot protect you against, the different aspects involved in drafting a solid liability waiver, and how waivers work alongside your liability insurance policy to deter and defend against frivolous litigation directed against you and your company.

In this episode:

Waivers: your first line of defense
Waivers in contract law
Participant waivers vs volunteer waivers
Understanding and laying out your event's "inherent risks"
Waivers for minors and kids runs
The legal enforceability (or un-enforceability) of waivers
Ordinary negligence vs gross negligence
Waivers and insurance: one or the other, or both?
Using waivers to support insurance claims
Are online waiver signatures as good as paper waiver signatures?
The pros and cons of using waiver templates

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Brooksee, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 28,000 events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Brooksee are the timing technology industry-leader, bringing affordable real-time tracking and timing checkpoints to races with their patented iPhone-sized micro checkpoints. Find out more and get 50% off your timing for your next event at https://www.brooksee.com/headstart.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about liability waivers or anything else in our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/racedirectorshq/

Send us a text

If you’ve ever directed even a single race, there’s a good chance you would have received at least one email from a frustrated participant complaining about the distance they ran not matching your race advertised distance. They do have a GPS watch, you know.

And although it’s easy to jokingly dismiss these kinds of demands - most people do - there often is an uncomfortable point to the complaint: How do you know the actual distance of your race course, if it hasn’t been accurately measured and certified?

The answer, of course, is you can’t really know. In fact, if empirical evidence from professional course measurers offer any kind of hint, it is that your actual course distance is likely much more off the distance you advertise than you think - most likely much shorter than the advertised distance.

So what’s involved in getting your race course professionally measured and certified? Why don’t all the other methods we’re all familiar with, like drawing lines on a map or using a measuring wheel, work as well? And, at the end of the day, do participants really care whether your course is actually 10K rather than 9.8?

That’s what we’re discussing today with my guest, Matt Slocum of Precision Course Design. Matt, although a very accomplished runner, is a relative newcomer to the business of races, but what he lacks in industry mileage he more than makes up for in his dedication and obsession with the craft of course measurement. And with Matt’s help we’re going to be going behind the scenes of a race course measuring operation to look at how professional course measurement works, why most other DIY methods tend to underestimate the distance of a race course (often by a lot), and how investing a modest amount in professional course measurement can actually benefit your race for years to come.

In this episode:

Do your participants care about an accurately measured course?
What types of races is course measurement relevant for?
The process of professional course measurement: how it all works
Why the course you've measured yourself on a map is probably short
Designing a road course to match the race distance you aim for in your event
How course certification works
The cost of measuring and certifying your race
Making small changes to a certified course

To find a course measurer in your region, use the links below:

USA: rrtc.net
UK: coursemeasurement.org.uk
Canada: athletics.ca

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Brooksee, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 28,000 events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Brooksee are the timing technology industry-leader, bringing affordable real-time tracking and timing checkpoints to races with their patented iPhone-sized micro checkpoints. Find out more and get 50% off your timing for your next event at https://www.brooksee.com/headstart.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about event sustainability, zero waste or anything else in our Facebook group,

If there’s one thing you can’t have enough of as a race director, it’s race insurance. Particularly - knock on wood - when the unexpected happens and you’re faced with a dreaded lawsuit that threatens to take away your livelihood and your piece of mind.

So how can you best protect yourself and your business from the risks associated with putting on a race? What will your standard event liability policy cover? What does it exclude? And how should you expect to be protected against legal and medical claims should your race be held liable for a participant injury or loss of property?

That’s what we’re discussing today with my guest, Nicholas Hill Group partner and event insurance veteran, Nathan Nicholas. Through Nicholas Hill Group, Nathan has helped develop some of the most robust and widely-used specialist insurance policies for the endurance events industry, and with his help we’ll try to understand where the boundaries of liability insurance protection lie for you, the event organizer; how event liability insurance ties in with other types of business insurance you may be buying; how the type of race you put on affects the cost and availability of insurance cover you might find in the market; and how the diligent use of participant waivers and incident documentation can help reduce the risk of frivolous lawsuits being filed against you.

In this episode:

Event liability insurance: what it is and what kinds of contingencies it covers
How event liability insurance differs from Business Owner's Policies (BOPs) and other types of general business insurance
Will an event liability policy cover me for event-related work outside of race day?
Will an event liability policy cover volunteers, spectators and third-party vendors on site on race day?
Negligence and gross negligence in the context of liability insurance.
Understanding an event liability policy: deductibles, claim limits, additional insured's.
Getting insurance for obstacle races, ultramarathons, night races, races serving alcohol.
Liability waivers: do they work?
What to do (and not to do) when sued for liability by a participant or other party.
How are your legal costs covered in the event of a lawsuit? Will you have to pay out of pocket?
Does a virtual race need liability insurance?
Race cancellation insurance: what it is and what it covers
Will a race cancellation insurance policy cover the costs of postponing instead of cancelling a race?

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Brooksee, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Brooksee are the timing technology industry-leader, bringing affordable real-time tracking and timing checkpoints to races with their patented iPhone-sized micro checkpoints. Find out more and get 50% off your timing for your next event at https://www.brooksee.com/headstart.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about event sustainability, zero waste or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

When doors start dropping off planes mid-air or your favorite online retailer gets in touch to let you know your personal details may have been compromised, it’s tempting to think you may have done a better job handling that crisis were you in their shoes.

But how well-prepared are you really to manage the many crises that can come up during the planning and delivery of your race? Anything from a late delivery of medals or an unfortunate slip-up on social media to a full blown race cancellation.

That’s what we’re discussing today with my guest, PR pro Meg Treat of Treat Public Relations. Meg has been on the podcast before, discussing DIY PR strategies for race directors, and in today’s episode she joins me once more to discuss crisis communications, that is, what you should and shouldn’t do when a crisis hits.

How early should you look to communicate the situation to your participants and stakeholders? How should you go about doing it? And is the much-revered total transparency approach your best bet out of a tricky spot?

In this episode:

Crises big and small: what constitutes a crisis?
Are social media making crises worse and more frequent?
Navigating safely around the culture war minefields
To comment or not to comment: does acknowledging a crisis make it worse?
Getting ahead of a crisis: how early should you start communicating about a potential crisis?
Turning a crisis into an opportunity
Are there lesser or "almost" crises you can ignore?
Balancing financial loss against reputation loss in a race cancellation
The importance of a well-thought-out refund policy
Showing empathy towards your participants when something goes wrong that may affect their race
Taking ownership gracefully and staying out of the blame game
Writing a crisis communications plan

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about some of the things discussed in today’s episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

It’s that time of the year again. RunSignup’s annual RaceTrends report is out for 2023, and it’s larger and more comprehensive than ever before!

Among the most notable trends highlighted in the report we see registrations for 2023 races up from 2022 and tantalisingly close to 2019 levels, entry fees continuing to climb across most race distances and event types, and encouraging trends in younger runner participation first seen in 2022 carrying through to 2023 numbers.

With me today to go through the data, the trends and their implications, I’m delighted to welcome back to the podcast RunSignup’s Director of Marketing, Johanna Goode. Among other things, Johanna is the person we all have to thank for compiling this invaluable piece of industry research each year, and with her help we’ll try to get a feel for where the industry ended up in 2023 and make sense of what the future might hold for race directors in 2024 and beyond.

As with RaceTrends reports we’ve looked at in the past in the podcast, we’ll only have time to go through the most important highlights from the report, so if you’d like to get your hands on the full set of findings, head over to runsignup.com where you’ll be able to find and download your free report copy.

In this episode:

The methodology and data behind RunSignup's RaceTrends report
Are we back to 2019 registration levels?
Are race timing companies disappearing?
Repeat participation numbers across different events and how to increase repeat participation in your races
The importance of integrated email marketing
Why are larger races continuing to lag behind smaller races in participation growth?
Are virtual events still around?
Participation trends in the 18-29 age group and how to foster higher participation among younger runners
Are people registering later than they used to?
Entry fees are going up, while the number of price increases is going down
The rise of mobile registrations and how to optimise your race website for mobile users

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about some of the things discussed in today’s episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

With more than 2 billion monthly active users (MAUs), Instagram has secured a comfortable lead as the social media platform of choice for the vast majority of online-active almost-30s and 30-somethings out there. And with Instagram’s core audience slowly aging to match running’s demographic sweet spot, it’s really important your race gets its Instagram strategy right soon, if you have an Instagram strategy at all.

So, how do you master Instagram’s highly-visual storytelling to reach new audiences on the platform? How do you build a consistent brand voice with all the tools Instagram has to offer? And how do you leverage running influencers, user-generated content, freelance contractors and free-to-use graphical design tools to make the most of the limited time and money you can commit to the platform?

That’s what we’ll be discussing today with returning guest and resident race marketing expert, Andy Reilly. Through his race marketing agency, Eventgrow, Andy has planned and executed online marketing strategies for some of the country’s top running events, including the Buffalo Marathon, Run Catalina and the San Francisco Marathon, and in his past appearances on the podcast has contributed to some of our most popular episodes, most recently a Facebook marketing two-parter that is a must listen if your race is doing anything on Facebook.

But, today it’s all about Instagram, and with Andy’s help we’re going to be looking at Instagram from the very high level of strategy and using Instagram alongside Facebook and your other marketing channels, all the way down to the nitty-gritty of image selection, contrast plays, picking catchy headlines and even what types of faces work best on an Instagram ad. Not to mention a very practical 101 crash course on using microinfluencers to extend your brand reach.

In this episode:

The evolution of Instagram audience demographics over the years
Instagram vs Facebook from a user perspective
Easy-win content ideas for starting out on Instagram
Including (or excluding) Instagram placements on ad manager
The most efficient way to pick copy/images for your Instagram ad
Writing copy that works and picking the right creatives
Picking images that work: leveraging contrast, choosing happy faces, hero images
Thinking through your Instagram ad funnel, CTAs
Working with freelancers and contract graphic designers
Planning your growth path and spending money on marketing
The importance of using Instagram filters consistently and aligning your style with your brand
Driving engagement through humor
Sharing user-generated content
Microinfluencers: what are they, where to find them, and what to offer them
Using microinfluencers to generate authentic, engaging content for your race
Assessing ROI for your microinfluencer spend

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about some of the things discussed in today’s episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

As a race director, few things in the race planning lifecycle can be as exciting and enjoyable as designing a brand new race course. From picking a start area to mapping out race distances and figuring out where to place amenities, such as aid stations, race course design constitutes an important first step in shaping your race’s identity - one that will likely affect all aspects of your race experience, safety planning and logistics for years to come.

So, how do you nail this critical first step in making your race a reality? How do you design a course that is as enjoyable for participants on the main stage, as it is safe, practical and easily accessible for you, your team and emergency services behind the scenes?

That’s what we’ll be discussing today with my guest, DMSE Sports’ Director of Events, Meryl Leventon. As industry people go, Meryl’s a Swiss army knife when it comes to race planning and race day ops, and with tons of experience and a plethora of events under her belt, Meryl will help lay out for us the most important principles of effective race course design, from designing for speed and a great race experience to delivering a course that respects host communities and works well in emergencies, should things happen to go wrong around the race.

In this episode:

Deciding on a type of course: know your town, know your market
Working with local authorities on approving your course
Picking and planning out your start/finish areas
Designing your course for a specific distance
When you should (and needn't) certify your course
How to combine different race distances on the same course (and how to think about start times)
Fixing course bottlenecks with a good wave start plan
Responsible course planning: communicating with and minimizing disruption for local communities
Publishing race day road closures through Google Maps, TomTom and other popular mapping sources
Incorporating spectator zones in your course plan
Designing for safety: emergency planning, access lanes and coordinating with emergency services
Laying out alternate course contingencies in case of weather disruption
Designing your course on Google Maps

Meryl's lululemon 10K Scottsdale Google Map:

Public version: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1Ousob6UVaQdHUBuUDL6tByBZfwdPx_A&usp=sharing
City, police and internal team version: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1M9T2BNTHaEo-6JIMmRZkgjuXlXfwx6g&usp=sharing

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about some of the things discussed in today’s episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Building a race from the ground up, as anyone who’s done it will know, is a tough business. But what about planning, coordinating and growing a whole series of races, all with a common theme and brand identity?

How do you finance and grow multiple races from scratch? How do you choose when and where to launch a new race? And how can you make use of local delivery partners to deliver new races on a budget, while ensuring your quality standards and vision are adhered to?

That’s what we’ll be discussing today with my guest Sam Heward. As the co-founder of Ultra X, the multi-stage ultraramathon world series, Sam has been at the forefront of one of the fastest-growing race series concepts of the last few years, and with his help we’re going to be taking a deep dive into the benefits and challenges of setting up a race series from scratch, including the constant strive for brand consistency, the process of cross-pollinating ideas and small successes between events, and some of the difficulties of coordinating equipment, staff and sponsorship sales across multiple event locations.

In this episode:

Spotting gaps in the endurance event market
Putting together a business plan and testing the waters
Developing a brand that matches the race series' values and mission, and sets it up for long-term success
Finding your race series' unique selling proposition in a crowded market
Growing a race series through repeat participation
Engaging with your audience through multiple channels year-round
Outsourcing event planning and operations to local event delivery partners
Using registration fees to bootstrap growth
Learning and iterating faster with multiple similar events around the year
The challenges of negotiating series-wide sponsors across multiple regions

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about some of the things discussed in today’s episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

First run on a whim in 1982 by Oregon Road Runners Club president Bob Foote with only 8 teams participating in the inaugural race, Hood to Coast has grown from modest beginnings to become a huge success story. More than 40 years on, the race that has come to be known affectionately as “the mother of all relays” now attracts more than a thousand teams from over 40 countries to what is one of the most spectacular 200 mile courses from the top of Mt Hood to the Pacific Ocean.

So what’s the secret sauce? What is it about this race being able to sell out for the last 30 of its 40 odd race editions? And how is it even possible to pull off recruiting 3,600 volunteers, let alone training and managing them to a tee year in, year out with a core team of just a handful of people?

That’s what we’ll be digging into today with the help of my guest, Hood to Coast race director, Felicia Hubber. Felicia, being the daughter of the man who started it all and the person driving Hood to Coast’s expansion both domestically and overseas, has literally grown alongside Hood to Coast, having been born the same year as the inaugural event, and she’ll walk us through what makes Hood to Coast so special in the eyes of the thousands of people taking part, the appeal of the mountain-to-sea race concept, the mind-boggling complexities of putting on a relay race at this size, and Hood to Coast’s unique approach to volunteer recruitment and training.

In this episode:

The humble beginnings of the mother of all relays
Hood to coast: 200 miles from the top of Mt Hood to the world's largest beach party in 36 hours
The complexities of relay events
Team-building at relays: reunions, families, military and corporate teams
Enforcing HTC's many strict race rules
Managing 3,600 volunteers along a 200 mile course
HTC's unorthodox approach to volunteer recruitment: requiring local teams to provide 3 volunteers each to qualify
Streamlining volunteer training via online video training courses
The economics of relay racing for race organizers
Transitioning HTC to a B Corp
Exporting the mountain-to-sea concept overseas: HTC's international expansion

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about some of the things discussed in today’s episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Racing has come a long way since the days when women were being told that running the marathon would cause your uterus to fall out. And with women now making up 54% of all race registrations in the US, according to RunSignup’s 2022 RaceTrends report, you’d think there’d be very little holding women back from racing in this third decade of the 21st century.

That, however, is not the reality for most women out there, according to today’s guest, SheRACES founder and GB team ultrarunner, Sophie Power. Whether it’s images of uniformly male start lines, lack of reasonable pregnancy deferral policies or unnecessarily aggressive race cut-off times, races still - knowingly or unknowingly - put up more visible and invisible barriers for female athletes than they should - or realize. And that means fewer women at start lines, fewer women signing up for races and fewer women thinking they belong in the world of endurance sports racing.

So what are those barriers holding women back and what can race directors do to remove them?

Well, the good news is we have a fairly good grasp of the former and some very easy fixes for the latter that in many cases require only a little thoughtfulness and little to no extra cost. Things like providing basic sanitary products for female athletes at toilet facilities and aid stations or trying harder to give female competitions the attention they deserve and female race finishers the properly fitting finisher shirt they have paid for. Simple things, in other words, that when implemented and communicated right can make female athletes feel more comfortable and more welcome in races.

In this episode:

Why inclusivity is good for business
The importance of using inclusive race imagery
How the wrong marketing copy/language can alienate participants
The effect of tight mid-course time cutoffs on slower runner participation
Using cut-off pace instead of cut-off time in race communications
Thinking harder about toilet facilities
Should race directors make sanitary products available on race day?
Offering female-fit finisher shirts
Why a lack of a pregnancy deferral policy is stopping women from signing up for your race
Could races be offering childcare support for athletes on race day?
Calling out verbal and sexual harassment in racing
Setting out race etiquette and a clear anti-harassment policy

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about some of the things discussed in today’s episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Nestled in a valley in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Boulder, CO, is often referred to as the fitness capital of the US. So it was a bit surprising to Phil Dumontet, a young East Coast entrepreneur moving to Boulder in 2017 to launch his smoothie bar business, to realize that Boulder, in all its glorious outdoorsy-ness and obsession with fitness, lacked a first-rate city marathon.

For most people, that would have been just a passing thought. But not to Phil, who made giving Boulder the downtown marathon it deserves a personal passion project.

Fast forward a few years and a pandemic later, and Boulderthon, as the race got to be called, has grown into Colorado’s largest fall race series. And today, with Phil’s help, we’ll be tracing Boulderthon’s remarkable growth journey, looking at the decisions and tactics that got it to where it is today, including the deliberate effort that went into creating alliances with local businesses and the local community, the insistence on including a marketing component to all partnership agreements with sponsors and external stakeholders, and Phil’s unrelenting focus on tracking ROI across the entirety of the event’s marketing spend, from online campaigns and podcast ads to distributing flyers and working with running influencers.

In this episode:

Identifying opportunities in an over-saturated running event market
Planning an inaugural event during the pandemic
The importance of sustainable growth: capping participant numbers to preserve event quality and race experience
Winning over the city, businesses and the local community
Managing the disruption of bringing a marathon to Boulder's busy downtown
Race marketing 101: starting with the product and leaning into your race's unique strengths
Using runner feedback to hone your race experience and marketing message
"Be where your runners are": promoting your race online and offline
Using coupons and dedicated registration links to measure ROI in grassroots marketing
Laying out year-round marketing campaigns on a marketing calendar
Seeking out and structuring win-win partnerships with local businesses, from gyms to cocktail bars
Cross-marketing: the secret ingredient in cash and in-kind sponsorships
Advertising on running podcasts and partnering with running micro-influencers
Making the case for race announcers
Including man-hours in your marketing campaign ROI
Attracting volunteer groups with branded aid stations

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about some of the things discussed in today’s episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

On April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs planted by brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tarnaev exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. In the devastation that ensued, three innocent people lost their lives, while 281 others were injured, in what was, and still remains, the biggest ever terrorist incident suffered by a mass-participation sporting event.

In the midst of all this, Boston Marathon race director, Dave McGillivray, and his team, working alongside emergency services, had to deal with a situation never before encountered by a race management team, while working under huge stress and personal risk to help runners with very little concrete information to go on on what had happened and what might be around the corner.

Today with Dave’s help, we’re going to be revisiting those remarkable events that took place 10 years ago that brought the horrors of terrorism into endurance events and forever changed the security protocols major mass-participation races around the globe have had to contend with ever since.

We’re going to be going over the dramatic minutes and hours following the bomb explosions at the 2013 Boston Marathon, the response of the race management team, lessons learned from dealing with uncertainty when every second counts, as well as look at the aftermath of those events on security measures for the 2014 race and other races around the world, the impact these measures have had on race experience, and the legacy of the 2013 bombings on Boston Marathon and beyond.

In this episode:

The amazing story of the Boston Marathon, the world's oldest annual marathon
Contingency planning and emergency protocols prior to 2013
The calm before the storm: going into the 2013 event in an upbeat mood following a near-canceled 2012 race
Scrambling for answers and loved ones after the bombs went off
Setting priorities in the immediate aftermath of the bombing
Stopping the race and redirecting runners
Working alongside and coordinating with emergency services
The importance of team training, planning and efficient communication in handling unforeseen emergencies
Improvising in the face of uncertainty
The impact of the bombing on runners, race staff and the city of Boston
Increasing security measures at the aftermath of the 2013 race
The effect of additional security measures on the race experience, race banditing
The legacy of the 2013 bombing on event operations and the "new normal"

Links:

Boston Athletic Association - https://www.baa.org/
DMSE Sports - https://www.dmsesports.com/
Dave McGillivray Finish Strong Foundation - https://www.davemcgillivrayfoundation.org/

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about this episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

If you’ve done the hard work of prospecting and soliciting sponsors, and got some of your prospects to engage with you, you may be forgiven in thinking your job is done.

Actually, that’s where the real work begins - understanding your sponsor’s needs and closing the deal with a sponsorship proposal that hits all the right notes.

So, how do you get into your sponsor’s head? How do you put together a sponsorship proposal that clicks with them, while maximizing the value you get out of a potential deal? And how do you gather clues on what a sponsor might be willing to pay, before you actually submit your proposal to them?

That’s what we’ll be discussing today with returning guest, Green Cactus CEO, Teresa Stas. It’s a pleasure to have Teresa back on the podcast after our very popular chat back in episode 40 last September on finding and approaching sponsors, and today we’re taking the next step on the sponsorship sales journey to look at the challenges and secrets behind researching, preparing and delivering a winning sponsorship proposal.

Among other things, we’re going to be looking at the all important discovery session, where you get to spend time understanding the sponsor’s needs before submitting your proposal, as well as some very useful tips on efficiently drafting customized proposals, and navigating the negotiations that hopefully will get to follow your proposal submission.

In this episode:

The importance of holding a discovery meeting with sponsors before sending out a proposal
Preparing for your sponsor discovery meeting
What questions to ask during the discovery meeting
Getting a feel for a sponsor's budget expectations
Easily customizing sponsorship proposals
The layout of a comprehensive sponsorship proposal
Dealing with sponsor radio silence and/or rejection
Negotiating sponsorship fees
Drafting a robust sponsorship agreement
Using sponsorship brokers

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about sponsorship proposals or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Selling merchandise is a great way to increase brand loyalty for participants outside race day, and, of course, a very good way to increase revenue from your event.

So, how do you get started selling race merchandise, both online, on packet pickup and on race day? How do you pick and test merchandise items that sell? And, very importantly, how do you manage inventory well to maximize sales while minimizing the risk of costly leftover items?

That’s what we’re going to be discussing today with my guest, Greelayer apparel President, and merchandising expert, Kim Bilancio. Kim has spent decades in the race apparel industry, where, among other things, she has been running the race merchandise programs for Hood to Coast and other prestigious events up and down the country.

And today Kim will be helping us get a feel for what race merchandising is, how it works, what types of events it is (and isn’t) best suited for, and how, when implemented right, it can help increase your race’s revenue, while giving your participants a piece of your race to keep, cherish and showcase year-round.

In this episode:

What race merchandising can do for your event
On-site (race day, packet pickup) vs online (registration flow, website) merchandise sales
Starting out selling race merchandise as part of your registration flow
Outsourcing merchandise sales to an apparel vendor vs doing it in-house
How small things like weather can affect merchandise sales
Guesstimating apparel sizes to order from past data and registration trends
What types of races merchandising is (and isn't) well suited for
Working on a commission vs flat-rate basis with merchandise vendors
Choosing where to set up your merch store on packet pickup and race day
Choosing products to sell in your merch store
Picking shirt styles and qualities for your store that work alongside your finisher shirt
The tech shirt vs tri blend debate
Including non-wearables in your merch offering
Including cycling kits and other specialized merch for multisport events
Printing items on-demand for registration flow merch stores
Shipping merch to participants pre-race day

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race merchandising, growing your race's revenu or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

From the minute the first participant shows up on race day till the time the last one leaves, responsibility for the wellbeing of everyone on and around your race course rests with you - the race director.

So, how can you make sure your medical preparations are up to scratch? How do you figure out how many - and what type - of resources to dedicate to your race? And where does your duty of care as the race organizer towards your participants even begin and end, practically, legally and morally?

That is what we’ll be discussing today with my guest, Natasha Beach. Besides being the medical director for such prestigious events and organizations as the Manchester Marathon, London Triathlon and Cancer Research UK, Natasha runs her own multi-award-winning event medical cover company, SportsMedics, as well as heading some of the most high-profile efforts to formalize race medical planning in the UK through her positions as Chief Medical Officer of England Athletics and medical advisor to UK Athletics.

In this episode:

Understanding the stress the human body goes through during a race
Why men are at a higher risk of suffering a medical incident during a race than women
How speed, herd mentality and participant excitement make everything worse on race day
How the incidence of specific medical issues evolves over the duration of a race
Duty of care: what is expected of you as the race director
The pitfalls of relying on public medical resources
Doctors vs nurses vs paramedics vs first-aiders: what's the difference?
Using in-house stuff and volunteers as your first-aid team on race day
Vetting third-party first-aid cover providers and medical companies
Working out how many and what types of medical resources you'll need
Sharing your race medical plan with emergency services
Collecting medical history notes from participants to use in case of an emergency
Requiring mandatory participant medical certificates: do they help?
Recording race-day medical incidents and compiling a post-race medical report

If you are based in the UK, you can sign Natasha's petition on extending regulation of health services to medical services at events here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/633938

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about medical, risk and contingency planning or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

If you’ve been following our industry updates on race and participation growth, you may have picked up on the fact that trail running, and trail races, have been doing particularly well over the last few years. In fact, trail racing seems to be one of the few spots within racing still growing at a healthy enough rate as other areas in racing are stagnating or slowly falling behind.

So, what is fueling trail racing’s amazing growth? How different are trail races to organize, promote and grow compared to your typical road race? And, despite the robust growth, what challenges, if any, does trail racing face as it matures into a more popular sport?

With me today to cover this very interesting ground is veteran trail runner, trail racer and trail race director, John Lacroix. Through his Colorado-based Human Potential Running Series, John has been at the helm of dozens of trail and ultra races through the years, and with his help we’re going to be taking a look at all aspects of the trail racing business, from the culture and community that has been at the core of the sport’s success to the nitty-gritty everyday details trail race directors have to contend with in operations, course maintenance and marking, and, of course, safety management.

In this episode:

The appeal of trail racing
Improving diversity and inclusivity in trail and ultra running
Is ultra running's inability to attract younger participants spelling trouble down the line?
The lack of dedicated educational materials and accreditation for trail race directors
The complexities (and costs) of obtaining permits for a trail/ultra race
The challenge of finding and attracting volunteers
Marking a trail/ultra running course (hint: it's not for the faint-hearted!)
Managing risk and keeping participants safe in a trail race
The economics of trail and ultra races
The reality of attracting sponsorship dollars in trail races
Marketing trail races: word of mouth, social media, race calendars, event cross-promotions
Race director collaboration in trail racing

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about the business of trail and ultra races or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Over the last decade or so, lots has changed in the social media landscape. Facebook has gone from exciting upstart to the mature granddaddy of social media, Instagram has grown by leaps and bounds to become the platform of choice for visually engaging content, and TikTok has emerged as the new contender in the battle for social media supremacy, favored mostly by younger audiences, looking for the next cool and exciting network to join.

So, how should your organic social media presence adapt to this ever-changing landscape? Should you still be spending time on Facebook? Should you be switching to an Instagram-first mentality? And what kinds of content should you post? How often? And with what purpose?

This and many many other questions is what we’ll be discussing today with the help of my guests, digital marketing pros Leigha Pindroh of Pittsburgh Marathon organizers P3R and Alex Ross of the Denver Colfax Marathon.

With tons of practical experience between them, Leigha and Alex are here to take us from high-level social media strategy all the way down to your everyday content writing tactics, including tips on managing your content schedule, mixing up value posts with marketing content, leveraging user-generated content, as well some off-the-beaten-track stuff you may not even be thinking about, like using LinkedIn to tap into your local corporate wellness market.

In this episode:

Is organic social media reach dead?
Understanding the effectiveness of your social media posts/campaigns
The most effective social media platforms for races: Facebook, Instagram
The challenges of making it on TikTok
Promoting your race to local businesses and corporates through LinkedIn
Engaging with your audience with Stories, Reels, polls
Types of content to put out through your social media
The 80:20 rule: posting 80% value posts (entertainment, education etc), 20% sales posts
Leveraging user-generated stories and other content
Hashtags, emojis: where to use and how
Designing content with an Instagram-first mentality
Planning your social media content schedule
Productivity tools: Hootsuite, Canva, Facebook Publishing tools

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about social media, digital marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

In a number of our past podcasts, we’ve touched on the issue of race waste - and specifically a particularly significant and persistent part of that issue which is water cup waste.

In an ideal world - or shall I say in a trail running world - we’d all love to put on cupless races, where racers themselves are responsible for bringing along their own water containers to the race. But, unfortunately, that high standard may be a little ways off still for the majority of road running and multisport races out there.

So what can we do to take some of the strain of water cup waste off of our industry?

One approach, coming out of Florida-based company Hiccup is reusable water cups, that is, durable cups that are collected, professionally sanitized and reused between races. And today I have the great pleasure of talking to the person at the forefront of that movement, Hiccup owner Kristina Smithe.

Kristina started Hiccup in 2019 through her frustration with the rate at which water cups were being consumed in races, and has since had her Hiccup silicon cups used in such great events as Grandma’s Marathon, Rocket City Marathon and Around the Crown 10K. And she’ll be telling us today how the Hiccup service works, from delivery to collection, and how you could potentially bring Hiccup’s reusable water cups to your race next year.

In this episode:

How Hiccup's reusable cup service works
What races Hiccup is best (and less well) suited for
Setting up Hiccup on race day
Runner's reviews of using Hiccups
Recovering, sanitizing and reusing Hiccup's silicon cups
Compostable vs reusable cups
The cost of bringing Hiccup to your race

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about sustainability, reducing race waste or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Gravel racing has been one of the fastest growing sectors in mass-participation sports over the last decade or so, particularly in the US, where high-profile races like UNBOUND Gravel, Rebecca’s Private Idaho and Belgian Waffle Ride have grown massively in popularity, attracting a broad range of both veteran and newcomer cyclists to the sport.

It’s against this backdrop that in 2019 professional road racer Amy Charity launched her own gravel race around the ski resort town of Steamboat Springs, CO, where she then lived. As Forbes magazine put it, SBT GRVL went on to become a remarkable overnight success, selling out in just 9 minutes in its second year and becoming one of the best gravel racing experiences in the world.

So what has been the secret to the race’s massive success? That’s what we’re here to find out with Amy’s help - and in the process learn a thing or two about the unstoppable sensation that is gravel racing.

In this episode:

An "overnight success": planning and launching SBT GRVL
The importance of local infrastructure in supporting a world-class race
Building community relations and being a respectful "guest" in the local community
The appeal and insane growth of US gravel racing
Road racing vs gravel racing vs mountain biking
How inclusivity helped propel gravel racing's growth
The cost advantages/disadvantages of organizing a gravel race vs a road race
Making SBT GRVL a more welcoming event for female athletes and newcomers
Including a non-competitive e-bike category into the event
Activating sponsorships year-round through grassroots and team-building events
Offering a VIP package/experience option
Bringing the SBT GRVL brand to Europe with FNLD GRVL

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about some of the things discussed in today’s episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Besides race medals and finisher shirts, the one experience item participants have come to expect from a race, particularly in this digital age, is a good set of professional race photos.

And perhaps because of the cultural changes that have come with the digital age, the purpose of race photography within the endurance events business has been swinging back and forth between race photos as a secondary revenue stream vs race photos as a marketing tool.

So, do you offer paid photos, as a means of boosting your current bottom line? Or do you give photos away for free, as a marketing investment aimed at higher participation growth in the future?

This and other questions is what we’ll be discussing today with the help of my guests, race director, race consultant and general race-jack-of-all-trades Josh Reed of On Path Events, and professional race photographer John Kelly of John Kelly Photos.

Among other things we’ll look at how modern race photography works, from snap to download, how you can work with your race photographer to create some really memorable shots for your participants, and, as mentioned earlier, we’re going to be looking at the various business models around race photography, how they’ve been trending lately, and which might be best suited for your event.

In this episode:

The difference between event promotional photos vs participant/race photos
Enhancing the participant race experience through race photos
Who buys race photos and why
The cost of race photography for different types of events
Looking at your course through the eyes of a race photographer
Picking good spots to shoot from
Creating spectator areas
Working with your race photographer
The journey of a race photo: from shooting through sorting and tagging to being delivered to participants
Is delivering race photos fast important?
Free participant photos: the argument for and against
Typical purchase rates for paid photos, and impression/download stats for free photos
Getting sponsors involved in race photos
The future of race photography

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race photography or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

If there’s one thing that often sets apart races that go on to do really well from others that struggle to gain traction in their community, it’s the ability of the former - and the inability of the latter - to engage with the non-race world. And nowhere is this more evident than the way in which events interact with local media.

The truth of the matter is, very few people participate in races. And very few people outside of those who do care about anything race-specific a race has to say.

So how can races hope to reach out to the broader public? What stories can they tell that are relevant to many more people than the ones who show up at the start line on race day? And how can you, armed with those stories, get out and pitch them to your local paper, radio or TV station?

That is what we’ll be discussing today with my guest Race El Paso owner, Gabriela Gallegos. Gabriela is a triathlon race director, so it’s not totally unfair to describe her audience as a bit niche, by broad-appeal standards. Yet, Gabriela managed to make triathlon the talk of the town in El Paso, TX through a series of media engagements culminating in the live broadcast of her all-female Mighty Mujer triathlon by her local NBC affiliate, an achievement for which she was recently recognized with USA Triathlon’s annual Innovation Award. And today she’ll be helping us break down the art of engaging local media, from finding the story to pitching the people that matter.

In this episode:

Why developing a local media strategy matters
Which kinds of stories get the local press excited (and which don't)
Being deliberate about bringing out the stories in your event
Human interest stories: what they are, and how to promote them
Writing engaging press releases: the 5Ws + who cares?
Beyond human interest stories: expert advice stories & op-eds
Matching the tone and content of your story to your target press outlet
Finding the right press contact and pitching your story to the press
Media alerts and monitoring online media
Working with TV stations on live race coverage

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about engaging local media or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Whether you’re putting on races through a for-profit or a nonprofit organization, having a good grasp of your race budget can often make the difference between a profitable bottom line and days of post-race head-scratching about what went wrong to land you in the red.

Admittedly, building and maintaining a race budget is not a lot of fun - not to most people, anyway - but it is something that has to be done, and has to be done right.

So to help us understand what “right” looks like for a race budget, I’ve got the pleasure of being joined in the podcast today by SRSE Sports’ Sean Ryan.

Sean has been a veteran of the industry with almost 20 years of experience in race directing, marketing, operations and financial planning, and was once hailed as “the most overeducated race director” in the industry, holding an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management. And today he’ll be helping us understand the value of good budgeting practices, how to put together a transparent and practically useful race budget, as well as sharing his thoughts on managing budget shortfalls and juggling the complexities of cost cutting while trying to maintain a quality race experience.

In this episode:

Why putting on races is a capital intensive exercise that requires sound budgeting
Where most race budgets fail: over-exuberance and erroneous assumptions
The importance of keeping an updated working copy of your budget at all times
Top line revenue vs bottom line revenue vs gross profit vs operating profit vs net profit
Organizing expenses by category: administrative, operating, marketing
Fixed vs variable expenses, and why fixed expenses can break your budget
What you should aim for for a healthy bottom-line profit
The perils of underspending on marketing
How to build a budget from the ground up
Calculating your budget breakeven point
Managing budget shortfalls
Transparent vs non-transparent cost cuts, and why, if you have to cut costs, you need to start with the latter
You can raise prices or reduce quality, but you should not try to do both
How to treat donations and in-kind sponsorship on your budget
The true cost of race volunteers

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race budgeting or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

When you want to know what’s happening and trending in the endurance events industry by the numbers, where do you turn to? Well, for me and many people I know, the definitive source of event data for the industry is, and has been for some time, RunSignup’s annual RaceTrends report.

The report leverages RunSignup’s extensive registration data from tens of thousands of events to point to trends in overall event participation, event pricing, participant demographics, registration trends and a myriad other things.

The most recent edition of the report was out a couple of weeks ago, and, despite a weak start to 2022, the data does seem to suggest that the post-pandemic industry recovery is picking up pace with some races recovering better than others and noticeable entry fee increases across the board on all race distances and disciplines.

With me today to discuss the numbers, the trends and their implications for individual events and the industry as a whole, I’m delighted to have RunSignup’s own Bob Bickel and Johanna Goode. Bob and Johanna will be helping me make sense of some of the more interesting data points in the report and offer their own takes on what the numbers might be telling us for where the industry could be heading in 2023 and beyond.

In this episode:

A few words about the RunSignup Roadshow
2022 overall registrations compared to 2021 and 2019
The outlook for registrations in 2023
Why registrations growth for larger events underperformed smaller races in 2022
Event churn (=percentage of races that haven't returned in consecutive years) since 2019 and 2021
Repeat participation trends, and why they matter
Virtual race participation stats
Increasing inclusivity in races and making the most of the post-pandemic running boom
Age group participation trends and Gen Z runners
When people register and how it's changed since the pandemic
Are higher entry fees having an impact on participation numbers?

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about the numbers in today’s podcast, registration trends or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

It isn’t every day that an entirely new mass participation racing concept emerges that can take the world by storm. But, that’s exactly what’s happened over the past few years with the rise of HYROX, a new racing format, combining functional fitness and endurance in an indoor mass participation race.

Launched in Germany in 2017 by veteran multisport race organizer Christian Toetzke with the help of co-founder Moritz Fuerste and a select team of colleagues, HYROX has exploded in popularity to become the fastest growing mass participation fitness concept in the world.

So what is HYROX? What makes it so special? How does it relate to other race formats out there like obstacle racing? And, how does the highly lucrative business of HYROX work? Well, we’re going to be going through all that and more today with the help of my guest, HYROX USA & UK Managing Director, Douglas Gremmen.

In this episode:

Combining fitness and endurance in coming up with the HYROX concept/format
The history of fitness racing before HYROX
Bringing mass participation racing to gym goers (and giving gym goers something to train for)
Rolling out HYROX in Europe, the US and the rest of the world
Obstacle races vs HYROX: differences and similarities
HYROX in the Olympics?
Designing a scalable race format: making workouts accessible, safe, easy to monitor and easy to transport between venues
Race timing in a HYROX race (it's complicated!)
Getting thousands of people around an indoor racing course
How large can a HYROX race get?
What it costs to enter a HYROX event (and what you get for it)
Involving spectators in the HYROX race experience
Growing HYROX internationally through franchisees
HYROX' gym partnerships driving growth and secondary revenue
A look at HYROX' growing competition

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about HYROX, the business of races or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

When races grow from scratch, particularly as passion projects, there often comes a time where growth grinds to a halt. Participation seems to gradually plateau around a few hundred participants and any progress beyond that seems impossible.

So, how do you break through this resistance point to grow a race from the hundreds to the thousands? What changes should you make to your team and event to take your growth to the next level? And how do you manage this next stage of growth while avoiding the pitfalls that come with growing too fast?

That’s what we’ll be discussing today with my guest, Glass City Marathon race director, Clint McCormick. When it comes to systematically scaling up races, Clint has been there, done that and got the T-shirt, having grown the Glass City Marathon from a club race of a few hundred runners to a nationally recognised event of almost 10,000 runners, while increasing revenues for the race by over 20 times in the process.

In our discussion today we are going to be touching on all the key elements for success in scaling up a race, including race branding and rebranding, building processes and systems for the long run, analyzing and reinventing your product offering to make it more appealing to sponsors, and using sponsorship to fuel your future growth. All this while putting safeguards in place to make sure you don’t grow too fast and get yourself into trouble.

In this episode:

Moving a race from volunteer staff to professional/paid staff
Understanding your brand and rebranding your race
Nurturing local runners from 5K through to longer-distance events
Examining your race distance offering and culling/adding events accordingly
Fueling growth through sponsorships, and building a product that sponsors want
Tips on scaling up your team
The pitfalls of growing too fast
Managing growth sustainably by capping participant numbers
Investing in race ambassadors and other grassroots marketing programs
In-house marketing vs employing a marketing agency

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about scaling up and the business of races or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

In RunSignup’s latest RaceTrends report, registration data showed that less than 13% of race participants in 2021 races fell within the 18-30 age group - a number that used to be almost 18% as recently as 2017, and keeps on falling.

So why is it that races fail to attract younger audiences?

That’s what we’ll be exploring today with the help of my guest Pacers Running Marketing Director, Ryan Callahan. Ryan and the Pacers Running team recently pulled off the remarkable feat of getting more than 40% of their DC Half start line made up of 18-30 runners, and we’ll be going over a number of deliberate strategic and tactical decisions the team took to encourage participation within that younger demographic. Among other things, we’ll look at intentional branding and website design as a means of appealing to younger runners, and initiatives undertaken by the team in offline as well as online marketing to reach that target demographic.

Today’s discussion probably doesn’t hold all the answers to this very complex challenge facing the industry, but there’s some very big clues in there about what races can do to improve their appeal among younger audiences.

In this episode:

Participation trends in the 18-30 age group
Why the Gen Z problem is fixable, and some races are doing better than others
How DC Half managed to attract 3 times more 18-30 runners than the US race average
The making of the DC Half brand
Being intentional with your event choices: race name, logo, swag, website, course design
Why it's important to keep your race website clear of information clutter
Beyond cliches: building a DC race from the perspective of a DC local
Checking boxes vs being thoughtful about your race swag choices
Offline marketing strategies for reaching 18-30 runners
Building an engaging race brand on Instagram
Leveraging community and grassroots efforts to reach your target audience

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about branding, marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Today, we are going to be taking a trip down memory lane, looking at some of my favourite podcast highlights from the past year. It’s been an amazing year for Head Start - our second year on the air - and, as we head into 2023, I wanted to say how grateful we all are at Race Directors HQ for your support of the podcast and everything else we do. So thank you guys for continuing to tune in and for your kind words about the work we do here at Head Start.

Of course, there’s a special thanks due to our awesome podcast sponsor RunSignup, so a big big festive year-end thank you to the amazing folks at Moorestown, NJ, helping us bring great content to the entire race directors community. This really wouldn’t have been possible with RunSignup’s support, and we’re very grateful to have such a great company on our side.

If you are looking to make a fresh start with your event technology partner in 2023, there’s no better place to look than RunSignup, so make sure to check out all their awesome technology platform has to offer your race by visiting runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about some of the things discussed in today’s episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

If you’ve been following the podcast for a while, you’ll know that what we try to do at Head Start is bring you actionable, expert advice you can learn from to grow and improve your race - hopefully, with a bit of entertainment on the side.

Today marks the first episode in a new way of helping you on your race director journey. Spotlight is a new type of episode where we go inside some of the most innovative, best run races and race concepts to learn how the things we touch on in other episodes, like building a sponsorship portfolio, developing a grassroots marketing strategy or elevating the race experience, actually work in practice when executed by some of the brightest leaders in the industry.

And in our first Spotlight episode, we travel to Charlotte, NC to see how race director Brian Mister has been re-imagining the urban 10K with his hugely successful Around the Crown 10K. In the short history of that event, Brian and his team have managed to build an event that is a masterclass in community engagement, practical inclusivity, sponsorship development and grassroots marketing. And I hope you’ll be as inspired by some of the initiatives undertaken by this amazing race as I have been getting to know more about it.

In this episode:

Putting on a race on the Charlotte inner beltway
Defining your mission statement - and staying true to it for the long run
Practical inclusivity: making your start line look like your community
ATC's First Timers Club, Pay What You Can, Stroller Division
Running a large paper-cupless road race
Rethinking offline marketing
Engaging a specialist marketing agency that understands running
The importance of Public Relations (PR)
Growing a diverse sponsorship portfolio
Valuing in-kind sponsorships
Auction-based marketing (made the term up, but it's an interesting concept)
The future of ATC10K

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about public relations, earned media or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

It’s another bonus episode for you today, and as we were discussing reducing your race’s carbon footprint last week, this week’s episode falls quite neatly in the same area of sustainability and decarbonization.

Today, I’m joined by race director, race timer and solar power enthusiast Lowell Ladd, of 2L Race Services, to talk about how you can switch your race day headquarters over to solar power, so that your entire race day operation runs on sun juice instead of diesel.

We’re going to be looking at the stepping stones to building out a solar power setup, from getting started on a single solar generator to gradually building out a full-fledged mobile solar power station. And we’re going to be answering your questions on the feasibility, reliability and cost of such a setup when it comes to powering race day.

In this episode:

The benefits of switching to solar power
Energy consumption by hardware, and what a solar-powered system could support, depending on size
The anatomy of a solar-powered setup: components, connectivity, outlets
The cost of building your DIY solar-based system
Panels: what to buy and how to scale up
Li-based vs acid-based batteries: pros and cons
Taking care of, maintaining and upgrading your setup

Additional resources:

Off-grid solar power resources: https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/
DIY solar power forum: https://diysolarforum.com/
Mobile Solar Power Made Easy (Book): https://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Solar-Power-Made-yourself/dp/1546567119/

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about setting up your race day mobile solar power system or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

In a previous episode of the podcast with guest Brian Schmidt of P3R, we saw how it is possible for even a very large race like the Pittsburgh Marathon to achieve zero waste status - that is, the goal of diverting more than 90% of total race waste away from landfill.

But what about carbon emissions? Is it equally feasible to aspire towards carbon neutrality, that is to say, putting on an event with net zero (or perhaps even negative) carbon footprint.

Well, that’s what we’ll be discussing today with my guest Porter Bratten, owner of Washington-based Blackfish Ventures and a passionate practitioner of sustainability in all the races he puts on. We’re going to be looking at what makes up a race’s carbon footprint, how to formulate a practically achievable carbon mitigation strategy, and how carbon offsetting can help bridge the gap to carbon neutrality where further improvements in lowering carbon emissions may not always be possible.

In this episode:

What contributes to your race's carbon footprint
Direct emissions, indirect emissions and purchased energy
Understanding which emissions you can measure and control
Estimating your race's carbon footprint
Making participant carpooling work
Offering a no-medal/no-shirt option
Green electricity: what it is, how much it costs and how to get it
Involving your participants in your sustainability strategy
How carbon offsetting works
Doing due diligence on and selecting carbon offset projects
Using carbon offsetting to offset participant travel and shipping emissions
Are participants wiling to pay a "sustainability premium" for greener races?
Making the most of sustainability sponsors

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about public relations, earned media or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Most races only come around once a year. So when you’re working to improve a race for your participants, you’ve got precious few opportunities to receive feedback from them. How do you use those opportunities right? And what feedback should you look to gather from them?

Well, my guest today, Laurel Park, has the unique privilege of being both a race director and a PhD in survey design, and has helped countless organizations develop effective surveys that leverage customer feedback to inform strategic decisions. As the President of the Ann Arbor Track Club, Laurel knows running and races inside out, and today she’ll help us understand how to craft an actionable race survey, how to maximize survey response rates, and how to avoid some of the common pitfalls of survey design, like asking things you shouldn’t care to know about or asking things you do care to know about in a way that delivers poor quality or unusable results.

If you do send out a race survey after your event, or have thought of doing so, this is an excellent crash course in getting the most of the one shot you get each year to gather productive feedback from your participants.

In this episode:

The purpose of a race survey
Working backwards from what you need to know to what you're going to ask
Collecting demographic information from respondents
Do people respond truthfully to surveys?
Reducing survey friction and question bloat
Avoiding distractions/cognitive load with clean survey styling
Types of questions to ask and areas to explore with your race survey
Avoiding leading respondents with biased question phrasing
Using open-ended vs close-ended questions
Best practices for sharing your race survey
Increasing survey response rates with incentives
Survey software options for designing your race survey
Analyzing and presenting survey results

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about designing race surveys or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Looking into the business of putting on races from the outside, as a passionate runner and racer, you might be mistaken in thinking that putting on races is a fairly straightforward, relaxing, comfortably profitable thing to do. I can hear some of you chuckling there…

Well, my guests today, brothers Jeremy and William Fermo, are exactly the type of passionate runner that would try to make a business out of directing races. Which is why in late 2021, they put aside their medical degrees and took the plunge into planning their first race, Shannon’s Run in Orange, Texas.

Coming into race directing with few preconceptions, they tried everything to make their inaugural race a success - including an early round of crowdfunding for their business, 3 Bros Running, and a go at securing local business grants to support their revenue.

The result? Not half bad - 366 signups from more than 40 cities across the state, and with that, a growing appetite for directing more and larger races.

If you’re just starting out as a race director, there’s valuable lessons here for you on the challenges and the joys you’ve got ahead of you, and the importance of focusing your planning on the things that matter. And, if you’re well into your long-term career as a race director, there’s a couple of interesting gold nuggets here for you as well - and perhaps a little nostalgia about why you went into this really special business in the first place.

In this episode:

Taking the plunge into race directing
The importance of focusing on the race experience
Launching a crowdfunding campaign to get the race off the ground
Going after local business grants
Putting yourself front and center of your race brand
Telling your race story through video on social media
Promoting your race like it's a Hollywood movie
Reaching out and pitching to local sponsors
Big learnings from the guys' first year in race directing

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about starting out in race directing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

“A game changer”, “TV on steroids”, “the future of content” and “ridiculously addictive”. That’s just a few ways to describe TikTok, according to my guest today, but, chances are, if you have teenagers in the house, you already knew that.

So what is so special about this app that has exploded in popularity over the last couple of years? Is TikTok really just a place for 12 year olds? And, very crucially, is it worth your time trying to market your race on the platform, and how do you go about it?

Well, we are going to be going through all that and much much more with my guest today, Oli Hills. As the CEO of a dedicated TikTok marketing agency, Nonsensical, Oli is here to tell you why short-form video is the future of content, and why TikTok is the place where it’s all going to be happening.

We’re going to be talking about how to produce content on TikTok, what kind of content works best, and how to scrap your preconceptions about TikTok demographics and video editing, and just take the plunge into a brave new world of marketing.

In this episode:

TV on steroids: how TikTok changed the social media game
TikTok's fastest growing demographics (hint: it's not teenagers!)
Nailing your niche and training TikTok to recognize your target audience
How to produce and publish videos using the TikTok app
Grabbing your audience's attention with snappy video hooks
Why short form video is the future (and why TikTok is the place to do it)
Boosting your video reach with Spark Ads
Cross-posting TikTok content to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram
What types of content to post on TikTok
Paid marketing on TikTok: creating ads, audience targeting, retargeting
The importance of getting in on TikTok early

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

If you have been putting on races for a while, it probably won’t surprise you to hear that organizing events is one of the most stressful jobs out there. How stressful? According to a 2019 survey by job searching site Careercast, it is in fact the 6th most stressful job you can do, less stressful only to careers like the military and firefighting.

So what makes putting on events so stressful? What toll is it taking on people like you, working every day to make amazing races happen? And what can you do to manage your stress levels long-term and avoid mental health decline?

Today we’re going to be going over all that in a really candid discussion on stress and mental health in our industry with the help of my guest, EventWell’s, Helen Moon. Helen has been working in the event industry in different capacities for decades, and as the Founder and Chief Executive of non-profit EventWell has most recently been focusing her energy on providing mental health support to event management professionals.

In this episode:

Why organizing events is an inherently stressful job
The sympathetic/parasympathetic system balance
The three stages of the stress response and how stress leads to burnout
The social stigma around talking openly about stress and mental health struggles
Good stress (eustress), bad stress (distress) and mental decline
Striving for excellence vs striving for perfection
Stress resilience through the lens of your "stress bucket"
The importance of sleep, nutrition and exercise in sustaining good long-term mental health
Breathing (really, it works wonders)

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about stress management, mental health or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Securing sponsorship is undoubtedly one of the toughest jobs on any race director’s plate. And finding and approaching sponsors, in particular, is probably the toughest bit of it.

Where do you even begin looking for good sponsor prospects? How do you know which person to contact? What do sponsors really want? And how do you make that first approach to maximize your chances of success?

We’ve got some awesome tips for you on all those burning questions and more from today’s guest, Teresa Stas. Teresa is the CEO of event sponsorship consultancy Green Cactus, she is also the author of “Sell Your Event!: The Easy To Follow Practical Guide To Getting Sponsors”, and she has spent her entire career helping events of all shapes and sizes land long-term sponsorship relationships, including Hood to Coast, the world’s largest relay race - now also a growing international relay race franchise.

In this episode:

Selling sponsorship = selling an audience
Figuring out your event's audience
How your audience's interests can guide your sponsor prospecting
Understanding your audience through surveys, Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, marketing personas
Putting together an introduction deck (not a sponsorship proposal!) for your event
Where to look and what to look out for when prospecting sponsors
In-kind sponsors, sustainability sponsors, media sponsors
Finding the right contact person inside each sponsor organization
Cold-calling vs cold-emailing sponsor prospects
How to cold-call and cold-email sponsors
Following up on your initial cold/email to sponsors
Making the most of sponsor rejections

Resources:

Make sure to visit https://www.greencactusca.com/resources for additional free resources from Green Cactus to help you with your sponsor prospecting.

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about sponsor prospecting or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

90% - keep that number in mind - that’s how much of your event waste you should be diverting away from landfill to be able to claim that your event is a zero waste event. Sounds tough? Easy?

For most races that’s a pretty high bar to clear - particularly as, when you start adding everything up, it quickly becomes apparent that a race can generate waste in many more ways than may seem obvious at first.

To see how a race might get to that zero waste goal, I’m joined today by P3R’s Director of Operations, Brain Schmidt. Brian and the P3R team have really been at the sharp end of event sustainability, having achieved a zero waste status for the very popular DICK'S Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon since before “event sustainability” was even a term!

With Brian’s help we’re going to be looking at a race’s more obvious - and less obvious - sources of waste, waste segmentation, recycling, composting and reusing waste materials, as well as the importance of joining forces with local agencies and businesses that share your sustainability goal.

And since making sustainability sustainable in the long term has to come with a dose of financial pragmatism, and a careful balancing act between respecting the environment and delivering a fun race experience, we’ll also look at things like sustainability sponsors and other ways to take some of the burden of achieving zero waste off your shoulders.

In this episode:

The biggest sources of race waste
How much waste does a typical race produce per participant
What zero waste means and what sources of waste go into the calculation of race waste
Recoverable vs reusable vs recyclable vs compostable race waste
Waste materials you may think is recyclable but isn't
Reducing cardboard packaging waste
Donating leftover swag and discarded clothing
Working with local sustainability organizations
Managing race purchases to reduce material leftovers
Premium giveaways vs tons of giveaways
Fewer water stations = less water station waste
Managing the cost of sustainability efforts through sustainability sponsorships

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about event sustainability, zero waste or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

In all walks of life, people love to stress the importance of data - knowing the hard facts and using evidence to make better, more informed decisions.

So, how well do you know your participants? How well do we all in this industry understand who runners are, what they really want out of our events, and what motivates them to choose one event over another?

Well, we’re going to be shedding some light into all that today as we go through the latest findings from Running USA’s 2022 Global Runner Survey with the help of my guest, Running USA COO Christine Bowen. It’s a great pleasure to have Christine join me for this discussion, as we touch on a number of very interesting data points, including how runners choose to enter events, how they perceive the value they receive from events, and how much price and other factors affect which and how many races they’ll be entering in the near future.

In this episode:

runners' expected event participation in the next 12 months
runners' favourite racing distances
top reasons why runners choose a race
runners' attitudes on swag, travel to events, VIP race experiences
runners' attitudes towards race fees and price increases
Gen Z runner attitudes and what this means for the future of racing

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about sponsorship or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Last week, if you happened to join us for part one of our two-part Facebook Ads podcast special, we set the scene by looking at Facebook marketing strategy, understanding sales funnels, planning and structuring ad campaigns, and mastering audience targeting.

This week, in part two of the discussion, it’s time to switch gears a bit and look at some more advanced topics around ad creatives, ad performance monitoring and optimization, and the very important, highly-converting area of ad retargeting.

Joining me again this week to discuss Facebook Ads is EventGrow CEO, Andy Reilly - and what a great pleasure it is to have Andy back on the podcast.

In this episode:

Focusing on the desirable "after state" in your ad creatives
Picking aspects of your race to highlight in your ad copy
Aligning your ad copy with your ad images
Creating video ads
Incorporating important race info in your ad
Deciding on, allocating and front-loading your ad budget
Running price-increase ad campaigns
Understanding your baseline target acquisition cost
The perils of shutting down your campaigns too soon (in less than two weeks)
Monitoring your ad KPIs: click rate, conversion rate, ROAS
Retargeting campaigns: spending little for high returns
Excluding registered participants from your custom audience campaigns
Lookalike audiences and why they often don't perform well for events
Common mistakes people make when running Facebook ads, and how to avoid them

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about paid marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

When it comes to spending money on marketing races, Facebook Ads remains the most popular choice for race directors and professional race marketers, regardless of race size or type.

So how do you make the most of the opportunities Facebook Ads has to offer for marketing your race in 2022 and beyond?

We’re going to be going over all that in a special two-part show on Facebook Ads with the help of my guest, EventGrow CEO, Andy Reilly. You may remember Andy from the very very popular marketing psychology episode - that was episode 25 back in February - and he’s with us again today and for our next podcast episode to really break down every aspect of Facebook Ads as it pertains to race marketing.

Today, for part one of the discussion, we’re going to set the scene by looking at Facebook marketing strategy, understanding sales funnels, planning and structuring ad campaigns, and mastering audience targeting. And in our next episode we’re going to delve into some more advanced topics around ad creatives, ad performance monitoring and optimisation, and the very important, highly-converting area of ad retargeting.

In this episode:

Why Facebook ads still offer the best bang for your marketing buck (even if the landscape has become more challenging for advertisers)
Facebook ads vs Google ads vs Twitter ads vs Tik Tok ads
Understanding ROAS (return on ad spend) and customer lifetime value
Integrating Facebook ads into your sales funnel
Picking the right landing page for your Facebook ad (website? registration page? Facebook event page?)
Boosting posts vs using Facebook's Ad Manager
Picking a campaign objective for your ad: conversions vs traffic vs reach/awareness
Structuring and naming your campaigns, ad sets and ads
Choosing between automatic and manual ad placements
Pros and cons of using the dynamic creatives
Using demographics, location and interests to target the right audience for your race
Avoiding the pitfalls of over-targeting

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about paid marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Are you struggling to understand how you should approach and talk to sponsors? Is seeking sponsorship a task you dread or maybe have even given up on?

We’ve got an awesome episode for you today that is going to boost your confidence and reset your entire thinking around sponsorship. It’s going to help you understand what sponsorship truly is about, what sponsors really look to get out of it, and how, through some simple, disciplined steps and a change of mindset, you can transform your chances of securing sponsors for your event.

My guest in today’s episode is an industry leader I’ve personally followed for years. To call Kim Skildum-Reid a sponsorship expert would be something of an understatement. Through her Power Sponsorship consultancy Kim has helped countless blue-chip rightsholders and sponsors plan and execute effective sponsorship strategies, and through her best-selling books and online courses she’s probably done more than anyone to educate sponsorship practitioners on the fundamentals of sponsorship.

So it is super-exciting to have Kim on the podcast today sharing her insights into the fundamentals of sponsorship, and the mindset you, as a sponsorship seeker, need to adopt to succeed in this challenging arena.

In this episode:

Leveraging your audience year-round
Framing your audience reach to sponsors
Helping sponsors "get" your vision through your sponsorship proposal
The importance of understanding the sponsor's point of view
Putting a value on in-kind sponsorship
Writing a winning sponsorship proposal that "sells" your deal internally in the sponsor organization
Inventory audits: putting together a list of all the benefits you could offer to sponsors
Dealing with sponsors as peers
Overdelivering for sponsors (and getting recognized for it)
Sharing sponsorship reports with sponsors
Firing your sponsors when they're underperforming
Why you should stop using gold, silver bronze sponsorship packages

Further reading:

Kim's list of must-read follow-up materials: https://bit.ly/3AFMTx2

Offers:

Get 30% OFF Kim's "Getting To Yes" online sponsorship course - click here and use code RDHQ30 (offer expires August 10)

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about email marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Personalized participant video, where a participant receives an edited video of themselves in the race after they cross the finish line (often as soon as a few minutes after), has been a long time coming in mass-participation events.

So how far has personalized video technology really come over the last few years? What does it add to the race experience? How much does it cost? And is the cost worth it, compared to, say, offering just race photos, as most races currently do?

Today we’ll be looking at all these questions and more, through the lense of personalized video tech pioneer iRewind. iRewind has been providing personalized video services to races - either directly or indirectly - for years, including to such high profile events as the NYC Marathon, Paris Marathon and ASICS London 10K. So it’s a great pleasure to be able to hear from iRewind co-founder and COO, Salvador Garcia Zalduegui on how personalized video technology works and how it has rapidly evolved over the last few years to the point of now making it widely affordable for a large number of races.

In this episode:

A short history of iRewind: from skiing video capture to mass-participation personalized video
Participant personalized video: what it is, how it's captured, and what it looks like to the end user (=participants)
Personalized video compared to race photos, and how the two work alongside each other to expand reach and enhance the participant race experience
The evolution of personalized video technology, and why it's time has come
Breakdown of a typical perzonalised video capture setup
Uploading, sorting, tagging and editing participant race videos, using image and motion recognition technology
How you can set up personalized video in your race, and how much it costs
Getting your personalized video costs covered by a sponsor
Engagement statistics for personalized video

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about email marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Have you ever thought about trademarking your race’s name or logo? Trademarking your race and brand could help protect your business against trademark infringement, and the risk of getting someone else’s event confused with yours, whether that is done through malice or ignorance.

Today we’re going to be looking at all aspects of trademarks and the trademark registration process, with the help of no less than three distinguished guests - Brian Gallant of Sinister Sports, who had to defend his race trademark against a competing claim not too long ago, and intellectual property lawyers Suzanne Sjovold and Jon Deppe who will be bringing the legal expertise in today’s highly technical subject.

We are going to be looking at the process of registering a new trademark, defending a registered trademark you own against infringement, as well as the many protections afforded to your brand by law even in the absence of a formal trademark registration, through the concept of common law trademarks. So stick with us to have all your trademark-related questions answered.

In this episode:

Trademarks as a consumer protection device
What aspects of a race can (and can't) be trademarked
Trademark geographical limitations: federal vs state/regional protection
Common law trademarks: what they are, and what protection they already provide for your race even without trademark registration
Resolving conflicts between common law trademarks and registered trademarks
Defending your common law trademark against a competing trademark registration
Why using your trademark in trade is crucial for establishing trademark protection
Registering a trademark, trademark registration classes, and trademark search best practices
Establishing registration priority with intent-to-use trademarks
The cost of registering a trademark
DIY trademark registration: is it worth it?
(R) vs TM: Understanding trademark symbols and when/where to use them
Renewing and defending registered trademarks

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about email marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

When it comes to marketing your race, email marketing is the granddaddy of all marketing channels. Forget TikTok, and Instagram and Facebook Ads, if you don’t have a sound email marketing strategy, you could be passing on a huge opportunity to grow your race - and also falling short of delivering the highest quality experience you can for your participants.

Today we are going to be taking a very close look at all aspects of email marketing strategy, from the types of emails you should be sending, and when and how often you should send them, to exactly what you should be saying to your participants and prospective participants through your email copy. And we’ll be doing all that with the help of my guest, marketing pro, and very passionate email marketing advocate, Hollie Light - or “Hollie from the emails”, as she’s come to be known.

In this episode:

Why email marketing is so important for marketing your race
Are you emailing your audience too often?
Segmenting your audience into converted (signed-up participants) and unconverted (everyone else) subscribers
Newsletters: whom to send them to, what to put in them, how often you should send them
Sticking to a regular emailing schedule: creating a content calendar, repurposing content
The importance of rewarding your email subscribers
Selling your race through your newsletter
Tips for engaging email subject lines (hint: it's not about you, it's about them!)
Nurturing subscribers to signing up through staged email sequences
Using email as a customer service/upselling channel for existing participants
Marketing your shorter races as training events for your longer races
Growing your mailing list with freebie/giveaway funnels
Email design for optimal open rates and reader friendliness
Using testimonials and social proof in your emails
Productivity tools, email templates and other tips to help you optimize your email marketing

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about email marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

It is May 2022 and whatever hopes and expectations we’ve all had of 2022 at the end of last year have started to materialize - or have they? It’s difficult to say how strongly our industry’s recovery towards pre-pandemic levels has fared so far this year, particularly when we all individually get to see only parts of the bigger picture.

Well, today I’m delighted to be joined by two industry insiders who get to see as much of the bigger picture as any in our industry - Bob Bickel, Founder of US registrations market-leader RunSignup and Chris Robb, CEO of Mass Participation World and a passionate advocate for the endurance events industry.

Chris and Bob come armed with data and a deep understanding of our industry and where it’s currently at, and they’ll be discussing with me the latest data on event numbers and registration trends, as well as more profound questions, like “Is it time for race directors to be raising prices?” - a question I’m sure many of you are asking yourselves.

In this episode:

Market recovery continues, but lagging prior expectations for 2022
The effect of Omicron and erosion of trust on race participation
Have people fallen out of love with racing?
The knock-on effect of losing early sign-ups on overall registrations
Race director sentiment: from optimism to survival mode
The risk of operational know-how loss for the industry
Why are runners not getting back to start lines?
Update on participant no-show rates
The effect of local authority staff turnover on race permitting and event support provision
Is local business and local community support for races waning?
Industry lobbying efforts throughout the pandemic
Non-returning race rates before and during the pandemic
Financial stresses for mid-tier organizers and the tough 6 months ahead
Is it time for race directors to raise prices?
Bridging the disconnect between events and participants through year-round participant engagement
Sponsor sentiment and the shift towards performance-based sponsorships
Market forecasts for the next two years

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

When it comes to marketing events, text marketing - or SMS marketing, as it’s often known - is just about as controversial as it gets. Some people have used it and absolutely love the high engagement rate and ROI SMS marketing campaigns provide, others don’t want anything to do with it and positively cringe at the idea of marketing their event over so personal a channel.

Well, over the next hour and a half we are going to be going deep into the technology, the arguments and the facts around SMS marketing with my two expert guests, Gerry Perez of RunGP and Endurance Marketing Founder Beth Salinger. We’re going to be looking at how SMS marketing campaigns work, the pros and cons of using SMS over, or alongside, other marketing channels like email and social media, and how SMS can be used to reactivate customer databases like your unproductive mailing list.

In this episode:

SMS marketing as another tool in your marketing stack
SMS marketing's spectacular open rates and how to compare them to email open rates
Examples of SMS campaigns: when to send them, how often, and what to include in them
Getting the most out of your SMS campaigns with limited-time offers
Responding to customer replies, following up and nurturing people through conversations
SMS marketing conversion rates and how to interpret them
Integrating your SMS marketing with your registration platform, Zapier for better attribution, ROI-tracking
Reactivating customer databases through SMS
SMS copy best practices: identifying yourself as the sender, using clear calls-to-action, using emojis, personalizing your messages
Funnelling cold leads from Facebook ads into SMS nurturing campaigns
Building up your SMS marketing list: subscribing website visitors, obtaining user consent, drawing users from social media, using incentives, using QR codes
The cost of running SMS campaigns

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Does your race employ a race announcer? Chances are probably not. You may think that your race is not big enough to have one or that the money spent on a race announcer could be better spent elsewhere - or not spent at all, if you run a for-profit race or raising money for a charity or cause close to your heart.

Well, today we’re going to try and give you some reasons to reconsider with the help of my guests, professional announcers Fitz Koehler and Steve Fleck. We’re going to be looking at the many things race announcers do on race day, how they contribute to the race experience, and how they can make your race an event to remember.

In this episode:

The difference a voice can make: how race announcers elevate the race experience
Should even smaller races have a race announcer?
From start to finish: what a race announcer does throughout race day
Expert tips on race announcing: gathering participants' background info/stories, pacing yourself, engaging spectators
Name pronunciations, mis-gendering and avoiding finish line faux pas!
The importance of hiring announcers who understand races
Hiring a race announcer: where to find one, what you get and what it costs

Links:

Find and hire a race announcer: https://www.racedirectorshq.com/us/emcees-announcers/

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

What do the Marine Corps Marathon, Air Force Marathon and Army Ten Miler all have in common? They are, of course, amazing races put on to celebrate branches of the US Military that attract tens of thousands of participants every year.

Well, there’s a new race in town for 2022, set to celebrate the youngest of all military branches: the Space Force. The aptly named Space Force T-Minus 10-Miler is set to take place this December 10th at historic Cape Canaveral, and we’re going to be hearing all about it from the event’s own race director Brandon Hough in today’s star-spangled bonus episode.

So get ready for some military race history, rockets, alligators, more rockets, and some very interesting insights into working as a race director within the US government.

In this episode:

Military races: how it all begun with the Marine Corps Marathon
NAFIs and the legal structure of military races
The challenges of putting on a race inside the US government/military
The birth and mission of the US Space Force
Conceiving and launching the Space Force T-Minus 10-Miler
Mapping out a race course around historic Cape Canaveral
What to expect from the inaugural race (hint: more than rockets and alligators, although there's definitely plenty of those!)
The Sea, Air & Space Challenge

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

It is by now abundantly clear that some of the ways we have all been used to doing things, including organizing races, are just not sustainable for the planet in the long term. And it is increasingly obvious to race directors and participants alike that traveling long distances to and from events, going through scores of single-use plastic bottles, and sending tons of waste to landfill is taking its toll on the environment and the communities we all strive to support.

For over a decade, the Council for Responsible Sport has supported mass-participation sports’ sustainability transition through its industry-leading certification program and the development of the industry’s first responsible sport standards.

And today, I have the pleasure of catching up with the Council’s Executive Director, Shelley Villalobos, on the Council’s recent initiatives to encourage even more race directors to take their first steps towards environmental sustainability, including the launch of ReScore, a free app that can help any race organizer plan, track and achieve their sustainability goals step by step through a single online platform.

In this episode:

The origins and mission of the Council for Responsible Sport
How the Council of Responsible Sport is governed and funded
Race sustainability efforts around the world
Developing sustainability standards and best practices
Responsible event certification, what it costs and the process for getting your race certified
Getting certified with the help of a corporate sustainability sponsor
Leveraging your race's environmental credentials to promote your event's purpose
Mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon offsetting
Incorporating the cost of reducing GHG emissions from participant travel into the event registration cost
Reducing single-use plastic waste: using and effectively disposing of compostable water cups, allowing water backpacks, cupless racing, Ooho!
ReScore: the free app that helps you collaborate, track your progress and access relevant resources as you work towards making your race more sustainable

Links:

CRS Responsible Sport Standards: https://www.councilforresponsiblesport.org/standards
CRS Responsible Events Guide: https://www.councilforresponsiblesport.org/runrad
ReScore: https://portal.sportrescore.org/
Project Drawdown: https://drawdown.org/

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

It’s probably not an overstatement to say that volunteers are the backbone of every successful race. They are the people that make much of race day happen and, yet, recruiting and managing volunteers, training them properly and retaining them for the long run remains a constant headache for race directors of all levels of experience.

Well, today we’re going to try and make everyone’s life a little bit easier by going over some great tips and strategies for streamlining your volunteer recruitment and fine-tuning all aspects of your volunteer management. We’ll discuss tips for balancing your volunteer load across volunteer shifts, creating mega shifts with enough buffer to make sure you’ve got all the people you need on race day, and some tried-and-tested tactics to mitigate volunteer attrition.

My guest for today’s discussion, Tim Bradley, is the volunteer coordinator for the McCourt Foundation, organizers of the Los Angeles Marathon and other marquee races. Tim has recruited and managed thousands of volunteers over the years and, as you’ll see, he has developed a very specific approach to running volunteer programs, based on evidence and experimentation.

In this episode:

What motivates volunteers to volunteer for a race
Volunteer recruitment for for-profit vs nonprofit races
The cost of recruiting and managing volunteers: donations, free entries, shirts, meals, transportation
What volunteers can and can't do for your race
Organizing your volunteer force: flat vs hierarchical team structures
Qualities to look for in your group captains and super-volunteers
Tim's detailed volunteer recruitment plan/schedule
Recruiting individual volunteers vs recruiting volunteer groups
Load balancing, mega shifts and diversification: making sure your shifts fill up evenly across the board
The importance of mega shifts and shift buffers/padding for mitigating volunteer attrition on race day
Working out how many volunteers you'll need for your race
Recruiting volunteers through email, social media, paid ads, text messages, cold calling, volunteer marketplaces
Building a volunteer mailing list
Signing up volunteers from your past race participants
Recruiting groups of volunteers from high school service clubs, sports teams
How to link to your volunteer program/sign up page from your website
Reducing friction throughout your volunteer signup process
Singing in and briefing volunteers on race day
Practical food/snack ideas for volunteers and how to distribute them on race day
"Thank you" emails and issuing volunteer service verification letters

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

On February 17, former president of the Portland Marathon, Lester Smith, was indicted by a grand jury on charges of wire fraud and tax evasion. In the indictment, Smith, who has led the Portland Marathon as both president and race director since 1982, is accused of embezzling more than $1 million dollars from the race’s coffers to fund his personal luxury lifestyle.

Today, we’ll be looking back at the story of Lester Smith and his time at the Portland Marathon, the legal cases brought against him and the impact events have had on the Portland running community and the Portland Marathon.

With me to discuss the facts and implications from the case is Jeff Manning, a runner and veteran investigative reporter from the Oregonian who has followed the Lester Smith case closely since it first broke in 2018. So stick around for a fascinating dive into the Portland Marathon story.

In this episode:

How Lester Smith evaded detection to misappropriate more than $1 million from the Portland Marathon from 2012-2018
Smith's track record at the helm of the race
Details of Smith's $850k settlement with the Oregon in DoJ in 2018
The allegations in the federal grand jury indictment brought against him in Feb 2022
The impact the legal turmoil has had on the local community and the Portland Marathon

Thanks to our sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode.

To learn more about RunSignup's awesome all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events, supporting more than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events, visit runsignup.com.

And, to see how Racecheck's Review Box can help your race increase registrations by a massive 20%, using the power of race reviews and social proof, make sure to visit organisers.racecheck.com.

What’s in a brand? Is it the sleek logo with the matching color palette and catchy tagline? Is it your organization’s mission statement and your event’s core values? Or is it every single thing that makes your event a memorable experience for your participants on race day?

Well, according to my guest today, event branding expert Peter Abraham, your brand is all of the above and a whole lot more. It is the heart and soul of your event, and what it aspires to be for your team, your participants, your stakeholders and the rest of the world. And, at a practical level, your brand is the North Star in every decision you make about your event, from your logo and the contents of your swag bag to your choice of sponsors and the design of your race course.

Today, we have a lot of unpacking to do. We’re going to be looking at understanding what your event’s brand is and how you can develop it, we’re going to be discussing your organization’s mission statement (and how to come up with one, if you don’t have one already) and we’re going to be tying all that back to laying out your marketing plan and finding your event’s unique voice.

In today's episode:

What makes up a brand
Why your brand needs a point of view
Avoiding the trap of being all things to all people
Consistency as a cornerstone of your branding
Don't be different for the sake of it - be different for a reason
How is your brand solving you participants' problems?
The importance of having a robust mission statement
Using your mission statement to make decisions on everything you do: designing a logo, mapping your course, conducting yourself in public
Writing a good mission statement: What do you do? And how do you do it?
Going from your mission statement to a marketing plan
Telling the story of your race experience through your marketing campaigns

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 25,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Why do some of your marketing campaigns work and others don’t? Why do you yourself as a consumer respond a lot more favorably to some types of messages and not others? At the end of the day, what makes us all take our wallets out and pull the trigger on that next purchase?

The answer to all those questions more often than not comes down to psychology. We are programmed to respond to certain queues - what our peers say about a product, how scarce that product feels, or how likeable the brand selling to us appears - in ways that we ourselves often don’t fully understand.

Today we have an absolutely fascinating discussion for you on all those triggers that make marketing campaigns work, and how you can bring the best of those lessons to your event marketing. We’re going to be touching, among other things, on using race testimonials as social proof, early-bird pricing & price increases, the role of influencers and celebrity runners, and how you can use freebies to increase your registrations and grow your mailing list.

My guest today is Andy Reilly. Andy is the CEO of event marketing company EventGrow and the President of race listing site, Raceplace.com, and he is super-passionate about the subject of marketing psychology and its foundational importance in developing an effective marketing strategy.

In this episode:

Why do people buy stuff? What influences their purchasing decisions?
Robert Cialdini's 6 psychological influence triggers: reciprocity, commitment & consistency, social proof, authority, scarcity, likeability
Reciprocity: winning over participants by giving something of value to them for free
Reciprocity in practice: leveraging free training plans and exclusive discount codes to grow your mailing list; using freebies to increase your race survey response rate by 20%
Commitment & consistency: aligning your messaging with your participants' goals
Commitment & consistency in practice: supporting people's fitness aspirations; promoting your race's PB potential
Social proof: converting people through the power of peer influence
Social proof in practice: making the most of past participant reviews; showcasing testimonials on your site; including social proof stats in your ad copy
Building social proof: collecting testimonials from race surveys; encouraging participants to leave reviews on race review sites
Authority: recruiting authority figures to promote your event
Authority in practice: leveraging the power of celebrity participants; using influencers to promote your race; projecting brand authority through high-profile sponsorships; showcasing event awards
Scarcity: using loss-aversion (aka FOMO!) to drive registrations
Scarcity in practice: early birds & price increases; the "100 spots left" playbook
Likeability: making your brand more likeable
Likeability in practice: speaking your audience's language; aligning your event with good causes; recruiting likeable personalities to your event; engaging with your participants online

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 25,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

When you want to know what’s happening and trending in the endurance events industry by the numbers, where do you turn to? Well, for me and many people I know, the definitive source of event data for the industry is, and has been for some time, GiveSignup|RunSignup’s annual RaceTrends report.

The report leverages GiveSignup|RunSignup’s extensive registration data from almost 60,000 events to point to trends in event participation, event pricing, participant demographics, marketing effectiveness, technology adoption and a myriad other things.

The most recent edition of the report was out just last week, and the data does seem to point to a strong, but partial, recovery from 2020, with some numbers starting to converge to 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

With me today to discuss all the numbers, the trends and their implications for individual events and the industry as a whole I’m delighted to have GiveSignup|RunSignup’s own, Johanna Goode. Johanna is the driving force behind many great things coming out of GiveSignup|RunSignup, including the ever-improving annual RaceTrends report, so she is just the person to walk us through the insights and recommendations coming out of the 2021 numbers.

In this episode:

A return to normal? What 2021 registration rates are suggesting for market recovery and 2022
Event attrition/churn through the pandemic
The impact of event cancellations/postponements on participant loyalty, and ways to mitigate it
Repeat participation numbers and trends
Participation by event type
The rise and fall of virtual races through 2020-2021
Participant demographics by gender, age, event type
Solving the lagging Millenial/GenZ participation puzzle
Registration pattern shifts (are participants registering later than usual?)
Event pricing trends, and the effect of price increases on registration rates
Mobile adoption trends
Facebook, social media and participant acquisition breakdown

To download your free copy of the RaceTrends 2021 report go to: runsignup.com/trends

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about about the numbers in today’s podcast, registration trends or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

When you think of race expos, what kind of thing comes to mind? Well, if you’re like me, you’re probably thinking huge pre-race expos like New York or London, where you go to pick up your bib and race packet, and where you get to stroll around hundreds of booths from high-profile running brands showcasing their latest thing.

Race expos are actually a lot more common than you think, and, according to my guest today, absolutely every event can and should have one. And why wouldn’t yours? Race expos are an amazing way to elevate your participant’s event experience, a good way to add an additional revenue stream to your race, and just about the best way to activate sponsorships and expand the roster of your commercial partnerships.

My guest today, industry veteran Craig Mintzlaff, has been working on races and race expos for more than 20 years. Through his company, Endurance Sports Marketing Group, he’s been managing expos for some of the best-known events and event series in the industry, and he’s with us today to share some of the many things he’s learned from setting up, promoting and selling out hundreds of race expos on both sides of the Atlantic.

In this episode:

How all events - not only larger races - can put on a successful race expo
What vendors are looking for from attending a race expo
Figuring out how many vendors your expo can support
Types of vendors to invite to your race expo
The benefits of expo booth-swapping with other events in your region
Putting a price on your race expo booths/space
Balancing in-kind vs cash contributions from expo partners
Negotiating partnerships with local vs national brands
Unlocking the right contact to reach out to in vendor organizations
The importance of securing a retail partner before going after the big brands (e.g. Brooks, Nike, Asics etc)
Selling your race expo to vendors: understanding your event demographics, CPMs, focusing on race experience
Making your expo partners' lives easier: offering to staff their booths on their behalf!
How to lay out your expo for maximum lingering time (hint: put all the freebies, drinks at the back)
Raffles, stamps, competitions and other tips for increasing participant engagement with vendor booths
Taking your expo to the next level with music and an announcer

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race expos, sponsorships or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Public relations (PR) is an integral part of running a successful brand and business. It is the art of communication and storytelling. It’s about appealing to communities and stakeholders, forging relationships with media and playing the marketing long game.

Yet, as my guest today - PR pro, Meg Treat, of Treat Public Relations - rushes to acknowledge, it often gets a bit of a bad rap.

Well, hopefully we’re going to be challenging those perceptions for you today, with a really insightful take on public relations, earned media and the power of storytelling, that definitely opened my eyes to the vast opportunities events can unlock through a thoughtful and carefully implemented PR strategy.

In this episode:

Public relations: what it is about and how it relates to your work as an event owner/director
Paid vs shared vs owned vs earned media
The importance of securing media exposure for free (=earned media)
How every race is intrinsically newsworthy and can have a story to tell
Understanding newsworthiness and unlocking/developing your race's unique story
Leveraging newsworthy topics: human interest stories, event milestones, brand partnerships.
Distributing your story/content through online and offline media outlets
Deciding when to send out (and when not to send out) a press release
Writing engaging press releases: quotes, the inverse pyramid approach, calls-to-action that work
The four ways of mining media contact information!
Crafting effective cover emails to journalists for increased media outreach success
Understanding journalist lead times and planning your PR content accordingly
Inviting media to your race using media alerts
Post-race press releases
Being your race's spokesperson: making yourself available for interviews and how to conduct them successfully

Resources:

Meg's media alert template/example & press release template/example for race directors: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jzw8jv0qr21xfmd/AACdD1sj72NhEf3RMJk-jjaAa?dl=0 (make sure to listen to Meg's audio intro in the folder)

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about public relations, earned media or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

If you’re listening to this episode as it comes out, it’s the middle of the holiday season and, hopefully, you’re recovering from some excessive meal or other - so, Merry Christmas to you!

Today, we have a very special end-of-year episode for you where we’re going to be looking back at a fairly challenging 2021 but also looking ahead to a - hopefully - much brighter, more optimistic 2022. We’re going to be talking about your expectations for the new year, and also touching a bit on the ongoing supply chain issues which we’ll probably continue to face in the new year.

I say “your expectations” because for the making of this episode, I had the pleasure of talking to many many of you. So many thanks to everyone who contributed: Dave Kelly of RunSeries, David Martin-Jewell of FrontRunner Events, Sarah Kozul of the Lakeland Runners Club, Andy Harris of the Columbus Running Company, Robby McClung of the Canaan Valley Running Company, Suzy Shain of the Technology Education Foundation, Briston Rains of Texas Outlaw Running Company, Terry Majamaki of New Global Adventures and Jon Conkling of Tris4Health.

Also many thanks to Matt Mercurio of Stride Awards and Kim Bilancio of Greenlayer for sharing their thoughts on the logistics situation, and also Johanna Goode, Bryan Jenkins and Bob Bickel from GiveSignup|RunSignup for their insights into what’s happening in the market as we head into 2022.

As we round up 2021, I’d like to thank again our friends and sponsors at GiveSignup|RunSignup for their solid support of this podcast, and I’d like to remind all of you listening in to check out all that this amazing technology platform has to offer for your event by visiting runsignup.com. If you are looking to make a fresh start with your event technology partner for 2022, there’s no better place to start than runsignup.com.

Sports tourism - you’ve heard the phrase, people traveling to places to participate in sporting - that’s a whole thing these days. And a very fast-growing thing at that.

So, how can your race capitalize on this trend and how can you position your event to attract more overseas or out-of-state participants?

That’s exactly what we’ll be getting into today with my guest, George Kakourides, Marketing Director for the Logicom Cyprus Marathon. As you’ll hear, George has worked really hard on growing international participation for the Logicom Cyprus Marathon since 2014 with some amazing results, and has tons of tips to share on marketing your race internationally and reaching new audiences through social media, micro-influencers, specialist publications, race expos, and other channels. So get your notepads out and get ready to take notes!

By the way, we’re going to be using the term “international” here a lot, but the lessons we’ll learn here today apply equally to a race that aspires to attract participants from a different country, as well as, say, a US-based race that wants to attract participants from nearby states. Everything we’ll touch on today basically falls under the category of marketing to participants that will travel to your event - so anyone besides your local crowd.

In this episode:

Positioning your race brand for international appeal
The importance of infrastructure (airport capacity, accommodation capacity etc) in being able to attract international participants
How to pick the most promising international markets to target with your marketing
Getting buy-in and material support from local government, local businesses and your local tourist board
Partnering with local hotels and designing custom-made accommodation packages for participants
Working with international specialist-press journalists and relevant influencers to promote the event in target markets
Why getting Runners World and other high-profile mags to write about your event is easier that you think
Measuring ROI on your international marketing efforts
Why you want to translate key landing pages and your ad copy into the language of your target market participants
Reaching international participants using Facebook Ads and suitable country/interest targeting choices
Content ideas for engaging potential participants year-round through your social media accounts
Lessons in building race partnerships from the Swedish Classic

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race marketing or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

If you have built a business putting on races, chances are you would have thought of maybe selling some or all of those races at some point in the future. You may also have toyed with the idea of buying races from others as a way to grow your event portfolio.

Buying and selling races still remains a big mystery for most race directors - even very experienced ones. How do you go about it? How do you find events to buy, if you’re a buyer, and where do you turn to sell your event, if you’re a seller? What is an event even worth on the market? And how does a typical purchase and sale transaction go down?

Well, we’re going to be going into all that and more today, in a super-exciting episode with the help of my two guests, Tony Sapp and Porter Bratten. As you’ll hear in a minute, Tony and Porter have a lot of experience in buying and selling events, and they have tons of great tips to help you get a good feel for where you stand as a buyer or seller of races in this market, and how you can make the most of the opportunities available to you in this very peculiar post-pandemic environment we find ourselves in.

In this episode:

Finding suitable buying opportunities: matching type of event, time of year and race location
What a good buying opportunity looks like
Reaching out to race directors with an offer to buy
Selling through a business broker: what business brokers bring to the table, picking the right broker, preparing your business prospectus
The importance of instructing and consulting with a contract lawyer
Buying event assets vs buying the events company
What assets go into an event sale: physical, digital, intellectual property, sponsorship and other third party contracts
Purchase price allocation and tax implications of your event purchase
Preparing for an event sale: organizing documents, keeping track of your business data, anticipating buyer questions
The purchase and sale agreement: asset lists, exclusions, non-competes, indemnities, transaction timelines and transition periods, price adjustment clauses
Additional provisions/considerations when selling a race mid-season
Transitioning key contacts and making introductions with vendors, sponsors, volunteers
How to calculate the value of your event as a multiple of your revenue and net profit
Price negotiations and agreeing on a price
Is this a good time to buy or sell a race?

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about buying and selling races or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

The GiveSignup|RunSignup Symposium series has grown from modest beginnings of just a few dozen people to be the industry conference most race directors and timers will attend during the year.

And this January 25-26, the Symposium series returns to Orlando Florida after a two-year hiatus for an awesome two days of education and networking, and all race directors, timers and nonprofit professionals are invited - not just GiveSignup|RunSignup customers.

So, it’s great to have with me today, Johanna Goode, from GiveSignup|RunSignup who has the unenviable job of putting the whole thing together to tell us a little bit more about what you can look forward to both at and around the Symposium this coming January.

In this episode:

The history of the GiveSignup | RunSignup Symposium series
Why the GiveSignup | RunSignup Symposium is not your regular race director conference/expo
What you can look forward to in attending if you're a race director, timer or nonprofit
How you can attend the Symposium as a vendor
The Demo Room, the Suite Run, and other training and networking opportunities at this year's Winter Symposium

To learn more about the GiveSignup | RunSignup Winter Symposium, and to register visit: runsignup.com/wintersymposium

If I told you “race marketing”, what kinds of things come to mind? Facebook ads maybe, maybe Google Ads. But what about your race website? Is that optimised for search engines? When people search Google for your race - or, even more importantly, for a race like your race to enter - is your race website the one they find at the top of Google search results?

Today we’re going to be talking about SEO - a huge missed opportunity to get more qualified people to discover your race on Google. Why is this so important? (A) Because it’s free, (B) because it can get you tons of traffic and potential participants, and (C) because very few people are doing it as well as it can be done. And that’s the opportunity for you.

My guest on today’s episode, Cory Jennermann, knows a bit about SEO, having spent countless hours ranking his awesome race listing site, RunGuides.com, to the top of Google search results pages.

And, as you’ll see, Cory loves geeking over keywords and structured data and the like - as do I, to be honest - so, stick with us for a fun-filled SEO chat.

In this episode:

What is SEO all about?
Getting found by people looking for your race vs getting found by people looking for races similar to your race
How you can't - and shouldn't try to - game Google
What user behavior tells Google's RankBrain algorithm about your website
Technical SEO vs On-page SEO vsOff-page SEO
Backlinks, site authority and link juice(!)
Technical SEO: URL architecture, content discoverability, sitemaps, internal linking, data markup
Structured data: marking up your website content for rich snippets and winning more Google real estate
Event schema markup: marking up your race date and start line location
Ranking for relevant "near me" search queries
Marking up for your site's FAQs
Understanding and targeting user search intent
How keyword research can help improve your race website content
Blogs: should your site have one?
Creating content to win backlinks and draw in qualified traffic
Building backlinks to your site: targeting local running clubs, race calendars, other local event sites.

Useful links:

Google Search Console
Google Structured Data Markup Helper
Google Keyword Planner
Google Trends
Moz - SEO tools
Ahrefs - SEO tools
Moz Beginner's Guide to SEO
Backlinko blog - in-depth SEO and backlink-building articles

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about building your own website, SEO or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

It’s very fashionable these days to hear people speak of “influencers” - people who work with brands to promote their products and services to a niche audience in which they have a strong following.

Well, our industry has had that for a while. They’re called race ambassadors and they can be your race’s special influencers, going out into the community and spreading the word for your event in their running club, weekly group run, or the next race or expo they attend.

Today I have the pleasure of talking with William Dyson, Communications Manager for High Five Events. William manages the race ambassador programs for such prestigious events as the Austin Marathon, 3M Half Marathon, CapTex Tri and Kerrville Triathlon, and he’ll be sharing his thoughts with us on how you can launch, grow and manage your own race ambassador program, including tips on using incentives, keeping track of your ambassadors’ performance and ways to come up with unique ideas to make the most of your ambassadors’ community reach.

In this episode:

What a race ambassador program is about and how it works
The benefits of running a race ambassador program: expand your brand reach in your target community
Inventivizing race ambassadors: comp codes, event gear, networking opportunities, and other perks
Building a race ambassador program that effectively represents the local running community
Deciding how many ambassadors you should have, based on your budget and human resources
Sharing content/ social media posting schedules with your ambassadors
Recruiting non-local race ambassadors to expand your race reach in neighboring markets
Bringing your team together: social meet-ups, happy hours
Over-communicating!
What makes for a good race ambassador and how to pick a good mix of race ambassadors for your program
Making the most of celebrity race ambassadors
Pros and cons of basing ambassador perks and comp codes on performance
Offering prizes for your best-performing ambassadors
Mixing up returning and new ambassadors
Advertizing your race ambassador program in the community
Race ambassador program ROI: what return/results you should expect from your race ambassador program

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about launching and growing your race ambassador program or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Today, we have a bonus episode for you. And it’s all about Tyvek. Yes, that wondrous paper-like, fabric-like material, that is actually neither paper nor fabric, that our industry uses to make race bibs.

Well, that wondrous material is now in a bit of a supply freeze. That’s right - the owners and exclusive manufacturers of Tyvek, DuPont, have informed printers that no more printing-grade Tyvek shall be made available until the end of the year, in an effort to divert production to medical-grade Tyvek, used in PPE and medical supplies, which, not surprisingly, is in high demand lately.

So what is to become of Tyvek race bibs? I sat down with Marathon Printing President and third-generation bib printing specialist, Ryan Zirk, to find out.

In this episode:

Tyvek's special properties making it ideal for race bibs
Tyvek's (many) other industrial uses: PPE, packaging, weather barriers
Printing on Tyvek bibs: from bulk Tyvek sheets to finished bibs
Printing Tyvek at home: can it be done?
Recycling Tyvek bibs: where and how you can recycle your Tyvek bibs
DuPont's announcement of halting production of printer-grade Tyvek
Alternatives to Tyvek for printing bibs, if printer-grade Tyvek inventories are exhausted

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race bibs or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

At the tender age of 24, with no prior experience or any interest in running, Matt Trevett decided to take a gamble and launch a new 10K in his hometown of Weybridge in Surrey, UK.

Matt promised local business groups and the local council he’ll bring 1,000 people to the race in its first year. As you can imagine, everyone was very supportive of the idea - in between thinking Matt was crazy.

Fast-forward a few months, and Matt delivered his 1,000 people inaugural Weybridge 10K, as promised, and went on to produce more award-winning races in his hometown, putting the former through-town firmly on the regional running map.

Beyond the amazing story of Matt and the Weybridge 10K, today’s episode is not about Matt or the Weybridge 10K. It is an episode about attitude, persistence and - more importantly - taking a lean approach to putting on races that focuses on building community, forging partnerships with local businesses, and marketing smart online, often with little more than a bunch of pictures of empty roads to go on.

If you’re starting out as a race director you’re going to love this episode, and, if you’re a more seasoned race director, getting the perspective of a young millennial colleague will hopefully help trigger a lightbulb moment or two for you.

In this episode:

The Weybridge 10K story
Planning a new race in the town you grew up in
Coming into race-directing with the perspective of a non-runner
Picking your race distance: the merits of a 10K for a new local event
Not cutting corners on health & safety
Pitching your vision for your event to town officials
Being bold, making mistakes and learning from them
Focusing on race experience, rather than profits in your first couple of years
Being transparent and genuine with the content that you share with your audience
Canvassing residents and local businesses before the launch of the race
Making advocates of your biggest local critics
The digital-first approach: launching lean, launching online
Do organic promotion first (Facebook groups, running clubs), paid later
The importance of remarketing to "warm" audiences
Using Facebook Events as part of your race promotion strategy
Marketing your race on Instagram
Giving away free race photos and using event photos to market your race online
Managing a participant death in Weybridge 10K's inaugural race
Email marketing: less is more
The future of content marketing: switching from long-from written to short, sharp video content

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about launching and growing your race or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

It’s probably fair to say that when it comes to a race director’s calendar, it doesn’t get much bigger than race day. It’s the day your race comes alive and a day you and your team have been working towards for months.

Whether it’s your first race or your hundredth, everyone goes into race day a bit like a standup comedian walking on stage for their first gig - with a mix of excitement and, well, dread is probably a good word for it.

A million things are going through your head. Does everyone know what they have to do? Are we going to run on schedule? And what do I do if this or that happens?

Today I have the pleasure of being joined on the podcast by Crisp McDonald, a race director and timer with more than a thousand races under his belt. Crisp is also RunSignup’s RaceDay Expert and, as such, has been training race directors and timers on what to expect on race day and how best to prepare for all the curve balls a live event might throw at you.

In this episode:

Planning your event site and start/finish line
Setting up a clear line of communication with your event team
Balancing how much you do on race day vs setting things up in advance (e.g. pre-marking your race course)
Figuring out how long tasks take on race day and when to start setting things up
Sharing resources across different tasks throughout race day
The importance of team leads
The effectiveness of seasoned volunteers, and how to inspire loyalty among volunteers to your event/brand/cause
How to reduce volunteer no-show rates, by recruiting volunteer groups instead of individuals
Inspiring volunteers to take ownership of their work, through fun race day volunteer competitions
The importance of recognizing and thanking volunteers before race day
Contingency planning: being prepared for switching your in-person race to a virtual race
Emergency planning: figuring out what to prepare for
The role of onsite EMS units, and where to station them
Having a protocol for tracking runners who drop out of the race
Putting together a key person contact list
Anticipating weather changes and what to do when the weather shifts rapidly
The role of cancellation insurance for races in higher-risk locations
The task matrix: who's doing what when on race day
Setting up a race command center
Communicating with your team: phones vs radios vs apps
Race day registrations: what you need to be able to take registrations on race day
Dynamic bib assignment: what is it? how does it work?
Packet pick-up: pre-packing packets vs putting them together on the fly
Setting up your race course: what order to do things in
Tearing down your race course: the benefits of a rolling tear-down
Shipping out race results to participants after they finish the race
Debriefing after the race

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race day prep or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Ask yourself this: when was the last time you bought something without checking out reviews for it online?

Experiences, like races, are no different. When you have a dozen 10Ks to choose from, you’ll want to hear what others have to say about each race before making your decision.

And that’s where race reviews come in. Whether they’re hosted on your website or a third-party site, reviews are the mirror of your race to the world. It’s the best social proof you have and the most effective way to communicate to prospective participants what’s great and unique about your events.

Well, my guests today, Alex Tanti and Katie Ho, know a thing or two about the power of race reviews. Through Racecheck.com and RaceRaves.com, they’ve helped thousands of races make the most of the huge missed opportunity that is race reviews, and they’ll be sharing with us today all the tips and tricks that can help you make the most of your race reviews in your marketing and PR communications.

In this episode:

The importance of race reviews in race marketing and the participant sign-up journey
Race reviews vs race surveys as feedback and marketing tools for organizers
Why even mediocre reviews are better than no reviews at all
How to win over participants by addressing negative reviews
Medals, goodie bags, porta potties: common things people focus on when reviewing a race
How a participant’s race performance will bias their review of the race
How to use strong race reviews in your race marketing, social media and with local media
How to address negative reviews and win over participants
How to encourage participants to leave more reviews for your race
Using incentives to solicit more reviews and how to do it right

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about making the most of your race reviews or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Have you ever thought about timing your races yourself? Building your own RFID timing system? Perhaps even building a small race timing business on the side as a way to diversify your income?

Well, doing your own race timing is certainly not for everyone. For most race directors, managing their own race timing is the last thing they need on race day. Nevertheless, DIY race timing is exactly the route many race directors choose to go down, either to save money, try their hands at building a race timing side-business or simply for the enjoyment of building their own RFID timing system.

Today I’ll be talking to Brian Agee of Agee Race Timing, a man very well-known among DIY race timing enthusiasts not only for his very popular race timing software, but also for his willingness to share with others everything he’s learned building and operating DIY race timing.

Over the next hour or so, we’ll be touching on a few things with Brian, from choosing the right components for your race timing system to bringing everything together, setting up your system correctly, and avoiding some common race day pitfalls.

In this episode:

What is an open hardware timing system and who is it suitable for
Pros and cons of open timing systems vs branded/proprietary systems (MYLAPS, Chronotrack, IPICO etc)
How proprietary systems use password-protected tags and what that means for the ongoing operating cost of your branded system.
The main components of a DIY timing system: reader, antennas, cables, tags, software
Mat antennas vs panel antennas
Passive vs active RFID tags
2-port vs 4-port RFID readers
The cost of building a DIY RFID timing system
Chip starts/chip times: when you need them and when you don’t
Recommended RFID tag placement: bib tags vs shoe tags vs wrist tags
Double tagging: pros and cons of using two tags per runner
The cost of buying RFID tags
Making disposable tags reusable
Programming/encoding your RFID tags
Inexpensive backup systems for your main RFID timing system: camcorders, capturing backup times manually, using secondary RFID systems

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com, where you’ll also find a 5% discount from Atlas RFID Store for all your RFID timing equipment needs and a 15% discount from Agee Race Timing on timing software you can use with both your DIY and proprietary timing system.

If you are building and operating your own system, Race Timing Hub is our Facebook group dedicated just to race timing and building race timing systems, so come join that and people, including Brian, will be glad to help out with any questions you may have.

Making races more sustainable is on more and more race directors’ radar these days - which is awesome. But when it comes to moving from theory to practice, working to affect actual change in your race that has a meaningful impact on your event’s environmental footprint, things sometimes get a little bit confusing.

Where do you even start? How do you benchmark where you’re currently at with your event, so you can measure your progress going forward? What things should you focus on? And what does making progress even look like, when it comes to making your race greener?

These questions and more is what we’ll be discussing today with the help of my guest, Bruce Rayner. Bruce is the Chief Green Officer at Athletes for a Fit Planet and has been working at the forefront of event sustainability for years, having helped countless races, major road races and triathlons as well as local events, become more sustainable by reducing their environmental footprint.

So if you’re ready to work on making your event more sustainable today, you’ll get a great head start out of the next hour or so.

In this episode:

A look at the progress the endurance events industry has made towards greater sustainability
The reasons still holding back race directors from committing more strongly to the sustainability effort
How to start benchmarking your waste and carbon footprint
Primary vs secondary waste: what counts as your race’s waste and carbon footprint?
Who should cover the offsetting cost for participant travel, the event or the participant?
What is carbon offsetting and how can it help events get to carbon neutrality?
Asking participants to cover their carbon footprint through their registration fee
Are participants willing to pay a “green” surcharge to cover the offsetting cost of their travel?
Why it’s important for races to be transparent with participants on what their carbon footprint is
The marketing benefit of promoting your race’s environmental credentials
How to avoid recyclable waste contamination by getting your volunteers to sort it
Recovering and recycling discarded water cups and bottles at aid stations
The advantage of using compostable cups vs recyclable paper cups
Is cupless racing possible for road races?
The role of businesses and local government as sustainability sponsors for races

Links:

What are Carbon Offsets and How Do They Work?

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about making your race more sustainable or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Have you ever wondered how the choices you make about your race start procedure can affect every aspect of the rest of your race? Even simple things, like choosing a wave start over a rolling start, or changing the order and size of each wave, or the width of your start line, can have a significant impact on your race’s safety, congestion on the course, and even your staffing requirements for aid stations and your race finish area.

Today I have the pleasure of having as my guest Marcel Altenburg, probably the world’s foremost expert in crowd dynamics for mass-participation events. Marcel is a senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and has helped countless races optimize their participant flows from start to finish. Marcel has so much experience in this area and we’ll be going over some simple rules Marcel has come up with from his research that you can use to optimize your race start procedure - whatever the size or type of your race.

In this episode:

What is crowd science and how it can be applied to the study of participant flows during mass-participation endurance events
How your start line procedure affects everything that happens downstream at your race race course
Always try to order start waves by pace (faster runners at the front, slower runners at the back), even if you can't do it perfectly
Make your start line 30% narrower than the narrowest point on your course to avoid congestion
Aim for a max 3 people per sqm in your start pen for a safe, comfortable race start
Keep start waves of slower runners at the back smaller than start waves of faster runners at the front
Prefer rolling starts over open starts to eliminate the uncertainty of people arriving at random times
For socially-distanced races, keep participants sufficiently socially-distanced at the start and they will only spread out further during the course

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about start line procedures, participant social distancing or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Selling sponsorships is arguably the biggest chronic challenge race directors face. Many race directors simply don’t like doing it, others don’t know where to start, and perhaps some have even given up after multiple frustrations and disappointments.

My guest today, Ben Pickel, is the Director of Sales and Strategy at Life Time Events. Ben has been working for years in the front lines of sponsorship sales, and knows a thing or two about the ups and downs of event sponsorship. His advice? Know your event. Understand what a sponsor needs. Accept that not everyone will say ‘yes’. And just go for it with integrity, perseverance and confidence in what you’ve built and what you have to offer.

Today’s episode is a long one - the longest we’ve done so far, in fact. But there was just so much ground to cover with Ben, from finding and approaching sponsors, to negotiating and closing sponsorship deals, so I hope you’ll bear with us till the end.

In this episode:

Re-establishing the value of sponsorship when talking with sponsors post-COVID
What sponsors are trying to achieve through sponsorship
The difference between engagement-focused sponsors and sales-focused sponsors
How to manage sales-focused sponsors
The importance of having sponsors that align with your event's brand and identity
What event assets sponsors are interested in
How to approach your first sponsor meeting
How to figure out which person to contact in the sponsor organization
The importance of reaching out to sponsors in the first few weeks after the end of your event
How to present demographics for your audience in sponsorship proposals
The pros and cons of using sponsorship packages (e.g. Gold, Silver, Bronze)
Setting a price for sponsorship: how you would know whether you're over- or under-pricing sponsorship
Why most race directors tend to under-price sponsorship
The pitfalls of offering sponsorship discounts
Why you should focus on activating lower-paying sponsorships
One-year vs multi-year sponsorships
Title sponsorships: are the right for your event?
The value of in-kind sponsorships
How to deal with rejections from sponsors and how to make the most of a negative outcome

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about sponsorships or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

With races starting to come back, and at least a hint of normalcy slowly returning to the endurance events market, it’s a good time to take stock of where we currently are on the road to recovery.
Are more participants signing up for races? Are they signing up later, as some race directors have suggested? Are in-person races making a strong comeback? And what about virtual races which dominated events for most of last year?

We’ll be answering these questions and more today with the help of my guests, Johanna Goode and Bob Bickel from GiveSignup|RunSignup. With registration data coming in from thousands of races, GiveSignup|RunSignup is in a pretty unique position to be able to provide actual data-driven insights into what’s happening in the market - and, as we’ll see, the conclusions coming out of the data are not always what you’d expect.

In this episode:

Total registrations volume is still down, but recovering
In-person races are making a strong comeback, but virtual races are still a thing
Entry fees are starting to normalize towards 2019 levels
Contrary to anecdotal evidence, the data doesn't support the narrative that participants are registering later than usual
No clear evidence right now that more first-time racers are entering events
Downward trend in participation for younger audiences continues

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 21,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about the findings in this episode or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Does your race offer a kids run alongside your main events? If not, you could be missing out on a great opportunity to make your race more attractive for families, as well as getting a few more sponsors on board that may not normally take an interest in sponsoring your race.

Lucie Murray of specialised kids run production company Run Kids Run has been managing kids runs for some of the largest races on the West Coast, including the LA Marathon, Surf City Marathon and Santa Monica Classic. She is an expert in developing youth and family programs for races, and on this episode she’ll be sharing with us her insights on how to put on a successful kids run, how to make it work alongside your adult races, as well as some tips for monetising your kids run through sponsorships with family-oriented brands and businesses.

Things covered in this episode:

The benefits of adding a kids run to your race
Managing kid runners (and overeager parents!)
Ensuring your kid runners' safety and privacy protection
Swag: kid wants what mommy/daddy got! + more...
Marking the most of your kids run: family registration, kids zones, kids run sponsorship opportunities

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 21,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about kids runs, race family activities or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

When it comes to waste in the endurance events industry, water bottles are the big plastic elephant in the room. So it’s no surprise that a great deal of effort has recently been going into finding ways to tackle the problem of plastic bottle waste in races.

Today, we're talking to Lise Honsinger, CFO & COO of Notpla, a UK-based company pioneering the use of edible packaging. Notpla’s flagship edible sachet, Ooho, has been used in the London Marathon and many other races across the world with great success as a totally safe, naturally biodegradable substitute for plastic bottles. So it’s a great treat to have Lise tell us more about it today.

Things covered in this episode:

A short history of Notpla, the company revolutionizing edible packaging
What is Ooho? What is it made of? What liquids can it hold? How do you consume it?
Ooho as an alternative to water bottles in races
Runner feedback from using Ooho in the London Marathon
Getting Ooho for you race: How many will you need? How much does it cost? How can you order?
The future of Notpla and Ooho

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 21,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about sustainability, reducing bottle waste or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Having a charity partner is sometimes a bit of an afterthought for many race directors. And yet, there’s so many benefits to getting a charity involved with your event, from increased participation and volunteer recruitment opportunities to even higher likelihood of closing sponsorship agreements.

Well, today, I’m talking to industry veteran Susan Hurley, Founder of CharityTeams, about how to approach charities, what to expect out of a charity partnership and how to make the most of this underappreciated opportunity for your event.

Things covered in this episode:

Why partnering your race can help your race registrations, volunteer recruitment, community buy-in and sponsorship prospects
What charity partners expect from your event
How to research and do due diligence on potential charity partners
How to pitch your event to your shortlisted charity partner candidates
How to structure your charity giveback in a way that best aligns your interests with those of your charity partner
How to set up a charity program for your race

Links:

Charity Navigator - ratings agency for nonprofit organizations
GuideStar - search data, reports and information on nonprofits

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 21,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about charity partnerships and fundraising or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Professional race timing is one of those things everyone’s come to expect when entering a race. And, for more than three decades, RFID has been the undisputed gold standard when it comes to timing races.

But, with new technologies coming on to the market, cheaper and more widely available alternatives to RFID timing are fast becoming a reality. Alternatives like Bluetooth, which can be programmed to deliver highly accurate race times at a fraction of the cost of RFID.

Does that mean you could soon be timing your race on your own, using just a pair of phones? Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to be getting into today with my guest, Atlas Live Tracking Founder, Jean-Louis Lafayeedney.

Things covered in this episode:

Bluetooth race timing: what it is and how it works
Tags and components for a Bluetooth timing system
Setting up multiple timing points using a Bluetooth timing system
Types of races Bluetooth timing is best and least suited for
Bluetooth vs RFID timing accuracy
Bluetooth vs RFID timing cost
How to hire or buy a Bluetooth timing system

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 21,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race marketing or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

On May 22nd, tragedy struck when severe weather hit the Huanghe Shilin Mountain Marathon in China. Caught between checkpoints along the 100km race course, runners found themselves exposed to hail and freezing rain at 3,000ft. When rescue teams finally reached the area, 21 people had died.

Today we're talking to Lindley Chambers: race director, first aider and former Chair of the UK Trail Running Association, about what went wrong in that fateful race and how trail race directors (and race directors of all kinds of races) can work to better prepare themselves and their events for when the worst happens.

Things covered in this episode:

Huanghe Shilin Mountain Marathon: What went wrong?
How to write a sound, common-sense risk assessment/emergency plan for your race without going overboard
Deciding on how many safety personnel you'll need
Will runners be happy to pay a premium for a safer, but more expensive, race?
Things race directors can do to better prepare participants for risks they might face in a race
Should there be more regulation and/or special certification requirements for high-risk races?
What should go into a participant mandatory gear list

References:

Why the Ultra-Race Tragedy in China Wasn’t Surprising (Outside)

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 21,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events, visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race safety or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

2021 is shaping up to be a year of two halves for the endurance events industry. The first half, like most of 2020, has been an almost total write-off. The second? That is shaping up to be one of the busiest race seasons ever, with oversaturated race calendars and intense competition among events for participants making their return to racing.

So, what should you be doing to promote your race in this market? And what channels and strategies should you focus on to stand out from the competition? I’ll be getting into all that and more in today’s episode with the help of my guest, Big Run Media Managing Partner, Thomas Neuberger.

Things covered in this episode:

Lessons learned from marketing The Woodlands Marathon (sell-out event in Texas that took place in early March 2021)
How participant signup patterns have shifted towards late registration - and will remain so for the foreseeable future
Facebook ads: Do they still offer good value for marketing your race?
The rise of Instagram
The importance of race photos in expanding your race reach
Promoting your race with Strava clubs

Don't miss in this episode:

Thomas' tips for helping your race stand out among major races this fall
The one thing about your race you need to be advertising as soon as you can (hint: it's the swag!)

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 21,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race marketing or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Waste is a big problem in the events industry and endurance events are no exception. And it’s not only about water bottle waste. Sometimes the things we offer our participants, like medals and T-shirts, end up discarded or in a cupboard somewhere never to see the light of day again.

Change may be just around the corner though. In today's episode we'll be hearing from Chris Zair on how UK-based Trees not Tees is helping race directors offer participants the option of planting a tree instead of (or often on top of) receiving the traditional finisher shirt and medal.

It's a really interesting discussion with lots of details on how the Trees not Tees model could incentivize change in the industry through a win-win for participants and race directors alike.

Things covered in this episode:

How Trees not Tees was born from the frustration of trail runner, Jim Mann
The Trees not Tees model: good for participants, good for race directors, good for sponsors, good for the environment.
The economics of Trees not Tees: What does it cost for the race director to offer a tree-planting option? What does it cost Trees not Tees to plant the trees?
The secret sauce: How can Trees not Tees plant trees at a loss and still make it work in the log run (hopefully!)
Trees not Tees' ambitious roadmap for planting 50 million trees by 2025

Don't miss in this episode:

How Trees not Tees' sustainable reforestation at scale helps turn wasteland into vibrant wild ecosystems
Trees not Tees' plans for US expansion

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 21,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about race waste, sustainability or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

To say it's been a challenging year for the endurance events industry would be an understatement. So what can we learn from what we’ve been through to help us improve the way we manage risk in the events industry going forward? That’s what we’ll be exploring in today's episode with the help of our guest, Nathan Nicholas, Managing Partner at specialist insurance broker Nicholas Hill Group.

When it comes to 1-in-1,000-type risks in the industry, Nathan has dealt with it all, from severe weather and natural catastrophes to terrorism and, now, pandemics. So he’s the right person to help us understand what happens when things like COVID come around, how events are affected, and how they can protect themselves going forward with the help of event cancellation insurance.

Things covered in this episode:

What's been happening in the race insurance industry during the COVID pandemic
Race cancellation insurance: What is it? What does it cover? Does it pay out? How much does it cost?
Communicable disease cover: What is it? Is it part of your race cancellation policy? Can you buy COVID cover today?
The state of race insurance as the world (and races) begins to open up
A brief look at virtual event insurance: Do you need it? What does it cover? How much does it cost?

Don't miss in this episode:

The remarkable story of a mystery event which got hit with terrorism, thunderstorm and COVID in consecutive years and had to cancel the race two years in a row
Nathan's take on whether COVID infections in your event would be covered by your insurance policy

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 21,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more free resources on planning, promoting and organizing races on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com, where you’ll also find a 10% OFF offer on race insurance from Nicholas Hill Group, as well as other exclusive vendor offers.

You can also share your questions about race insurance or anything else in our race directors Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.

Welcome to episode zero of Head Start, the podcast for race directors and the business of putting on races.

In this first short episode, Panos sets out what you should expect from future Head Start episodes, namely:

1) The best and coolest innovation happening in the mass-participation endurance industry that you may not know about

2) Top tips and actionable advice from industry experts to help you better plan, manage and market your race.

Stay tuned and subscribe for the roll-out of our first 6-episode mini-season, featuring the following episodes:

E1. "Race Insurance in the Age of Pandemics" with Nicholas Hill Group Managing Partner, Nathan Nicholas

E2. "Trees not Tees" with Trees not Tees Director, Chris Zair

E3. "Marketing Races in 2021" with Big Run Media Managing Partner, Thomas Neuberger

E4. "A Guide to Bluetooth Timing" with Atlas Live Tracking Founder, Jean-Louis Lafayeedney

E5. "Mastering Charity Partnerships" with CharityTeams Founder, Susan Hurley

E6. "Notpla/Ooho" with Notpla CFO/COO, Lise Honsinger