Nothing New Under the Sun

I am in the midst of developing a new event, an event I thought was pretty unique. Apparently I am not as special as I lead myself to believe. Maybe there are just too many people in this world, having too many creative ideas. But, maybe that can play to my advantage because if there are too many people in the world that means that there are plenty of people for each and every good event to have enough participants, right? That is the hope.

It is always an interesting thing to try and start a new event from scratch. You have to answer a lot of questions; Can it be done? Should it be done? How many other people have done it in the past? Would people be interested if this were to be done? How many people would be interested in doing this? How much would they pay? How big should you make it?

Get a Clue Seattle is the new event. It is a clue based/geocaching/romp through the streets/come out of hibernation (it happens the first part of Spring)/discover new parts of the city/rediscover your own neighborhood/learn something new/treasure hunt event. See, how unique does that sound?

Well, it gets even more unique when you add in that the event happens over a two week period, that is right, if its raining, you don't need to get out of bed and fight for parking and stand in long lines. You do it whenever you want to do it. Do it all at once, do one clue a day to drag it out, do it at night, do it during lunch.

It gets even better! There are three different neighborhoods to choose from! Capitol Hill, Queen Anne and Downtown. There will be prizes for people that do all three neighborhoods.

But wait, there is more! All three benefit a very local nonprofit!

My god, does it get any better!?

Apparently it doesn't as I will be competing with a similar event in Phinney Ridge and another city-wide event that happens in April and another event mostly aimed at tourists just in Downtown.

Stay tuned for details on this fun, and utterly unique event idea!

I just want to give away some money!

Jeez, you would think that giving away money would be a more than easy task. It is proving frustratingly hard and I am confused as to why.

Run for Good Racing's whole idea is to produce awesomely fun running events while raising funds for local nonprofits. While planning for a couple of new events I have approached, and been rejected by three separate organizations to be the beneficiaries for these races. I am confused! Free money? Exposure for your cause? Access to new donors?

Are people and organizations so jaded that they think if they are a beneficiary there will be a catch? I think people are afraid of people doing good and don't quite know how to react to it anymore. Or maybe I am just confused.

So, anyone out there want some free money!?

To Groupn or Not

I have now been approached by several different variations of the social group daily deal and I am always torn. Do you take the participants or the money? It seems with these deals you can't have them both.

On the one hand you want to grow your numbers and get participants that will hopefully come back next year at full price and be able to offer your potential sponsors more eyeballs. You also get exposure to a list you would not have otherwise been able to afford to send to.

On the other hand, when you do the math, you do not make diddly squat on these grouponees. In fact, you have a high potential of actually losing money if you don't get enough full paying customers or you get those participants who were going to sign up at full price see the deal and only give you half their money.

And, when you throw in a nonprofit partner who you have promised x percentage of all money coming in, well, you have just thrown in a whole new can of worms.

The other question is can you handle all the new people? It boils down to this, if you can't offer a great experience for all your participants and you end up making your full paying customers suffer because of this deal, and you are not offering your deal people a good experience, its not a good thing.

These are the decisions of a race director.

Never Mix Business with Pleasure?

That is how the old phrase goes, right? Well, it seems to be the opposite for my company. I have found the people I love and trust the most are helping me through this start-up time with the utmost of generosity, care and love.

Perhaps I have only worked with friends and family on these races because I can't yet afford to pay anyone but I think even if I could hire other people I would still hire them.

After all, they have my best interest in mind.

My best friend is in charge of all the food, I run all my ideas by my mom and dad, my friend and former co-worker does my websites, my other friend does my graphic works, the one I love is my right hand man and is one of my logo masters, my running buddy comes up with all the fun names and scores of people advise me one way or the other or volunteer at the races or hand out fliers, or keep our Facebook page alive and well, or take the photos, or supply me with tables and tents, or load the truck, or keep me sane, or.......

I say, surround yourself with the ones you love and things will be good!

Thank you to all that have helped so far! You are all amazing and I wouldn't have it any other way!

Juggernaut

Last weekend was a really big race here in Seattle and as I worked the expo for a company handing out samples of juice and seeing the runners stream by me for hours and hours at a time I kept on thinking, my god, what a juggernaut this race series has become.

I have always been bothered by this race series and as I stood there, peddling juice to the captive audience, I realized why. Drum roll please......because they are so commercial and marketed and shiny and soul-less! To me they are the Walmart of the running world. Well, the more expensive Walmart.

This series is such a juggernaut that they can get away with charging outrageous prices, and people pay them these outrageous sums of money. If these races come to your city, just like Walmart, there is no competing with them. Smaller races anywhere near this race on the calendar get eaten alive, reduced to whimpering piles of nothing, forcing them to move dates that they have held for years.

This race series does a little bit of good for the community but when you dig around its not a whole heck of a lot. Its mostly a commercial, for-profit entity. What bothers me the most about this race is that it has the potential to do such a tremendous amount of good and it misses the mark. Does running always have to be about raising money? No, but when you have the power to raise that much money and you don't, well, to me that is wrong.

But I guess the 30,000 or so people that run each and every one of them across the country isn't bothered too much. I guess the people that shop at Walmart don't seem to mind supporting their business practices either.

So, how do I create a juggernaut of a race like this, and have it be a truly charitable event, raising so much money for cancer that cancer is obliterated off the face of the planet? I don't know, but I sure as heck am going to study this race series to learn all their tricks!

What a Concept!

This past weekend I got paid to volunteer at a race. That is right, an actual paid gig. What a concept! It makes sense, it was a for-profit race, no bones about it, just a straight up race, make the check out to a company, no promises of a donation to anyone. So, why would I volunteer for such a race? Unless I was being completely altruistic (which, come on, how many of us really are) and wanted to help put on a great race for the sheer pleasure of putting on a great event, I wouldn't.

I was cruising around on the gigs section of Craigslist (we all know that race directors won't get wealthy on racing alone) and came across a call for people to help with a scavenger hunt style urban race. The little listing on the bottom said: Pay: $80. $80 for helping out a race? Yes please!

As I am sitting there, in the rain, waiting for teams to show up to the checkpoint, I am realizing that so many other races ask for volunteers, when really they should be hiring people. A race I volunteered for a few weeks ago was the same. I volunteered, and then later realized that none of the proceeds benefit any organization, except the for-profit company that puts on the race.

No other industry would ask for volunteers like this. Do you see Microsoft asking for volunteers to staff their events? How about any trade-show? Those people sitting there are not volunteers and the companies would be laughed at if they were to ask for volunteers.

One could argue that unpaid interns are essentially volunteers but they at least are getting something more valuable out of the experience. They are not, for the most part, being asked to get up at some ungodly hour to shlep water out to some trail, or cut up bananas for the entire morning.

It is a blatant misuse of people hours and should be stopped. If you are putting on a race to benefit something in the community, then by all means, get as many volunteers as you need. If you are a for-profit race, and nothing more, hire some damn people!

The Other Shoe

At races that I have helped put together there is always something that goes wrong. It could be small or it could be major but something always goes wrong. Most race directors know this going into an event and are prepared for the eventual apology or running around with the fix. Part of our jobs is to try and think of every eventuality that could happen that could make the event go awry and plan backups and then backups for those backups. It is actually sort of a fun game, trying to guess what was the one major thing you forgot! I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When this does not happen it is an eerie feeling.

At Good Karma 5K I kept on waiting and waiting and waiting. The timing system guy's truck is going to break down on the highway, OK, nope, he is here, my key volunteers have forgotten to set their alarms, no, they are all here, the Porto-potties are going to tip over when being delivered, not quite, they are right there, snug in their spot, we are going to run out of safety pins, nope, there are 16 boxes full of them on the tables, someone is going to get lost on the course, but here comes the first place guy, right on time, someone is going to trip at the finish line and get hurt, yet here are all my participants, happy and smiling, we are going to run out of food, not this time, there are still piles of food on those tables.....Really? Nothing at all!?

We are packing up, everyone is gone, truck has been unloaded, ok, for sure I am going to get into an accident with this UHaul, for sure my credit card will be declined, ok, I am positive my car has been stolen at the parking lot and my house has caught fire!

Nothing at all!? Really!? I had to be sure, I needed some outside verification, so I sent out a survey to our participants and sure, there could have been better water placement at the finish, or there could have been more people cheering at the finish line. But, hey, I will take that as a huge success!

My race director heart sings when I still have two shoes on my feet. Nothing dropped here!