I’d say out of the two Parkruns I regularly run, they are at least as well attended as before, if not more so.
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Local ones to me have maintained their numbers, one of them though has seen a drop off in talent
Well somehow my running clubs November ultra has managed to sell out in a couple of hours. We held it last year, so no deferred entires. Quite impressive in the current climate.
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I wonder if race organisers are going to help drive down race attendance with their lack of deferral policies. I sympathise with them because the finances for an event must be marginal at the best of times and especially over the last couple of years so they’re truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.
On the flip side, it’s not sustainable signing up to ever increasing costly events and then not racing due to illness. Just one bout of flu/covid whatever a month ago has killed two races for me. Loch Ness Ultra and Race to the Stones. A combined cost of £400 and both organisers have refused to transfer my entry.
I get why and I don’t have much of an issue with it but I won’t be rushing to sign up for many races in the next year or two. Especially destination races or costly A races. Perhaps I’m different because I train for the enjoyment of the sports and a healthy lifestyle. Racing is icing for me so I don’t need them to motivate me to get out. I’m also not super competitive so taking part is the fun part and personal achievements rather than measuring myself against others. It’s the reason I don’t bother with Strava or Zwift.
Dunno really, just musing after speaking with the organisers this morning whether this could become self fulfilling.
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Yes I agree completely with those musings and something we discuss as a running group.
A friend got Covid the week of a trail race we were doing. The organisers have a series of races and so he emailed with a positive test and requested a deferral or a switch to another event. No money to be returned. I know there are sunk costs and many things to consider but they were pretty short with him and said no. He asked again and he did get moved to a different event. Given that they were still accepting entries the week before the event and he had a positive test, it was unsportsmanlike behaviour in our view.
Catching up with my friend in Paris this weekend she said it is also happening in france. People got just as frustrated with deferral/refund policies.
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It’s a difficult one for sure. I think the next 12-24 months are going to be tough for everyone on both sides.
Apart from the London Marathon, isn’t entry deferral a pretty new thing? Didn’t it used to be the case that you entered your Ironman and if you got too injured to race and you were outside the refund period then you just lost your money?
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For sure. But what is new is an easily transmissible illness that can knock you out for weeks affecting large numbers of the population. You always had the chance of injury but broadly speaking a cold or other regular illness would just affect your training for a few days.
As I say, just thinking out loud really. I certainly understand their perspective and can’t argue against it. But maybe the old norms are no longer relevant and sticking to them will damage events.
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Exactly that.
For me, £50-£60 for a sprint is ludicrous.
The day license is an utter con and completely unrequired.
What does Day Membership provide?
Day Membership provides an amount of public liability insurance cover up to £15 million. Public liability insurance is defensive cover that protects you if you cause an accident injuring or damaging someone else or someone else’s property. This only applies if the member is legally responsible for the accident. Compensation is paid from the insurers to the person pursuing the claim with the injury/damage so the you do not have to pay the full amount. You will only pay the excess of £250 if a claim for damage to property is successfully made against you.
I have that with my Home Insurance policy, I’m therefore buying a policy for which I’m already covered 
Don’t get me started on “fees” for paying 
Imagine buying a new TV on John Lewis and then being told there’s an 8% processing fee.
You’d tell ‘em to FRO and go elsewhere to buy one.
Most of these sprint and Oly races are club events, or put on by a smaller organiser.
They standard at which they are generally ran is “grass roots” at best.
There is zero VFM at £50 - £60.
At £25? Yes. Any more than that and they’re having a giraffe 
Same goes for OW swimming.
How the actual eff has it gone up from a fiver cash on day in 2018 to £10 in 2022?
Or you’ve gotta buy a membership and then pre-book at £7 +50p booking fee.
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Whilst i agree in princinple with that, there’s probably some nuance being lost there as well. I would imagine race organisers have pretty tough expectations from their own insurance providers, how do they prove that everyone already has that liability cover? The admin to request and verify that for every single athlete is quickly going to outweigh the few people that don’t enter due to the extra £5 on race day.
It’s never going to be black and white, and there are many costs that sit beneath this. Also, think of the amount of volunteering that’s needed to keep these smaller events afloat. I doubt this applies to most on here, but out of the general populace that enters these events, how many hours do you think they have ever volunteered to make sure stuff like this still goes on?!
As Bob and Whisk have mentioned, the pandemic has just cranked everything up to 10. Sure, there’ll be some companies that are rinsing this for every penny and using it as an excuse to be a little unscrupulous. But there’s probably 5 decent clubs, companies, charities, individuals that are getting royally shafted as a result of all these changes for every ‘bad’ one.
Most people are in the game due to a passion for the sport. Not to save up quickly for their AMG and Range Rovers.
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I’m a lot more wary of signing up to anything that involves serious travel/hotel these days. Refund policies are all over the place.
Centurion still owe me £21 for refund on a coach ticket for a race that was in June and I cancelled late Feb or early March(was £30, so they already took a ‘fee’).
Written 3 times and they just DGAF and washed their hands of it, being a big org they’ll survive just fine without my custom of course.
Sometimes it’s not the money, it’s how you are treated and sometimes it’s 100% about the money.
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but check if it covers your for racing in organised sports events - many home policies don’t which is why the BTF offers it, and it covers those people who may not have appropriate other insurances.
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I will partially defend booking fees, as many clubs are now using 3rd party apps, and they are the ones charging per transaction. I did look into writing a connection to a Banking API myself for my old tri club and it was too much effort for reward and you have to still pay the bank.
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It always pissed me off that it was a fiver, when BTF charged the clubs/EO’s £3 per licence (kids are still only a quid)
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So if I buy six swims in one go, and my card is debited only once, then why am I charged £3 and not 50p?
Utter jokes.
that is sh!tty
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I would agree with @gingerbongo and @fatbuddha
Having gone/(going?) through a claim from a race, its not something I would have wanted to try and organise with my own Home policy or otherwise. And from what I’ve learned Triathletes suing each other is not all that uncommon. Its small change in the grand scheme of things, if we were worrying about £5 here and there we wouldn’t be doing triathlon. But no one wants to get unnecessarily fleeced, I get.
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I’d agree that £5 is small change in the scheme of things, yeah.
But they’re now £6 and like @Hammerer says, they’re only being charged £3, so why double the amount?
Also…as I’m now going through a home insurance claim, I’m not sure id want to go through them for liability insurance 
Bad enough trying to get a couple of hundred quid from them for some tiles and plastering
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