BEING RUSTY
One of my most favorite expressions is, “The comeback is always stronger than the setback.” For those of us in the event management business, I am praying this statement holds true for all of us.
When it was announced by the Massachusetts governor’s office that races would be allowed again, so many jumped for joy and exclaimed, “We are back!” I wasn’t as quick to respond, because even though we were back, it wasn’t going to be business as usual. Road races were going to be much different than what we were used to.
Now that we are back to executing in-person races, many of us in the industry may need to pull out the ol’ playbook and re-acquaint ourselves with how to actually put on a road race. It’s been up to 20-24 months where we haven’t directed or produced events, so a little “rust” might have built up. We may now need to take our own refresher course to remind ourselves how we did things in the past.
First, we have to ask ourselves: what has changed? Well, to begin with, it still seems like nothing is consistent. We in the industry are putting on events based on what the local officials will or won’t allow. Some races are able to go back to pre-COVID with one mass start. Some need to incorporate mitigation that requires more social distance. Some are requiring wearing a mask at least until runners cross the starting line. Some are requiring evidence of vaccination. Some are COVID testing while others are requiring participants have a negative COVID test before picking up their bib number.
And, all of this is different for across the country. What is happening in Massachusetts is different from what is happening in Florida, which is different from what is happening in Colorado. Needless to say, it is all very confusing and there remains so much uncertainty. Race directors are faced with trying to keep everyone safe but at the same time trying to put on as “normal” a race as possible. It is a delicate balance between the two.
Below are some tips, some thoughts I’ve had to consider as we get back to work and to what we love:
Review all post-race critiques/observations you may have written up and those provided by your committee members from your last event, probably in 2019.
If you have had to let staff go as a result of the pandemic and they have moved on to another job, then you may need to recruit other folks to step in and learn the event from scratch. This will take time and patience. Typically, our greatest asset is the experience of our entire team. If many of those experienced folks need to now be replaced, we have to adjust our expectations of our standards of excellence until these new folks get a year or two under their belts.
We also need to immediately learn which consultants, committee members, vendors and even city/town employees or public safety officials have moved on or are still available and interested in being involved. Many of these folks may have retired or even changed jobs, so there are many new faces who need to be involved. Your event might be their first event experience.
The importance of having an Operations Manual cannot be understated, as it is your go-to playbook with all the operational documents in one place and in an orderly format. This will be your checklist to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Our business is often a numbers game, so how do we plan in terms of how many participants to expect? Field size limits are estimated on how much time you have to conduct the event and how much space you have. That isn’t different from the past except we are being asked to create more space between runners, which has a significant impact on time and space. You don’t want to plan for too few and, of course, you don’t want to overestimate either. Both will cost you a lot of money you didn’t need to spend.
Also, will we be able to fill our events right away or will it now take a few years to get back to the field sizes we once experienced? Many events that have come back so far in 2021 are experiencing a 30-40 percent decrease in field size, so we need to be prepared for lower numbers for a while. There are still many runners who remain cautious about the pandemic and want to wait to see what happens with case numbers. Even though it seemed that more and more people started walking, running, and biking since the pandemic started 18 months ago, will that in fact transfer to these folks signing up for races? That remains to be seen. Running shoe companies and bike stores have been reporting record sales so people are exercising out there on their own, but when will they ALL feel comfortable enough to gather for mass-participatory events again?Another interesting result of the pandemic on races is what runners and race directors now feel is important or not important to have in a race. Races that were lucky to go ahead in 2020 went the route of minimalism: no t-shirts or refreshments, no awards or awards ceremonies, no entertainment. Runners came, ran, and left. Many participants didn’t seem to care about the stripped-down event, as they were just happy to be able to run. Once our world returns to normal—whatever that looks like now will runners feel the same way or expect everything to go back to the way it was?
Another huge impact on races as a result of the pandemic is the exorbitant increases we have seen in the prices of both race amenities like t-shirts and other merchandise, as well as race equipment like port-o-john and tent rental prices. This is putting major stress on race budgets. Additionally, supply is way down, so even if you can afford to cover the increased cost, the product may not be available for months or even at all. Of course, this then could mean increases in entry fees which will only exacerbate the problem even more in terms of runner recruitment and registrations.
What we are also finding is that it has become challenging to get the amount of public safety support our event may need. Police, fire, and EMS staffing is down and they are having a tough time trying to fill the detail to adequately and safely provide the coverage our races may require.
So, for the time being, we can only plan on what is truly a given now and need to remain as positive, flexible, and nimble as possible and not give up. No one can predict the future and everyone has their own opinion as to what is safe. Everyone has a different risk tolerance. All of it is individual speculation. The best we can do now is to clean off the rust, plan for the here and now, and hope for the best in the immediate future as we all patiently continue to carefully and safely navigate our way through this pandemic.