ASG - An open letter, a good response, insights about race situation in SA

[Chris NewbyFraser]

A good thing to remember here is the Jhb2C motto; "it's all about the route". ASG could change their focus and look at what they are doing and why and then ask themselves  'is it all about the rider or the organising?' Where is the real focus happening. Probably aimed at making the organising sustainable. They are providing much needed events to attract cyclists  so that they (ASG) can earn a living. This is a Catch 22/44 situation for them 

Road racing is very expensive to organise. So they need a good sponsor (few and far between) or they have to charge a weeks salary for an entry. This price deters riders so the cost per rider goes up next time and the cycle repeats itself.

 

We need the ASG's and other organisers. If they are not operating we will have no events.

Perhaps municipalities could be asked to look at the marketing value of having a good race in their area and then provide free policing, road use and medical support. This would help a great deal and could start to generate PR value for the town.

 

I wonder if SACycling use their political clout to smooth the way for road racing organisers to succeed?

[GaryvdM]

Thanks for your post on this Wynand and Gerald. Your openness is very much appreciated.

 

My 2 cents:

 

The race calendar is very full. There are so many choices, and you can't do them all. I would rather have fewer races of a higher standard.  Not sure wether this should happen by CSA restricting the amount of sanctioned races, of wether it will just happen on it's own in a free market supply/demand fashion. (Note to anyone planing on starting a new race: don't)

 

Race Registration 13.5%

 

 

The credit card fee is a hard one (bitcoin anyone?) What is the credit card fee? 2%? 3% ?

 

DIY number printing for the win! (email out pdf's that must be printed on a laser printer.) Saves costs for both the organiser (no number printing, less staff needed for number collection days) and the participant (no travel cost to the number collection.)

[Ryinc]

One thing Wynand didn't mention in his reply (at least not directly), is how numbers (bums in saddles) affects the break-even line. A race organiser plans for a certain number, but will not know until the last few days of online entries if they will be below/inline/above that number. I guess this is why the timing services were not used.

 

Most of the costs are fixed, so when the numbers are down you can imagine the "what now?" expressions of concern.

 

Let's take the breakdown (from before) and split it into fixed vs. variable (with a few that have a fixed portion and a variable amount):

 

Fixed

 

Advertising & Promotions 2.6%

Equipment Hire 3.8%

Medals 7.2%

Medical Services 1.6%

Printing and Stationery 1.2%

Prize Money 6.9%

Prizes purchased 4.0% - those incentives to get you to enter

Race Registration 13.5%

Race Insurance 0.7%

Refreshments & Hospitality 4.8%

T-shirts purchased 3.8%

Donations 1.7%

Toilet hire 3.2% - not convenience, but a H&S regulation

Traffic department 2.9%

Super Sport 26-min feature 9.6%

 

Variable

Race Numbers 2.7%

Federation levies 7.0%

 

A portion fixed and a portion variable

Admin/Race day expenses 4.9%

Timing 9.3%

Bank Charges 0.3%

Marshalls & Race officials 8.3%

Thanks for sharing Gerald. I Hfurther question:

 

1. Does your race break even?

2. What portion of income to cover expenses comes from rider fees vs sponsorship?

3. How many hours of volunteers like yourself do you think you use?

4. Do you think it is possible to run a well run race say at 10-15% profit charging R250 per rider with few or no volunteers but say without medals and supersport coverage (to me this is 15% that generates little value to customer)

5. Most of the costs you listed would be incuured by mtb races too. The main ones only incurred by road were traffic dept (2.9%) and officials and marshalls (8.3%). MTB race wiuld have other costs though e.g venue. What do you think is the reason then that MTB races seem to be able to provide better value (often on fewer numbers) if only 10% cost is really related to road usage?

6. Surely there must be ways to get some of the costs variable e.g.

A) Opt in model for medals

B) Prize money tied to number of entries. E.g > 1000 entries prze money = x, > 2000 entries prize money = Y.

7. In any business with large fixed costs, it is ALL about scale and volumes. Therefore they key to keeping costs per rider down seems to be about numbers, here are a one or two ideas (some already previously mentioned on the Hub).

 - If organiser runs more than one event (e.g. ASG, Vortex etc) Give multiple race entry option e.g. R300 per race (say), or enter 3 races for R600 (say). 

- Put more pressure on better organisation of CSA calendar to not have conflicting events

- Offer a more customer centric approach - e.g. print your own number or race day collection options (spinnekop's favourite)

[Skubarra]

4. Do you think it is possible to run a well run race say at 10-15% profit charging R250 per rider with few or no volunteers but say without medals and supersport coverage (to me this is 15% that generates little value to customer)

 

I know of a few races that thought - "Lets drop the medals and give something else, most people dont care about medals"... And then the following year had medals again...

 

Dont know about the Supersport insert specificly but marketing is important & cost money. I can imagine having an insert like that could be attractive to sponsors.

[Ryinc]

I know of a few races that thought - "Lets drop the medals and give something else, most people dont care about medals"... And then the following year had medals again...

 

Dont know about the Supersport insert specificly but marketing is important & cost money. I can imagine having an insert like that could be attractive to sponsors.

 

Not suggesting the medals get dropped because you are correct if they get dropped people will moan about it, I am just suggesting that you have the option to opt in to get one when you enter. On your number there could be an indicator whether you paid for it. 

 

Your point about the Supersport insert to try get return for Sponsor is probably correct.

[JA-Q001]

Not suggesting the medals get dropped because you are correct if they get dropped people will moan about it, I am just suggesting that you have the option to opt in to get one when you enter. On your number there could be an indicator whether you paid for it. 

 

Your point about the Supersport insert to try get return for Sponsor is probably correct.

The only problem is that then you get a medal for entering not for finishing, because if you opted to pay for it and don't finish, you can still claim your paid for medal.

[Skubarra]

The only problem is that then you get a medal for entering not for finishing, because if you opted to pay for it and don't finish, you can still claim your paid for medal.

Yep, a lot of admin involved. And people who opt not to take medals, will their entry fee reduce? What if they try to take a medal anyway? Can just imagine a whole new set of schlepp & problems.

[Ryinc]

Yep, a lot of admin involved. And people who opt not to take medals, will their entry fee reduce? What if they try to take a medal anyway? Can just imagine a whole new set of schlepp & problems.

 

No, not a lot of admin. The entry portals already allow for options in the pay basket. When you enter, you tick whether you want a medal. So yes, people who chose not to opt for the medal, pay less. Two options for how that medal gets to people who opted for it:

1. It gets included as part of your pre-race envelope (perhaps not ideal because i guess will take away the meaning of the medal for whom it is important.)

2. Your race number gets an indicator to say whether you opted for a medal. At the medal table, they check your race number if you want a medal. Carnival city this year had numbers personalised to have your name on - don't tell me it is not possible to have a binary indicator to say whether you had a medal.

 

There are also other options - e.g. a plastic medal etc.

 

No problem if people don't agree with ideas, but let's rather try to think of improvements/alternatives to suggestions rather than just shooting down....

[Ryinc]

The only problem is that then you get a medal for entering not for finishing, because if you opted to pay for it and don't finish, you can still claim your paid for medal.

 

Well yes and no. Currently you are paying for the medal but you only get it if you finish. So technically no different. You point has merit though that because there was separate pricing people might feel hard done by if the explicitly "paid" for a medal and didn't get one. The number of people that don't finish road races though is a fraction of the field, and I believe that if it was an opt in model for medals only a fraction would choose the medal. Therefore I reckon we are talking maybe 10-20 riders in a field of 1000. If this really turns out to be a problem there are possible solutions though anyway:

1. Give them a medal anyway even though they didn't finish - is it really such a big deal? This isn't a Cape Epic finisher's we are talking about here.

2. Have a few alternative medals for people that didn't finish e.g. a "participants medal" but not a "finisher's medal"

3. Offer a refund option on the medal payment if they didn't finish - honestly how many people are going to claim it anyway.

[Frosty]

Thanks for sharing Gerald. I Hfurther question:

 

1. Does your race break even? 

2. What portion of income to cover expenses comes from rider fees vs sponsorship?

3. How many hours of volunteers like yourself do you think you use?

4. Do you think it is possible to run a well run race say at 10-15% profit charging R250 per rider with few or no volunteers but say without medals and supersport coverage (to me this is 15% that generates little value to customer)

5. Most of the costs you listed would be incuured by mtb races too. The main ones only incurred by road were traffic dept (2.9%) and officials and marshalls (8.3%). MTB race wiuld have other costs though e.g venue. What do you think is the reason then that MTB races seem to be able to provide better value (often on fewer numbers) if only 10% cost is really related to road usage?

6. Surely there must be ways to get some of the costs variable e.g.

A) Opt in model for medals

B) Prize money tied to number of entries. E.g > 1000 entries prze money = x, > 2000 entries prize money = Y.

7. In any business with large fixed costs, it is ALL about scale and volumes. Therefore they key to keeping costs per rider down seems to be about numbers, here are a one or two ideas (some already previously mentioned on the Hub).

 - If organiser runs more than one event (e.g. ASG, Vortex etc) Give multiple race entry option e.g. R300 per race (say), or enter 3 races for R600 (say). 

- Put more pressure on better organisation of CSA calendar to not have conflicting events

- Offer a more customer centric approach - e.g. print your own number or race day collection options (spinnekop's favourite)

1. 2015 = No. Previous years = Yes
2. About 90/10 split (entries/sponsorship)
3. Plenty - there are others that do far more than me. I've never kept track, so a guess wouldn't really be a realistic amount.
4. Possible, not not likely - but that all depends on the number of entries received. Regarding the Supersport insert - if the sponsor pays, they spnsors expects it. How much value does it add? 
5. If a MTB organiser is willing to provide a similar breakdown, then a like-for-like comparison can be done.
6. Prize money is based on the type of event you're hosting, i.e. An A-grade race must have a minimum of R50K in prizes. An A-grade race will get you certain rights. For the Carnival City Macsteel race, we apply for Cat-R1, similar to an A-grade, but gives us a 500Km radius of exclusivity, meaning no-one else can organise a road event on the same day within that radius. It's a way to ensure we can get the numbers.
7. Many proposals have been made with other organisers of local (GP) races at the start of the year, to have a series of events. No-one seems interested. We have race day number collection, as well as a courier delivery option (Spinnekop, and Talus, used the latter this year).

[Ryinc]

 

• 2015 = No. Previous years = Yes
• About 90/10 split (entries/sponsorship)
• Plenty - there are others that do far more than me. I've never kept track, so a guess wouldn't really be a realistic amount.
• Possible, not not likely - but that all depends on the number of entries received. Regarding the Supersport insert - if the sponsor pays, they spnsors expects it. How much value does it add?
• If a MTB organiser is willing to provide a similar breakdown, then a like-for-like comparison can be done.
• Prize money is based on the type of event you're hosting, i.e. An A-grade race must have a minimum of R50K in prizes. An A-grade race will get you certain rights. For the Carnival City Macsteel race, we apply for Cat-R1, similar to an A-grade, but gives us a 500Km radius of exclusivity, meaning no-one else can organise a road event on the same day within that radius. It's a way to ensure we can get the numbers.
• Many proposals have been made with other organisers of local (GP) races at the start of the year, to have a series of events. No-one seems interested. We have race day number collection, as well as a courier delivery option (Spinnekop, and Talus, used the latter this year).

Thanks Gerald, we appreciate the good organisation at your race, and the value you add personally to the hub.

[Skubarra]

No, not a lot of admin. The entry portals already allow for options in the pay basket. When you enter, you tick whether you want a medal. So yes, people who chose not to opt for the medal, pay less. Two options for how that medal gets to people who opted for it:

1. It gets included as part of your pre-race envelope (perhaps not ideal because i guess will take away the meaning of the medal for whom it is important.)

2. Your race number gets an indicator to say whether you opted for a medal. At the medal table, they check your race number if you want a medal. Carnival city this year had numbers personalised to have your name on - don't tell me it is not possible to have a binary indicator to say whether you had a medal.

 

There are also other options - e.g. a plastic medal etc.

 

No problem if people don't agree with ideas, but let's rather try to think of improvements/alternatives to suggestions rather than just shooting down....

 

Some people might say "Great, I'm saving R20" others will say "Look at these greedy organisers charging me extra for the medal". Having an admin process to determine who get medals at the finish and who don't - I can just see more problems.

 

Remember, organisers don't get the benefit of the doubt from riders when things go wrong,(just see the letter that started this thread...), even the seemingly mundane things can become a nightmare on social media.

 

My suggestion, the money you are going to save trying to go all creative with medals is just not worth the extra hassle you are going to create. Keep it simple, hand out medals at the finish to those who want them and spend your energy on other more important stuff.

 

PS - This is just a personal preference but rather give me no medal than insult me with a plastic one.

[Ryinc]

Some people might say "Great, I'm saving R20" others will say "Look at these greedy organisers charging me extra for the medal". Having an admin process to determine who get medals at the finish and who don't - I can just see more problems.

 

 

Sure you will never please everyone. But i think the majority will be the "i prefer cost efficiency group" (perhaps i will start on a poll on a different thread and we can objectively test the hypothesis from the community"

 

There are also ways to deal with this too - e.g. have you seen the low US airline South West advert in response to customers who complained that they did not have in-flight entertainment? Basically the came back showing people in an aeroplane on ipads etc and said - we won't compromise on being able to offer you flights for $99, that's why we don't offer in flight entertainment. This thread itself, shows how when the organiser makes it transparent what the cost is that people are prepared to take notice. 

 

Let's look at another example from the airline industry. In flight food used to be standard, now you pay for it on low cost airlines - originally people grumbled, but now people have spoken with their wallets and i don't see too many people complaining. 

 

We are not going to agree on admin being easy or difficult so no point arguing this further.

 

 

 

Remember, organisers don't get the benefit of the doubt from riders when things go wrong,(just see the letter that started this thread...), even the seemingly mundane things can become a nightmare on social media.

 

 

Read the letter again, i wrote it. The organiser did not get the "benefit of the doubt" here because they did not deliver something that they explicitly committed to with no form of apology or explanation . That's something completely different to what is being discussed here. 

 

 

 

My suggestion, the money you are going to save trying to go all creative with medals is just not worth the extra hassle you are going to create. Keep it simple, hand out medals at the finish to those who want them and spend your energy on other more important stuff.

 

PS - This is just a personal preference but rather give me no medal than insult me with a plastic one.

 

 

This is the important stuff - read Gerald's cost breakdown again. Medals was one of the highest costs

- 1. Registration 13.5%

- 2. Supersport feature - 9.6%

- 3. Timing 9.3%

- 4. Marshalls and Race officials 8.3%

- 5. Medals - 7.2%

 

The general consensus on the hub seems to be (as largely summarised by Spinnekop in another thread) that the following seem to be the key things people don't want race organisers to skimp on:

1. Safety (marshalls etc)

2. Toilets - lots and clean

3. Water points/refreshments

4. Proper timing

5. A race day pick up option/more customer friendly collection of race packs.

6. A suitable venue

 

Do you disagree with this list? 

 

Skurburra, how would you try to offer a more attractive customer proposition for road rides?

[Patchelicious]

Regardless of which areas you cut costs on, say so upfront.

 

If you are not going to give medals, say so on the adverts.

Timing, same thing. If you cannot commit to electronic timing, rather dont.

 

Its the number one rule of ANY business, set and then manage expectations. Its when expectations are not met that people get grumpy.

[Skubarra]

 

Read the letter again, i wrote it. The organiser did not get the "benefit of the doubt" here because they did not deliver something that they explicitly committed to with no form of apology or explanation . That's something completely different to what is being discussed here. 

 

 

 

 

This is the important stuff - read Gerald's cost breakdown again. Medals was one of the highest costs

- 1. Registration 13.5%

- 2. Supersport feature - 9.6%

- 3. Timing 9.3%

- 4. Marshalls and Race officials 8.3%

- 5. Medals - 7.2%

 

 

The 7.2% quoted by gerald would depend on the size of the race, some costs are fixed some are per rider.

 

Medals are not as expensive as you might think, probably between R10 - R20 a medal if you order in bulk.  And there is a vocal minority of riders that will complain loudly if you don't hand them out

 

That is why I say there is limited upside in trying to go all creative on medals.

 

Edit - sorry, maybe your rant is not the best example of not giving organisers the benefit of the doubt - but the point is still valid, you see this every day on thehub, something goes wrong = organisers are incompetent & greedy.

[Patchelicious]

Sure you will never please everyone. But i think the majority will be the "i prefer cost efficiency group" (perhaps i will start on a poll on a different thread and we can objectively test the hypothesis from the community"

 

There are also ways to deal with this too - e.g. have you seen the low US airline South West advert in response to customers who complained that they did not have in-flight entertainment? Basically the came back showing people in an aeroplane on ipads etc and said - we won't compromise on being able to offer you flights for $99, that's why we don't offer in flight entertainment. This thread itself, shows how when the organiser makes it transparent what the cost is that people are prepared to take notice. 

 

Let's look at another example from the airline industry. In flight food used to be standard, now you pay for it on low cost airlines - originally people grumbled, but now people have spoken with their wallets and i don't see too many people complaining. 

 

We are not going to agree on admin being easy or difficult so no point arguing this further.

 

Read the letter again, i wrote it. The organiser did not get the "benefit of the doubt" here because they did not deliver something that they explicitly committed to with no form of apology or explanation . That's something completely different to what is being discussed here. 

 

 

 

 

This is the important stuff - read Gerald's cost breakdown again. Medals was one of the highest costs

- 1. Registration 13.5%

- 2. Supersport feature - 9.6%

- 3. Timing 9.3%

- 4. Marshalls and Race officials 8.3%

- 5. Medals - 7.2%

 

The general consensus on the hub seems to be (as largely summarised by Spinnekop in another thread) that the following seem to be the key things people don't want race organisers to skimp on:

1. Safety (marshalls etc)

2. Toilets - lots and clean

3. Water points/refreshments

4. Proper timing

5. A race day pick up option/more customer friendly collection of race packs.

6. A suitable venue

 

Do you disagree with this list? 

 

Skurburra, how would you try to offer a more attractive customer proposition for road rides?

I suggested the same to ASG, run a poll on it. See what is important to us as cyclists and then adjust.