Events that are getting postponed again...

[DonatelloOnPinarello]

1 hour ago, MORNE said:

ive come to appreciate the unique insights you share recently but i’ll be dead honest…this post was the epitomy of TLDR????. 

proper text-wall-of-death.

 

I humbly apologise. As mentioned in a post above, I was a little triggered by the events of the past week, and the comment about events organisers being “lazy” set me off. Also, I learned what TLDR means now, and will keep this in mind for future posts. With Hemingway being my favourite author, I should be better at just getting to the point…
 

Everyone’s inputs on this are valid. We need to listen to each other, and those in the events planning game need to listen even more closely. Figure out what it is people really want to do, and find a way to offer that experience, within the regulations, or find themselves a new industry. Expecting to remain in business without changing and accepting the “new normal” is also not okay anymore. It’s 18 months since the wheels fell off, and locally at least, it’s 18 to 24 months away from any sort of situation that looks remotely like pre-pandemic life.

 

 

PS: New Normal - I seriously hate that term, nothing about this pandemic is “normal”. The status quo goes against all basic human psychological traits. 

Edited August 11, 2021 by DonatelloOnPinarello

[DieselnDust]

8 hours ago, Mountain Bru said:

Such a convenient excuse for why you need a camelbak rather than admitting you actually need 2 cages on your bike...... 

Chirp of the year contestant ????

[DieselnDust]

22 minutes ago, DonatelloOnPinarello said:

I humbly apologise. As mentioned in a post above, I was a little triggered by the events of the past week, and the comment about events organisers being “lazy” set me off. 
 

Everyone’s inputs on this are valid. We need to listen to each other, and those in the events planning game need to listen even more closely. Figure out what it is people really want to do, and find a way to offer that experience, within the regulations, or find themselves a new industry. Expecting to remain in business without changing and accepting the “new normal” is also not okay anymore. It’s 18 months since the wheels fell off, and locally at least, it’s 18 to 24 months away from any sort of situation that looks remotely like pre-pandemic life.

 

 

PS: New Normal - I seriously hate that term, nothing about this pandemic is “normal”. The status quo goes against all basic human psychological traits. 

no offense taken to your comments as I have a lot of insight into the events industry and I can see the resistance to innovate. Organisers have become used to a formula and get stuck when it comes to suggestions of change, defensive most of the time. I cant accept this while they have my money (which BTW is also hard earned and has required me to adapt to new ways of working and accepting that things like an increase are a luxury)

I've spent the last year of my life in a team tasked with reshaping how our company operates and how and what it has to deliver in the future. I would expect other industries to do the same. PPA found an innovative way to host the Double Century last year...PPA,.... the last bastion of conservatism found a way to be innovative. At least they communicated what their blockers were and then set about working out ways around those. PPA wasn't lazy.

 

other events I see are pushing forward with the tried and tested pre covid formula and hence I cannot see how these are going to survive except by the benevolence of the patrons who pay entries and are happy to use the events bank account as a non interest bearing (not so) safe. 

Yes many industries will be reset but generally the notion of the more things change the more they stay the same will likely hold true. Those who are innovative today will create new industries that will carry on after the pandemic is over. The cycling events stage is due a change so what better time than the present to reset, regroup and innovate out of the mess. or just keep postponing and see how long to survive.

Lastly, event organisers are holding entrants money. These people deserve to know why the event is cancelled and not just receive a "sorry the event is cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic". as you allude to there is a machine behind that email. Don't disrespect your clientele. Explain the challenges and solve them where possible.

 

many people said they would not ride DC 2020 because the format was different/to hard/ not well thought out/ yet it was the best DC I've ridden in. No large groups, no near misses and accidents, no unnecessary stresses in keeping your own group together. An innovative solution that appealed to clients with a different outlook than the sheeple who want more of the same. The market is open to innovation 

 

[DonatelloOnPinarello]

2 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

no offense taken to your comments as I have a lot of insight into the events industry and I can see the resistance to innovate. Organisers have become used to a formula and get stuck when it comes to suggestions of change, defensive most of the time. I cant accept this while they have my money (which BTW is also hard earned and has required me to adapt to new ways of working and accepting that things like an increase are a luxury)

I've spent the last year of my life in a team tasked with reshaping how our company operates and how and what it has to deliver in the future. I would expect other industries to do the same. PPA found an innovative way to host the Double Century last year...PPA,.... the last bastion of conservatism found a way to be innovative. At least they communicated what their blockers were and then set about working out ways around those. PPA wasn't lazy.

 

other events I see are pushing forward with the tried and tested pre covid formula and hence I cannot see how these are going to survive except by the benevolence of the patrons who pay entries and are happy to use the events bank account as a non interest bearing (not so) safe. 

Yes many industries will be reset but generally the notion of the more things change the more they stay the same will likely hold true. Those who are innovative today will create new industries that will carry on after the pandemic is over. The cycling events stage is due a change so what better time than the present to reset, regroup and innovate out of the mess. or just keep postponing and see how long to survive.

Lastly, event organisers are holding entrants money. These people deserve to know why the event is cancelled and not just receive a "sorry the event is cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic". as you allude to there is a machine behind that email. Don't disrespect your clientele. Explain the challenges and solve them where possible.

 

many people said they would not ride DC 2020 because the format was different/to hard/ not well thought out/ yet it was the best DC I've ridden in. No large groups, no near misses and accidents, no unnecessary stresses in keeping your own group together. An innovative solution that appealed to clients with a different outlook than the sheeple who want more of the same. The market is open to innovation 

 

This post, so well structured and level headed, somehow has me so perplexed at the same time. I cannot agree with you more on certain aspects, and at the same time, I’m so far at odds with you on others. But I think this kind of discussion is desperately needed. Whether the right people in the industry are willing to listen is another story altogether. 
 

The bit I put in bold is the real issue for me. This is the perception so many seem to have, but the reality is it’s just not the case. The two big mistakes people make is believing that sports events are massively lucrative. They just aren’t. As a business they only make sense when all the ancillaries are added on, and even then, they still need sponsors cheques to actually make it worth while.

as I already mentioned before, the sponsors cheques normally only pay out based on a successful event taking place, and the ancillary things, like fees for having a stand in the riders village for mechanics, physios, bike shops, supplement suppliers etc etc only get paid if there is an actual event. Furthermore, your money paid over for your entry has been paid forward to a large extent to service providers many months before the event actually takes place. That is why most events sell early bird entries. Discounting an early bird entry is essentially cheaper than the interest on borrowing the money to pay the venue/Accomodation/ablution/caterers et al in advance. They may at best hold onto a small % themselves, and that normally goes towards salaries etc for the full time staff during the 12 odd months between events. The notion that organisers are sitting on your money earning interest while riding out the pandemic is simply not fair. At the same time then saying the service providers they have paid are doing the same is also not fair. Being paid for 1 event, that then has to be postponed, assuming it’s postponed before you have incurred real costs, is one thing, but that assumes they have a bunch of other paying gigs actually taking place. But when it becomes months upon months of postponements, with no new events on the horizon, but overheads still needing to be paid, it becomes a problem. Most of the value chain in the events industry is now in this boat together. They are “sitting” on deposits/entries paid in late 2019/early 2020, and no new income since. They have had to pay rent and salaries etc as long as they could. Then they had to start laying people off, downsizing etc, doing whatever to keep the lights on. 
 

When the events can finally go ahead, the customer still expects the same service they initially paid for. The organiser still expects the services that it initially paid the service provider for, and so the expectation moves down the line. All this after effectively 18 months of zero new income. Essentially everyone has been paying Paul for the past 18 months, but there has been no new Peter to “Rob” or even legitimately bill. In normal circumstances this would never happen, because even for small companies that run 1 or 2 events a year, it remains cyclical, very much like farming, where this years harvest pays all your expenses to grow the next crop. Except in events now, it’s been 1.5 seasons without any crop, and when the crop does finally come in, the people you borrowed from (the paying participant, that entered in 2019) still wants their share.

So if you were to now insist on a refund, the organiser would need to loan the money to refund you from elsewhere, and the banks, who usually sponsor these events, aren’t exactly keen to extend credit to events companies at the moment, since they are probably already leveraged to the hilt by now.

 

The event companies have no choice at the moment but to try go ahead as planned, because they owe people who have already paid for that event the experience they paid for. Their only option now to try actually stay in the black, is to extend their logistics capacity to the absolute limit, and allow a limited number of new/extra entries to pump some fresh cash into the business. They cannot afford to cancel these events. The banks won’t loan them the money to refund everyone. The negative PR of a cancelation with no refunds would make any possible new format event a non starter. So, as much as they may want to go back to the drawing board and do things differently next time, they can’t do that until they have fulfilled the current obligations. 
 

With regards to events that have already been postponed now for a second or third time, I have a terrible feeling that there will be a number of events companies that go insolvent during the course of next year, before they can even attempt to run the events they have sold entries to. When that happens, I foresee a number of threads here and posts on FB calling for the blood of the directors/owners. Because double standards when it comes to dealing with small businesses compared to huge Corporates is our second favourite pastime. For example, When everything went belly up last year March/April, the airlines and the big hotel chains just said sorry for you, and people lost thousands of rands worth of reservations/tickets. People got a bit upset, some maybe even made a snarky comment on FB, but essentially accepted it and moved on. But the same people that lost tens of thousands of rands to comair, Lufthansa, BA, SunInternational etc, and let it go, are still holding events companies to task over event entries. Those multinationals got government bailouts etc, and still paid nothing forward to the client, but everyone just accepts it for what it is. Events companies and hospitality providers got nothing, their business interruption insurance just refused to pay, everyone must just move on and accept. But every time an event gets postponed or they update their refund policy, or make changes to try and go ahead somehow, there’s threads with dozens of comments about it here, and Facebook comments into the hundreds criticising the organisers for being greedy, and earning interest on their hard earned money etc etc.
 

But maybe it’s time to look at this in some perspective. I’m going to use Ecobound as an example - I have no connection to the organisation, but they are a good example, since they have received severe criticism as to their handing of this, especially regards opening 2021 entries before having ran the 2020 event. There were a totals of 450 individual spots for each event (race and repeat). So a total of 900 entries at about R2650.00 per person. That means the event took in a total of just over under R2.4Mil for the 2020 event. So a total annual sales/revenue of R2.4mil for an entire 12 month period. If you take it that the event has to employ 2 full time employees just to manage the arrangment of the event, at a low salary for an event planner/logistics manager at this level (let’s assume these people have some other projects, so they aren’t paid a representative full time salary), so R25k gross per month each. That’s R600k per year.

The event needs office space, assume it’s shared with other business, (ecobound is in garden route mall, but run bikamino and 2Hell&Back from there too), so if the office rental is R20k/month, let’s call TB portion R7k. That’s a further R84k. 
 

Entries are done online and paid by credit card. If they managed to negotiate a really sweet deal with the payment processer, they still paying at least 2%. So that’s a further R50k. Web hosting and maintenance of the online entry system, plus other IT related expenses, let’s call it a cheap R1500.00pm. Thats another R18k.

Then liabilty insurance for the event, R25k per departure, so another R50k

simce the route hasn’t really changed much over the past few years, we can assume they don’t need to do much recce trips etc. But let’s say they do about 10k km a year of driving in the planning of the event (this would probably be a lot more, but I’m being conservative). Assuming they use a typical late model 4x4 DC for this, so about R6.00km at conservative rates. That’s another R60k

They need an entertainment budget for wooing new sponsors, and reaffirming arrangements with existing sponsors, negotiating deals with suppliers/service providers etc. If they super frugal, R3000.00 a month ought to do. Another R36k a year.

 

So before they have paid a single service provider even a cent, or bought a single piece of merchandise for your goodie back, printed a single number board, or anything of the sort. Essentially without incurring a single direct event related expense, they have already spent at least R830k, and that’s being ultra conservative. I think it’s clear to see that once they start paying deposits to other service providers, printing race boards, making up goodie bags and so on, there is very little left out of the entry fees as “profit”. Now remember TB is actually a small event, organised by a family run small business. Unlike a lot of other events, there is no big Title Sponsor. This event actually needs to make an income for ecobound. The last successful event was in August 2019, 24 months ago. If you really think they are just “sitting” on the entry fees, think again. I do think the smart thing to do is not to enter any events for the time being, but if you had entered and are waiting on an event to eventually take place, be patient, and be thankful that you can actually afford to spend money on a hobby like cycling…

[ChrisF]

10 hours ago, DonatelloOnPinarello said:

I humbly apologise. As mentioned in a post above, I was a little triggered by the events of the past week, and the comment about events organisers being “lazy” set me off. Also, I learned what TLDR means now, and will keep this in mind for future posts. With Hemingway being my favourite author, I should be better at just getting to the point…
 

Everyone’s inputs on this are valid. We need to listen to each other, and those in the events planning game need to listen even more closely. Figure out what it is people really want to do, and find a way to offer that experience, within the regulations, or find themselves a new industry. Expecting to remain in business without changing and accepting the “new normal” is also not okay anymore. It’s 18 months since the wheels fell off, and locally at least, it’s 18 to 24 months away from any sort of situation that looks remotely like pre-pandemic life.

 

 

PS: New Normal - I seriously hate that term, nothing about this pandemic is “normal”. The status quo goes against all basic human psychological traits. 

Real pity people dont read your full post ....

 

Yes, it is long, but it only starts to scratch the surface of the real practicalities of hosting an event.  AND you actually did pose various options for the way forward (for those that managed to read past volume 2)

 

Just one of the hurdles for event organisers - Public safety BY-LAW .....Each and every municipality and sub.district have their own slightly tweaked ByLaw for this.

 

 

Once you think you have an event, you submit your application to the relevant Local Authority ... separate application to each and every Local Authority for an event thay crosses over different municipal boundaries.

 

 

Typically this Authority meets on Wednesday morning with their team involved in checking health, safety, traffic, fire, etc for events in their area.

 

Now outside issues such as unrest, flooding, etc can cause late cancellation ..... this is where the National and/or Provincial guidelines around covid can and do upend months of planning mere days before the event.

 

 

For those still reading ....

 

HOURS before the event is to start the Local Authority inspects facilities, venues, car parks, catering areas, etc .... all good and well having a plan on paper, but if everything is not in place the event is delayed.

 

 

During the last World Cup the premiere sat in the car for an hour before the event organisers got the facilities in Bellville up to code ....

 

The sad reality, just enough falling stands and broken toilets to keep reminding Local Authorities why these hoops are in place ..... and if contact tracing shows you picked up covid at an event that did not follow the regulations to the letter .... just no way the event organiser can shift that responsibility.....

 

EDIT - Event organisers CAN shift that blame to the Local Authority, when they allow an event to continue contrary to the existing disaster act.  This principle WAS tested, when the Local Authority became a co-defendant in a civil law suit a few years back.  BUT, the Local Authority pulled out their "fine print", and the individual staff member became liable in his personal capacity, and had to foot the bill for his own legal team !!  Caused LOTS of ramifications for those of us submitting designs and event plans to Council for approval .... when it does not fit their tick box, "the individual" is too scared and exposed to make a call that can land him\her in trouble ....

Edited August 12, 2021 by ChrisF

[MORNE]

5 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

Chirp of the year contestant ????

probably best to use the container from that extra bottle cage too????

Edited August 12, 2021 by MORNE

[Mountain Bru]

6 hours ago, DonatelloOnPinarello said:

Also, I learned what TLDR means now, and will keep this in mind for future posts.

 

2 hours ago, DonatelloOnPinarello said:

This post, so well structured and level headed, somehow has me so perplexed at the same time. I cannot agree with you more on certain aspects, and at the same time, I’m so far at odds with you on others. But I think this kind of discussion is desperately needed. Whether the right people in the industry are willing to listen is another story altogether. 
 

The bit I put in bold is the real issue for me. This is the perception so many seem to have, but the reality is it’s just not the case. The two big mistakes people make is believing that sports events are massively lucrative. They just aren’t. As a business they only make sense when all the ancillaries are added on, and even then, they still need sponsors cheques to actually make it worth while.

as I already mentioned before, the sponsors cheques normally only pay out based on a successful event taking place, and the ancillary things, like fees for having a stand in the riders village for mechanics, physios, bike shops, supplement suppliers etc etc only get paid if there is an actual event. Furthermore, your money paid over for your entry has been paid forward to a large extent to service providers many months before the event actually takes place. That is why most events sell early bird entries. Discounting an early bird entry is essentially cheaper than the interest on borrowing the money to pay the venue/Accomodation/ablution/caterers et al in advance. They may at best hold onto a small % themselves, and that normally goes towards salaries etc for the full time staff during the 12 odd months between events. The notion that organisers are sitting on your money earning interest while riding out the pandemic is simply not fair. At the same time then saying the service providers they have paid are doing the same is also not fair. Being paid for 1 event, that then has to be postponed, assuming it’s postponed before you have incurred real costs, is one thing, but that assumes they have a bunch of other paying gigs actually taking place. But when it becomes months upon months of postponements, with no new events on the horizon, but overheads still needing to be paid, it becomes a problem. Most of the value chain in the events industry is now in this boat together. They are “sitting” on deposits/entries paid in late 2019/early 2020, and no new income since. They have had to pay rent and salaries etc as long as they could. Then they had to start laying people off, downsizing etc, doing whatever to keep the lights on. 
 

When the events can finally go ahead, the customer still expects the same service they initially paid for. The organiser still expects the services that it initially paid the service provider for, and so the expectation moves down the line. All this after effectively 18 months of zero new income. Essentially everyone has been paying Paul for the past 18 months, but there has been no new Peter to “Rob” or even legitimately bill. In normal circumstances this would never happen, because even for small companies that run 1 or 2 events a year, it remains cyclical, very much like farming, where this years harvest pays all your expenses to grow the next crop. Except in events now, it’s been 1.5 seasons without any crop, and when the crop does finally come in, the people you borrowed from (the paying participant, that entered in 2019) still wants their share.

So if you were to now insist on a refund, the organiser would need to loan the money to refund you from elsewhere, and the banks, who usually sponsor these events, aren’t exactly keen to extend credit to events companies at the moment, since they are probably already leveraged to the hilt by now.

 

The event companies have no choice at the moment but to try go ahead as planned, because they owe people who have already paid for that event the experience they paid for. Their only option now to try actually stay in the black, is to extend their logistics capacity to the absolute limit, and allow a limited number of new/extra entries to pump some fresh cash into the business. They cannot afford to cancel these events. The banks won’t loan them the money to refund everyone. The negative PR of a cancelation with no refunds would make any possible new format event a non starter. So, as much as they may want to go back to the drawing board and do things differently next time, they can’t do that until they have fulfilled the current obligations. 
 

With regards to events that have already been postponed now for a second or third time, I have a terrible feeling that there will be a number of events companies that go insolvent during the course of next year, before they can even attempt to run the events they have sold entries to. When that happens, I foresee a number of threads here and posts on FB calling for the blood of the directors/owners. Because double standards when it comes to dealing with small businesses compared to huge Corporates is our second favourite pastime. For example, When everything went belly up last year March/April, the airlines and the big hotel chains just said sorry for you, and people lost thousands of rands worth of reservations/tickets. People got a bit upset, some maybe even made a snarky comment on FB, but essentially accepted it and moved on. But the same people that lost tens of thousands of rands to comair, Lufthansa, BA, SunInternational etc, and let it go, are still holding events companies to task over event entries. Those multinationals got government bailouts etc, and still paid nothing forward to the client, but everyone just accepts it for what it is. Events companies and hospitality providers got nothing, their business interruption insurance just refused to pay, everyone must just move on and accept. But every time an event gets postponed or they update their refund policy, or make changes to try and go ahead somehow, there’s threads with dozens of comments about it here, and Facebook comments into the hundreds criticising the organisers for being greedy, and earning interest on their hard earned money etc etc.
 

But maybe it’s time to look at this in some perspective. I’m going to use Ecobound as an example - I have no connection to the organisation, but they are a good example, since they have received severe criticism as to their handing of this, especially regards opening 2021 entries before having ran the 2020 event. There were a totals of 450 individual spots for each event (race and repeat). So a total of 900 entries at about R2650.00 per person. That means the event took in a total of just over under R2.4Mil for the 2020 event. So a total annual sales/revenue of R2.4mil for an entire 12 month period. If you take it that the event has to employ 2 full time employees just to manage the arrangment of the event, at a low salary for an event planner/logistics manager at this level (let’s assume these people have some other projects, so they aren’t paid a representative full time salary), so R25k gross per month each. That’s R600k per year.

The event needs office space, assume it’s shared with other business, (ecobound is in garden route mall, but run bikamino and 2Hell&Back from there too), so if the office rental is R20k/month, let’s call TB portion R7k. That’s a further R84k. 
 

Entries are done online and paid by credit card. If they managed to negotiate a really sweet deal with the payment processer, they still paying at least 2%. So that’s a further R50k. Web hosting and maintenance of the online entry system, plus other IT related expenses, let’s call it a cheap R1500.00pm. Thats another R18k.

Then liabilty insurance for the event, R25k per departure, so another R50k

simce the route hasn’t really changed much over the past few years, we can assume they don’t need to do much recce trips etc. But let’s say they do about 10k km a year of driving in the planning of the event (this would probably be a lot more, but I’m being conservative). Assuming they use a typical late model 4x4 DC for this, so about R6.00km at conservative rates. That’s another R60k

They need an entertainment budget for wooing new sponsors, and reaffirming arrangements with existing sponsors, negotiating deals with suppliers/service providers etc. If they super frugal, R3000.00 a month ought to do. Another R36k a year.

 

So before they have paid a single service provider even a cent, or bought a single piece of merchandise for your goodie back, printed a single number board, or anything of the sort. Essentially without incurring a single direct event related expense, they have already spent at least R830k, and that’s being ultra conservative. I think it’s clear to see that once they start paying deposits to other service providers, printing race boards, making up goodie bags and so on, there is very little left out of the entry fees as “profit”. Now remember TB is actually a small event, organised by a family run small business. Unlike a lot of other events, there is no big Title Sponsor. This event actually needs to make an income for ecobound. The last successful event was in August 2019, 24 months ago. If you really think they are just “sitting” on the entry fees, think again. I do think the smart thing to do is not to enter any events for the time being, but if you had entered and are waiting on an event to eventually take place, be patient, and be thankful that you can actually afford to spend money on a hobby like cycling…

 

[Robbie Stewart]

Yoh, If I'd known the can of worms I was opening...Some good points made, but to read the full context will require putting in a day or two's leave. 

Seems that the event hurt runs deeper than I imagined, and this does not surprise me at all, given how over the world is with Covid (unless you're a tenderati getting paid handsomely to provide PPE).

I think it makes more sense as some have said to rather invest in getting a core group of mates together and arrange your own DIY event in some "exotic" location - exotic as in some place you don't usually ride, but want to. It could be the next dorpie, the next province etc. Point being that I think this will satisfy the itch to do some type of event, albeit self catered and planned, and will also go some way to stimulate the hospitality industry in those areas.

Sensibly though, plan accordingly to the expected Covid troughs between the so called waves, and one should be able to plan a lekker trip for all involved, spend a day or three in a relaxing atmosphere and stimulate the local economy in some small way.

Anyhow, this is what I would do in lieu of attending an event with its associated risk profiles in these times.

[Pure Savage]

I think its going to be amazing that through all this mess the DC would have gone ahead every year!!

 

LEKKER!!!

[eala]

6 hours ago, DonatelloOnPinarello said:

This post, so well structured and level headed, somehow has me so perplexed at the same time. I cannot agree with you more on certain aspects, and at the same time, I’m so far at odds with you on others. But I think this kind of discussion is desperately needed. Whether the right people in the industry are willing to listen is another story altogether. 
 

The bit I put in bold is the real issue for me. This is the perception so many seem to have, but the reality is it’s just not the case. The two big mistakes people make is believing that sports events are massively lucrative. They just aren’t. As a business they only make sense when all the ancillaries are added on, and even then, they still need sponsors cheques to actually make it worth while.

as I already mentioned before, the sponsors cheques normally only pay out based on a successful event taking place, and the ancillary things, like fees for having a stand in the riders village for mechanics, physios, bike shops, supplement suppliers etc etc only get paid if there is an actual event. Furthermore, your money paid over for your entry has been paid forward to a large extent to service providers many months before the event actually takes place. That is why most events sell early bird entries. Discounting an early bird entry is essentially cheaper than the interest on borrowing the money to pay the venue/Accomodation/ablution/caterers et al in advance. They may at best hold onto a small % themselves, and that normally goes towards salaries etc for the full time staff during the 12 odd months between events. The notion that organisers are sitting on your money earning interest while riding out the pandemic is simply not fair. At the same time then saying the service providers they have paid are doing the same is also not fair. Being paid for 1 event, that then has to be postponed, assuming it’s postponed before you have incurred real costs, is one thing, but that assumes they have a bunch of other paying gigs actually taking place. But when it becomes months upon months of postponements, with no new events on the horizon, but overheads still needing to be paid, it becomes a problem. Most of the value chain in the events industry is now in this boat together. They are “sitting” on deposits/entries paid in late 2019/early 2020, and no new income since. They have had to pay rent and salaries etc as long as they could. Then they had to start laying people off, downsizing etc, doing whatever to keep the lights on. 
 

When the events can finally go ahead, the customer still expects the same service they initially paid for. The organiser still expects the services that it initially paid the service provider for, and so the expectation moves down the line. All this after effectively 18 months of zero new income. Essentially everyone has been paying Paul for the past 18 months, but there has been no new Peter to “Rob” or even legitimately bill. In normal circumstances this would never happen, because even for small companies that run 1 or 2 events a year, it remains cyclical, very much like farming, where this years harvest pays all your expenses to grow the next crop. Except in events now, it’s been 1.5 seasons without any crop, and when the crop does finally come in, the people you borrowed from (the paying participant, that entered in 2019) still wants their share.

So if you were to now insist on a refund, the organiser would need to loan the money to refund you from elsewhere, and the banks, who usually sponsor these events, aren’t exactly keen to extend credit to events companies at the moment, since they are probably already leveraged to the hilt by now.

 

The event companies have no choice at the moment but to try go ahead as planned, because they owe people who have already paid for that event the experience they paid for. Their only option now to try actually stay in the black, is to extend their logistics capacity to the absolute limit, and allow a limited number of new/extra entries to pump some fresh cash into the business. They cannot afford to cancel these events. The banks won’t loan them the money to refund everyone. The negative PR of a cancelation with no refunds would make any possible new format event a non starter. So, as much as they may want to go back to the drawing board and do things differently next time, they can’t do that until they have fulfilled the current obligations. 
 

With regards to events that have already been postponed now for a second or third time, I have a terrible feeling that there will be a number of events companies that go insolvent during the course of next year, before they can even attempt to run the events they have sold entries to. When that happens, I foresee a number of threads here and posts on FB calling for the blood of the directors/owners. Because double standards when it comes to dealing with small businesses compared to huge Corporates is our second favourite pastime. For example, When everything went belly up last year March/April, the airlines and the big hotel chains just said sorry for you, and people lost thousands of rands worth of reservations/tickets. People got a bit upset, some maybe even made a snarky comment on FB, but essentially accepted it and moved on. But the same people that lost tens of thousands of rands to comair, Lufthansa, BA, SunInternational etc, and let it go, are still holding events companies to task over event entries. Those multinationals got government bailouts etc, and still paid nothing forward to the client, but everyone just accepts it for what it is. Events companies and hospitality providers got nothing, their business interruption insurance just refused to pay, everyone must just move on and accept. But every time an event gets postponed or they update their refund policy, or make changes to try and go ahead somehow, there’s threads with dozens of comments about it here, and Facebook comments into the hundreds criticising the organisers for being greedy, and earning interest on their hard earned money etc etc.
 

But maybe it’s time to look at this in some perspective. I’m going to use Ecobound as an example - I have no connection to the organisation, but they are a good example, since they have received severe criticism as to their handing of this, especially regards opening 2021 entries before having ran the 2020 event. There were a totals of 450 individual spots for each event (race and repeat). So a total of 900 entries at about R2650.00 per person. That means the event took in a total of just over under R2.4Mil for the 2020 event. So a total annual sales/revenue of R2.4mil for an entire 12 month period. If you take it that the event has to employ 2 full time employees just to manage the arrangment of the event, at a low salary for an event planner/logistics manager at this level (let’s assume these people have some other projects, so they aren’t paid a representative full time salary), so R25k gross per month each. That’s R600k per year.

The event needs office space, assume it’s shared with other business, (ecobound is in garden route mall, but run bikamino and 2Hell&Back from there too), so if the office rental is R20k/month, let’s call TB portion R7k. That’s a further R84k. 
 

Entries are done online and paid by credit card. If they managed to negotiate a really sweet deal with the payment processer, they still paying at least 2%. So that’s a further R50k. Web hosting and maintenance of the online entry system, plus other IT related expenses, let’s call it a cheap R1500.00pm. Thats another R18k.

Then liabilty insurance for the event, R25k per departure, so another R50k

simce the route hasn’t really changed much over the past few years, we can assume they don’t need to do much recce trips etc. But let’s say they do about 10k km a year of driving in the planning of the event (this would probably be a lot more, but I’m being conservative). Assuming they use a typical late model 4x4 DC for this, so about R6.00km at conservative rates. That’s another R60k

They need an entertainment budget for wooing new sponsors, and reaffirming arrangements with existing sponsors, negotiating deals with suppliers/service providers etc. If they super frugal, R3000.00 a month ought to do. Another R36k a year.

 

So before they have paid a single service provider even a cent, or bought a single piece of merchandise for your goodie back, printed a single number board, or anything of the sort. Essentially without incurring a single direct event related expense, they have already spent at least R830k, and that’s being ultra conservative. I think it’s clear to see that once they start paying deposits to other service providers, printing race boards, making up goodie bags and so on, there is very little left out of the entry fees as “profit”. Now remember TB is actually a small event, organised by a family run small business. Unlike a lot of other events, there is no big Title Sponsor. This event actually needs to make an income for ecobound. The last successful event was in August 2019, 24 months ago. If you really think they are just “sitting” on the entry fees, think again. I do think the smart thing to do is not to enter any events for the time being, but if you had entered and are waiting on an event to eventually take place, be patient, and be thankful that you can actually afford to spend money on a hobby like cycling…

TAX was not even mentioned .In my case 60 cents of the 100 returns to SARS 

[Shebeen]

9 hours ago, DonatelloOnPinarello said:

This post, so well structured and level headed, somehow has me so perplexed at the same time. I cannot agree with you more on certain aspects, and at the same time, I’m so far at odds with you on others. But I think this kind of discussion is desperately needed. Whether the right people in the industry are willing to listen is another story altogether. 
 

The bit I put in bold is the real issue for me. This is the perception so many seem to have, but the reality is it’s just not the case. The two big mistakes people make is believing that sports events are massively lucrative. They just aren’t. As a business they only make sense when all the ancillaries are added on, and even then, they still need sponsors cheques to actually make it worth while.

as I already mentioned before, the sponsors cheques normally only pay out based on a successful event taking place, and the ancillary things, like fees for having a stand in the riders village for mechanics, physios, bike shops, supplement suppliers etc etc only get paid if there is an actual event. Furthermore, your money paid over for your entry has been paid forward to a large extent to service providers many months before the event actually takes place. That is why most events sell early bird entries. Discounting an early bird entry is essentially cheaper than the interest on borrowing the money to pay the venue/Accomodation/ablution/caterers et al in advance. They may at best hold onto a small % themselves, and that normally goes towards salaries etc for the full time staff during the 12 odd months between events. The notion that organisers are sitting on your money earning interest while riding out the pandemic is simply not fair. At the same time then saying the service providers they have paid are doing the same is also not fair. Being paid for 1 event, that then has to be postponed, assuming it’s postponed before you have incurred real costs, is one thing, but that assumes they have a bunch of other paying gigs actually taking place. But when it becomes months upon months of postponements, with no new events on the horizon, but overheads still needing to be paid, it becomes a problem. Most of the value chain in the events industry is now in this boat together. They are “sitting” on deposits/entries paid in late 2019/early 2020, and no new income since. They have had to pay rent and salaries etc as long as they could. Then they had to start laying people off, downsizing etc, doing whatever to keep the lights on. 
 

When the events can finally go ahead, the customer still expects the same service they initially paid for. The organiser still expects the services that it initially paid the service provider for, and so the expectation moves down the line. All this after effectively 18 months of zero new income. Essentially everyone has been paying Paul for the past 18 months, but there has been no new Peter to “Rob” or even legitimately bill. In normal circumstances this would never happen, because even for small companies that run 1 or 2 events a year, it remains cyclical, very much like farming, where this years harvest pays all your expenses to grow the next crop. Except in events now, it’s been 1.5 seasons without any crop, and when the crop does finally come in, the people you borrowed from (the paying participant, that entered in 2019) still wants their share.

So if you were to now insist on a refund, the organiser would need to loan the money to refund you from elsewhere, and the banks, who usually sponsor these events, aren’t exactly keen to extend credit to events companies at the moment, since they are probably already leveraged to the hilt by now.

 

The event companies have no choice at the moment but to try go ahead as planned, because they owe people who have already paid for that event the experience they paid for. Their only option now to try actually stay in the black, is to extend their logistics capacity to the absolute limit, and allow a limited number of new/extra entries to pump some fresh cash into the business. They cannot afford to cancel these events. The banks won’t loan them the money to refund everyone. The negative PR of a cancelation with no refunds would make any possible new format event a non starter. So, as much as they may want to go back to the drawing board and do things differently next time, they can’t do that until they have fulfilled the current obligations. 
 

With regards to events that have already been postponed now for a second or third time, I have a terrible feeling that there will be a number of events companies that go insolvent during the course of next year, before they can even attempt to run the events they have sold entries to. When that happens, I foresee a number of threads here and posts on FB calling for the blood of the directors/owners. Because double standards when it comes to dealing with small businesses compared to huge Corporates is our second favourite pastime. For example, When everything went belly up last year March/April, the airlines and the big hotel chains just said sorry for you, and people lost thousands of rands worth of reservations/tickets. People got a bit upset, some maybe even made a snarky comment on FB, but essentially accepted it and moved on. But the same people that lost tens of thousands of rands to comair, Lufthansa, BA, SunInternational etc, and let it go, are still holding events companies to task over event entries. Those multinationals got government bailouts etc, and still paid nothing forward to the client, but everyone just accepts it for what it is. Events companies and hospitality providers got nothing, their business interruption insurance just refused to pay, everyone must just move on and accept. But every time an event gets postponed or they update their refund policy, or make changes to try and go ahead somehow, there’s threads with dozens of comments about it here, and Facebook comments into the hundreds criticising the organisers for being greedy, and earning interest on their hard earned money etc etc.
 

But maybe it’s time to look at this in some perspective. I’m going to use Ecobound as an example - I have no connection to the organisation, but they are a good example, since they have received severe criticism as to their handing of this, especially regards opening 2021 entries before having ran the 2020 event. There were a totals of 450 individual spots for each event (race and repeat). So a total of 900 entries at about R2650.00 per person. That means the event took in a total of just over under R2.4Mil for the 2020 event. So a total annual sales/revenue of R2.4mil for an entire 12 month period. If you take it that the event has to employ 2 full time employees just to manage the arrangment of the event, at a low salary for an event planner/logistics manager at this level (let’s assume these people have some other projects, so they aren’t paid a representative full time salary), so R25k gross per month each. That’s R600k per year.

The event needs office space, assume it’s shared with other business, (ecobound is in garden route mall, but run bikamino and 2Hell&Back from there too), so if the office rental is R20k/month, let’s call TB portion R7k. That’s a further R84k. 
 

Entries are done online and paid by credit card. If they managed to negotiate a really sweet deal with the payment processer, they still paying at least 2%. So that’s a further R50k. Web hosting and maintenance of the online entry system, plus other IT related expenses, let’s call it a cheap R1500.00pm. Thats another R18k.

Then liabilty insurance for the event, R25k per departure, so another R50k

simce the route hasn’t really changed much over the past few years, we can assume they don’t need to do much recce trips etc. But let’s say they do about 10k km a year of driving in the planning of the event (this would probably be a lot more, but I’m being conservative). Assuming they use a typical late model 4x4 DC for this, so about R6.00km at conservative rates. That’s another R60k

They need an entertainment budget for wooing new sponsors, and reaffirming arrangements with existing sponsors, negotiating deals with suppliers/service providers etc. If they super frugal, R3000.00 a month ought to do. Another R36k a year.

 

So before they have paid a single service provider even a cent, or bought a single piece of merchandise for your goodie back, printed a single number board, or anything of the sort. Essentially without incurring a single direct event related expense, they have already spent at least R830k, and that’s being ultra conservative. I think it’s clear to see that once they start paying deposits to other service providers, printing race boards, making up goodie bags and so on, there is very little left out of the entry fees as “profit”. Now remember TB is actually a small event, organised by a family run small business. Unlike a lot of other events, there is no big Title Sponsor. This event actually needs to make an income for ecobound. The last successful event was in August 2019, 24 months ago. If you really think they are just “sitting” on the entry fees, think again. I do think the smart thing to do is not to enter any events for the time being, but if you had entered and are waiting on an event to eventually take place, be patient, and be thankful that you can actually afford to spend money on a hobby like cycling…

can we reuse this one?

14 hours ago, MORNE said:

ive come to appreciate the unique insights you share recently but i’ll be dead honest…this post was the epitomy of TLDR????. 

proper text-wall-of-death.

 

 

[DonatelloOnPinarello]

1 minute ago, Shebeen said:

can we reuse this one?

 

Yeah sorry. I got a little carried away here. I’m going to cut back on my posting for a bit while I decompress. It’s been a tough week

[Shebeen]

15 hours ago, DonatelloOnPinarello said:

 

It will be a long time before anyone forgets Epic 2020 being cancelled literally the day before the Prologue. A week prior, the CTCT went ahead, with a record attendance. No one could have imagined what was about to come. By the time CTCT took place, we had heard of Covid, but had no idea how governments would react, or how things would be changed across the world, nor how long it would be before normality sets in. I have it on relatively good authority that the entire originising team was ready to go with the epic. But, the Western Cape government, specifically the disaster management portfolio, who are the duly appointed authority, appointed by the Premier to sign off event permits for an event like the epic, (Individual bivoucs/race villages etc amd stages also need to be signed off by the specific municipalities),decided not to sign off the event permit. Remember, this final sign off only happens somewhere between 24 and 48 hours ahead of the event, officially, in reality, it often only happens mere hours ahead of the start of an event. The MEC’s office declined signing off on the permit the Friday morning…. 24 hours before the official start. No event organiser wants to find themselves in this position. 

 

I can offer my experiences here. Covid was definitely a hot topic at CTCT 2020. registration was already curtailed due to it and the finish was cancelled. We had 12 confirmed positive cases in the country at the time, all from a single group.

The Epic cancellation was a shock to some, but for many it was inevitable. Quite a lot of the pro teams and internationals pulled out in the lead up to it. it's also moot point anyway, Cyril's speech was that sunday. They would have only got prologue and stage 1 in before being required to pack up and shut down.

[Shebeen]

2 minutes ago, DonatelloOnPinarello said:

Yeah sorry. I got a little carried away here. I’m going to cut back on my posting for a bit while I decompress. It’s been a tough week

that's cool. just tongue in cheek really!

[RocknRolla]

Is missed the "longest post" competition being launched by admin...

Good luck with everyone's carpel tunnel...

[Shebeen]

21 hours ago, Mountain Bru said:

Thinking of @Jewbacca's trouble with tenants, what do you guys think of "bike packing" races? Almost like a stage race, but not everyone is doing the stages at the same time, but everyone stays at the same places when they do it.

Not everyone wants to do hardcore million km races where they have to fend for themselves like the Munga. Some guys do races just so that someone else organizes a nice ride for them, sorts out all of the logistics, and maybe gives them some form of ranking afterwards. If a group of guest house/campsite owners got together, organized a beautiful route between their accommodations, and then made a "bike packing" race where you get timed from exit of one to entry on another (or from some point outside of town to another point in the next town), they could basically offer a 3 or 4 day "stage race" where riders could start on any day of the week, and then move along a set route each day to complete the race. And then at the end of the month, the winner of each stage and the overall "GC" is announced. (Timing by strava I guess)

In my mind, this would be a gravel race, be in the western cape, and be "semi-supported" in that breakfast and dinner are provided, but everything else is your own problem. Maybe also with a "crate" system that is transported from one place to the next each day. And like 100 -120 km a day. 

The big win for the guys planning the story would be that they'd get people using their accommodation more regularly if the event was popular. And there would likely be good exposure from more cyclists seeing their place as a good option for future bike packing adventures. And for the riders, you basically have a bike packing adventure planned for you, and it's also a race if that's what you're into, and it basically can't be cancelled unless guest houses have to close and you can't ride your bicycle outside anymore.  

Does this already exist though? I often have "novel" ideas and then find out it's already a thing that I'm unaware of. 

not a bad idea. it's basically a strava event with a bit of structure. The route  is either

a)you stick to open district roads

    or

b)need to organise some access and keep it open for a month.

The root problem is what you seem to need to do in SA is make some hype about a race before people do it. Getting round that conundrum is way more complicated than the route issue.

 

fyi, here's a gravel  stage race

https://dirtysouthgravel.co.za/