Give overall awards out as soon as possible and handle age-group awards differently - either have a later ceremony, have them pick up their awards at a certain tent, or mail them.
Keep the starting line remarks/thanks short so people who have warmed up don't stiffen up or get cold. Similarly, don't have a last call 30 minutes before the race starts.
Keep slower people away from the front. Emphasize it on the website. If it's a large race, assign runners to corrals. If it's a smaller one, have the announcer line up everyone 20 yards behind the start and ask (for example if it's a 5K) everyone who expects to finish under 18 minutes to go to the start line, then everyone who expects to finish under 20, etc.
Similarly, tell run-walkers to stay to the right.
List race records, including age-group records, on the website and have a list of them at the award ceremony so you can congratulate anyone who sets a record. As someone else mentioned, discount cards to local merchants for winners who don't get cash prizes.
Accurate distances.
To the extent possible, have separate courses for separate races or stagger starts so faster people in one race don't have to fight their way through more casual and sometimes clueless (not their fault) people in another race.
Let people choose when they register whether they want a medal and/or a shirt. Spin it as minimizing your environmental footprint.
If you're planning on using the same course for several years, as a contingency plan come up with an alternate course that overlaps as little as possible with your existing one, get your city authorities in the loop and make sure they're ok with it, measure it, and get it certified.
Line up volunteers early so you have time to train and schedule them. Volunteers working together from a particular group (school, club, etc.) are more likely to show up on race day.
No stupid gimmicks on the course like “Heart Attack Hill” or routing the course through a landmark to create sizzle.
Optional shirts and medals.
Better pace corral management and policing.
Space the races or plan the courses so that the 5K leaders don’t run into packs of half marathon walkers ambling side-by-side across the traffic lanes.
ID your local front runners during registration and have a separate porta-pottie/bag drop zone for them.
For the love of God, NEVER place a high school aged volunteer in charge of a major intersection or fork in the course!
Get rid of kid dashes. They don’t create many future runners and they mostly serve to stoke or deflate some parent’s ego. Nothing like seeing some eight year old kid getting knocked to the pavement pest control melbourne cbd by an overzealous hobby jogger pushing his infant in a stroller to “victory”.
So many random thoughts. Lots of good suggestions already here.
Please try to minimize the number of sharp turns in the final 200m of a race of any distance. I know that some are unavoidable, but when the finish line is following a 90 degree turn with just 30 m remaining in at the end of a race it’s annoying, and potentially dangerous especially if the chute is narrow and the field is large.
If it’s a large race, sign up high school or college aged volunteers to help people toss their waste into the correct receptacles, and actually have trash, recycling, and compost options (and more than one bin). I ran a half marathon once with thousands of runners that only netted one bag of trash because the waste generated was either recyclable or compostable, they had enough bags and bins, and volunteer minders helpfully and assertively making sure the waste goes in the right place. Tired of seeing large public parks essentially trashed because there are two garbage bins and they’re full before the race starts, with no city clean up until Monday.
Ditto mailing out the bibs/packets in advance (if it’s a big race; if it’s a small local thing that may be prohibitively expensive).
Don’t make runners wait for the gun while thanking every local politician and community leader, it’s nice, but you could do that while people are milling about, too. I disagree about the sponsored T-shirts. If you’re going to have sponsored shirts, put everyone’s name there so you don’t waste time in the heat or the cold rattling off names. It’s amazing road races have sponsors. Don’t create unnecessary swag, but I don’t begrudge having a whole flight of sponsors or local officials listen on the back.
If you’re going to have a sound system to make announcements, rent one that works and place speakers near where you need people to stand. Worse than the lengthy announcements are the lengthy announcements with directions that people can’t actually hear.
Please mark the course well or station volunteers. I, and several others, once ran into a different city because of poor markings. On the flip side, I ran my hometown 5K a ton of times when I was in HS and college before I moved away. The course was only nominally marked, but it was the same course for YEARS and everyone who ran it knew that. So maybe the guidance is also to know the audience of runners.
Awards for top finishers and age groups don’t have to be a medal. One trail race I ran gave out pint glasses with the name and logo of the trail race (both happened to be very good). One road race gave a small towel to everyone. It seemed silly at the time, but it’s been useful to have and it’s fun to recall the race whenever I use it and I’ve had it for more than a decade.
It’s very nice to hand out Gatorade at the end of the race. But if the color of Gatorade chosen matches the unusual colors of the road race logo/theme, but the flavor tastes weird, and it’s a hot summer race, and the Gatorade is sitting out in the sun, it can be pretty gross. Sometimes over commitment to the theme doesn’t help.
Selling merchandise is a great idea. Some people want the stuff and some people don’t, and if it’s not bundled into the cost of entry, people can choose.
I love the idea of discounted entry or guaranteed entry or instant entry (or something) into next year's race.
Know if your race is a small, local thing that should be low-key with minimal frills or a big, regional thing that needs to go all out. I love running local Kiwanis Club 5Ks and big races that get coverage by Letsrun.com (not of me! Coverage of the fast people), but I think it’s the mid-range races that need to think really carefully how to balance budget with quality of experience, and in fairness that can be hard.
I recently got a job as an assistant race director and am looking to positively add to the overall race atmosphere of our events. What is one thing you wish would become normal practice at the runs you attended? Thanks in advance
Much later starting times and at least two thirds of the money that goes to charity being put back into the sport in some form or other.
Later start times? Do you live in a particularly cold area?
Much later starting times and at least two thirds of the money that goes to charity being put back into the sport in some form or other.
Later start times? Do you live in a particularly cold area?
In addition to temperature issues, people are less sluggish later in the morning or in the afternoon. The local 5K where I always have my fastest times (yes, it's accurately measured) starts at 6pm.
I assume that traffic control is the main reason so many races start relatively early. Road closures are more likely to inconvenience nonrunners at 10am-noon on a weekend than at 7am-9am.
Later start times? Do you live in a particularly cold area?
In addition to temperature issues, people are less sluggish later in the morning or in the afternoon. The local 5K where I always have my fastest times (yes, it's accurately measured) starts at 6pm.
I assume that traffic control is the main reason so many races start relatively early. Road closures are more likely to inconvenience nonrunners at 10am-noon on a weekend than at 7am-9am.
Interesting, I struggled in with the heat and doing too much earlier in the day for my 2 races with that start time. Despite doing a lot of after work running, I still race way better in the morning.
I do a lot of events with friends who take running seriously, as well as family and co workers who really don't care about speed but happily pay the reg fees. The former is already well covered by this thread, but what is important to the groups of joggers that I hang out with? An event experience that makes it fun for the group - a festival area with beer (not Michelob ultra), food/food trucks, and an area to hang out race photos, and a "P.R. bell" to ring. Areas that are good for people to take photos are good too - it could be a backdrop or a roving mascot but also investing in a good-looking finish line setup will encourage more people to take selfies (& promote your race for free).
Accurately measured course with markers based on the course measurement system, i.e., kilometers for 5K, 10K, 15K etc., and miles for 5 milers, 10 miles, etc. Half marathons in miles, I guess, though my (likely minority) preference would be KMs
This post was edited 9 minutes after it was posted.
Reason provided:
fixed mistaken assumption
Much later starting times and at least two thirds of the money that goes to charity being put back into the sport in some form or other.
Later start times? Do you live in a particularly cold area?
I live in New England. I lived around DC. If heat is a concern I'd say have your races in the evening during the summer, which was the case for a lot of summer races when I was there. The temperature goes down as the race goes on whereas it goes up as a morning race goes on. And for maybe three fourths of the year heat is rarely a problem. In my DC days most races started between 11:00 and 2:00. Heat was no problem as a rule and if you lived a few hours from the start you could drive there on race morning and not need to pay for a motel as well as have a decent amount of toilet time.
Later start times? Do you live in a particularly cold area?
I live in New England. I lived around DC. If heat is a concern I'd say have your races in the evening during the summer, which was the case for a lot of summer races when I was there. The temperature goes down as the race goes on whereas it goes up as a morning race goes on...
Humidity is also lower in the late afternoon/early evening. I imagine that's more of an issue in some parts of the country (DC, Georgia where I am) than others. Closing roads may be more of a problem, though.
Later start times? Do you live in a particularly cold area?
In addition to temperature issues, people are less sluggish later in the morning or in the afternoon. The local 5K where I always have my fastest times (yes, it's accurately measured) starts at 6pm.
I assume that traffic control is the main reason so many races start relatively early. Road closures are more likely to inconvenience nonrunners at 10am-noon on a weekend than at 7am-9am.
I suppose traffic control is a big reason races start as early as they do especially if you're talking about a major race, i.e., one with a really large field and where getting a tour of a sort of glamorous location. In earlier times courses were commonly located at the far reaches of a city where traffic control wasn't a real big issue. I think two other reasons for the early times in marathons especially are the large number of runners who will be well on the high side of five hours. At some times of the year you'd have those people finishing in the dark. and I think a more nefarious motive for those early times, as well as requiring runners to get their bibs at the expo instead of race morning or in the mail, is that they're catering to local businesses, especially restaurants and motels that you'll need to patronize rather than eating and sleeping at home and driving to the race on race morning.
And there are many people like you and me who run faster later in the day which for me is the best reason for wanting later start times.
Kinda silly but I really appreciate when the finish line is visible from a long way out. Helps me make the mental switch from hanging on to throwing everything left at the final few 100m
I wish there were Bekele mannequins at the start and finish of every course, so even if Bekele wasn't there, we could always see him in some form whenever we go to a race.
I wish Mike Mahon was at all the races so he could cheer us on and tell us our splits and our race positions as we passed him.
Have prize categories for anybody who isn't wearing super shoes.
Running shorts in the goodie bag instead of t shirt all the time