11 minute read
ON THE RIGHT TRACK
BRIGHTON MARATHON WEEKEND
In the right direction
Grounded Events, Human Race, Goldline Events, and BCP Council all developed their recent running events. Here, all four organisers discuss supply chain challenges, sustainability measures, and preparation
Jane Tomlinson’s Run For All – a not-for-profit sporting events company – and Leeds City Council recently announced the creation of a marathon that will raise vital funds for motor neurone disease (MND) charities. The Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon will take place in Leeds City Centre on May 14, 2023, with the existing Leeds Half Marathon and a family fun run also set to take place on the same day; 7,777 people will run the marathon and raise money for the Leeds Hospitals Charity’s appeal to build the Rob Burrow Centre for Motor Neurone Disease, as well as the MND Association.
The event marks the first time the city has hosted a marathon since 2003 and will encompass a new route that starts and finishes at Headingley Stadium. The circular marathon route will take in the Leeds countryside and outer suburbs, journeying around Woodhouse Moor before travelling up through Headingley, Adel, and Bramhope, before heading out to Otley and back for the big finish.
Mike Tomlinson, chief executive of Run For All, said that it was an amazing feeling to be able to launch the new marathon and that it will be great to watch 7,777 participants of all abilities, come together and cross the finish line.
It’s a sentiment that resonates with Kirsty Wilde, director of operations at Human Race, which recently organised the Therme Manchester Marathon. The event welcomes some of
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the best runners in the world, but first-time marathon runners are just as important.
“We’re proud to have the world’s best runners and firsttimers taking part in our event,” said Wilde. “We want to be the friendliest marathon. Our spectators are amazing, they are a brilliant support, and our volunteers [around 740] make the event what it is.”
SUSTAINABILITY MEASURES
The Therme Manchester Marathon took place on April 3 and welcomed 24,000 runners. It was a great success, but the event was not without its challenges. Wilde and her team had just six months to plan the event. COVID forced Human Race to move the 2021 edition of the Therme Manchester Marathon from its usual April date to October. It meant that there was just six months to prep, and all the planning was squeezed into a short period.
“We all pulled together, got stuck in and made the event happen,” Wilde added. “We had some changes. In October 2021, there was some major road regeneration works taking place so we couldn’t include the city centre within our route, but we were able to do that for 2022. Plus, we also decided to let spectators into the marathon village at Lancashire Cricket Ground and give them more access.”
The 2022 edition of the marathon was also the first time that Human Race trialled a “Green Participant” sustainability entry category. Participants could opt out of taking a medal/T-Shirt at the finish line and five per cent of participants chose this option. It’s something that Human Race hopes to build on, as the new category builds in an element of choice and decreases wastage.
However, this was not the only sustainable measure introduced for the event. Wilde explained: “Like many other events, we advise people to wear an old jumper up to the start line to keep warm. The jumper is then donated to charity. We’ve always mentioned it in preevent comms and put up signs where the jumper drop location is but as it is quite far into the process, we have found many runners aren’t sure if they have reached it yet. Many take off their jumper too early and so have the potential to be cold for a bit longer than they or we might want.”
She continued: “Also, from an operational point of view, as the start line up area covers a long section, the clear up of a larger area of discarded tops becomes harder and takes longer. This is not great when potentially working with limited sized teams – due to COVID – and when you are under pressure to re-open roads.
“So, this year, rather than just waiting for people to hang on until they saw the signs, we decided to help explain the expectation and used signage as they were entering the start process. This massively helped but, of course, we still found some jumpers, so the process isn’t perfect yet. Re-looking at it again, now we might change the wording on the sign slightly and the format of the sign, and we will look at what else we can do to improve the process even more. But it was good to trial this and to do something to try to plug a small operational headache we’ve always had, as well as try to help the welfare of the participants further.”
PRICING
This year’s Reading Half Marathon celebrated its 40th anniversary, and “went swimmingly well”, said Jo Osborne, production and
ADIDAS WILL SPONSOR THE MANCHESTER MARATHON IN 2023
PROUD TO BE TAKING PART
operations manager at Goldline Events. Like Human Race, Goldline Events, organiser of Reading Half Marathon and Robin Hood Marathon, also gave participants at Reading Half Marathon the opportunity to choose if they wanted to receive a medal or goody bag. This helped the team identify how many items it needed to order, saving money and reducing waste, and the new option worked well with participants. In fact, sustainability is firmly on Osborne’s radar for 2023.
Goldline Events contracted Midas Power, Augusta Event Solutions, Captrac, In Event Branding, and Time Marquees for Reading Half Marathon. Yet, the last seven months have proved challenging for the organiser. For instance, three suppliers dropped out of Robin Hood Marathon, giving Goldline just two weeks’ notice and the organiser has recently been slapped with fuel surcharges, despite agreeing prices. It’s indicative of the current marketplace.
Osborne continued: “At the Robin Hood Marathon in Nottingham, one contractor pulled out one week before the event, another pulled out with 10 days to go, and a further contractor gave two weeks’ notice. We had to make it work and so we used stretch tents and a big top. In fact, our baggage tent was housed within a big top, so we had a unique look for our race village.
“We are willing to work with contractors who are happy to work with us, but it’s an issue when someone has you over a barrel.”
HAPPY SPECTATORS
Human Race contracted Nixons, Arena, Pinnacle, White Marquee Company, to provide equipment to the Therme Manchester Marathon, which has a new sponsor for 2023; adidas.
Wilde said that she feels good about 2022; Human Race has a huge roster of events to be delivered, but she feels more confident that the industry can move forward with more certainty.
Lauren Excell, events officer at Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole (BCP) Council, agrees. Four-thousand people took part in the council’s Bournemouth Bay Run (April 3), which was well-received by local residents and supporters after a two-year hiatus.
The event also opted for several new measures for 2022; Beryl, an e-bike provider, assisted as Sustainable Travel Partner, enabling supporters to traverse the event’s halfmarathon and 10km routes via bike or e-scooter, reducing congestion and emissions across the event site, and the run’s race village had a new location. It was moved closer to the run’s start and finish lines, making it easier for spectators to find, and more accessible.
Capital Barriers, Insight Security, 2CL and Maidmans Marquees provided equipment to the event, which was watched by 10,000 cheering spectators. This is a just a fraction of the 120,000 spectators that descended on Brighton on April 10 for the Brighton Marathon Weekend.
TICKET PRICES
Organised by Grounded Events, the Brighton Marathon Weekend welcomed more than 10,000 runners onto the start line. Like Human Race, Grounded Events had just six months to plan the 2022 edition of the Brighton Marathon. The 2021 outing took place in September.
Tom Naylor, managing director of The Grounded Events Company, told StandOut: “If you have a year to plan an event, you’ll take a year. If you have six months, you’ll use the time you have in front of you.”
Every single element of the Brighton Marathon Weekend was reviewed. Especially as the event still hosted runners who had deferred their entries from 2020 and 2021. It meant that Grounded Events had to run the event (on 2022 production costs), mindful that some tickets were purchased in 2019.
“We went out to market at the end of last year and got some indicative quotes. We were told that quotes would go up by five per cent, but no one factored in inflation. So, now we have final quotes that are upwards of 13, 15 and 20 per cent.”
Naylor continued: “We put tickets on sale for our 2022 marathon in April 2021 whilst we were in Step 2 measures – we got zero entries. The 2021 marathon took place in September and then we went out with the same pricing structure for our April 2022 event. We normally have a big sales window in November, but we did little sales because everyone thought Christmas was going to be cancelled. We needed to get bums on seats, but we couldn’t put ticket prices up by 15 to 20 per cent.”
A similar story is being told across the industry. Naylor believes that organisers of sporting events and running events will implement price increases in 2023 or tweak event sites and event designs around the money they have. He appreciates that suppliers are not increasing prices for fun. Yet, somewhere there must be “some give”, especially as local authorities are also increasing licensing fees by up to 20 per cent.
LET’S WORK TOGETHER
Grounded Events managed to retain most of its “usual” suppliers for Brighton Marathon Weekend, and contracted The Event and Exhibition Partnership, ADI, Sunbelt Rentals, Field and Lawn, Total Event Solutions, NSR, Massive, JP Event Safety, and National Radio Bank to supply kit and services.
“I am moaning and groaning, and I do understand the position that we as an industry are in but we’re all going to have to work together.”
Naylor concluded: “We have been forced to be very efficient and because we have found that we can deliver the marathon in six months, we might launch some smaller running events in Sussex. I work with some great people. We’re one big event family and the events industry is a people industry. There’s nothing like working with solution-focused and collaborative people.”
BRIGHTON MARATHON WEEKEND
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