Discussion: Sprint the Golden Gate: 2013

With sadness I announce that Sprint the Golden Gate 2012 will not happen. The pace of registrations is such that the event is unlikely to pay its direct expenses of permits, insurance, and sanctioning, thereby saddling Get Lost!! with additional debt; nor are the elimination brackets likely to fill up.

Get Lost!! intends to hold the event on the same weekend and at the same venues in 2013. With better promotion, we hope to attract enough participants to make the event viable. We hope many of you come to San Francisco to experience the joy of head-to-head Sprint racing, and for those for whom Sprints just aren't their thing, we'll offer a Middle-Distance race on the wonderfully detailed map of Golden Gate Park, an urban parkland gem!

All 10 participants who have so far entered should expect refunds via PayPal today.

That's too bad. I wish more people could experience the true awesomeness of a sprint tournament. (I would have registered, but I have a family commitment that weekend).

Yes, they are fun events. I'd certainly do it again. But this year was a timing conflict with TJOC too and I'd already committed to taking juniors and helping out there. I hope more people sign up next time.

That is really too bad, especially for people who've bought plane tickets already. It's a tough call cause I of course understand that you can't be losing money putting on events, I think in the future it will be harder to convince people from out of town to sign up for events if they don't trust they'll actually happen.

What have you noticed about when people tend to register relative to the registration deadlines? I almost never register far ahead of the deadline since there's no incentive to do so and it's always possible that I might get injured or something and not be able to go.

I was hoping to come this year, but would have left it until the last minute.

Not only is the concept great, but the venues and setting are really world class.

Sad.

There were two far-out-of-town people registered as of when I finalized the decision, and we offered to help out with their ticket change fees. The fact that more out-of-town people could register between now and the first deadline prompted the swift decision—we didn't want to saddle more people with the change fees.

There is a fairly reliable way to estimate attendance based on previous-year registration patterns, AP notices of intent, and the general buzz, so the fact that several of you were going to come but delayed the registration until the deadline was already figured in. Rex did an informal poll at the local BAOC event last Sunday. When I added all people who firmly registered, people who said at the BAOC event that they would register, and people like Carol who stated they would be coming on the AP event page, I got 23 people, give or take a couple. That was below break-even if only the immediate expenses are taken into account, and well below break-even if we were to make any dent in our debt to mappers. So, the picture was clear: we (mostly me) would labor for ~150 hours only to dig ourselves deeper in the financial hole.

We botched the promotion this year and we'll do it better next year.

There is a fairly reliable way to estimate attendance based on previous-year registration patterns, AP notices of intent, and the general buzz, ...

Is this unique to Get Lost!! events, or applicable across the A-event spectrum?

Well, I'd say if your event has 7 AP "Yes", and another one that already happened, 70, then the chance you'll get even a third of this other event's attendance is quite small.

I would have thought you would be able to break even with local attendees, with visitors a bonus. Is orienteering that moribund in and around SF?

Not sure why planned attendance was down overall - in the Riley's case the (relative lack of) novelty factor was part of the reason - and time passing (until 2013) will partially mitigate that - as well as the chosen weekend being right when the kids are wrapping up school being difficult to travel. Just one, of many, data points...

I hope we make it to the 2013 incarnation!

And I should say - well done, on the handling of out-of-towners with tickets. Events can end up cancelled for a variety of reasons, and stepping in to ensure the two out-of-towners with likely air travel can at least switch their airline reservations to something else, with you covering their change fees, is a very customer-friendly response, and quite generous for an organization as small (and indebted) as yours! That level of customer service should keep out-of-towners quite willing to commit.

Orienteering isn't that moribund, but at this stage we cannot rely on the locals to foot the bill at our Sprint events.

Hey Vlad, Would a sprint weekend be more popular in winter when running in forest in large parts of the Nor-Am O community isn't possible due to snow? I doubt a Vancouver sprint weekend would be as popular in May or June as it is in February for example. Given the success of the Vancouver weekend it got me thinking there should be more 'all sprint weekends'. This might become especially more important as IOF likely moves to adding sprint relay. But maybe it isn't a sprint weekend but more an 'urban weekend'. An urban weekend of a sprint qual, final and 2 person relay on one day and then an 8km race similar to the city chase races in UK the next day would be pretty popular I'd imagine. That also got me wondering if our 'forest weekends' should not include sprint. There was that debate on AP a few months ago of 2xclassic vs S,M, and L. With IOF moving to the middle chase I think a middle and middle chase on Saturday and long on Sunday would be also quite popular and perhaps easier to host for most organizers due to lack of finding suitable sprint terrain close to suitable M and L terrain. Just some thoughts. Good luck.

That does seem like the best possible response for the plane tickets :)

Anyways, disappointing regardless. Maybe it's just hard to convince people to fly/travel to the Bay Area more than once a year for a similar type of event.

For what it's worth, Hammer's urban weekend sounds like a lot of fun.

I think a lot of folks find it difficult to justify air travel "just" for 2 days of sprints. The suggestion to add on, maybe an extra day or a longer event could add value. Ditto for "A" sanctioning, WRE, etc. Of course those also add costs.

And timing in midwinter could be a plus too!

I would more happily travel for two days of great sprints than two days of mediocre classics.

There were three days of Sprints on offer this time (and are for 2013), and a Middle for those who don't like Sprints. Based at least on the initial local response, the Middle was going to be more popular than the Sprint tournament.

We tried November twice for this event; the response we had from people East of us was that they were orienteered out by November. February has Vancouver, March has various Southeast events (and we'd be happy to do an SML weekend once we're ready, hopefully next year). January may work but has the worst weather (which is still relatively good compared to the rest of the world). June was picked because we thought people could come to SF Night & Day and hang out for the week in-between.

Urban events similar to City Chase... mmm. My initial thought is that it'd be a permitting nightmare. We skate away free without permits for Street Scramble because it's a rogaine—there is no definite course, and the number of people we add to the regular pedestrian traffic is negligible. With a point-to-point course, it's easy for a police department to argue that streets must be closed and/or the special permit must be of the same type as for a road race, with EMTs stationed at a number of places and course marshals and all, and the associated fees. When the course gets to be a few km long, you are likely to cross multiple jurisdictions, neither one of which would give you a break if you are already sanctioned by the neighbors. Of course, once you get a friendly/understanding person in the city government, these things magically become easy/sponsored/unnecessary, but sadly we aren't close friends with any of the urban jurisdictions in which we hold events (yet).

Is orienteering that moribund in and around SF?

For standard 7 course orienteering in the woods, no. For sprints and other more urban events, sadly, yes.

Although I wasn't able to be of any help for Vlad at the Golden Gate event (out of town that weekend), I have been a regular participant in Vlad's other events. But there aren't that many of us. I am sad that there is not enough BAOC participation in Vlad and Rex's events to allow either of them to be making any money. I wouldn't be too surprised to see both GetLost!! and terraloco fold up shop in the next couple of years, and as far as I am concerned, that will be a huge loss to the local orienteering scene.

To me, this event and Anza Borrego justify going to CA often. However, if AZ is not an A-event, I probably won't go.

This event is awesome however it is configured. A lot of orienteering on great maps in amazing venues in one of the wrold's great cities. People are crazy to miss this.

+1, sprint maps and course setting as it should be done; the format is a lot of fun. If November time I would have been there for sure.
Just to note: Views of Golden Gate, Alcatraz and the great Pacific O from the event sites- unforgettable! head to head racing (even for an OF like me) - exhilarating!
Seems there is a branding problem with Sprint (and O in general)- the way the Brits promoted the format as "sprint for the mind" seemed to broaden appeal.

I would love to go to Anza again, A-meet or no. Missed it this year because of work commitments.

There is little BAOC participation in Street Scramble, but I still believe the series are quite viable without BAOC members' interest. Our rogaine events used to be viable until we lost the adventure racers, who started a different series.

BAOC held a poll way back (which was mentioned in a number of other threads) that made it clear that the majority of club members aren't particularly interested
in formats other than the seven-course A or B event. The club's leadership and some members downplayed the results of the poll, but you can't deny the obvious. However, the pool of outdoor adventure-minded people in the Bay Area is many times bigger than the membership of the club—and there are Sprint-minded orienteers elsewhere. Get Lost!! is not meant to be a service to BAOC members, and will put on events that are consistent with our mission and that best serve the public and the sport.

I had a conflict this year, hope to make it on the rescheduled date!

It sounds like there's an opening for a second orienteering club. Sprints in SF a week before/after Anza B might make sense, but sadly beyond striking distance for me, I expect.

In 2009, the Get Lost!! sprint festival was a weekend before an A-meet hosted by BAOC, with a bunch of sprinty, urbany things in between.

A winter Sprint the Gate would be super appealing to this guy.
Even better, back to back weekends with Vancouver which means a West Coast road trip on the week in between.

there's an opening for a second orienteering club

The point is that there exactly isn't, in the club sense of the word. Out most staunchest supporters have let us know that they aren't interested in putting on events themselves.

A slight correction—the 2009 festival was a terraloco event. Three stages by terraloco, two by Get Lost!!, with official help from BAOC. The attendance was lower than at either the 2011 festival or the 2012 Sprints, so we decided asking people to take a week off didn't really play well.

We actually had designs on a different February project, but given the lack of ability to grow attendance at marquee urban events, we'll probably shelve that one for the next dozen years.

What I think is needed isn't more clubs but more club-private organizer partnerships. From a southern Ontario perspective, sport growth isn't occuring in traditional sports clubs. It is in for-profit organizers at the event level and generally free training through stores at the local level. Clubs in other sports here are more in the athletic development business. They don't host races or host intro clinics. They develop athletes - of all ages. Unfortunately most Nor-AM clubs are based around the identity of the races they organize when perhaps they should scale back those races and turn them into athletic development training opps and then partner with organizations like Get Lost to 'contract out' some of their larger events.

The Salomon Dontgetlost Adventure Running Series would not have been possible if GHO didn't contract out one of our races to Bob Miller's race organization company. It has been a win-win-win for all involved.

From my perspective, there is not a hope of similar arrangement with BAOC. The club has a firm policy of allowing no meaningful revenue to be derived from its IP assets. In a perfect world, Get Lost!! wouldn't be hunting around the periphery of the Bay Area for yet-unmapped large venues (we found plenty) or focus so heavily on urban venues—we would lease the maps to hold rogaines (which the club membership isn't interested in) at closer, better known venues, and that's most of what we'd be doing. As it is, BAOC holds maybe one or two short rogaines per year, with medium-size turnouts, and we are hard pressed to get enough interest among adventure racers in our unknown venues.

Sounds like Get Lost! needs to partner with Dontgetlost in Ontario. :-)

BAOC had a rogaine in Morgan Territory two or three years ago with great attendance from orienteers, adventure racers, and many other random people who didn't fit into either category.

BAOC will have a wilderness scramble type series in 2013 with many events, a Boggs rogaine being the likely finale.

Sprints are cool too, but there was some negative backlash from a club sprint series we had for a few years in conjunction with the unofficial national sprint series. I think. In our BAOC club, the strongest interest among existing longtime members is traditional wilderness orienteering. However, their numbers aren't growing. What will the club do to perpetuate traditional wilderness orienteering in the bay area?

Make it social and regular. Every Wednesday evening have training somewhere local and accessible.

What's local and accessible when your club is "Bay Area" or "Western Connecticut." I think you are absolutely right, but with the current club structure it's impossible - clubs are too big geographically. The New Haven Chapter would have two people of putting on local meets - it's not sustainable.

>> Every Wednesday evening have training somewhere local and accessible.
Easy to dream about, but hard to pull off in the traffic congested bay area...

But yeah, I've been sad about how sprints are perceived by the locals. Maybe you can't expect an old forest runner to learn urban tricks, but I'm not seeing newcomers try sprints either. Most the folks around here imagine that sprints are an elite-only activity. Things might be better if the local sprint events encouraged beginners to run the sprint course, instead of segregating them off to a yellow or orange course. I'm working to change that (Backstreet - expect an email from me on this topic soon).

You could call it "park orienteering" instead of "sprints".

I love sprints, and I'm sure not elite or even fast.

I would absolutely go to an all-sprint event like this. The only reason I don't go to Sprint the Golden Gate or the Vancouver Sprint Camp is that I can't afford airfare. If something similar was on the East Coast, I'd be there.

I also am not fast but the Sprint the Golden Gate weekend last year was one of my favorite events of the year, and taught me how fast I could run and navigate if pushed myself (eg start and end of stage 4). Unfortunately the timing of the event doesn't work for me this year.

I'd also like to put in a vote in favor of returning to a November event. Round here (CO) there's not much going on in November (too late for orienteering, trail racing or hiking, and too early for skiing), and the weather in SF can be quite good then (Sunday last year excepted), when it's not in a lot of the rest of the country.

I love that San Francisco has so many urban parks mapped. Reminds me of my early orienteering days in London, where it seemed almost every bit of open space was mapped.

There are a number of yet unmapped SF venues that I personally would love to see mapped, and perhaps hold some Sprints in them, but this will sadly have to wait until we get more of a following (which may be a while). There seem to be many more in the East Bay, and Ben Legg is working on making some of these maps.

With all this said, what would the suggestions be for the timing of Sprint the Golden Gate for 2013 other than what has already been expressed? It sounds like the prevailing opinion is against the June timeframe, and Rex also let me know that the timing doesn't work with BAOC's proposed 2013 schedule. I am strongly against November based on last year's feedback, but December or January may work.

I'm biased but on one of the weekends
of the AGU in December would be great. I wonder how many geoscientists that go there from
around the world orienteer? don't need a high percentage when there are 20000 at the conference!!!

How committed is the AGU to continuing to hold its Fall meeting in San Francisco? This year we unfortunately already have San Carlos Street Scramble scheduled for the weekend following. I'm afraid trying to reschedule the Sprints for the weekend before may be too much of a conflict with terraloco and/or BAOC at this point, but will check. The weekend-prior timing (as early as 2012) will work for me, but I will need to ask other key people.

@Becks, training doesn't need to be high-tech or particularly technical, the Boston crowd were just doing street-O, and if you have a few parks you can use too (I know, New Haven)...

One can't just magically expect a crowd of orienteers to spontaneously appear or develop. They need cultivation.

AGU Fall meeting is already scheduled to be in SF through 2014 at least. http://www.agu.org/sections/atmos/meetings.shtml

Corridor-street-O can get pretty technical.

AGU has been in San Fran every December since early 1990's I believe. Moscone Centre. Vlad, that was the conference I was at when I ran into you outside the Whole Foods store a few years back.

I am unaware of saying whether or not a GL sprint event would be bad at a particular date with BAOC's schedule in 2013. Nothing is pinned down yet for BAOC's 2013 schedule, although we are getting started on it.

And I think November is a good time for a sprint-fest in the bay area. At least weather-wise, and for folks in other places where the weather is not as nice, there's not much else to compete with.

But I am neutral right now on this, as my primary focus is on developing a year long 2013 BAOC schedule, goal is to get it done early summer.

Well, the problem last year was that East-coast people uniformly stated that they are "orienteered out" in November. Hence the move to June, which didn't work out, at least not this year.

It may be year-specific depending on what other races there are in any given month.

There isn't a year that at least 3 weekends in October aren't taken by A events.

October is the new April

Well, the problem last year was that East-coast people uniformly stated that they are "orienteered out" in November.

I don't think your target audience should be the east-coasters. The largest potential demographic would be Bay Area people, followed by west coasters who have easy travel, and then east coasters. For every one east who will come, how many Seattle/Vancouver/Portland/LA people will come? And how many Bay Area people will come?

If you look at the history of the Vancouver Sprint Camp (which everyone regards as a success), you'll find that an overwhelming majority of participants come are either local, or from western Canada or the northwest US.

Any east coaster who gets "orienteered out" isn't worth going after. If they can't commit to 12 months of orienteering, who says that they'll commit to a cross country flight?

BAOC. Cascade, and CROC people (at least the ones we are likely to attract) like to go out East, too.

+1 PinkSocks

If you don't have an audience, create one.

I'm afraid we don't have a chance locally with this particular product—it is not within our means to cultivate the audience. For one thing, we can't give away a five-race package for under $30, which is what I feel the price would need to be to attract more BAOC regulars. If we had deeper pockets, we'd be able to do that, but we don't. There isn't an attendance at which we'd break even with this pricing (permits get pricier as more people attend).

The way I summarize the discussion, the format perhaps doesn't have a future, which sounds surprising since we put two of these on already, but that's what the discussion seems to say. I personally don't think that a local audience is a must for a successful event, having put on three successful Team Fundraisers with very little local attendance, but perhaps that's just the way things are around here.

I love sprint tourneys, and if you're doing them because they're fun, that's great. I've loved the previous ones. But if you're trying to make money? I would not invest in that.

It's logistically difficult to organize, and requires a large event staff that GetLost has trouble pulling together. And it's not helping you grow your participant base.

If I was a potential investor, I'd be much quicker to invest in a company that focuses on one simple format that has good ease-of-entry for newbies. And I wouldn't want to you putting on any events unless you were prepared to produce the hell out of it. You're better off with 3 kick-ass events per year than 12 half-assed events.

The bull in the china shop has stumbled into the elephant in the room.

Don't get me wrong, I really do love the sprint tourney format. They rank among my favorite events ever. But I still haven't seen one that went off without a few technical glitches along the way. It is a hard format to do well. The sort of thing that takes a big team of people to pull off.

This was really hard to take. I won't redirect to glass houses from china shops, but the data is there, and reader should draw her own conclusions.

I'm not sure how that data is relevant to this?

I want to see you succeed more than anyone Vlad. I'm not trying to break any windows here, just hoping to see more success in the future.

I don't think BAOC's event lineup is one I'd invest in either; but BAOC is quite clear that its aim is not to make money.

Hey, if the aim were to make money, we'd be organizing what other smart orienteers are organizing—trail runs! If we were even smarter, we'd be muddering.

Unlike some other organizers out there, Get Lost!! is a nonprofit with a mission of putting on public events involving map-based navigation in combination with human-powered travel. (Since about a month ago, Get Lost!! accepts members.) I agree entirely that if we were a for-profit enterprise, Sprints would make little if any sense. They aren't more labor-intensive than say rogaines, and certainly are less so than a seven-course orienteering event, but they also clearly have a more limited appeal. Because they are fun, we're glad to put them on—for everyone to discover and rediscover how much fun they are! We hope that locals and folks from farther away alike come and enjoy our world-class maps, venues, and courses.

I personally, and other members, are limited in how much funding we can come up with to keep putting these events on, and therefore the decision to reschedule the 2012 Sprints.

Well, whatever. I look forward to participating in a Get Lost!! sprint tourney sometime soon in the Bay Area.

If I was a potential investor, I'd be much quicker to invest in a company that focuses on one simple format that has good ease-of-entry for newbies. And I wouldn't want to you putting on any events unless you were prepared to produce the hell out of it. You're better off with 3 kick-ass events per year than 12 half-assed events.

I've probably said this before on AP, but I think that O-USA needs to develop a national series of races that try to appeal to the adventure/mud run crowd. We've already got a format for elite orienteers (a-meets), but the problem is that they are underpublicized, insidery, unfriendly to beginners, targeted to out-of-towners, and the demographic is aging.

There are these other, popular events, that are similar enough to orienteering, but those people aren't just going to come to us like magic. We need to meet these events halfway, and that means simpler events with good ease-of-entry and good production value.

We could have a series of "The Original Adventure Runs" (thanks for the name, Men's Journal), which would be in beginner-friendly and social-friendly formats like score-o's or goats. The first year's events would be hosted by larger clubs at permission-friendly venues near population centers, as it'd be easier to get event staff, investors, sponsors, and publicity.

We're not going to get everyone, but what about aiming for just 0.2% of the mud run crowd? Tough Mudder has 2.2 million Facebook likes. Spartan Race has 1.3 million. Warrior Dash has 800 thousand. 0.2% from this trio alone is 8,000! That's 8000 more potential volunteers, event directors, course setters, and elite competitors...

For every 500 mud runners, would 1 of them enjoy orienteering? If so, how do we find and get that 1?

If OUSA were to follow this initiative, it better have adequate funding. Clubs aren't going to suddenly get enthusiastic about what doesn't readily serve their base, and there's not a non-club operator out there that has the maps that would fit the purpose. So the only possible way this would work is for OUSA to create an event-management arm with (some degree of) professional staff. You aren't going to be able to take on the mudders with volunteer staff and a half-assed (if I may borrow the term) promotion budget.

Yea, it's not an easy problem to solve. But I don't think it's impossible. It's not about taking on the mudders head on, it's just getting 1% of the participants. In Seattle, we're talking an event for, say, 200 new people, and CascadeOC had the means to do that.

Clubs aren't going to suddenly get enthusiastic about what doesn't readily serve their base.

Are there that many clubs out there that don't "get it" when it comes to trying to get new people? If you quit attracting new people, eventually attrition will eliminate the base...

For every 500 mud runners, would 1 of them enjoy orienteering?

just one or two.

Having organized for the 3rd year the same 6-hr rogaine, which attracted a wide range of people that have never been at a standard orienteering meet before, but all had already experience reading topographic maps, either as a hiker, adventure racer, mushroom picker, you name it, I can say that less than 5% followed up on showing up at a regular O meet.

oh, and btw, these same folks that came the first time, but never went to the regular O meets that followed, DID come to the same rogaine one and two years later. So, they were interested, but not interested in the regular O meet.

I am with Pink Socks on this one... there is something about the regular official O meets that is repelling some elements of the outdoorsy crowd. Cost is not it, since the regular O meet participation fee was about one fifth the cost of the rogaine.

Maybe it is the mud they want. ... who knows ...

It's the exoterica and communal experience they want, not something that is arcane and solitary.

...there is something about the regular official O meets that is repelling some elements of the outdoorsy crowd.

If they never went to any regular meets, how can you say they were repelled by them?

It's not about taking on the mudders head on, it's just getting 1% of the participants

Indeed, so how about starting with 0.1% of the mudders' combined intake for promotion? That'll still be in the mid-five digits.

I don't intend this as the counsel of despair but perhaps we ought to accept that we are, metaphorically, zen buddhist monks offering meditation lessons while the mudders, etc. are Timothy Leary offering LSD.

I like the analogy to buddhism/LSD. I've attended two Muddy Buddies, with several thousand other people each time, and it was fun. Costumes, beer, amplified music, mass starts, prizes, giveaways, venue only about 5 miles from my home, people of the opposite sex struggling through mud. Did I mention beer? It's not a sport. It's a party. Every sport/activity should aspire to attract more people, especially for-profit activities like Muddy Buddies. But just because the two activities are similar, and there are more of them than us, doesn't mean we are doing something wrong. There are more people who ski recreationally than speed skate. The US Speed Skating Association (assuming there is such a thing) could spend a lot of money on promotion to skiiers, and probably not make much of a dent. So what? They are for different people. One activity is an industry, generating tons of money, and has tens of thousands of participants. One is for the select few. They are both cool.

I hear the monks are really old and there's no shortage of LSD.

Now I'm wondering what orienteering on LSD is like.

Contour lines in constant motion, I would assume.

Woahhhhhhhh

You'd think, living in Berkeley, that it would be easy for me to find some head to ask about the LSD. But working across the street from the Graduate Theological Union, it would probably be easier to find a monk.

The event will definitely not happen in 2012, nor in the summer of 2013. The firm new dates are in mid-December of 2013, following the AGU meeting. Get Lost!! needs this time to raise enough money to be able to afford to put these events on.

We again apologize for the cancellation and the rescheduling. Hope to see you next December, when the weather is still nicer than elsewhere!

The new dates will propagate through calendars in the next couple weeks, and sanctioning will be reapplied for within that timeframe.

When you build it, I will come.

I think you should limit er your engagement in er all those other sports... a Sprint tournament just isn't the same without pink socks on the starting line!

>mid-December of 2013, following the AGU meeting.

Like! If it is after AGU I will definately be there. I think there is real potential to grab a bunch of those participants. Most delegates stay the Friday evening anyway and with the conference pushing up to 20,000 people that is a lot of potential sprinters.

AGU has been earlier in December the last few years but appears they are going back to their 'normal week'. Dates for next years AGU Fall meeting are: 9–13 December 2013. Then 15–19 December 2014 the year later.

Yes sorry Hammer all we'll be able to offer for the AGU-comers this year is an informal rerun of last year's Sprints (events under 20 people do not require permits). We moved Street Scramble so as not to conflict with BAOC events that weekend (which are not open to general public).

I'm unfamiliar with AGU, other than what the acronym stands for. What's the demographic of the conference, and what would be the best approaches to get them involved?

It seems to me that a "tournament" would seem too competitive for a lot of first-timers.

On a related note, I really want to put one of these on in Seattle at some point. I was originally thinking September 2013, but I'm thinking maybe 2014 now. But we need to convert maps to ISSOM and get the board on board.

The goal is not to put on an event for a wide number of AGU participants, but to involve the small number of competitive orienteers already among them. With how much it costs to put on Sprints, we need all the attendance we can get! It doesn't seem reasonable to us to be able to engage first-timers in town for a conference with any of our event formats; we find out that we need to hit people who haven't ever done, say, Street Scramble many times, perhaps more than proverbial 7, with promo bytes to gain any chance of them attending a Street Scramble event.

Re Seattle, make sure you have a realistic budget, and be prepared to do a lot of free mapping/ISSOM conversion in order to make things happen. In our reality, Sprint maps can't pay for themselves, perhaps ever, so we can only put on Sprints—because we like them—with proceeds of other events.

Yes, I will there.

I spent some time in the vicinity of Golden Gate Park yesterday, and lamented that I did not avail myself of the opportunity to orienteer there when you presented it last time. Woe on whomever commits that folly twice!

I know that one of the mornings of the AGU they have a 5K run (before dawn). it attracts several hundred people. I think it you were able to get one of the courses as an official AGU activity it would be well attended - esp if on one of the evenings or the Sat AM after the conference (and close to Moscone). OR/ create a map of the downtown and have a street scramble at your own pace during the week as one of their official activities as a way to advertise the race.

AGU is the largest geoscience conference in the World and it is always in San Fran in early to mid December. The demographic are academics like me, lots of grad students and lots of USGS and forest Service government researchers. I imagine quite a few orienteers are there each year.

Be prepared to do a lot of free mapping/ISSOM conversion

My first pitch to the board (in May) was to convert some of our existing ISOM maps into ISSOM maps, because most of our fall/winter/spring venues are 1:5000 and would benefit from the added detail of ISSOM.

My pitch specifically targeted conversion of UW Campus, Magnuson Park, Woodland Park, and Shoreview Park, since all of them are either in the WIOL/Winter Series juggernaut rotation, or are used annually. In other words, we'd use the maps for more than just a fun sprint tournament.

The last piece would be creating a new map of Seattle Center, which would be awesome, but I just don't know how often that map would get used. It might be better to spend resources expanding the UW Campus map so that it'll hold longer courses (or two sprints).

OR/ create a map of the downtown

The map exists. Actually two barely related versions of the map exist; both were created within 2012. terraloco's 1:15k version (example here) is mostly ISOM (the contours aren't ISOM but the rest of it is), made to about the same standard as BAOC's two other accurate SF maps (Twin Peaks and Presidio). terraloco's goal is to complete the mapping of the whole City by sometime in 2013.

Get Lost!!'s Greater SF map is 1:25k (sometimes printed at 1:20k), and represents the evolution of the urban rogaine map "standard". For a 3-hour event, it is just not feasible to fit all the stuff that would be appropriate on a 1:15k map, and retain legibility; much less so for a 16-hour event, such as the Night & Day Challenge. My goal is to generate a workable replacement for USGS 1:24k series, which is what SFND has so far used. As of now, the map covers about 1/3 of the City, including all of the central neighborhoods; this is the latest released version.

The weekend after the AGU unfortunately does not work with BAOC's schedule. We'll try for the weekend before the AGU, which also presents a conflict, or perhaps will just give up.

Do not give up.

Why doesn't it work with BAOC's schedule? We're talking 14 months from now!

My guess is that the fit between Sprint Festival + AGU is better than BAOC + Whatever.

BAOC's schedule is set for 14 months from now, and not flexible.

What a bunch of party poopers, then!

I believe we can work something out. Unless I give up. Just don't take the date as written in stone, yet.

Do not give up!

Don't give up! Surely something can be worked out with our club (BAOC). We need more sprints!!