Discussion: Decrease in participation to massive city 10K

In the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA), a 10K running race has been held for the past 30 years. It was always a massive event, with thousands of participants. It used to be inexpensive, as low as $20. Musical bands played at every kilometer. It went from a well-known residential neighborhood, through the university campuses of Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, and reached downtown to "The Point", where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers join to form the Ohio river. Just over 5 years ago, the race had > 10,000 participants. Just this past Sunday, it had < 5000.

What happened?

I ask because this year there has been decreased registration at the Raccoongaine 6-hour mini-rogaining event held by WPOC, and the Python 10-hour rogaining event held by NEOOC was cancelled due to low registrations.

I look forward for your thoughts and comments, and I will start with my own theory: with the pandemic, and no organized outdoor events and races to be found, folks have learned to wean off from having to register to events, and have created their own event, be it alone, or with friends, or with a pod or mini-group. It used to be that one registered to a local 5K as a motivator to get up early in the morning and get out of the house. Now folks don't need that incentive anymore and have now the personal initiative to do events on their own, without relying on an organized structure.

In the past decade, the Pittsburgh Caliguiri Caligiuri "Great Race" 10K has experience a substantial loss in participation.
What are the social causes for such non-participation in organized outdoor sport events? pic.twitter.com/NaVJmnyvgO

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I think there are a lot of different reasons.

Some people are still being careful about crowds or travel.

On the flip side, some people won't attend an event if it has any kind of restrictions at all/ is not 100% "normal". And some are tired of cancelations, refunds, and deferrals so they just don't bother signing up for anything right now.

After a more relaxed year, some people realized they don't need or want to do as much as before. Some are just overwhelmed period. (I think I fit here, plus a bit in the still careful group.... my life is nowhere near as crazy schedulewise as before, but for some reason it still feels like a lot.)

Some people struggled financially and are still bouncing back from that... and costs on almost everything have gone up.

I think a lot of people are still avoiding big events (as Furlong suggested).

As far as rogaine type events, a lot of people are also avoiding overnight travel, restaurants, and hotels, so that may have a bigger impact on a long-duration race where an overnight stay is often desired.

We will see how Cincinnati's Thanksgiving Day 10k goes this year, which is always on Thanksgiving Day, has been around for over 100 years, and has the unique attraction of crossing the Ohio River (2 states, 3 cities). But last year it was virtual only, so its very possible that people are also "out of the habit" or starting new traditions. It definitely has had some much smaller years when race day weather has been unpleasant, but I don't think the trend has been in decline. Interestingly, it gets well over 50% female runners; while rogaining and orienteering events tend to be over 50% male. I won't venture further into speculation how that demographic difference might influence attendance.

I don't think you can directly compare attendance at an orienteering, rogaining, or hashing event to that of 5 or 10 k runs without lots of caveats; many other factors (date, vegetation density, past experience with a particular map or course setter, conflicting events) enter in.

If I recall (correct me if I'm wrong), the Raccoon was later this year (everybody knows that Western PA vegetation gets worse in summer). I believe that the Python wasn't publicized real well or real early, and the proposed date conflicted with a lot of other orienteering events in the region, and personally I thought that the decision to cancel was made pretty early.

My opinion is that when you get used to attending certain activities, such as orienteering or running 5 or 10k's...and then those activities are no longer available, you find other activities to fill the void. When the original activities become available, they now have to compete with whatever other things you replaced them with. In my case, I started riding my bike a lot more and so now instead of perhaps traveling across the country to an orienteering event, I may travel to South Dakota for the Mickelsen Trek bike ride or some other biking event across the country that sparks my interest. This to me is the most important reason for not cancelling orienteering events unless it's absolutely necessary - particularly local events.

There's been a massive uptake in cycling worldwide due to Covid so you could be onto something there. People may be more inclined to just go riding with mates rather than doing events, which involves mingling with people whose health state is unknown to them. When Covid first shut everything down in my home state last year, it was difficult to enter the first few events that came along afterwards because they were getting flooded with people trying to get back into the habit (though in many cases some of those people registered then didn't turn up).

Sherpes, you say the race 'used to be inexpensive', how much does it cost now? People here seem to have a perception that the more a race costs, the better it must be so they don't bother entering low cost events - just save up for one big one.

you say the race used to be inexpensive, how much does it cost now?

in 2017, the city handed off the management of the event to a commercial staffed office of 40 people that were already in existence for managing the commercialization of the Pittsburgh Marathon event. Before that, the event was managed by the Parks and Recreation department, and signing up to the race was more like motivating folks in the city neighborhood to get up and moving and getting healthy. The entrance fee was $20.

Now, with a commercial venture managing the event, the entry fee is $40.

Sounds about right. The 4 Peaks challenge here had a really cheap fee of $20-$25 per day (4 peaks, 4 days) with the cheaper fee being for 'walkers' and the more expensive one for 'runners'. It got taken over by a (not quite) commercial management team (there are just the two of them I think but they also put on local ARs so are trying to make money from it) and despite the fee page stating that fees have increased due to a higher level of compliance, well the four day entry is still just $99. Single day entries however are now $49 (roughly double the original fee). Of course the event's not going to be run this year - again - due to the bulk of the prospective entrants being in lockdown when the event's normally on (late Oct-early Nov). It gets a high number of entries normally despite being ~4hrs from the capital so will be interesting to see how it goes when it can be run once again.

One data point raising the prospect of elastic demand.

I'd say it has to be Covid related though. Various events over a number of years have had declining numbers whereas others (typically community running events and longer MTB races) have seen a surge in numbers. The City to Surf (running) in Perth is a prime example of moving along in leaps and bounds (well not the past two years in which it's been cancelled). I can't tell you how much that costs since I haven't done it in many years and there's no info on their website at the moment but it wasn't cheap, certainly not $20.

$40 is a great deal to run a big 10km with the bells and whistles (if it has those).
Anyone in Vancouver know the entry of the SunRun? I think the Ottawa Race Weekend 10km is around $60.

For what it's worth, attendance at orienteering events in Australia, when they've been able to take place, in the last 12-15 months is generally higher than we would have expected for comparable events pre-pandemic - a particularly striking example being the ~450 people at the May events at Broulee (National League and associated public races), which I think would be close to the highest attendance ever at a public non-championship event in Australia.

The Broulee events would have had a handful more people if not for the direct clash with the Vic MTBO champs too!

I reckon the Nationals in Vic next year (presuming no travel restrictions in place) could see a record attendance given there's been no Nationals now since 2019 and it's enticing terrain for travellers. Add to that the City Race and associated events the following weekend and the NZers will turn up in force. Well those that like urban events anyway.

I think I'd generally expect to see a less of a drop in attendance in orienteering - which is very socially distanced to that of a road race where you can be very close to others. Even currently I'd feel a lot more nervous of doing parkrun (if it was on) than orienteering where you get very few people together at any one time.

@tRicky the race you refer to was actually $25 for the whole weekend when I first did it 7 years ago, the price went up when it went from running club organisation to a company - the participation also went up considerably.

Yeah I thought it was much cheaper previously but I've only done it once - $25 per day for runners and $20 per day for walkers. Of course they added in the obligatory finisher medals that'll push the price up plus electronic timing.

Speaking as a parent of a toddler, it’s been an exhausting year. And I didn’t have to deal with anything like zoom kindergarten, which seems so hard.

Mothers, in particular, have fallen out of the workforce in large numbers. (I’m fortunate to have kept my job).

The pandemic has made individual experiences more extreme: some people have not had enough to do and are in the best shape of their lives. Others are grateful to motivate for a walk. Some might find the idea of planning that far ahead daunting; others are seeking out structure that they never needed before.

Somehow Boris has moved cross country and started a thriving orienteering club.

Individual experiences vary.

Just throwing out that when looking for reasons registration might have changed during the pandemic, might be something other than cost of the entry and be transparent about assumptions.

Are other races around the same/similar areas seeing the same drop off in participation - if so I'd put it down to general (likely covid) reasons. If not I'd start looking for something more specific.

Not referring to big events/championships... but following the reopening of community sport late last year our club events found quite a few newcomers appeared. Mostly families with school age children, their rationale was that with many traditional team sports not recommencing plus the great outdoors beckoning orienteering seemed quite attractive. We also catered for our club members with a free weekly maprun course available during lockdown 2020. This has resulted in a few conversions in 2021. The Come- Run-Go approach also minimised time allocation. Attendance at local events following lockdown was consistently higher than usual, notwithstanding our introduction of pre entry/pre payment and our only foray into championship standard 3 day event also resulted in higher numbers than usual. People were hungry, despite additional restrictions. While it is good to flag and assess declining attendance I think a few more Invis Log "data points" are needed - and perhaps a good look after a full season.

Another possible covid-related reason...

Concern over the crowding before the race at the start, and then the heavy, maskless breathing in close quarters at the beginning of the race.

There is one other factor that I think should be added to consideration. The baby boomers are aging. Those born between 1946 and 1964 have been merrily aging, holding onto jobs and keeping the younger and smaller waves from getting the jobs and promotions they desire. Boomers have been a glut in the work place but a boom for the recreation business - everything from golf to skiing to road running and even orienteering.
Now the lead wave of the boomers are 75 and the trailing edge moving into their late 50's. They are leaving the workforce in great numbers, creating labour shortages not seen since the post WWII years. They should also be at their peak for income spent on recreation and with the later ones that is probably still true. However those over 70 and perhaps even younger are too often quietly slipping out of the competitive and recreational races and runs.
I recently had reason to look over some orienteering race results from the 1970s to 1990s. I remember those guys who were in my age class, remember them but don't see them at events anymore.
Are they being replaced as they retire? The younger generations (30s to 50s) are doing the best they can but they just don't have the numbers to fill the gaps left by the baby boomers. The really younger generations (teens to 20s) forget it. The females are holding their own but for some reason we see far fewer males out training on foot. Bike yes but not on foot.

These two

some are tired of cancelations, refunds, and deferrals so they just don't bother signing up for anything right now

Some people struggled financially and are still bouncing back from that... and costs on almost everything have gone up

account for most of the drop. Trailrunning attendance for organized events is down somewhere between 15% and 20% nationwide, if you believe the industry association, but on the West Coast it is, according to my own lying eyes, down 40% to 50% (i.e. 2021 same-event attendance is 50% to 60% of the 2019 number). It is not the regulars who have been lost, the two above reasons aren't strong enough for them. It is people like my normally soccer-playing ex-coworker who would do a 30 km trail run every now and then.

Now he just sticks to soccer.

+1 gordhun,

Orienteering was the sport of the boomer generation, those who valued liberty and freedoms, free speech, and practiced independent & critical thinking. My first coach compared orienteering with two guys playing chess while running.

These are being replaced by millennials, who embraced socialism, free stuff, relying on government taking care of them and making decisions for them. They do not enjoy choosing their own path thru unknown terrain. Orienteering is heading for extinction.

That's so funny, given orienteering was imported into North America in the 1970s from socialist countries (mostly Scandinavian but also, sonewhat later, Eastern European) and retained the all-volunteer work-for-free ethic that's largely alien to present-day participation sports in the U.S. Millennials have to pay bills; all the cush professor jobs have been taken. So, they can't justify putting in hundreds of hours of high-intensity unpaid work. Therefore nobody to organize events, therefore dead sport, however cheap it remains.

- 1 Yurets

I don't think many people in the 'progressive' (not socialist) sphere expect anything for nothing. In fact they (we) expect that those who CAN will be pitching in with our volunteer hours and with our taxes to help those who CANNOT.
It is too bad that in the US so much thinking about communism and socialism and democratic socialism and progressive thinking are run together as if they are the same thing. They are not.

It is valid to look back at 50 years of orienteering in North America and wonder what would have been the course of the sport if instead of being volunteer lead and driven the sport had grown in the same manner as triathlon, spartan runs etc and been run by entrepreneurs. On the one hand given the tremendous number of volunteer hours that go into functions like mapping and dealing with park authorities it is hard to imagine anyone making any substantial money out of the sport. However on the other hand given the marketing know-how that successful entrepreneurs have brought to those other sports maybe, just maybe orienteering would be way ahead of our current situation if we had been better at 'selling the sizzle'.
Finally I see a bright future ahead for orienteering serving the next generation. The sport has three things that parents very much want their kids to have:
-be outdoors getting exercise
- be away from their computers, smart phones and gadgets
-be learning to think and solve problems (like route choices)

all the cush professor jobs have been taken

Oh, now I need some popcorn.

+1 T/D

all this "+1" and "-1" etc etc reminds me of game theory

-1 Yurtes your last sentence is very negative
+gordhun = exactly
The sport has three things that parents very much want their kids to have:
-be outdoors getting exercise
- be away from their computers, smart phones and gadgets
-be learning to think and solve problems (like route choices)
+ a family sport at the one "venue" ie not kids needing to be in all different directions (oh that is so not intended to be a pun) at the same time eg Soocer Saturday mornings

1 Yurtes your last sentence is very negative

that's a tautology.

all the cush professor jobs...

Only those involved in Marxist indoctrination