Discussion: Gear Junkie Treasure Hunt is back for 2011

The GJ is an avid orienteer, so this event might be good.

http://gearjunkie.com/treasure-hunt-roanoke

Event Details
The Treasure Hunt will be similar to an adventure race or an off-trail orienteering course. There will be orienteering flags hidden in the woods, along trails, and on top of ridges in the Explore Park. Participants get a map and use a compass or GPS device to navigate from flag to flag, charting their own course through the park.

So, it's basically a two-hour score-o, with an entry fee of $25, with $40,000 worth of prizes. In the US. Let that sink in: Orienteering in the US with $40,000 worth of prizes. If this event is a success, I think we need to be talking with the Gear Junkie.

Move fast (by tomorrow) and the entry fee is only $20 - http://www.roanokeoutside.com/get-more/blog?view=p...

Maybe that's charging enough to meet the costs of putting on a score-O event in a not terribly large park but I'm inclined to view the whole thing as a merchandising exercise with a score-O attached to it. Which, I hasten to add, I have no problem with - kudos to the GJ for successfully obtaining so many sponsors willing to put up prizes.

Maybe for future events he'll even spring for getting an actual orienteering map made, although historically his events haven't used them.

Ok, here's a guy with newspaper syndication, a presence with Outside Magazine, a popular website, 4000+ Twitter followers. He puts on an orienteering event that gives away more prizes than USOF gives away in 5 years (or however long). He's able to do things that we can't do, and he does it without the strongest asset of the sport: the orienteering map.

He's a guy that obviously likes orienteering, so why aren't we working with him? He knows how to write and publicize. He knows how to put on events. He knows how to get sponsors involved. And he could use our help with getting access to better maps.

Just think if we were working with Gear Junkie on a regular basis. We could have "Treasure Hunts" 10x a year throughout the US. Orienteering would have more exposure through his events and his involvement. I'd rather be working with this guy than watching him do his own thing and succeeding.

yup...but you just can't call it orienteering!

What with O (really Cross Country-O), Bike-O, Ski-O, Canoe-O, Trail-O, Score-O, Line-O, String-O, Night-O, etc-O, what's wrong with Gear-O? Or Treasure-O?

We don't need the 'O'. People who get into it will realize what it's really called and learn to deal with it.

I agree with Patrick - we should be working with Gear Junkie. Glen is probably our best 'connector' for such things, so let him know what you think...

clarification on my comment above. Not calling it orienteering is a good thing.

Stephen (The Gear Junkie) is a active member of the MNOC and also wites for the New York Times....very nice guy....constantly out on adventures and writing about it. Funny, he usually doesnt talk about it much unless I ask him but he is always out doing stuff.

Obviously most people reading here would prefer if such events were run on real orienteering maps but I can't really see why the organiser should share our preference unless the pool of potential entrants cares about map quality the way we do and has a choice of comparable competing events that do have excellent map quality. I think it's safe to say that isn't the case at the moment. Perhaps orienteering-lite (technically) will turn out to be a good way to introduce people to navigation sports. If this works well enough that Stephen wants to do it again at a different venue, I say we offer him the use of any existing orienteering map he likes - perhaps it will be possible to educate public tastes.

sounds great

Would be nice to have it on orienteering maps, so that people could get exposed to that level of detail.

So to throw some reason into the soup...

An event like this exists because equipment vendors understand that by giving some of the (surplus) stuff away, they can lure consumers into their stores and sell more equipment, thus making profits.

Orienteers are not good consumers. There are few of them, they are cheap, and they buy little of anything related to their sport (with the exception, perhaps, of gasoline and aviation fuel). If I were a vendor, I would want to steer clear of this particular sample of the population. If an orienteering marketing person came to me and asked for sponsorship, I'd think, boy, these people are the worst—it's not like they don't have much money and if/when they earn more money, they'd gladly spend it on my stuff. No. These people make good money, but their mentality prevents them from spending it on my stuff, their stuff, any stuff. There's not much hope.

So yes, there is a lot for orienteers to gain from a partnership like the one described... but what is in it for the vendors? what are the orienteers trying to sell to them? how are we willing to change our behavior (if at all) to make this relationship meaningful for the other party?

I totally get that reasoning. But my hope is that we can attract non-cheap (ie mainstream) participants to the sport. If orienteering becomes less niche-y and becomes an alternative to 10k's, muddy buddy, and recreational events, then there's a reason for sponsors to be there.

There's a big difference between a full sponsorship and giving away surplus goodies. But hey, surplus goodies is a start.

But then it's chicken and egg. The sponsor/vendor won't get interested until there are more people taking part in events, and there won't be more people (i.e. growth) until there is more money invested into the sport.

I think maybe there needs to be some cardinal rethinking, allowing/integrating concepts heretofore seen as anathemas. The PWT did this with the Sprint (later aped by the IOF). Mainstream orienteers were quite skeptical on the merits of staging events in cities and parks back in the mid-1990s, yet now we have a successful format. It didn't yield explosive growth but certainly didn't cause a decrease in starts worldwide, and made for good PR and TV. (Wait—things did get explosive, in China; that ought to count for something.)

So I am thinking, what about a shift towards more equipment-heavy varieties, or whatever we can do to force people to spend more? The REIs of the worlld exist because people need stuff to do certain things. So, say a format that allows GPS (or at least requires mandatory GPS receivers), more bike-O's, deny sanctioning unless the event includes a shirt and a banquet... more crazy ideas?

I guess I prove that I am a true orienteer by saying that I deliberately refuse to enter any athletic event where there is no way out of getting a 'free' shirt... ;)

It is somewhat like a chicken and the egg, and I almost used that analogy in my last comment. But, in a way, it's also not. This Gear Junkie event is pretty much a new event, and it's got sponsors (sort of). And that event with the burning hay bales had a huge turnout in it's very first year. So it can be done.

I had an idea and I posted it somewhere on AP, about bridging the gap between 5k and 10k fun runs and orienteering. Sacrilegious to the hard-core orienteers (us), it would consist of a pretty easy 5k or 10k course around a city park. Have mini-mass starts of about 20 runners every 10 minutes (or whatever). Basically, it's a 5k run with a novelty orienteering theme. There's a run here in Seattle called the Pineapple Run, where you're with a small team, and you have to run a 5k (or whatever) course and carry a pineapple with you through some obstacles.

There seem to be a gazillion runners out there, some of which are game for these novelty events. If we could just try one orienteering-themed events a year, maybe that would get some people into the sport. And runners seem to like shoes and other gear.

Orienteering seems to need bridges to the mainstream. Bringing events into the cities bridged the distance/wilderness gap. Getting involved with REI or, to a lesser extent, Gear Junkie, bridges an exposure gap. And making our events more accessible to the mainstream (5k, Street Scramble, etc), bridges another gap.

I would suggest participating in these non-o events ourselves. A lot will come from that alone.

Some of the barriers to spreading map-sport are evident above. An "actual" orienteering map... "better" maps... map "quality"... get exposed to "that level of detail"...

It is quite possible that Gear Junkie has a good understanding of the sorts of maps that the average intelligent citizen can read. Any navigation with a map (provided people find the targets and can feel its do-able) will help us. Only a small proportion will want to experience Surebridge Mountain as a result though.

I think Kupackman understands this. And GHO. And the Street Scramble people.

For sponsors to be interested you need the numbers that are not present in orienteering in North America today.

Orienteers may have a traditionally "cheap profile", but not everyone is like that.
Somehow they have succeeded in Finland to attract the masses with their "corporate cups" and the Jukola Relay - and those are "normal" people not hardcore orienteers. Looking at the line-ups in the equipment stores/tents at Jukola this year you wouldn´t say that orienteers are cheap.

From my understanding GHO are on the right track and have a rather successful adventure run program going (with lots of orienteering "hidden" in there) with several sponsors and lots of participants - at least by North American standards...

Urthbuoy, how is this event "non-O"? Sounds to me like it is O.

Tundra, how are 'orienteers' bad consumers? Last night, I was in the car with two people who had just dropped $400 on three pairs of shiny new orienteering shoes. In a car that just had a $200 roof rack upgrade, so I could carry more bikes to an urban street scramble. Or how about the $300 I spent last winter on new skis for ski orienteering? Or the $150 Garmin watch I use to track my routes? Or the $60 compass I manage to break and replace every couple years? Or the $120 LED headlamp? Or the $65 orienteering top I was wearing? OK. Maybe I don't spend as much as my cycling buddies. Most of them have bikes that cost more than my Car. But somebody is making money off of me. Just not the orienteering club ;-)

Over here we know orienteers are a high income high spending demographic. Its just the elites and juniors who bring down the average... ;-)

I think Gruver has a very good point, and it's something a lot of mainstream orienteers don't understand. Some people may want to get involved in the sport, but not participate regularly. You'll have a few willing to go in at the deep end, but most won't as they don't have the time to spare. But the one-off event might be fine for them.

Look at the 'extreme-sport' type events that are out there - why are those popular/attractive to people? Why are competitors willing to pay a fair amount (compared to orienteering entry fees) to enter? Probably because the events are accessible, well organised, there's an achievable goal but also one that successful finishers will want to tell their mates about, and they don't need to do any "specialised" training to be able to get round. And on cost - the participants will only do one/two/three of these things a year so it's not so much of a worry for them, especially if there is something on offer for taking part.

Saying "we've got to have a 'proper' map for it to be orienteering" is very restrictive. As is hosting events 50 miles out of town that are difficult to find/get to. I don't think orienteering is ever going to become a mainstream sport, but if you're going to get more people taking part in running events with a map then you've got to make it as easy as possible for them to give it a go. And for them to understand what's going on so they want to give it a try in the first place...

Tundra, how are 'orienteers' bad consumers?

Compared to high-school track runners, maybe they are OK. Compared to anything else, the money (averages to less than $100/month for total spending) is laughable. Come on. If I'm a sponsor and the best in sales I can expect from someone is on the order of $100/year, of which I will be lucky to make ~20%–30% profit, why would I throw out something at them that costs about $100 (GJ's order-of-magnitude numbers)? At least an order of magnitude is missing here.

Now if there's a $2000 bike in play that gets replaced every two years or a pair of $750 skis twice a year, these are the correct numbers. That's when the marketing types wake up.

MNOC's experience with our relationship with REI is that the true orienteering only spending is not high (a pair of shoes, maybe a compass, maybe a headlamp ) but that the active lifestyle that orienteers pursue outside of orienteering , namely biking, camping, hiking etc and the spending for that ($1000/ year or more) is worth going after for an outdoor retailer . Thus the connection.

Orienteers spend buckets of money on their sport, they just don't spend it on orienteering gear. How much does the average household spend to attend two major carnivals a year? Think transport, accommodation, food, communication.

IriHarding makes a good point.....if you O you also do other endurance sports....thus the multi sport logs you see here where most participants to a wide variety sports for training......O is like nordic skiing in a way.....you have to cross train because you have limited opportunities to do your main sport....you need snow to nordic ski and you need a flagged course and map to O so you do other things to stay in shape to be ready.....and that is where a lot of the money is spent...

Looks like it went well....over 300 people....

http://gearjunkie.com/treasure-hunt-success

GJ Treasure Hunt is back for 2011
http://gearjunkie.com/treasure-hunt-roanoke

I was going to post something, but then I realized that everything I was going to say, was already said last year.

This event now joins the Road Runner Sports Adventure Runs, as examples of how "orienteering-lite" is slowly entering a more mainstream demographic (with sponsors!), without much, if any, help from the true orienteering community.

I thought GJ Hunt was a lot less lite than Thursday Adventure. It has maps and checkpoints—I'm pretty sure it's a rogaine.

It is.

I was just using Jon's term from above. "Lite" in that it doesn't use a true orienteering map, which, reading above, several people seem to think is a requirement.