Discussion: Price sensitivity

HVO have a rather unusual pricing structure for the Team Trials.

Entering Red Long cost 30$, W/Y/O/Br/G only 8$. Same maps, same course setter/consultant... so what would you expect from the Registration list?

Thoughts?

R and BL are OUSA Sanctioned and thus rankable. The others are not (thus the local meet pricing). I think there's also some special play here to encourage more non-trials runners to show up, since the trials usually only draw the R and BL runners.

My thought is that if I attend, it will be a last-minute decision, and I'll run Green, which will be significantly cheaper (even with the late fee) than signing up for Red or Blue would have been.

More ks, more Cs, more f (or should i say d). Saw Blue Mtn from the lodge in April. Awesome terrain. Plus I figured at least some of the proceeds above the costs would be distributed to the US Team.

Neil, you can remove my name from the regi list. I have other plans.

Correct me if I am wrong , but the price for White/Yellow/Orange/Brown/Green is no longer $8, but $12. From what I understand, to benefit of the $8 fee, one had to pre-register by May 22. For example, if you make a last-minute decision and show up on Sunday, and don't have a e-punch, it will cost you $8 + $4 (late fee) + $2 (epunch rental) = $14.

>it will cost you $8 + $4 (late fee) + $2 (epunch rental) = $14.

Bargain.

Joe, that would be totally against my principles. Contact the registrars (unofam).

Sherpes, true.

So is sanctioning on its own worth a lot?

Would more or fewer people have come if Green/Brown were also sanctioned and 30$?

Or is it the Team Trial course status of R/Bl particularly appealing to some? Is anyone running Red just because it is either TT or ranked?

I'm curious...

Plus... the Sprint is cheaper than Long/Middle, despite being absolutely amazing. Was price an issue for this race attendance?

There is a $4 sanctioning fee due to USOF for each sanctioned race for each adult runner. (And of course a $4 surcharge for each non federation member.) The sanctioning fee is $5 for a championship. I'm not sure that folks are aware that out of an early registration fee of $25 for a championship, $9 goes to USOF.

Yes, more people would have come if the other courses were sanctioned. That is, if the Team Trials were part of an A-meet. Scheduling and the sanctioning request for the R and BL courses here came later than the 12mo sanctioning deadline (I think it was under 6mo) and had to get special dispensation as it is. This is normal for the TT.

I think there were also some issues with publicity (lack of), and some delay getting the registration system open. People have told me they were annoyed by this. However I know its a skeleton crew (I think the course setter is actually a zombie) working on short notice to get this pulled off, so I can understand the issues.

Since SUNY Purchase is a new map of a new area, it definitely would have been feasible for all of the Sprint courses to have been sanctioned. Another victim of the very short timeframe -- due, in large part, to the withdrawal of the original Sprint venue in January.

With the Northeast Junior Training Camp, scheduled for April 8-10 at the Blue Mountain Trailside Lodge, however, sanctioning all courses at Blue Mountain was a non-starter.

As it was, the embargoed terrain had to be crafted so that two top Team Trials contenders could still be the head coaches of the camp. If all the courses were sanctioned, pretty much nobody -- no juniors, no coaches -- would be able to compete.

There were many, many issues with timing and publicity. And the course setter would probably be better off a zombie.

But I kind of want this not to be a discussion about the TT weekend itself, more about price structure in general. Eg would people pay 50$ extra for a sanctioned race? No, but 20$?

For me (certainly as someone not overly concerned about oh usa rankings), the implicit guarantee of a certain standard of course and map is worth money.

As someone who registered for non-trials (obviously) Red, and doesn't care about ranking, per se, I can say, in my case, that winding up with 2 cars making the trip (so nate could go early), spending money on 3 nights of hotels, not to mention spending the family's time for the entire holiday weekend (forcing poor Luke to miss two baseball games in a short season), meant that the extra cash to run a few extra kilometers over Rec-Green was a relatively small incremental cost.

It was a fun discussion with the kids, but no way was I running Green (perhaps if I were 50...).

It still boggles my mind that clubs talk about $3 vs $4 or $6 vs $7 for an entry fee, in an environment where $10/per race means that you can, justifiably, call yourself the "Dirt Cheap Trail Series". Between the cost of gas and the opportunity cost of our time, it would cost "about" the same to go to a local O meet, if it were free or it were $10. That equation just steps up to a higher level when talking about A-Meets and the extra travel and lodging and meals, etc.

I'm not sure if this is a lack of understanding by the people setting the price, a lack of understanding by the people considering attending the events, or the price-setters' lack of understanding of the attendees' thinking.

I also hash, and in the last 5 or 7 years, the local fee for a run has gone from $3 to $4 to $5, and attendance has actually increased...

You really shouldn't justify the price of something based simply on the fact that its a small fraction of the price of something else. The item has a certain value and that's that. Would you pay $8 for a 12oz can of soda on a plane simply because the flight itself cost $400? (and yes, SAS offered me that very thing on a flight I took last summer).

Except you didn't buy the SAS flight ticket so you could have a soda...

If the Lyons all flew to the TT rather than driving their expenses could have doubled. Would that justify paying a $60/day entry fee?

Maybe we should charge entries based on fraction of people's individual travel expenses.

All I'm saying is that other expenses are not irrelevant and people often think about it the way Mike described. While a few dollars may seem significant to the local recreational orienteer, probably not so much to the competitor willing to travel hundreds of miles.

Of course I wouldn't pay $8 for the soda. Generally, when deciding whether to go to an O-meet (local or A), I look at the total cost and determine whether the particular event (plus other opportunities) are worth it. Usually there is no choice of entry fee amount (other than early/late registration), unless I wanted to do a White or Yellow (sometimes Orange) rec course.

But, this particular case was interesting, and it certainly seems to be an irrational decision to run Red and pay the premium over Green. If I was in it for the extra distance, shouldn't I have signed up for Blue?

While we're on "value", I should point out that the OUSA Convention is just $40 (by June 25th) for 4 Sprints, Night-O, MTB-O, Canoe-O, training sessions, and more!

Entry fees for orienteering meets, local and national, are dirt cheap by almost any standard. In fact, what organized sport is cheaper? (I'm not sure hashing counts.)

5 and 10 k road races all have fees in the 20-40 dollar range. And, as far as I can tell, they have no issues wiith low attendance.

Given the amount of time it takes to organize an A level race, I have no problem paying 20+ per event. I think the value is there.

I do understand that $75+ might be a problem for some but that's a different issue and shouldn't be tied into the discussion of the value proposition of orienteering.