Discussion: Does going big change all that...

So - when 75 people get together, scatter around the park, come back together, and then go home, nobody's really going to get upset. (no matter what they do)

When 750 get together, run a set course through the park, and impact the neighborhood, people notice - and complain. (rightly or wrongly, there's always something to complain about)

And that gets officials involved - keeping the order, managing the traffic and congestion, and regulating the food.

So my question is - if O events were held to all of the rules on the books, could we continue to operate as we do?

The followup is that perhaps other events (like more popular road races) have been held to them and found the need to raise prices and we're intentionally not looking at the things they "have" to do.

One area - security / safety details. Large local 5k events have the typical off-duty patrolmen on site or possibly closing roads.

Another area - food. I will fight to keep wonderful home-baked goodness at our events, but it seems very specific: NYS does not allow any home produced products to be served in a public setting (for a cost, or free). (And I've seen specific mention of pickled items and am not sure what the concern is there - but perhaps a home-based pickle producer got on the wrong side of a pickle factory at some point...)

And so, if we could no longer offer "help yourself" style snacks at an event, costs would undoubtedly go up. (and quality go down;-(

And that might mean we need to charge $4 more just to pack in the post-race food and drink.

Am I off base here?

Everything has a cost. If you haven't been born, you most certainly won't die.

Parking. The larger the event, the fewer the available assembly areas.

Everything can be remedied at a financial and logistics cost. There are giant parking lots, and shuttle companies.

I would agree with The Invisible Log in that the first problem with increased numbers is likely to be parking. We already saw this at the NEOC Harold Parker meet. after that probably porta potty provision and first aid (in the UK the latter is only required for much larger meets, but toilets are hired for every level of event).

Well yes, first parking, then sanitation, then first aid, then they'll want you to do an EIR. All things that can be remedied with money and increased logistic complexity.

Another approach would be to host 10 events of 75 people. It would be cool if I could just go to my local park and on any random weekend there was a good chance of an event.

And please don't discourage people trying to grow the sport because of potentialities that may never occur.

That's what trail run series organizers do around here. They figured out early in the game that 450 to 500 people was the max they could successfully handle, with the average parking lot size and with the average land manager's appetite for risk/degree of use, so they just cap their events at 450 to 500 even though they can easily sell 1000 to 1500 for some of the locations. This helps keep the logistics at a predictable level of complexity. If you decide late that you want to run and the event is sold out, no problem—there's another one nearby in one to three weeks.

Sorry - not my intent to discourage. 500 sounds like a reasonable limit.

I'm meaning to suggest that if we want to hold events with 500 people, we'll have to comply with health dept rules that say that you can't serve home-made goodies to people. The post-race refreshments will have to be bottled water and pre-packaged goods (like they probably use at that trail run...).

And when we realize that we also have to put some staff on to coordinate traffic, parking, and security, it won't be an $8 event any longer, it will be a $20 local event...

Homemade goodies are not what I have seen typically offered at the finish. They are, however, what the Junior Team often sells at food concessions (besides preformed burgers, hot dogs, sausages,...).

On the other hand, how does NYS define a "public setting"? If it's the settting alone, then there could not be public picnic areas. Looking at it another way, once a person registers -- either in advance or at the event -- are they still considered "the public"?

Often park rules about alcohol, food, etc are waived when you have a permit for a "reserved area". Presumably using said reserved area, you would be considered a private party rather than a public event. If everybody had pre-registered, they would be part of your group and you could probably make a good case that you were providing food, etc to your private function and not to the public.

Except of course if one's county is moving to a stricter enforcement of said rules...

A private party or member function is clearly not "open to the public" - and could be one reason to go that way.

But if we're advertised as open to all who would pay our entrance fee, that might be a hard argument to make.

It's (often) better to seek forgiveness than permission.

One important question for organizers to answer (if they can figure it out) is whether the land owner / manager really cares about the rules or whether they just want your money. In some cases it seems they don't care what you do as long as you pay, while in others they seem to just enjoy cutting down forests to fill out reams of forms. One of our park districts sends me multi-page copies long after the event is past "for our records". And about 6 of the pages are exact duplicates of every other event. Geez, save a tree!

For post race snacks, how about apples? Is that allowed? They're healthier and a more appropriate post-race snack in any case, no? And cheap by the bushel (maybe food cost per person would actually go down)

Another healthy post-race snack (and my personal fave) is orange slices. :-)

Whole fruit may be acceptable. I believe adulterating the fruit by cutting it for easy consumption may step over the border into "serving"...

I was hoping someone with direct experience at one of these larger events might pipe up.

We don't face such bizarre requirements in California, although I'm sure there's a lot on the books that's not enforced. For example, I'd be fairly sure BAOC is required to hold a separate business registration in many of the jurisdictions it holds events (free or discounted, but still required); but nobody enforces that. Trail run operators out here routinely serve what they have cooked; I haven't seen an inspector, nor have I witnessed park staff bring anything up. I would imagine that the only time things would get hairy is when the jurisdiction prohibits serving any food, and with alcohol.

ccsteve - I don't quite understand the last sentence "I was hoping someone with direct experience at one of these larger events might pipe up". What kind of larger events are you talking about? You've got a bunch of guys piping up so far with tons of experience with big orienteering events. So maybe you mean non orienteering events? Or big events in NY?

Here's the biggest hassle I had when organizing APOC 2002 Canada (around 900+ competitors from 35 countries for 10 days of racing). Biggest problem by far was getting permission to hold the races. We have the okay on many (most) of our maps for events up to 150 competitors. Go over 150 and that's a lot of hard work dealing with government to get access at all.

Question - why would you even offer home cooked food at significantly larger events? I would like to meet that volunteer that agrees to home cook meal to more then - lets say - 200 participants.

Another question I have - would you run company with 750 employees the same way then company with 75 employees? Most likely not. That answers original question "Does going big change all that..." It does. But it changes in ways that it's hard to anticipate and answer to some of the challenges listed might be simpler then expected and way different that anticipated.

Europeans have been successfully organizing local O-meets that attracts 1000+, 2000+, 3000+ participants on regular bases. Last summer I run in one such event which had about 2000 participants that particular day. It's a full time job to run such enterprise and actually quite profitable (my brother said that clubs owner is loaded...). Club does not involve volunteers at all. From what I observed - actual meet was fully supported by 3-4 full time professionals.

The Euro model is only profitable with their entry fees because they get sizeable government aid. Don't try this at home. I'm not saying that running large events with a small, professional crew isn't the way to go—it is—but the fees needed to support the model in North America, without government aid, have to be at ~2.5× present level.

I can't speak of other Euro zone countries but Latvian clubs don't get any government support and club I was referencing is from Latvia. I paid equivalent of $9,- to participate at the meat I mentioned. It's pretty safe to assume that in Latvia cost of living is at least half of what it is in US (realistically it might be even more then that). Which means that there are enough folks in Latvia that are happy to pay $20,- every week or so to participate at orienteering event.

There is direct correlation between popularity of sport (or team or entertainment) and what folks consider to be reasonable ticket price/participation fee. Yankee or Cowboy fans don't have problem paying $100,- or more to see a game.

What I am trying to say is that more popular orienteering gets in North America - less of an issue it would be of raising participation fee.

In Sweden it´s all done by volunteers. Event fees are in the range of $10-20 and we have to pay a certain percentage of that as a "tax" to the Swedish Federation.

As for government subsidies that may be true (in some cases but not all) when it comes to mapping but the meets are basically run on separate budgets. Very much of the "profits" - if there are any - come from sales at the ever present coffe stand, where they often serve hot dogs, hamburgers and/or waffles.

Where I live regular "local meets" - would be considered A meets in the US - draw maybe 500-1000 competitors.

AZ - I was thinking of running events that draw 500 and upwards, and some of the logistics that streamline that for regular events, not just A meets.

Permits and arrangements for security / parking / street management.
- parking - noted above theoretically
- first aid - hadn't considered and noted above theoretically
- restroom facilities - good example above

Health code requirements
- yes bottled water
- yes pre-packaged food
- no "community" serving of food (grabbing chips, crackers, cookies from a tray)

I've seen reference to what others do, but not direct experience. (Until just now by Tundra) "We were required to ensure ..."

I suggest any location in the US may be subject to health code rules about serving food and beverage. NY's regulations may be on the most restrictive side, but I bet other areas have similar ones.

My thought was that 1000 person 5k race organizers already conform to these rules and we may gain from looking at their example.

My experience putting on mid-sized events (bike races w/approx 500 entrants) in NYS is about 25 years old, but the "no homemade" rule has been around a lot longer than that. At the time, we were allowed to provide homemade stuff to registered competitors, but not spectators. We allowed race-day signups, but I think that insisting on pre-registration would move you pretty clearly into the "private party" realm.

That said, I have to agree with the point that homemade food for more than a few hundred folks is a really inefficient use of volunteer time. Perfectly good refreshements can be had for not much money. Local bakeries are often quite happy to offer their day-old stuff for free to events put on by non-profits. Even if you do have to pay, you can almost always get a substantial discount with just a little advance legwork. Or, go the other way and offer a better product to justify higher meet fees: use a catering service. For $5-7 per person you can get good hot food prepared on site. For the next year, your entrants will be telling all their friends, "I did that race, they had really good food."

BTW, there is a sound basis for the callout of pickled stuff. For whatever reason, people often skimp on the pickling solution when doing this at home and then the pickles go bad during storage. When I worked for the NYS Dept of Health, we got calls every week about somebody getting poisoned (often seriously) from homemade pickles. It was by far the most common cause of food poisoning.

Thanks - and I love the pickle story - I knew there had to be something behind it;-)

I think I knew ahead of time that "homemade" just wouldn't cut it to scale, but I wanted to show the extreme. (and anyone at the convention this summer should recall some of the really nice goods we had - so I really would miss it;-)

And I think quartered up oranges are right there as well - especially since they're served in a large bowl... And I see them everywhere.

There are probably many rules on the books that are routinely ignored, if for no other reason, than because the resources to enforce them do not exist. Priorities have to be set; choices have to be made. Oranges slices and homemade cookies just do not rise to the level of vandalism and theft.

And I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Ahh, but in the politics of big-time sports, I might be willing to make a wager that calls will be made if an organization does not meet the rules every other big organization follows...

That's why I ask - it's certainly not a problem today with under-the-radar events that can be seen as too small to worry about. But those flaming tough mudder runs - I bet they comply.

Oh, I'd bet the mudders are a nightmare to organize, and there are violations galore that eager public inspectors are waiting to pounce upon. The profile is too high (there's XXXX of them people tearing up the park!!) for things to go unnoticed. I'm curious how long the mudders will survive, since it at least now appears to me that they are being shut out of the few public jurisdictions that did allow them in 2010–2011, and are increasingly held on private farms, which severely limits the choice and accessibility of venues. Of the six mudders in Northern California, three (including two of the majors) haven't announced 2012 venues (but have elsewhere), and one has announced a date without a venue.

Gil—you don't have to have the government hand your events money/grants in order for your events to be subsidized. It can be something less obvious, such as a preferred tax status and a free/cheap clubhouse, or even less direct but extremely impactful, such as the government funding youth development so that you have a guaranteed supply of customers (I am willing to bet anything that the latter is alive and well in the Baltics).

There is only one club in Latvia is big and popular enough to afford professional stuff. Other clubs are run by volunteers as everywhere else.

Not an important point, but since GuyO is repeated calling for orange slices, please feel free to leave my oranges intact. I like oranges, but derive no utility to having them sliced, think it introduces incremental health risk, and is an inefficient use of a pair of hands.

I really prefer my oranges whole.

What about watermelons?

Ah come on now j-man. You're just hoping to get your cheap, grubby, muddy hands on a whole orange rather than three eights. Or perhaps you like that, after peeling the orange, your hands end up cleaner.

J-Man, I appreciate that sentiment. If you're going to serve whole fruit, there aren't many health concerns. Just follow proper storage methods. But if you're going to slice fruit for a large group of strangers, then you have an ethical responsibility to serve it correctly: make sure volunteers are washing hands, disinfecting utensils, protecting the fruit from sneezes and grubby hands, etc...

However, I have just been working on this with our club. Most participants are not ruggedly pragmatic like you. Presentation matters. They won't eat something unless it looks plentiful, inviting, and convenient. Otherwise, they'll feel uncomfortable about it - and it's not a good idea to make your participants feel uncomfortable, I've decided that you really can't do a good job of providing anything but the most basic refreshments without dedicating at least one pair of hands to food prep and presentation.

T/D--watermelons are a different issue. I suppose sacrifices have to be made in that case.

ndobbs--well, yes, and yes.

Here in Seattle, we prefer that our oranges are grande, double-shot, extra-hot, with an extra pump of juice, with whipped cream on top.

blegg--I really do agree that presentation matters.

And, on the subject of availing myself of copious amounts of refreshments...

I was in heaven at WOC in France this year because they gave out 1 liter bottles of water to all O-Fest finishers. (And you could get more than one if for some reason that was insufficient.)

I really would like to facilitate giving out water bottles to finishers here, too. Yes, there is an ecological and disposal complication, but potentially improved hygiene, better sponsor opportunities, and improved flexibility.

I really prefer my oranges whole

Unless the finish crew has cut all the oranges in advance (talk about waste of labor -- pre-event labor at that), there will almost certainly be a box or bag of uncut oranges not far from the sliced ones. Heck, I'd even put them next to each other so that both germophobes and power-eaters will be happy.

"Gil—you don't have to have the government hand your events money/grants in order for your events to be subsidized"

Vlad, Umm, you mean like free publicly available Lidar in the good old USA? I'm sorry I hear this "everyone else has government money" excuse way too much. it's getting old.

Free publicly available lidar has been around for <5 years... true, it's nice to have something paid for by other people's taxes for a change. We're kinda on the way to the next step, CVB-sponsored maps. I think part of the problem has been the volunteer organization's unwillingness/lack of desire to look for grants where they, in fact, have been available.