Event advertising

[distracted]

A particular paragraph on World of O's "April travel picks" caught my eye:

JK Trophy is usually a very nice event in Great Britain – this year in the South West. I found no map samples, but the terrain description says “Forestry Commission coniferous plantation of different ages and runnability, with some patches of older deciduous woodland.”

To me that summarises the general standard of event advertising/marketing in the UK - and if that's what is seen/easily found as a prospective competitor I guess they won't be too enthralled by the offerings...

[Clive Coles]

Have some sympathy with this regret

Forestry Commission coniferous plantation of different ages and runnability, with some patches of older deciduous woodland.

Not a great sell.... but at least the organisers are being honest. Would have thought though more could have been made of Braunton. Perhaps the report was being a bit selective over what they printed.

[SeanC]

Is this the sort of thing that the major events manager(s) can handle? If so perhaps an email to the major event manager to warn of World of O's underselling of the JK might change this?

Definately easier for someone doing the job for several years to judge the correct way to market our big events internationally, so hopefully things will be better next year once people have been in the job for a while.

[graeme]

This doesn't sound very interesting or pleasant either. For most people, the orienteering will be no more challenging either. It's all about reputation, which in turn is about offering atmosphere and exciting competition - would you rather race with 1000 7-man teams at Jukola, or 20 3-man teams at the JK?

[IanD]

The JK on Penhale Sands, centred on the Perran Sands holiday camp, was thought by some to be the best ever. This year's Tamar Triple has all three days on the same area, and I'm really looking forwards to it.

But I only know about it from the BritO fixtures list. The event web site http://www.tamartriple.org.uk/ sells it so well that I'm starting to wonder if the event has been cancelled.

[Clive Coles]

I know event advertising can be very effective if people with "flair" get involved. But there are some things clubs could do ~ that is to make use of the web facilities we have to inform wouldbe participants what is on offer. I copy below what the BOF fixture list looks like for the JK. I guess this is the format that is printed in Compassport.

National Jan Kjellstrom Orienteering Festival
2nd Day 1 (Sprint), Bicton College Budleigh Salterton, SY076859
Organiser: John Rye . Online entry through http://www.jk2010.co.uk/entries No Entry On Day. Entries Close: 12/03/2010. Senior £0.00, Junior £0.00, Student £0.00 , Punch Type: SI, Dogs: Dogs allowed in car park and assembly only. http://www.jk2010.co.uk

3rd Day 2 (Individual), Cookworthy Forest Holsworthy, SS415013
Organiser: Carol Pearce . Online entry through http://www.jk2010.co.uk/entries No Entry On Day. Entries Close: 12/03/2010. Senior £0.00, Junior £0.00, Student £0.00 , Punch Type: SI, Dogs: Dogs allowed in car park and assembly only. http://www.jk2010.co.uk

4th Day 3 (Individual), Braunton Burrows Barnstaple, SS468348
Organiser: Peter Brett . Online entry through http://www.jk2010.co.uk/entries No Entry On Day. Entries Close: 12/03/2010. Senior £0.00, Junior £0.00, Student £0.00 , Punch Type: SI, Dogs: Dogs allowed in car park and assembly only. http://www.jk2010.co.uk

5th JK Relays, Braunton Burrows Barnstaple, SS450340
Organiser: Peter Brett . Online entry through http://www.jk2010.co.uk/entries No Entry On Day. Entries Close: TBC , Punch Type: SI, Dogs: Dogs allowed in car park and assembly only. http://www.jk2010.co.uk

The data recorded on the BOF data base is skeletal ~ you have to dig down to other event or club pages to find out what the entry fees are.

We have spent a lot of time and money developing Fixture enquiry facilities which act as the shop window for our fixture programme. Clubs register their events to get BOF Insurance cover but fail to follow up to add the details of the fixture once the information becomes known.

This is not just a JK problem ~ you have only to look at any Regional Fixture List on the BOF web site to find that most events in the next 2 months are free ! Perhaps it's just as well you have to be a BOF member before you can download a BOF Fixture List.

So we shouldn't be surprised if non-BOF publications fail to sell our events ~ we are not very good at making use of our own facilities.

[distracted]

This doesn't sound very interesting or pleasant either. For most people, the orienteering will be no more challenging either. It's all about reputation, which in turn is about offering atmosphere and exciting competition - would you rather race with 1000 7-man teams at Jukola, or 20 3-man teams at the JK?

But at least if I go to the Jukola website I find a nice glossy brochure with all the salient details in 4 different languages, map snippets, photos etc. And a bit more exploring gives training opportunities and map samples, and (in the Finnish section) old maps of the competition area, like this.

Then again, if part of the organising team is professional then you should expect nothing less...

[SeanC]

With regards to the missing fields on the event list in bog standard events (like event fees). No point bashing the event organisers, this is where version 2 of the event list software is needed. There are ways to improve the data quality - automatic email reminders to club fixtures secretaries if a field is blank, making fields mandatory when an event is registered or just not having fields that organisers consistently can't/don't supply information on. Software should improve with age*.

There's a lot of non - o/EVO stuff that could sell this year's JK. Great coastline, surfing, west coast sunsets, fish n chips, pasties even. All things that are not/less available elsewhere in Europe. Having said that you can get all this at the Tamar Triple at a more agreeable temperature.

*unless it's Microsoft.

[jankoc]

Is this the sort of thing that the major events manager(s) can handle? If so perhaps an email to the major event manager to warn of World of O's underselling of the JK might change this?

I wouldn't say I undersold the JK. I put it up as number three on the list of selected picks for April from the International fixture list. That was only based on prior knowledge, though, and not based on what I found on the JK page (If I hadn't run JK before and heard a lot about it, it probably wouldn't have been on the list at all). I found no map samples on the JK page - and the terrain description cited was the most informative information I found. Many other organizers have taken it a step further and included map samples in World of O Calender - definitely a plus if you want international runners to come to your event I would say.

The article in question can be found here:

http://news.worldofo.com/2010/01/31/top ... pril-2010/

BTW, I always put up a lot of map samples when setting up a website for an event - the map is what orienteering is all about. Here is an example of a sprint camp training camp we are hosting the coming weekend - http://sprint-camp.blogspot.com/2009/11 ... mpler.html . I only used an hour or two to get up a website - most of that work went to getting up some good map samples.

[SeanC]

Apologies, I am not trying to be critical of your site.

I'm guessing someone reading this might want to send you a map sample.

[Clive Coles]

Yes Sean ~ quite agree. I wasn't intending to criticise specific event organisers especially the JK officials.

As you say, there is a lot more we could do to make the Fixtures maintenance facilities slicker.

At present of course the only person who can change an event once it is created on the BOF database is the Club (or Association) Fixture Secretary or an appointed deputy as defined on the authority panel.

This level of security is fine in the early days of registration. As the date of the event gets nearer other officials, (like the organiser) start to emerge. Fixture secretaries aren't necessarily " in the information loop" when details such as number of courses, event fees, arrangement and location of car park & assembly etc.... As a result no one gets around to updating the records on the BOF web site.

Perhaps the job might get done more effectively , in a timely manner, if update access to a specific event was opened up to BOF registered members of that club. In that way :-

[*] the event planner could enter the courses that he/she is planning.

[*] the club web master could amend the club web site link on the BOF record to point to the newly created event flyer that has just been posted to the club web site. Currently they seem to be set up to the Clubs home page which don't necessarily provide a consistant navigation route to where you want to go.

[*] the event organiser or club treasurer could enter the fees that the committee agree to charge.

In regard to the format of the printable fixture list I would rather not see anything within the constructed text where the underpinning data was either 0.00 or TBC. For example... it is normal to charge something for Senior entries at our events ~ if therefore the senior entry fee still contains 0.00 lets change the software to omit mention of all fees within the text. Better to say nothing than print rubbish. If no fee is stated within the text it could be free !

But all sofware enhancements need to be costed and justified by demand. BOF will not make changes unless clubs take the initiative and ask for them.

In the mean time the maintenance of the event registration record falls to the club fixture secretary.

If clubs want good informative publicity on the BOF web site someone within the club needs to press a few more keys on a Computer keyboard. The facilities to maintain data may be a bit long winded but they are there. At the moment it looks from the BOF Fixture list as if nobody cares.

[Scott]

There's a lot of non - o/EVO stuff that could sell this year's JK... pasties even.

Wrong side of the border, alas. The Tamar Triple would be a much better bet for pastry-based savoury goodness.

[EddieH]

Clive you are saying just what I was on another thread. If there is no information given then don't publish it - simply leave out that aspect of the event.

If it ends up as nothing more than

DATE

ANOTHEROC

Local event

so be it. If the club want to encourage more people then clearly they should add to this. But £0.00 is utterly stupid as is TBC for anything from terrain tyes to dogs allowed. Simiarly a course grid hould NOT be avaiable by default as the very first event on the current list in common with most apparently has a pretty full range of colour coded courses despite only offering 2 TD5 courses in reality.

It's no good saying that organisers should get it all right - for many small events they don't want to spend ages filling in irrelevant bits - if they don't answer a question then don't publish spurious data.

Regarding the JK surely this is a BOF event. Surely BOF should be majorly involved with the publicity. To publish £0.00 for their flagship international event on their own site clearly suggests that their input is pretty miniscule for the huge amount they will earn from the event.

[Paul Frost]

There is a real dilemma here.
The British Orienteering website has a set of fixed data fields and is not flexible.
A club website can be very flexible and allow a wide range of content including map samples etc.
I manage a number of sites and I can go in and edit the content very easily using desktop applications. I can modify the layout to suit the data and use extra HTML, CSS and Javascript to enhance the presentation and give the event a unique look/feel.

I don't want to have to maintain two sets of data, so do I scrap the club website and use the BO site for event details, results, information about membership etc. or concentrate my efforts on producing a quality locally focused club site that allows me to present the data in a way that I think suitable for each event?

I have said before, I am not sure about the advantages of the BO site being a complete resource for everything, and if it is, then there is little reason to ever visit a clubs own website.

Given the complaints about not being able to tell what sort of quality/competition an event is from the event listings it strikes me that the club site is the place to market your event and sell it's merits.

I think I would prefer that the BO site be just be like Ollie Obrien's fixture map with a link to the club website for the details.

I also understand that not all club websites are equal in providing plentiful information.

[Clive Coles]

I don't know if many of you got to see the recent email from Caroline Povey regarding the introduction of the ThrillSeeker event publicity scheme. In it she stated :-

You can submit events at any time, but an event will only be listed in the ThrillSeeker database once the event information (e.g. the event flyer) is available on your club's web site.

BOF obviously still see the club websites as being a key communication and publicity channel. Perhaps they have given up on the BOF Fixtures database ever becoming that useful.

So Paul, I think you are right to concentrate in creating and supporting club web pages.

I think a reason why clubs are not completing data on the BOF Fixtures system is that it is an over-complicated system. There are too many data elements that need to be set up ~ a number of them ( such as the event Age class matrix) do not appear to be used for anything.

Perhaps when (if) we get a BOF event entry system similar to Fabien4, a use for this data may emerge.

Anyone know if this is still on the cards ?