Oxford City Race

[Alun]

The Oxford City Race takes place this Sunday. And with 486 entries so far, this will be the biggest Oxford City Race ever. There is an entry limit of 500 so, if you want to be part of it, you will need to enter soon.

Details at https://users.ox.ac.uk/~ouoc/cityrace.shtml

[MrD]

Please explain where and how you got a entry charge of £17.00 for an "Urban Regional event"? - https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/ ... vent=84515

Major - Level A
National - Level B
Regional - Level C
Local - Level D

It cant be the levy...and map printing is about the same cost also; that gives around £8-10 per person on top...

Levy Rates (from 1 January 2024)

Members of British Orienteering -
• Senior (21 & over) participant levy is £1.65.
• Junior (20 & under) participant levy is £0.55.

Participants who are not members of British Orienteering, including those that are members of Associations and/or Clubs only, and members of other international federations.

• Senior (21 & over) participant levy is £2.50.
• Junior (20 & under) participant levy is £0.55.

[SJC]

Please explain where and how you got a entry charge of £17.00 for an "Urban Regional event"?

I don't know what expenses they have incurred, but I am sure the students have put a lot of effort into staging this event. University clubs need to raise money to fund their activities - such as newcomer events, training, etc. This is by far the easiest way for them to do it. So yes, it may make the event expensive compared to others of a similar standing, but good luck to them. Five hundred people obviously think it is worth the entry fee. If you don't then you always have the option of not entering.

[SeanC]

You can enter the Oxford 10K race next May for £30.50 and you don't even get a map

[rf_fozzy]

You can enter the Oxford 10K race next May for £30.50 and you don't even get a map

This is a false equivalency comparison and a bad faith argument.

The fixed costs of road races (particularly big city ones) are significantly higher than any orienteering event currently in the UK.

The costs of road closures and traffic management are huge for starters.

[SJC]

The costs of road closures and traffic management are huge for starters.

But the Oxford 10k gets 5,000 entries so even a very large figure divided by 5,000 comes to a small number of pounds per competitor, not £30.

[Scott]

£17 is the "late" entry fee. The standard entry fee was £15.

The next "urban regional event" in the fixtures list is Dunblane the following weekend, where the standard British Orienteering member entry fee is £14. London, to which I suspect Oxford is rather closer in terms of organisational complexity and the number of landowners to be negotiated with, was £16.

It's not exactly a commercial enterprise, and any "profit" made is going to be spent on enabling young orienteers to go orienteering.

There are only two entries left at the time of writing, which arguably suggests that the price point has been rather well judged.

[rf_fozzy]

The costs of road closures and traffic management are huge for starters.

But the Oxford 10k gets 5,000 entries so even a very large figure divided by 5,000 comes to a small number of pounds per competitor, not £30.

How much do you think the road closures and traffic management costs for the race?

Then think about the other major costs:
Timing
Officials
Medals/Tshirts (every big city race has them these days)
Fixed costs by the company/charity organising it
Insurance

All of these add up.

Am I saying £31 x 5000 entries = breakeven point - no I'm not.

But pulling figures out of the air, it's probably at least in the £15-20 per head range at least. They're likely making at most £10-15 per person on a race like that.

A race like that is of a bigger scale than the JK. And you pay about £20 (averaging over the 4 days) for that. And the JK doesn't usually have road closures.

It's a complete false equivalence argument to compare a big road race to a "regional" orienteering race which has much lower costs.

[Scott]

A race like that is of a bigger scale than the JK. And you pay about £20 (averaging over the 4 days) for that.

It's a little more than that these days. The cheapest entry rate for year's JK was £19 for the sprint and £25 for other three days.

The cheapest entries for the (level C!) Coast and Islands 2025 were £30 per day and the event sold out in about 48 hours. It's worth what people are prepared to pay...

[rf_fozzy]

A race like that is of a bigger scale than the JK. And you pay about £20 (averaging over the 4 days) for that.

It's a little more than that these days. The cheapest entry rate for year's JK was £19 for the sprint and £25 for other three days.

The cheapest entries for the (level C!) Coast and Islands 2025 were £30 per day and sold out in about 48 hours. It's worth what people are prepared to pay...

This is what happens when corporate entities start organising orienteering races

But seriously, whilst I recognise that different events cost different amounts of money to organise, as a sport we should be looking to keep entry costs as low as possible, whilst ensuring the clubs putting on events make a 'reasonable' profit to keep operating and putting on events for us to enjoy. (the exception to this is that I am of the firm opinion that clubs should be not looking to make profits at local events - these should be our bread and butter and as low barrier - finanical and logistical - for people and especially newcomers as possible).

And there does need to be a discussion of what is reasonable. But equally we can't be in the "back in 1982 it cost me 2p to enter an orienteering event" types.

I'm deliberately trying to avoid saying whether this is too high an entry fee or not - simply because I don't know the costs involved. All our Dales based events are more expensive to put on than our events in Leeds and Bradford, because we have other costs. So that means occasionally a "Regional" in the Dales will be more expensive to enter than an equivalent event at one of our other areas.

Thus we also should be careful with comparisons (which is why I jumped in when a false equivalency was drawn).

[MrD]

Just because another event beforehand has chosen that entry fee, doesn't make this okay.

It's an Urban Level C, let's hope it's not all just running around public streets (where the council charge zero fee) and you get something for your money.

Terrain is a different story, Urban was always the cheaper option, however not so-so anymore it appears..

[Scott]

But seriously, whilst I recognise that different events cost different amounts of money to organise, as a sport we should be looking to keep entry costs as low as possible, whilst ensuring the clubs putting on events make a 'reasonable' profit to keep operating and putting on events for us to enjoy.

Different clubs will have different financial models, and if some clubs want to charge a premium for their marquee events and use the "profit" to subsidise their local events or to organise training days for their members then I don't have a problem with that.

It's also worth remembering also that student clubs generally have a very different cost basis to most orienteering clubs, in that a big chunk of their day-to-day expenditure will be on enabling their members - almost inevitably without any transport of their own - get to orienteering events that remain stubbornly inaccessible by public transport, whether that's via car/minibus hire or simply paying petrol money to local orienteers for lifts.

Set against that, their opportunities to raise funds through organising events are likely to be much more constrained than an open club, so it's sensible to try to make the most of them.

I should say that I don't have any particular insight into the finances for the Oxford race. But - looking at comparative costs - I don't think £15 is at all unreasonable for a high-quality orienteering race these days, and I have a lot of sympathy in general for student clubs trying to raise funds.

Terrain is a different story

Why? Genuine question - I can't think of anything that would make one type of event inherently cheaper or more expensive than the other.

There are plenty of terrain areas where the landowner isn't interested in a fee, and plenty of urban areas where the cash-strapped council wants to charge a substantial sum for putting registration in a local park. And the mapping cost for a brand-new map of a complex urban area will be orders of magnitude more expensive than a quick vegetation-and-paths update of an extant terrain map.

[SeanC]

Clearly orienteering is not equivalent to a 10 k road race. It’s much better, and almost half the price!

[rf_fozzy]

Clearly orienteering is not equivalent to a 10 k road race. It’s much better, and almost half the price!

Then why did you attempt to draw the false equivalency?

This sort of thing really annoys me. It's simplism. (And ever since Brexit, simplism has really annoyed me).

The two things are doing different things, cost different amounts to put on and have different audiences. So trying to say one is better because it is cheaper is silly.

My Leeds Urban UKUL event in July was £10 for BOF members (£12 EOD). Does that mean it was 50% better than the Oxford race? No. And that's a somewhat fairer like for like comparison.

[mikey]

Well, however much it cost, it was very good.
It’s been an excellent weekend of urban O, with Thamesmead on Saturday also fantastic!