Mrs H wrote:going back to Phil's original question about why such early closing dates - I think that's a financial imperative - big events have big expences and they need some money in the bank to pay for things like marquees and loos etc.
Also you have to consider the entering of entries on the system etc. If there was one closing date as Phil suggested, about 5% would enter before the date about 65% in the fews days upto the closing date and 30% after the closing date. With a large event it would take a very long time to put all the entries in and sort out start times and seeding etc. (Remember most Orienteers have specific requests re starts. Those who enter earlier are most likely to get them).
I am speaking from the experience of one British, at least one National, one JK and several regional events. Even with online entry there is still a lot of work, this is always compounded by wrong BOF nos., wrong SI nos, course changes, and other such form errors.
This doesn't refer to costs of entries as I don't know about the logic. However a reduction is required as an incentive to get entries in early, therefore I assume the max is set then reductions made on previous statistics.
Also spare a thought for the postman! Our sad postie counted the pile on the closing day of the British. I think they must have a sweep on who can deliver the most to a private address!
Hocolite
Hocolite