Event Structure - four levels!!

[SeanC]

"November Classic" is a great brand name.

Trouble is that ours is an older sport, so some of the brands have dated. For example "Concorde Chase", was a great brand name 10 years ago and ok now, but in 5 years time when I take my son he'll say "Dad, what's a Concorde?", or perhaps to him it will sound like "Flying Scotsman Chase". We also have a broader target market than adventure racing so are likely to end up with more neutral sounding brand names (eg Scottish Orienteering League) that don't give such a powerful image.

A branded regional event, or a branded series does have a self regulatory quality in that clubs won't want to damage a good brand image with a sub-standard event so probably should be encouraged*?

*DFOK regional event, Jan 3rd. Unbranded so here's my plug. Part of Ashdown Forest (Chelwood) unused for 10 years. New Roger Maher map. The first regional event of 2010, the no longer a transition year, so we will all have stopped talking about the new event structure by then and everything will be perfect.

[awk]

The current mess will not be sorted until a proper competition structure is put in place

Exactly. Which is why, for instance, the Scots are well on from us.

and it is this structure that should decide how many event levels are required in order to reflect where each event fits in the competition hierarchy.

Yet, when you look at pretty much every other running sport, there are no levels on which a hierarchy is based. it's the competition hierarchy that defines races. Thus in fell-running you have championship races (very few) and non-championships races (all the rest) - with a few more locally orientated competitions thrown in. The only other grading is the category, based essentially on physical difficulty. The big races are there because of their own individual quality - and fell running has been around longer than orienteering!

Another way of looking at is, is as in cycling, where the competition is defined by the quality of competitor, and competitors have to earn their licence to race at a certain level! Can't see that going down a storm in orienteering though!

So maybe we should have been really radical, but instead we fairly conservatively aimed to come up with a structure that was designed to encourage competitions to develop in their own right: category A = national level races (where BOF needs to have its competitions sorted out); category B = regional level races; category C = club level races. Where BOF screwed up though was that regional level races includes many of the old district events, and thus requiring blanket level 2 controllers (something we discussed and rejected as completely impracticable) and embargoes as the norm was never on.

However, if regions want their championships/leagues etc. to have level 2 controllers, embargoes or any other quality criteria in addition, then they can always do so.

[Blanka]

Another way of looking at is, is as in cycling, where the competition is defined by the quality of competitor, and competitors have to earn their licence to race at a certain level! Can't see that going down a storm in orienteering though!

Funnily enough, that's how orienteering works in the Czech Republic, with A races being available only to those with an A license, and B races for the others. At multi-day events (such as the Czech 5 O days), I think it determines which course you are allowed to enter (eg M21A, B, C etc) and I think you have to earn your license in every age-class.

However, this is because there are so many orienteers in the Czech Republic that at the A races the entries would be oversubscribed and this is a way of limiting the entry, something that isn't needed in GB where there are too few orienteers anyway.

[redkite]

Interesting thread with some really good points.

Tend to agree that level 1 and level 3 should look after themselves.

We talk about competition and taking on our peers etc but what's lacking in most parts of the country (other than SOL) are well branded, quality, regional leagues embracing the better level 2 events.


Create some proper competition at a regional level. Let the regions control the quality of these events (within bof guidance?). Market them properly and create a buzz.

[RJ]

it's the competition hierarchy that defines races.

So lets have a new level.... L2.... which is currently entirely blank. Clubs can now nominate events to be considered for this category. Great events that are worth travelling for. So we include.... the Harvester, London City Race, Maize Maze etc etc. All other events are either L3 or L4. Events can be nominated by 'competitors' and can be relegated by 'competitors' also. If an event attracts an extensive competitive field then it is obviously a 'good un'. Events have to earn a 'badge' before they can become L2. So, there's your branding..... 'Top Races', decided upon by the very people who are going to them.

Each year need not be the same as the previous one. The November Classic might not be up to the quality one particular year and will not be offered for L2 status. More than likely it will, but it has to earn its place just like all the others. We end up with 30 or 40 events, spread out all over the country and all types of event. We all know that they have been adjudged as being 'good quality racing' and so we will travel to them if they are what 'we' want to do that weekend, sprint, middle, city, urban, relay, novelty, night.....

[graeme]

but it should be the competition that actually defines it.

Except, of course, this depends on who turns up, so it is the one thing which cannot be guaranteed by the organising club, or checked by whoever polices the level system.

Its true that you can structure an event to ensure that there wont be good competition: a L3 event on an old map of a poor area, a comedy format, making all the fastest competitors run different courses etc.

Even then, you get races like the 11-person relay where INT field most of the men's WOC relay team, EUOC have a team packed with elites, and FVO win anyway by a few seconds in a sprint finish. Probably the closest competition in Scotland this year, with more leading runners in the same race than any regional event. Excellent planning on new map of a highly technical area previously used for international races. But it is advertised as a low key event - so some people were churlish enough to boo at the prizegiving. Level ?

[SeanC]

Create some proper competition at a regional level. Let the regions control the quality of these events (within bof guidance?). Market them properly and create a buzz.

yes we're definately lacking some basic marketing for our regional competitions. I'm not talking about "regional level" here, but regional competitions such as the East Anglian Orienteering League, South East Orienteering League, South Central League etc. These are the real regional events - events that people travel across a region for (East Anglian and South Central league events use district events but now sometimes called local events and South East League events use regional events just to add to the fun ).

So put yourselves in the shoes of a newcomer stepping up from a club/county league to a regional league. They go online to find the league website, presumably at the different regions website, and look at the forthcoming events. If you try this for these 3 regions you'll see the following events listed for the 09/10 season........ 0. A bit difficult to market that.

Now I'm not being critical of the various webmasters or regions involved. A league co-ordinator has to wait for all the clubs to get all the permissions for all the events before announcing a full list. And it's a lot to ask in a sport where most volunteer/professional time is at club or BOF level.

So here's an idea. The BOF events database/event registration system is updated to records the competition(s) the event is part of. Then the BOF website can have pages for each competition and automatically list each event as they are registered. Add a bit of static content describing each competition and there is something to market these competitions. And presumably these pages can then be fed back into region and club websites as the current fixture list is.

[roadrunner]

Roadrunner, I think we are talking about different problems. In the old and new system your peers can be the same if that's what you want, M55.

No, what I meant was that my peers include the M35s/40s who tend to run short rather than long - but we wouldn't be on the same course sometimes with the new system, whereas in the old one we nearly always were. Incidentally, on the old colour-coded system, we'd probably both choose Blue, so again the same course.

[Scott]

So here's an idea. The BOF events database/event registration system is updated to records the competition(s) the event is part of. Then the BOF website can have pages for each competition and automatically list each event as they are registered.

We said that at Development Committee a couple of weeks ago. So there's a (small) chance it may actually happen (at some point) (maybe).

[DM]

So essentially awk, it comes down to something that's been mentioned several times on this board - and it's something orienteers are absolutely useless at:

Marketing

....So how is your club trying to sell your events to people outside of the sport?

Distracted,
Totally agree with you. I have tried to attract more new people in several ways and have been met with apathy from almost all within the club and got precious little help, even negative comments. Be careful saying orienteers are not good at marketing, it's more they are not good at marketing orienteering, subtle difference.

I was encouraged by statement made by a BOF director at our AGM last year (Nov 2008) that there would be a big BO marketing campaign this year (2009) to generate more awareness of the sport in the wider community.

I have not seen this yet, and we're now in October, sorry to say. It would have been good to have a central campaign and loads of local efforts across the country.

Good to hear the Maize thing went well, something others could copy across the country.

[awk]

Events can be nominated by 'competitors' and can be relegated by 'competitors' also. If an event attracts an extensive competitive field then it is obviously a 'good un'. Events have to earn a 'badge' before they can become L2. So, there's your branding..... 'Top Races', decided upon by the very people who are going to them.

You are joking, aren't you? We're trying to make the sport simpler to organise/administer aren't we, not even more insanely complex and bureaucratic. There's a far more efficient and reliable system called word of mouth.

and so we will travel to them if they are what 'we' want to do that weekend, sprint, middle, city, urban, relay, novelty, night.....

We do already.

[Snail]

roadrunner wrote:
... my peers include the M35s/40s who tend to run short rather than long - but we wouldn't be on the same course sometimes with the new system, whereas in the old one we nearly always were.

But that's up to you (collectively). Under the new system any allocation of classes to courses at a Level 2 event is (or should be) only a provisional / default allocation. If you all want to run Blue then do so! It will be interesting to see if over time the typical course / classes allocation changes, led by customer demand.

[roadrunner]

roadrunner wrote:
... my peers include the M35s/40s who tend to run short rather than long - but we wouldn't be on the same course sometimes with the new system, whereas in the old one we nearly always were.

But that's up to you (collectively).

That's assuming my peers are members of the same club, or at least people I'm in regular contact with - which isn't necessarily the case, they're just those people who happen to run a similar length course in a similar time.

Much of the recent discussion on this thread has centred on how to determine the events worth travelling for amongst the large number that are now in Level 2, which was of course (as some have said) an issue when we had more levels as well. Word of mouth. as Awk suggests, is all very well, but it isn't very inclusive. Brand names, suggested by SeanC, also have a place, but every event can't have a recognisable brand, almost by definition. I think one of the ideas from road running could help here.

Almost all events - from carnival fun runs to major marathons - are listed on the Runners World website. If you select an event and view its details, one thing you will see is a summary of the rating given by others who've run it in the past: "Overall rating" and "Would you do it again". You can also follow a link to see the more detail (including the individual ratings) or add your won, if you've done the event. To do this you score the event on several aspects on a 1-5 scale:

Would you do it again (yes/no/maybe)
Scenery
1 - Hideous, industrial estate or worse
2 - Dull commuter town or equivalent
3 - Respectable - worth the trip
4 - Scenic - picnic potential
5 - Glorious - Calendar material
PB potential
Atmosphere
Organisation
1 - Hopeless -what was that about a brewery?
2 - Moderate - good intentions, could have been better
3 - Fine - no big problems
4 - Very good - buttery smooth with nice touches
5 - Extraordinary - like clockwork
Value
Beginner-friendliness
Overall

plus a short summary and an optional longer comment. (I've shown how the options are presented in two cases: you can see it's quite a light-hearted approach.) If you entered the event online via Runners World, you'd get an email just after it had taken place reminding you to rate it.

Obviously, orienteering events would be rated on different aspects: for example, quality of terrain, quality of map, quality of planning, how far would you travel for it might be four. Organisation and beginner-friendliness still have a place, I think.

For a "branded" event (e.g. November Classic), it would be easy to link the various year's scores together as is done for road races, so that you could see how the event had been rated in previous years. This would be harder for other events, but I think still possible (e.g. group the events shown as "XYZ Spring District Event").

Such a system could be implemented on the BOF website (indeed, it would lose its point if anywhere else), and once set up, should take virtually no administration.

[Gnitworp]

It would also provided an incentive for clubs to maintain their 'rating'.

[SeanC]

Scott wrote:

The ability to filter out all the events within a particular league from the national fixtures list would be an improvement to the accessibility of fixtures information from the web site.

Scott - I wish I knew that before I wrote that long post . Hope it happens.

mmm, we've been posting our come and try it events on the Runners World website (emotion for a little worried)...

Here's another thought. Imagine a company that's been making one product for 40 years. It has a loyal customer base but the numbers of customers have been gently declining for the past 20 years, even though there have been many improvements to the product. There are lots and lots of people in the production department making the product, and lots of clever people in the design department thinking of ways of making the product even better (though they spend quite a bit of time arguing ). Meanwhile the sales and marketing is grossly understaffed and the product is not actively sold in many parts of the country. What do you think the MD is going to do?

(you are not allowed to say "bring in lots of expensive management consultants to say what is obvious to everyone")

I'm a bit more optimistic about marketing in orienteering. There are a few in my club getting into it now. I think sometimes people take on lots of commitments to organise, plan etc and these take over. Also maybe marketing can be hard - it doesn't always work, and even when lots of newcomers turn up they might not turn up again - whereas organising an event or making a map gives a guarenteed return for the effort.