EOD Fees

[Roger]

Suppose that your event is on Sunday. Assume that it takes a week to print maps and check them, and to rectify any shortcomings. Assume that it takes a day to download entries off the pre-entry website and get them into the on-the-day system. (Or equivalently, that the relevant person would like some weekend and isn't willing to do this after 10.00 on Saturday.) Accept that EOD is a major hassle and leads to most of the 'results' problems.

Set a first closing date 7 days before the event. Allow novices (i.e. adults entering light green and below) a favourable price. Check entry numbers, order the relevant numbers of maps. Small number of spares for short green upwards, larger number of spares for light green downwards.

You now need to sell those spare maps. In theory you'd reduce the price, because it's a sunk cost and any income is a bonus. But in practice, it's not just an economic decision: you wish to reward the early entrants because they make your life easier. So you increase fees slightly for late entries. Would you like them to enter in advance, even at this late stage? Yes, because that removes the EOD hassle. So set the number of available maps on each course, and get the entry system to prevent any entrants after the limits are reached. This is a second incentive to enter early -- leave it too late and your desired course may be full.

Close the on-line entries at say 09.00 on the day before the event, by when the weather forecast should give the vacillators a fair idea of what's in store for the Sunday. Load the entries into the on-the-day system.

Keep the same price for EOD as for late pre-entries. Again it's a balance between selling the 'perishable' stock of printed maps, and rewarding people who make your life easier by pre-entering.

Fair?

[NFKleanne]

As a parent of 6, I normally take 7 juniors with me at events, and normally I do not know who will be going -or even if I myself will be able to attend until a few days before. I do not object to paying slightly more for the privelige of EOD as it is cheaper for me to pay than paying for us all and then not going

[Big Jon]

Move to Aberdeenshire - level 3 events cost £6/£4 (adults) and £2.50 for juniors. About 40-50 events - most local or training put on by the 2 clubs, Gramp and Maroc. A year's orienteering for £100- £120 and lots of great forests to choose from.

[Homer]

Got a job for me Big Jon? If so, I'm on my way....

[seabird]

Move to Aberdeenshire - level 3 events cost £6/£4 (adults) and £2.50 for juniors. About 40-50 events - most local or training put on by the 2 clubs, Gramp and Maroc. A year's orienteering for £100- £120 and lots of great forests to choose from.

Move to Airedale & Wharefdale - level 3 events £2 adults Juniors 50p. Most Level 2 events, except the most prestigious, £6.50/4.50 adults Juniors £2.00. About 40-45 events put on by Aire. A year's orienteering for £110-120

Can't match the forests of Aberdeenshire

[awk]

Move to Airedale & Wharefdale - level 3 events £2 adults Juniors 50p. Most Level 2 events, except the most prestigious, £6.50/4.50 adults Juniors £2.00. About 40-45 events put on by Aire. A year's orienteering for £110-120

Or, to refer across to another thread, you could have one weekend for two at the JK.

[SeanC]

Or if you must get a job in London, live in Kent (20-25 events / year from DFOK, 40-45 / year from SAXONS). Then retirement to Yorkshire or Aberdeenshire.

[frog]

Larger events may need toliets or first aid, larger events may mean your club decides to buy autodownoad (which we are contemplating getting for the CSC/CST regional comp), you are also likely to need CONDES and OCAD licenses. You don't need any of this stuff for a small local event.
There is also the huge expense of mapping. In TAY we've sadly seen many of our forests getting the chop in the past year or so and are having to do alot of remapping.
As long as the money is going into orienteering and not duck houses for the organiser I think charging more for large events is fair enough.
Agree the JK seems pricy, and as a BOF member on the day at the 6 days was only £16 I wonder why the JK feels the need to charge £24.

[IanD]

There's currently a big exchange of emails going around my club's committee about the entry fees for our Regional / Level 2 event early next year.

The area is top quality (by SE standards). Most of it has been used for National Events in the past. None of it has been used at all for at least five years. We have a new extension which looks as good as the rest and has never been used before. And a new map of course.

The weather has meant there is absolutely no prospect of parking on a field anywhere near. So we're hiring a room at a Leisure Centre not too far away, but out of walking distance, and a fleet of buses. That's the main expense, but there are the usual land access charges, map printing costs, levies, etc.

Like other clubs, we have in the past regarded our annual Regional event as the profit engine which funds our development activities. Nevertheless, we have given up all hope of a profit this year.

The organiser has produced a break-even budget based on 400 competitors (optimistic in my view) paying £15 each. With adult EOD and non-members paying more, but juniors paying less. That's just to avoid losing money.

Based on some of the views expressed on this thread, I am wondering whether we shouldn't simply cancel the event, and avoid a lot of flak, not to say considerable financial risk.

[mikey]

Tricky one - The Mole Valley event at Effingham is one I had pencilled in. Not sure that £15 would put me off, especially as I now know why it is so expensive. Whether others will think the same, even though it is a really good area.

Are you going to offer packages - i.e. cheaper family entries?

Will there be a big enough incentive to enter early, given the time of the year and the possibility of people leaving it until the week before the event to see what the weather is like?

At £15 how many will enter on the day?

[SeanC]

No doubt you've thought of these, but one option might be to make competitors pay for their bus fees on the day, therefore reducing the headline rate of the event. Would this be any different to car parking fees?

Complaints about pricing normally disappear once people know the full story. As well as an explanation on the flier you could ask various club secretaries (SE and SC regions?) to email the event flier plus explanation to their clubs. And the extra publicity might generate more competitors than would be lost from the slightly higher fees.

[seabird]

Larger events may need toliets or first aid, larger events may mean your club decides to buy autodownoad (which we are contemplating getting for the CSC/CST regional comp), you are also likely to need CONDES and OCAD licenses. You don't need any of this stuff for a small local event. .

I don't really understand this comment. Once a club has purchased these programmes they can be, and are, used for all level of events. Toilet provision may be the one element missing from some L3 events.

Purple Pen is free and is excellent software for planning a local event, and enables anyone to access an Ocad map for planning purposes.

I have no objections to larger events requiring large access costs, mapping costs etc provide for future equipment purchase and development requirements.

The debate within clubs should be around what level of funds should be maintained to cover contingencies,like losing money on major events (yes it happens - we had a 4 figure deficit on a recent Peter Palmer Relay.) and to fund development needs, and then fix event fees accordingly.

I would suggest that no club should need to carry reserves of more than £4000 - £6000. Some may say more some may say less.

[frog]

Are some clubs sitting with more than this in the bank then? We aren't. I wonder if some clubs have a perception of clubs sitting on loads of money when they aren't.
My point about ocad and particularly autodownload is that if you just did local events you wouldn't need these as we often use mastermaps and just the small SI system for these and as only 20-40 competitors and many hiring si cards the fancy technology isn't needed.
We buy the fancy technology for the big events and it therefore seems reasonable to expect these to contribute towards the cost of the fancy technology.
Having said that I doubt that we will need to charge much more than £6 adult for our regional event, but that's because it has toilets and we're not needing to hire buses etc.

[RJ]

The organiser has produced a break-even budget based on 400 competitors (optimistic in my view) paying £15 each. With adult EOD and non-members paying more, but juniors paying less. That's just to avoid losing money.

Why is it that a colour coded event, catering for 300+ EOD can have all the facilities.... toilets, overprinted maps, car park, traders, OCAD/CONDES for the planner, on the day SI results etc.... and still only charge £4/£2.50, paying all the levies. Then suddenly when the same event becomes a regional, L2 event, the fees triple/quadruple?

That is my basic question and the root premise for this discussion. Perhaps the significant figure in IanD's event is the budget attendance of 400. IMO the regional events have been pricing themselves out of the market. A decade ago the break even figure was 700 or more. Sure competitors will pay £15..... but not many of them. I think we need to price far more sensibly. There have been loads of excuses about this thing or that being unique to this or that event, and so the £12-15 entry fee becomes justified. I just don't buy it.

We run four colour coded district events each year as part of the Cumbrian Galoppen and attract 300 (approx), charging £4/£2.50. We still generate a worthwhile surplus which goes into our junior development programme to support transport to their major competitions. One of the events in the Galoppen had a totally new map recently... the cost of it was recovered from the club's mapping fund, into which a contribution from all events is made. Over time we are able to pay for dozens of maps, some large and a lot of very small areas!

And frog, many clubs have huge surpluses in their bank accounts.... well over £10k!!!!

[DavidJ]

Tricky one - The Mole Valley event at Effingham is one I had pencilled in. Not sure that £15 would put me off, especially as I now know why it is so expensive. Whether others will think the same, even though it is a really good area.

I had also considered this a possible event but at the start of a vey busy period I was uncertain whether to come. As the lone orienteer in a family I do try to get back home for lunch. Knowing that there are buses required, and hence possible additional delays, makes it almost certain that I will not come. Not a money issue - just a time one. Sorry
I am prepared to accept that any income from the events will be used by the club/region/BO in ways which they believe will enhance the sport. It is not for me to complain about that expenditure unless I am willing to be a part of the committee which spends time reaching the expenditure decisions.