I wonder if some rebranding might get a few more existing/lapsed orienteers to races like the Tim Watkins Trophy? I suspect many down south are unfamiliar with these competitions (I am anyway) and the names don't give many clues away. "Blodslitet" or blood races (I think that's the translation?) was also a mystery to me until recently. Difficult with tradition etc but if these races are the ultimate physical and technical challenge then why not give these events a name worthy of the concept? Ultimate orienteering? Extreme orienteering? (Please insert better name... not suggesting anyone needs to drop the TIm Watkins bit). That would help the marketing as it could focus on those that want a really long and tough race without pretending it's "sport for all".
"Long O" is another name that undersells. The name isn't tempting... it sounds like "rather too long to enjoyable and wish I'd finished 60 minutes ago O", whereas if the title implys challenge then it changes the mindset (for those with enough ego anyway) to "I'm going to finish this and prove to myself that I am good enough to do this even if I can't walk for a week O".
If these events have decent atmosphere/banter (which they may have.. I wouldn't know) and some cheesy rewards for completing (ditto), you could get more groups of punter orienteers (if the organisers would tolerate people like me taking 4hrs +.
) which would help the economics of the events and encourage more clubs to put them on.
