How do you plan an urban event?

[CatherineHughes]

I want to help experienced NOC planners get more confident in planning urban events, so that we can increase the number of urban events we offer for the EM urban league. Any experienced urban planners offer some advice or point me to a source on this forum (I've only registered today) or elsewhere where an experienced planner has documented some suggestions? It'd be useful to know the differences between planning urban and in forest/park etc.
Cheers,

[madmike]

Hi Catherine,

have a look at the excellent presentation here:

http://www.scottish-orienteering.org/do ... sprint.pdf

Murray makes loads of good points on how to execute Urban O in his presentation and i suspect you can reverse engineer his insights to get planning ideas.

Haloite's excellent Urban O site seems to be down at the minute, which is where I would have suggested as a starting point.

[Kitch]

Personally I would:
buldoze the buildings,
rip up the roads,
plant trees
wait 30 years

[Gnitworp]

It's likely to be a bit flat. You need your bulldozers to create some nice contour features

[AndyC]

It's likely to be a bit flat. You need your bulldozers to create some nice contour features

and have a few bits of building left randomly to make boulders and leave the odd pit from basement stairwells and similar -maybe a lamppost or two?

[Dave]

Hi Catherine,

have a look at the excellent presentation here:

http://www.scottish-orienteering.org/do ... sprint.pdf

That is about sprint orienteering. Urban events are not the same as sprint orienteering, it would be great if they were, but at the moment they aren't

[madmike]

Hi Catherine,

have a look at the excellent presentation here:

http://www.scottish-orienteering.org/do ... sprint.pdf

That is about sprint orienteering. Urban events are not the same as sprint orienteering, it would be great if they were, but at the moment they aren't

I know that

Hence I said:

Murray makes loads of good points on how to execute Urban O in his presentation and i suspect you can reverse engineer his insights to get planning ideas.

[graeme]

Personally I would:
buldoze the buildings,
rip up the roads,

I remember when all this was just ... buildings.

[buzz]

Personally I would:
buldoze the buildings,
rip up the roads,
plant trees
wait 30 years

Thah whimp! In my day we'd have waited 5 years and had a proper event with a bit of green (preferably not of the Olive variety)

[frostbite]

I never do urban events but I do follow some of the controversies on Nopesport. Most of the pitfalls seem to be covered by the BOF guideline for urban events, along with some tips for good course design.

See the section on course planning.

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/i ... line_e.pdf

[buzz]

. Most of the pitfalls seem to be covered by the BOF guideline for urban events.

I agree, most controversy regarding course planning seems to be inspired by BOF Guidelines. Take a look at the recent thread on the London City race where the planner followed the following BOF guidelines:

The terrain is similar to that which might be used for Sprint races but the nature of the race is different in that courses will be longer than for a Sprint, with many longer legs incorporating multiple route choices

Unfortunately the terrain at this year’s London City Race didn't suit long route choice legs and most courses had large amounts dead running with little navigational challenge.

The opposite is often true of middle distance races where planners put in lots of meaningless short legs when longer legs would have offered more of navigational challenge.

I would suggest using the guidelines as I hope they were intended, as a guide, and to plan courses that make the most of the available terrain and set a good physical and technical challenge.

[Glucosamine]

maybe a lamppost or two?

Sounds like the woods in Narnia. Might the centaurs not have an unfair advantage?

[binman]

I don't think the principles of urban planning are much different to forest/open land orienteering - plan according to the area, where it's complex focus on route finding and precsion into the control and in less detailed areas look for route choice legs.

Unlike forest orienteering, I think it's generally possible to have at least one route choice on pretty much every leg in many urban areas. Even if these are not the most challenging, they all add up to provide the distinction between a top-notch orienteer and the also rans who maybe don't analyse the route choice enough (in Urban races of 40+ minute winning times, I don't buy the oft-heard dismissive comment about urban route choices that it doesn't matter which way you go providing you decide quickly).

A good example of this was route choice legs in Banchory (SOUL 5) on Saturday where there were a few 6+ minute legs for leaders on a number of courses with 3 main route choices and various other subsidiary choices within those routes. Those legs really did merit a few seconds total concentration just as they would in a forest.

Sadly, there are hardly any routegadget plots to illustrate this but speaking to competitors, I know a number really didn't think that hard before plumping; if they had they will have saved anywhere between 30 and 60 seconds on those legs.

[Roger]

I think it's generally possible to have at least one route choice on pretty much every leg in many urban areas.

yes... it would a bit tough on the competitor if there was no way of getting from one control to the next!

[buzz]

I think it's generally possible to have at least one route choice on pretty much every leg in many urban areas.

Its certainly possible to offer different routes on most long legs whether its in forest or urban terrain, but that doesn't mean they're all good 'route choice' legs.

An urban planner in a recent thread was proud that all the leaders took different routes on one leg - the reason they all took different routes was that there was no discernible good route and indeed they all took about the same time.

Another planner also suggested that on some legs the optimum route choice could save you 5 seconds, but of course the map gave no clue as to which was the faster so it was just down to luck.

A good 'route choice' leg should have at least one significantly faster and/or safer route which isn't immediately obvious but can be discerned using the map.