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Nigel Benham Jan 25th 2013, 3:52pm |
I am interested to know how much you are willing to pay to enter events? I wanted to use a local military area in the South of England and was given a price of £110 Admin fee and £160.00 for a minimum of 40 riders then £4.00 per rider thereafter. Plus the mbo levy £2.00 and assuming I got 40 riders I would be looking at a minimum of £8.75 before map printing and general expenses. The area is 50 miles from my house, so add of fuel etc on top. Is £15.00 too much? |
John Houlihan Jan 25th 2013, 4:05pm |
interesting thread Nigel. I would be willing to pay that for a quality event in a quality area and I am sure you would deliver. However I would say that the general access fees seem very high. Stodge got access to Military areas and these where costly but I think less than you have been offered. Check with Stodge, PM me if you need contact details. I know the crown estate is probably trying to max out revenue, but I do think you should explain the nature of the sport, number of participants etc. I negotiated the BMBO agreement with FC based on a sliding scale that reflected low participant numbers, but meant that if we did have big event numbers, FC would get more income by charging organisers more per rider, not just a per capita fee. It increases as competitor numbers increase reflecting the increased revenue to the organiser against their cost base. Essentially they are saying £270, plus £4 per rider. Crosscountry are charging £25 plus per event, MBO does not. It may be worth BMBO exploring an agreement for access to Military land. |
Nigel Benham Jan 26th 2013, 9:32pm |
I had a good conversation with Oliver James, who is in charge of local military land and despite me saying there would be a maximum of 40 riders he is adamant the local rate for bike events is as stated above. There is quite a few xc races on the military land and they regularly get 300 riders. To maximise the cost I am thinking of running two races on one day, probably a prologue and a chasing start. |
Tony Brand-Barker Moderator Jan 28th 2013, 10:42am |
“Is it a daft idea to contact the organisers of the xc race, and organise an MBO the same day. Last edited Jan 28th 2013, 4:22pm by John Houlihan (Moderator) |
Nigel Benham Jan 28th 2013, 11:53am |
The OTHER problem we have is access because of foot orienteering embargo certain areas because of major championships and the XC races are held within this area. I am going to run this event on a different date to maximise publicity time and hopefully attract more than 40 riders so as to reduce the overhead. |
Emily Benham Jan 29th 2013, 9:22am |
I think £15 is an adequate amount to charge for an MTBO race - providing it is a quality event. As you say, a prologue and chasing start would be perfect, giving riders an opportunity to race twice in one day. Perhaps make it more exciting by having the prologue as a sprint and the chasing start as a middle (or vice versa). To compact chasing start times, you could say anyone more than 10 mins behind leader in prologue is in a mass start at leaders start time plus 10. Why not allocate prologue start times, so there are more competitors on the course at the same time increasing the head to head element and reducing start window for you?? Butterfly loops, 'spectator' controls, plenty of route choice, and technical navigation would certainly make the event fun and exciting to race in. I know you normally try to get a village hall nearby for showers and toilets etc. If its a fenced in military area, are you able to get access to changing rooms etc for the event included in the cost? Likewise would there be any additional car park charges? HJ and I will come back over for the event so we can help you with control collecting and anything not control hanging/map related on the day (in return for a ride back to heathrow of course!!!) |
Emily Benham Jan 29th 2013, 9:24am |
Just FYI. MTBO events in Sweden typically cost 250SEK at the moment, so in the region of £25. Other costs over here are not very different to the UK. The Swedish champs last year were 300SEK per race I believe (and one of the events was such a mud bath and on horrible tracks it really wasn't worth starting!) |
Wane Law Jan 29th 2013, 10:33pm |
I am a little lost, what you are saying is that you are going to have to pay a small fortune to put an event on in your chosen area? Why not just choose a different area? |
Nigel Benham Jan 29th 2013, 10:58pm |
Wane, I assume by your costs you are talking about mboscore events using OS maps and not linear events using 1:10,000 maps using private land? |
Trevor Bridle Jan 29th 2013, 11:30pm |
Hi Nigel, Yes I would agree with the comments that a fee of £15.00 would seem reasonable for a quality event. Two races on the day would also give more value for money. I know in putting on events locally here in Dorset I am always conscious of costs bearing in mind that I am always looking to attract newcomers and families to the sport. However for a quality race on a good area this should attract those who are more committed and who should then be willing to travel to take part and pay the going rate. Orienteering both Foot and Bike are still in my opinion on the whole very reasonable compared with many other sports. |
Alan Hartley Feb 16th 2013, 6:30pm |
Bit late on this, but just to add my thoughts. £15 for a quality national level race is just fine, compare that to say a JK day or a 6day very comparable, cheaper even. Also if you put other costs in to it the entry fee isn't a big chunk - e.g. if I came down would be £120 in fuel, so maybe at best share a lift with two others is £40 each, will probably need accommodation though, then think about bike wear etc - £15 is no problem at all! On the other hand, it's a shame that public landowners want to charge so much for a minority sport with no commercial or UK sport funding. I'm glad it's not like that everywhere, maybe you just need to move north... |
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