(Almost) a view from the other side

Posted January 20th, 2010 by wilson

Late last year my organization at the university tapped me for a possible fun run that would have been held in February or March of this year.

I set out to work immediately after getting my assignment, planning on what would be needed and the people that we would have to talk to and do business with. Our original plan was to go at it by ourselves - without getting an race-event organizer.

Some of race “necessities” were easy enough, like water, since Maynilad is just right across the University, where we were planning on holding the run. They have been known to be easy to tap or get as a sponsor when it comes to running events.

Some were trickier, like singlets(where would you get them) and race bibs(who would print them). Or, I don’t know, maybe they were just tricky for us, since we’ve never had the need for their services before.

Particularly difficult was result tabulation, which meant that I had to look for people or groups from whom we could borrow a barcode scanning machine.

Aside from these things there were many others of course. The Administration must be informed and a permit secured. A stage must be setup of course, with sound systems. A start/finish arc, as well as portalets, must be found and rented. All these, and more. In short, it was one big head ache. The only thing or resource that we had at hand to begin with was manpower, which would be provided by organization members and applicants(slave labor!).

With all those businesses that have to be contacted, I realized, it is no wonder that many of those who want to hold races opt to get race-event organizers. It was hard for me, and I know a bit about racing already. What more for those who don’t know anything about racing and just want to hold a fundraiser.

Anyway, by some weird turn of events, we did end up meeting with a professional race-event organizer, and got a quote for the event that we wanted.

The bottomline is, the numbers were staggering(at least for us). I won’t bore the readers with the details which I don’t remember anyway. But the final figure stands at 330,000 for a 5K-10K race with 1,000 slots at UP(where the place usage fee is among the cheapest, if not the cheapest). That is, we’d need to pay the organizer 330K(not necessarily in lump).

The ones who are good in math among you must have already crunched the numbers. To break even, assuming that we will sell all packets, we need to price the registration fee at 330.

If we price the registration fee at just 300 bucks(”standard” registration fee), even if we sold out, we’d end up short by 30K. To make up for the slack, we’d need financial sponsors - companies and corporations that would give us the money in return for advertisement or exposure. No, goods(such as freebies, drinks, etc) wouldn’t do. It has to be cold cash, otherwise it wouldn’t help with our 30K deficit. And remember we’re assuming a sold out event. If we don’t sell everything, the deficit grows. And also, we’re just talking about breaking even! If we sell everything AND just get 30K sponsorship, we earn nothing yet.

So what’s my point? I must admit, I used to think that some charitable institutions(or institutions helping charitable institutions) are being “greedy” when they set the registration fees high. But then with that experience, I realized they really have no choice. We certainly didn’t. If we had gone through with the event(in limbo yet), as much as I would’ve wanted to set it lower at 250(the price I grew up with), it wouldn’t have worked. The deficit that already stood at 30K would just grow even bigger. Even at 300 pesos registration fee, we’d practically have to sell everything and find a way of making more money just to get even. Now, I wonder, who’s responsible for that?

Tags: registration fees