Turning up for a ride at 'full' sportives

mattybeck
mattybeck Posts: 135
edited March 2009 in Sportives/audaxes/training rides
Hi,

Anybody advise if it is possible to turn up at sportives which are advertised as 'full' and hope to get in on the day?

Comments

  • Higs
    Higs Posts: 105
    Good chance of p*ssing the organisers off.

    What are you going to do if you can't get in? Ride it anyway?
    Higs
  • Chubby on a compact
    Chubby on a compact Posts: 86
    Most events don't allow entries on the start line, as they need to know how many to cater for, insurance purposes etc.
  • SouthernSportive
    SouthernSportive Posts: 49
    Higs wrote:
    Good chance of p*ssing the organisers off.

    'fraid that's pretty true. Events close down entry for a reason, and that's to keep the event manageable. We get a handful of people turning up to our full events thinking they'll just be able to pick up a cancellation or no-show place, but that's not the point. Processing on the day entries or inquiries would create admin we don't have time for (if we did, we wouldn't have closed the event!) and makes it harder for us to run the event smoothly for everyone who has pre entered. So you probably wouldn't get much thanks from the organisers or other riders for turning up on spec.
    Martin

    trailbreak.co.uk
    southernsportive.com
  • pinkbikini
    pinkbikini Posts: 876
    Do sportive organisers "overbook" in a similar way to airlines? With popular sportives there are 1000's of entries, of which there will always be a certain percentage of no-shows. Or do you assume as organisers that there will be some freeloaders riding the course anyway?
    SouthernSportive, presume you are part of the admin team for the, errr, Southern Sportive? Did it last year and loved it...
  • SouthernSportive
    SouthernSportive Posts: 49
    Pinkbikini - that's right, we run the Southern & Sunday Sportives - thanks, glad you enjoyed the ride!

    We don't overbook as such, but we do have to 'guesstimate' the turnout. It's a bit of a balancing act as no shows at sportives can be surprisingly high (we run MTB events too, and we don't get anything like the same no show percentage for them), so we work to an expected turnout, but we have to be in a position where we could cater to everyone if they all turned up.

    The limits on capacity tend to relate to parking, catering, timing chips and the like, so as long as they keep themselves away from event infrastructure, freeloaders don't really come into the equation.
    Martin

    trailbreak.co.uk
    southernsportive.com
  • Higs
    Higs Posts: 105
    pinkbikini wrote:
    Do sportive organisers "overbook" in a similar way to airlines?

    I don't know if Sportive organisers do but in the past I've been involved in organising a number of road running events and we definitely counted on a % of no-shows. For one event if everyone had turned up there wouldn't have been enough goody bags to go round. Of course the no-shows didn't show and everyone got a bag.

    For the larger events (a half marathon) we took a decision to allow people to swap entries, fill cancellations etc on the day. This was because we knew people would turn up expecting to be able to. It took two people to run that desk and they were pretty busy.

    For smaller events which tended to attract more 'seasoned' runners we didn't accomodate for swaps or on-the-day entry but it wasn't a problem.
    Higs

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