i had a GREAT time with you all yesterday in the 3 or so threads that focused on why you enter, why you don't enter, and what causes you to enter early. i want to ask about something i thought about last night and this morning. it's based on this:
1. a lot of you it seems will enter a race in large part because you're friends are racing it.
2. all of you want the ability to cancel if you get injured or whatever.
3. most of you have a pretty tight budget for what you'll spend on a race.
so... how do you keep the price low? and allow for cancellations? here is what i've come up with, as one option, which may be totally shitty, but i thought i'd throw it out and see if there's anything to it...
1. if you enter early, you are offered a full cancellation option, meaning, a full refund minus the cost of the registration charge that the RD would have to eat (5 percent let us say).
2. but to qualify for it, you must post, to social media, telling folks you're entering, and inviting them to enter with a link to the event.
if you want to trigger the cancellation clause, and get your refund, you must post a link that shows your social outreach, and it must be timely, as in, within 72 hours of the time you entered.
the idea here is:
1. your social outreach offsets the financial risk of the cancellation policy.
2. this partly solves the question of how friends know friends are racing what races.
3. this keeps the race from escalating its fees as the race approaches, because only the early adopters get to invoke the cancellation policy. (late enterers don't pay more, but they don't get to cancel).
tell my why my idea is full of shit.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
1. a lot of you it seems will enter a race in large part because you're friends are racing it.
2. all of you want the ability to cancel if you get injured or whatever.
3. most of you have a pretty tight budget for what you'll spend on a race.
so... how do you keep the price low? and allow for cancellations? here is what i've come up with, as one option, which may be totally shitty, but i thought i'd throw it out and see if there's anything to it...
1. if you enter early, you are offered a full cancellation option, meaning, a full refund minus the cost of the registration charge that the RD would have to eat (5 percent let us say).
2. but to qualify for it, you must post, to social media, telling folks you're entering, and inviting them to enter with a link to the event.
if you want to trigger the cancellation clause, and get your refund, you must post a link that shows your social outreach, and it must be timely, as in, within 72 hours of the time you entered.
the idea here is:
1. your social outreach offsets the financial risk of the cancellation policy.
2. this partly solves the question of how friends know friends are racing what races.
3. this keeps the race from escalating its fees as the race approaches, because only the early adopters get to invoke the cancellation policy. (late enterers don't pay more, but they don't get to cancel).
tell my why my idea is full of shit.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman