Blog: Event Organizers Need to Own Up to Mistakes

Like, oh, 100 percent of the people who read this, I'm a veteran of weekend warrior events. When you do enough of those, you realize no event is without its glitches. Sometimes, it's a little hiccup (there aren't enough safety pins to fasten race numbers to shirts, so some people have to run with their numbers flapping in the breeze), and sometimes it's a big one (a well-intentioned volunteer course marshal points runners in the wrong direction and sends them off-course). Hey, people make mistakes. It's how those mistakes are handled that determines whether participants view the event as a success or a failure.

Case in point: A friend of mine recently competed in a race in the Washington, D.C., area. The race promised high-end technical gear and hot chocolate to all runners. Only it didn't go that way. The race organizers oversold the event. There was no parking to be had, and the race started an hour and a half late - a lot of time to be standing around in minus-30-degree weather wearing shorts.

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