September 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 70

To Host or Not to Host: Nontraditional Events
By Travis Smith, Ph.D.

he Spartan Race. Tough Mudder. The Color Run. You've undoubtedly heard of these events, and there's an ever-increasing likelihood
that your community has hosted one or that you've participated
yourself. The growth of these nontraditional race events in the past five
years has been nothing short of meteoric, increasing almost 40-fold from
2009 to 2013 according to Running USA. In fact, these events are now more
popular than half-marathons and marathons combined, with more than 4
million participants across more than 35 different themed or nontraditional
events in 2013 (Running USA, 2014 State of the Sport: Non-Traditional Running Events).
Eighty-five percent of the agencies that participated in PRORAGIS in 2013 hosted major special events including races like
the ones mentioned above. While
these social-media-driven, fun-rather-than-competition-focused events
are extraordinarily popular, they
can present challenges for park
and recreation agencies. For example, the City of Philadelphia has
banned these types of events from
city parks for a variety of reasons,
including unforeseen cleanup for
park agency facilities and schedule demands from local interests (Philadelphia Inquirer, http://

PRORAGIS

STATS

85% of PRORAGIS agencies

host major special events

TOUGH
MUDDER
10,000 -15,000
average number of
participants per event

100+
events since 2010

articles.philly.com/2014-06-15/
sports/50583815_1_tough-mudder-warrior-dash-event-james-sa).
For the most part, these events are
for-profit endeavors (although some
have affiliated charitable organizations), which can place agencies in a
position of choosing between large
and popular commercial events and
local nonprofit organizations when
considerations are made for scheduling, space or resources.
For many communities, the net
effect of these events is positive.
The large crowds drive economic activity near the race sites, and
these events engage new partici-

COLOR RUN
1.3 million

participants
to date

1 million

participants
in 2013

60%

of runners are
first-time 5k
participants

170+

events worldwide

While these socialmedia-driven, funrather-than-competitionfocused events are
extraordinarily popular,
they can present
challenges for park and
recreation agencies.
pants in running and exercise-based
activities that improve the health of
communities. For example, 60 percent of Color Run participants have
never before participated in a 5K
race of any type (Running USA),
and according to the Outdoor Industry Association, participation in
these types of races is one of the top
five most popular activities tried by
first-timers (Outdoor Industry Association Outdoor Participation Report 2013, https://outdoorindustry.
org/images/researchfiles/ParticipationStudy2013.pdf ?193).
Only time will tell if these nontraditional events continue to gain
popularity, but chances are good
that an eager organizer may want to
host one in your city. It will be up
to you to decide if the positive impacts will be worth the extra work
required to host potentially thousands of people.
Travis Smith, Ph.D., is NRPA's Vice President
of Research (tsmith@nrpa.org).

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