When I have looked into the Space Coast Marathon in the past, they have a pretty cool looking multi year race challenge. If you run three races in four years, you get a challege medal. If you run all four races over four years, you get an additional challege medal. I would think rD could implement something like this fairly easily, and people would be all over it.
I think multi-year or multi-weekend challenges are really interesting. They have had coast to coast and castle to chateau, but I think more options like this would definitely be interesting. I also think having more variety in the challenges like the Rock-N-Roll series would add interest. For example offering additional medals for 2,3 and 4 halfs in a year.
Look into mixing up at least the half marathon course. Probably easier said than done because of course certifications. Part of the reason I am running the Star Wars Rival Weekend this year is that I have never run the course before that starts in the MK parking lot. If it were the same course as Marathon Weekend and Princess, I would probably pass.
Changing the courses doesn't seem to be too hard from a certification perspective. I think most years for Marathon weekend I check the UASTF site and there is a new certification because of small tweaks to the course. Drastic changes would be more difficult because of logistic issues around water stops, road closures and the need for large start/finish areas.
Change up the theming of some of the races each year. Maybe have the 10K be Toy Story themed one year, Incredibles another year, Minnie, etc.
They do this now for some of the races. For example at princess the 10k theme changes annually.
With Pandora now being complete at AK, I do not see why they cannot bring back the Expedition Everest Challenge. I never did that race, but it is one I would look into doing if it were ever brought back. With all the AK construction complete for now, I do not see why this cannot happen. I know it would mean closing AK early one night, but that is one night of the year.
I really miss Everest. It really offered something unique.
Would something like “frozen marathon weekend” work? I’m not sure.
Wasn't that 2010 and 2018
Outside of the big anniversary years, it's getting harder and harder for people to justify marathon weekend from a cost vs value perspective.
I think this is the crux of the issue. Disney as a company usually delivers a premium price product at a premium price point. I think there price point has gotten high enough that they likely need to start looking at additional things they can do to further increase the value of what they deliver. With the 20th anniversary marathon they started to increase the quality of the medals, (adding spinners, moving the 5k from medallions to actual medals and making more drastic design changes) and they added a the "ears" as a finisher surprise for the Marathon. Locally J&A racing and FS series and Medoc all do really nice finisher swag at a much lower price point than Disney. I can see RunDisney needing to continue to add in this area to justify the price point for their race.
Cost is the biggest barrier so fixing that is what they need to do. It could be lowering cost (unlikely) or closing the perceived gulf between cost and value.
I think perceived value is part of it, but I don't think cost itself is the issue. 18000 people still did the half this weekend and there is was not much of a price difference between the half and full. If cost itself was the issue we would have seen a similar drop in the half attendance. I think Dopey could be impacted by price, but it has other big commitments associated with it. It's a long time which means more time away from work, and more time in a hotel at Disney.
I think the perceived value gap is the bigger issue. In particular I think it's the perceived value gap for people that have already run 1 or more runDisney race weekends.
All this is assuming they want to increase the size of the field though. These races started as a way to get people to the parks at slow times and while there are slower times than others they don't really need to attract people. In the end I feel we are due for another recession. We have gone too long with a growing economy and need a correction. This will cause a dip in attendance and some deals and the people who are prepared for the coming recession can take advantage of them. That is really when we might start to see some deals and additions to try and get runners back in larger numbers or at last slow the decline.
I think that's a good point I'm sure runDisney has recieved a lot of complaints about crowding on the course and other issues. I wonder what their real target attendance for each given race weekend is.
Races are already not selling out like they use to. You can still register for the Princess Half Marathon, and for Star Wars, everything other than the 10K is still available. rD use to have some pretty unique races (night W&D, Tower of Terror, Everest), but not so much anymore. At some point, they will need to figure out a way to entice people to get coming back or get excited for the next Disney race.
To GreatLakes point above I think one question is whether runDisney actually views races not selling out as a problem. I know when I started running Disney races none of them sold out. So while we are discussing this the current attendance levels at races may not be a big deal to runDisney at all.
I don't think they would ever get rid of marathon weekend. That is their marquee event and has been around for 25 years. I don't see the marathon ever going away. They could take some of the other events from that weekend away if they dropped to really low numbers, but still keep the marathon.
In the future, the other weekends are up to debate. As long as they make money or break even, they will probably stick around.
I would be shocked if they did anything to Marathon Weekend or Princess.
I know I really miss the uniqueness of Wine & Dine as a night race with an after party immediately after crossing the finish line! That race is the reason I started running 6 years ago. I never had a chance to run the ToT 10-miler and would be thrilled if that returned! ToT is my favorite WDW attraction, I enjoy the uniqueness of a night race, and...after party. Not to mention it had a great medal!
TOT is one of the races that I wish I got to do before it was cancelled.