"We let people down," said organizer John Brown. He said cancellations in four states were due to low turnout.
An organizer for the Great American Mud Run, which canceled its Sept. 28 event in the Poconos, as well as races in three other states, says the company didn’t have enough participants to pull the races off and calls the vague emails sent to participants a “misstep.”
An email announcing the
cancellation of the muddy obstacle 5k race cited a policy signed by
participants when explaining that refunds would not be provided to those
who signed up for the race.
Though the practice is an "industry standard," event organizer John Brown, 34, of Virginia Beach, Va., said today the company is trying to pay back as many refunds as possible.
“It’s the right thing to do,” said a weary-voiced Brown. “We let people down.”
Brown said low turnout in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Ohio and Texas prompted the cancellations. In an email, he said about 300 people signed up for the Pennsylvania race, but in a phone interview he said the number was closer to 200. He said they’ve managed to pay back the entry fees for roughly 130 Pennsylvanians.
Mike Burke, a Bushkill Township man
who signed up for the race with his girlfriend and a group of friends,
hasn’t heard anything about a refund. Burke said an apology email he
received today from the Great American Mud Run didn’t placate him and he
doubts the registration figures cited by race organizers.
“I think that apology is a cover-their-butt kind of thing,” said the retired New York Police Department officer. “I don’t think it’s sincere at all. This is just like what I’ve seen as a cop but on a much larger scale.”
Registration numbers too small to pay for race
Burke says Great American Mud Run started about a year ago in his home state of Virginia — the brainchild of a group of guys who loved races and wanted to make a quality mud run they’d want to attend.
The Virginia Beach race last November had 3,200 participants, Brown said. He hoped the company could springboard off that success when they branched out to other states for this race season.
“We took all that money and put it to other events,” Brown said. “We spent a ton of money on marketing and it just didn’t resonate for some reason.”
He
said it takes about $150,000 to put on race — that includes the
marketing and insurance — and most of the money has to be paid upfront. It
takes about 1,800 registrants for the race to break even, Brown said.
He said race organizers kept registration open hoping participation would turn around closer to the race date. It didn’t.
“Basically, we couldn’t even afford two tractor-trailers to the site to set up with the money we made on entry fees” for the Pennsylvania race, Brown said. “To be honest, when we saw it wasn’t trending like it was supposed to, we stopped spending the fees. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough to cover everyone.”
Erica Redman, co-founder of Wounded Wear, a Virginia-based nonprofit that helps wounded veterans get modified clothing, said the organization decided to continue teaming up with the Great American Mud Run for fundraising after the success of the Virginia races.
“The race went very well and we kept getting comments from people about how well-organized it was and how they enjoyed it,” Redman said. “There was really no indicators that we should have known better. We really do believe (the race organizers) didn’t set out to do this on purpose.”
Redman said the nonprofit was told not to bother sending anyone to a New York race this year with a relatively low turnout but were still shocked when the Great American Mud Run canceled the rest of its calendar for the year.
“We knew they were struggling there at the end, but we thought they had a plan on how to make it,” she said.
Redman said the nonprofit was forced to field phone calls from upset participants when the Great American Mud Run wouldn’t answer its own phones.
“That made it challenging,” she said.
Refunds are sole focus, says race organizer
Brown admitted the race organizers failed to properly inform participants with their first email.
“It was a misstep,” he said. “We’re not PR guys. We were shell-shocked and dealing with internal stuff. We were in a haste to get it out. We’ve sent out another email that should clear some of it up.”
Brown said the Great American Mud Run is hoping for help from other parties to reimburse runners since the money has just about run dry.
“The only reason we’ve not filed for bankruptcy yet is because then there’d be no hope of getting people their money,” he said. “The only thing we’re focused on now is refunding people’s money. Is there going to be another event? Not unless everyone gets their money back.”
The words didn’t comfort Burke, who said he and his girlfriend have found another mud run to try next year.
“The bottom line is people are out money,” he said. “My goal was to get their websites down so no one else gets ripped off. Mission accomplished. That 70 bucks wasn’t really anything compared to that.”