Tough Competition

I have just returned to my hotel with the rest of the Corporate Sports team after a busy day of organising the Chevron City to Surf for Activ in Busselton. The last few days have been extremely busy with setting up the event, running a collection point the day prior, assisting with the event and also helping to pack up. 

We were on site from 5am and my role was to act as a road marshall and to make sure the entertainers were checked in and ready to perform. Fortunately, everything went smoothly! Below are a few of the entertainers I organised to attend the event (a face painter and duo band). Apologies for the poor quality images - I took them on my phone.

The event was a success with a record number of participants, however it didn’t all go according to plan. Two days before the event we discovered there would be another event on the same day and right next to our event! The other event was the Pedal Prix, a six hour pedal car race (I have provided an image of the Pedal Prix below). This was a massive issue as it was also a racing event and could steal some of the attention away from our event.

It also bought up the issue of volunteers. This year we really struggled with volunteer numbers. Once discovering Pedal Prix was on the same day, it made a lot more sense why volunteer numbers were so low as most of the local clubs and schools were volunteering at their event instead! As a result, many of the Corporate Sports team had to fulfill volunteer duties as well as their normal duties which was very demanding.

Another issue was the fact that they wanted to compromise on certain details and times. For example, when they planned to have a minute silence, we were scheduled to run our presentations and awards. With the events right next to each other, this was an issue as our presentations would disrupt their minute of silence. While they wanted to change the time of our presentations, we simply could not due to the scheduled entertainment, the times the racers were due to return and the fact that it is a sponsored event so some of the changes were out of our control. We simply could not negotiate and had to agree just to leave our events as we had originally planned.

Despite the fact we had direction competition, the event still went well with a huge crowd turning up. The event taught me a lot about competition and how to handle such issues. In future, it would be best to be aware of other events that may be running on the same day (or even the same week or month) well in advance.

I have found a few interesting links that provide more information on how to stay ahead of the competition and the do’s and don’ts of handling competition.

http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/marketing-strategy/ten-ways-to-keep-ahead-of-the-competition

http://www.smallbizclub.com/leadership-sections/best-practices/item/353-handling-competition-do%E2%80%99s-and-don%E2%80%99ts?Itemid=636

These links as well as the experience I have gained from today, will help me to handle future events.

Until next time,

Sophie