2024 VELO NORTHWEST EVENT PLAN

the short

Hello!  We are reaching out for support of 2023 Velo Northwest events.  You can find our budget attached in the email we sent out, with calculated projections for entry fees and as you will see, we are a bit off…  We are working on making these events BIGGER AND BETTER, and would love to team up with our industry partners to keep growing these events as well as increasing the impact that Velo Northwest has on our region.  
 
I believe that events are a major catalyst to the growth of our industry – they are a breeding ground for inspiration and fellowship – linking up riders who would never meet otherwise and fostering the stoke .  Admittedly, I have not reached out for sponsorship as much as I should have over the last 10 years, but now I am starting to see the opportunities that partnerships could create for Velo Northwest and the future of this company as a staple in the Northwest racing/cycling community.  Please feel free to take a look at the attached budget, and our 2018 recap and 2019 plans!

community

Velo Northwest events are a major driver for camaraderie, growth and cycling advocacy in the Northwest.  

We have spent the last ten years building this community, giving racing careers a kickstart, and providing athletes with something to look forward to each year.

the long

2018 Recap – 
 
2018 was a harder year for our events, and this is a trend that we saw throughout the state/region and a problem that we discussed with other event promoters and timing companies.  Part of the problem was over saturation of events in our region and a sport that wasn’t growing as fast as all of these new event promoters thought it was.  Additionally, we had some weather issues in 2017 that affected 2018 early event registration, and weather issues in the months leading up to the races that caused some last minute changes and affected our late event registrations.  
 
Hub-a-palooza 2018 – this event had weaker attendance with a decline of about 18% in pre-race registration and the weather leading up to the event caused a decline in at-event registration as well, with approximately a 30% decline in participants from the year before..  Additionally this race was stacked with competing/similar events in 2018, with 2 other events immediately following Hub-a-palooza that made participants pick and choose which they would be doing.  Additionally, 2017 saw a small timing issue that probably affected attendance slightly for 2018 – but this was remedied and everything went off without a hitch in 2018!
 
Mt Spokane 2018 – In the month leading up to this event we had to make the super hard decision to move this race to later in the year – a lot later.  We know that moving an event can be detrimental, but the decision was made knowing that having snowed in trails would be even more detrimental, and that snow on the trails was definitely a talking point between racers that joined us in 2017 for the event.  By the time everything was said and done our event actually did end up growing, with few of the riders dropping out, and many of them excited for an Autumn mountain bike race in the state park.  We did have quite the increase in costs for this event, due to the hiring of AMR, rental of the Selkirk and higher than anticipated shuttle costs.  All in all, the event was better than the year before and we did see growth and more media coverage.
 
For 2018 we were able to find a some financial support through Shimano, Offroad Power Products, and a bit of cash from the Spokane Sports Commission, which helped keep things afloat and growing in a year that participation wained.  
 
The Upside – 
 
The over saturation of events seems to have taken it’s toll on some promoters in the area, which is unfortunate for them but great for those of us who have been in this sport for long enough top have seen this happen before.  A few events / race series have decided not to continue for 2019, and that has already benefited our events coming into the 2019 season.  We will see more traveling racers, and larger overall attendance.
 
We coordinated with event promoters throughout the region to stagger our events in a way that would not put such a load on participants.  And early season registration is ahead of where it was for the 2016 events – which was our biggest year ever!  With great amounts of social media response, rider excitement, and more event advertising than we have ever done – through some tactics that we tested and found successful with the Mt Spokane 2018 event – we expect turnout to be back on the up side this year with even greater rider experience.  
 
2018 was a year that our relationship with the Washington State Parks seemed to take a step in the right direction.  With easier event permitting, more leniency on trail usage, and amount of time that we were allowed to use the trails during the event weekend.  I feel this relationship is growing stronger, and will be long lasting – they are starting to see mountain biker visitation as an important asset to the park.  For 2019 we were able to schedule our race for the fall, earlier in the season and we will be able to offer shuttles to the racers!  The addition of shuttles should be huge for this event, riders will happily pay more for this event, and we are looking forward to an increase in attendance thanks to the ease that shuttles add to the weekend.

VIDEOS

2020 events

Hub-a-Palooza – we are poised to make this our biggest year ever with another addition to our timing system, increasing accuracy.  More services on site for racers, more frequent marketing and we are working for an increase in quantity of prizes to giveaway at the event.  
 
Mt Spokane AGS Enduro and Full Pull – coming off two years of successful events, more operating freedom within the State Park (shuttles and more time to run events), and word of mouth that will spread from the over 60% traveling racers who came out in 2018 and had a fantastic time – we are going to employ a complete multimedia marketing plan throughout the season to increase attendance at this event. 
 
Our goal is to have Hub-a-Palooza and Mt Spokane book-end the Northwest mountain bike event season, creating a season open and season ending mountain bike festival that racers and their families love to attend.  
 
Additionally, our growing rapport with the Washington State Parks should make it easier for us to host this event and other larger events as time goes on – building another staple event in the Spokane area will help keep Inland Northwest riding thriving for years to come.
 
Two Wheel Ten Hour – For 2019 we are taking over this event, it was started in 2017 by a member of The Bike Hub, and actually saw a large traveling racer attendance in it’s first year.  The 2018 event was not marketed properly due to some personal issues with the person in charge, and saw a small decline in attendance – also partially due to saturation of events and a directly competing event on the same weekend.  I have communicated with other event promoters to avoid conflicts on this event, we are ramping up marketing and lowering event entry fees.  Market research, for our region and throughout the nation, comparing entry fees for other endurance mountain bike events, showed that the entry fees collected over the last two years of this event were well beyond the rest of the market.  I believe the inflated cost deterred many racers, and we will be working hard to let past participants and possible participants know that the entry fees are now lower (new prices go live 1/11/9) – which should help see a fair amount of growth for 2019.  
 
More and better – There are plans for more events in 2019, and continuing into 2020.  In the future I will be partnering with others to take over and/or start new events – realizing that I need help to promote growth and progress! My ultimate goal is to build the Velo Northwest website into a year round destination for information on riding in the entire northwest.  With content from contributors in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, and BC – offering information on riding areas, trail condition reports, product reviews (for items specific to our region), and event coverage beyond Velo Northwest events – all of this coming from people who live in our region and who have positioned themselves as relevant, competent, and approachable ambassadors for cycling.  We already have the audience, and a great website user base, and a reason for people to keep coming back to the website (our events) – the transition into offering more content should be well received and will take shape rather quickly.  
 
Lots to work on, so I better end this right here, thank you for your consideration, we appreciate everything you have done to help this project move forward.
 
Sponsorship dollars go directly to event advertising through targeted video, social media, and print ads.  Our sponsors logos are placed in the first 15 seconds of video, on all distributed print materials, and will receive prime real estate for products they would like to advertise on our website throughout the 2019 season.  Additionally, sponsorship dollars go towards future event development, and sometimes will be part of the cash prizes awarded at events.