Four Ways RunSignup Can Help Make Your Ultra Race a Success

Ultra distance events come with many of the same needs as typical race events like 5Ks and half marathons, but they also have very unique requirements and things to consider. For example, many ultra events don’t use a timer to officially score the race due to either the size of the registrations or the conditions of the course. However, events still need a way to provide finisher data to participants. Ultra event organizers address these unique situations through a combination of creativity, technology and sometimes by applying the good old fashioned approach to endurance experiences like manually writing down participants’ finish times.

Celebrating Halloween with a Fun Run

Happy Halloween! In addition to the costumes and candy, we like to celebrate with a festive Halloween themed fun run. Take a look at some of the spooktacular races that happened this past weekend. 1. Monster Dash, Leesburg FL Whether you want a long run or you want to participate from afar, this Monster Dash […]

Event List for Organization Websites

We are excited to announce the release of the Event List for Organization Websites. This first release lets you feature upcoming and past events on your organization website with flexible layouts and rules to determine which events show and which events do not show. The Event List is perfect for timers and organizations with multiple […]

RunGo Announces Integration with RunSignup

RunSignup’s API offers industry technology providers an easy way to integrate their technology into our platform to provide increased value and a seamless experience for both race organizers and participants. We are pleased to share RunGo’s recent announcement of their integration with  RunSignup’s platform.

Disable Email Header in Email V2

There is now an option to disable the header in RunSignup’s Email V2. While we recommend including the default Sign Up button in your marketing communications, your event may not want a heading for emails to registrants regarding event communications, like a Pre-Event email. To disable the header, click the gear setting in the email […]

New Race Announcer Feature Now Available

We’ve just launched a new announcer tool that gives race announcers immediate access to participant information. RaceDay Scoring now offers an announcer screen that streams personalized participant information as they cross timing points on the course. This newest feature enables race announcers to make timely personal public recognition of race participants- an honored tradition of on-site endurance events.  

Race Result Integration with RaceDay Scoring

Below is a recorded webinar covering how Race Result timing hardware integrates with RunSignup’s RaceDay Scoring software. Race Result’s Bryce Longacre and RunSignup’s Crisp McDonald walk through some best practices when using Race Result timing hardware, creating exporters in Race Result software, and how to correctly connect to RaceDay Scoring. A product demo rounds things out to help illustrate what you can expect to see when you use the two products.

Share Your Event Photos

RunSignup is working on a new company website that we will be launching in January 2023. While stock photos are ok, we would love to feature YOUR event photos on our website. If you’d like to see your event on the RunSignup website, please upload your photos to this shared Google Photo album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/k7ym8TeMh8aPVXe56. When […]

Turkey Trot Tech Prep

It is that time of year again! The busiest season for the endurance industry and, for many ,the biggest race event of the year. To help our event organizers prepare and make the most of the tools available to them at RunSignup, we hosted this Turkey Trot Tech Prep webinar.

RunSignup Announced Non-Binary Event Search 

We are pleased to announce the new ability for race participants to search for events offering non-binary gender features. RunSignup currently has more than 2,500 events offering a non-binary gender option. This is RunSignup’s latest effort to better support inclusive and flexible gender options within the event registration process. The new search capability follows several other inclusive innovations such as the ability for events to add a non-binary gender category. This is then able to integrate seamlessly with other RunSignup products like RaceDay Scoring so that gender divisions publish official results for a non-binary category. 

Massive RaceJoy Usage at the Midstate Massive Ultra Trail Race

The Midstate Massive Ultra Trail event, a point-to-point trail race with distances of 100, 50 and 30 miles in Massachusetts, has offered RaceJoy since its inception of 2019. This popular ultra New England event attracted close to 350 participants this last weekend and 78% opted to use Runsignup’s RaceJoy’s tracking and spectator engagement features. Each participant had about 5 people tracking them in RaceJoy and sending them cheers. An impressive 1,600 people used the RaceJoy app during the event.

Fundraiser Email Replacement Tags for Email V2

There are now fundraiser email replacement tags for Email V2. Using these dynamic replacement tags with the Email V2 fundraiser recipient list gives your peer to peer fundraising event more power to automate and customize communications with your fundraisers. We make it easy to use fundraiser replacement tags with a dropdown tags menu for fundraising […]

All In One Results for Ultras

With the release of our new Mobile Timing App, we have extended our complete results system to really simplify and expand the results process for Ultra race directors and the participant experience. Of course, RunSignup is well known for our full suite of RaceDay technology – Bib Management, CheckIn App, Free Photos, Free Results, Live […]

RunSignup Q3 2022 Update

Q3 2022 saw several trends in our business: We share our high level numbers and thoughts on the market and technology advances on a quarterly and yearly basis –  2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, Q1 2022, Q2 2022. RunSignup Quarterly Numbers We had a record quarter as we continue to benefit from strong word of mouth about our technology platform […]

New Mobile Timing App How-To

Timers can now take advantage of RunSignup’s new RaceDay Mobile Timing app as a back up for chip timed events or as an alternate timing solutions for smaller events with limited budgets or inability to have timing equipment on the course. It is an ideal solution for endurance events such as Ultra distances, track and field, cross country, running or cycling events and water events, and is an alternative option to Time Machine and WebScorer. The recorded session below provides timers with an overview of the products features and how-to instructions.

Rewarding Volunteers with Vouchers

Our Volunteer system and Voucher capability might be the perfect combo for many events looking for ways to reward their volunteers. This is especially convenient for race management companies who have multiple events each year and you may reward a volunteer with a free (or maybe half off) event of their choosing if they volunteer […]

Ultra Running Magazine New Weekend Updates

Ultra Running Magazine has started up a new Weekend Update email that is really packed full of news, results, interviews and links to lots of other information the Ultra and Trail community will love. You can see the updates here. And signup for the newsletter here. Here is an example snippet: And the weekly results […]

5K’s, Relays, Tastings, and More: Brewery Events on RunSignup

Events are the best way for breweries to increase foot traffic, drive sales, engage with existing customers, and get new people to your brewery. While the beer industry grew just 1% in 2021, the craft brewer industry continues to experience higher growth rates, expanding by 8% in 2021 according to the 2021 Annual Craft Brewing Production Report. […]

Ultra Running Magazine Results API Integration

UltraRunning Magazine, known as “the voice of the sport” since 1981, has recently completed an integration with the RunSignup Results API to automate the population of results data on their free and open Ultra Results Listing service. UltraRunning Magazine provides race results and also curates individual results across all registration and results platforms. Here are […]

Announcing New RaceDay Mobile Timing App

We are very excited to announce RunSignup’s RaceDay Mobile Timing App for timing of smaller events and backup for chip-timed events. Through the convenient use of Android and Apple phones and tablets, event timers are able to use the free RaceDay Mobile Timing app to log finish times and the order of finishers through the app. The app works in conjunction with RunSignup’s results platform for real-time results publication. This is ideal for timing smaller endurance events such as Ultra distances, track and field, cross country, running or cycling events and water events. In addition, the RaceDay Mobile App is a valuable backup solution – similar to Time Machine devices – for larger events and for top finisher verification. 

Race Preparation for Impending Weather

If you have a race that looks like it may be in the path of Hurricane Ian, below are some tips for managing your event in a questionable weather situation. But even if you’re not in Ian’s path – or likely to see any weather that extreme, a communication plan for extreme weather can be valuable to all races. We encourage events to have a contingency plan in place that can be activated when needed.

Aurora 2 Database Upgrades Tuesday and Wednesday 9/27 and 9/28

As described last week, we have a planned upgrade happening on our databases this week. We have done a number of tests and are hopeful for a quick and non-impactful transition. We also have planned and tested fallbacks as well. We will be doing the Database Shard (less important database tables) on Tuesday morning, and […]

Sommer Sports’ Michelle Craske’s Insights

We like to hear from people in the industry to find out more about them and how they use RunSignup’s products. Recently, RunSignup’s Steve Bingham-Hawk chatted with Michelle Craske with Sommer Sports to get some inside scoop. For those of you not familiar with Sommer Sports, it is an established race management company located in Clermont, Florida. It’s founder, Fred Sommer, is highly regarded as one of the long-time substantial influencers of the triathlon industry and helped the industry transform throughout the years. He has also continued to stay abreast of changes in the industry to continue to provide a sought-after race experience. Fred has also been a valued customer of RunSignup and uses its many capabilities to support the events they manage and the participants and volunteers who take part in in them.

Upgrade to Aurora 2 Database – Potential Downtime

We are planning to do an upgrade to Amazon AWS Aurora MySQL 2 sometime in the next week and a half. We expect less than 5 minutes of potential system impact. Another blog will be posted the day before we do the upgrades. Planned Impact There should be minimal impact with the whole upgrade process […]

How to Use RunSignup’s Photo Platform

One of the many FREE tools events using RunSignup can take advantage of is RunSignup’s RaceDay Photo platform. Events can improve the race experience by providing an elevated experience with free photos that are integrated with their personal race results. You can create albums for your event and offer team photos as well. Plus, you can offer sponsors branding opportunities by applying sponsor logo watermarks to photos. This webinar offers a quick how-to on how to set this up and easily load in photos.

Registration Market Analysis – September 2022

We have been doing the race registration market analysis every 6 months for many years. We include a ton of analytical data, and also include our analysis of happenings and directions in the market (of course that analysis is done from our perspective and is sometimes biting to competitors but tries to be honest). Here […]

Fundraiser Email Recipient List for Email V2

You can now send and schedule emails to your fundraisers from Email V2. This enables your peer to peer fundraising event to easily communicate with fundraisers throughout the fundraising period. If your event offers peer to peer fundraising teams, you will be able to send to 3 categories of fundraisers: To send an email to […]

Increase Registrations w/Pricing: Encourage Group Participation

We continue the series on strategies to Increase Registrations with Pricing strategies by focusing on ways to apply discount incentives to encourage group participation and tap into the social nature that is the foundation of endurance events. This post covers two of the approaches available for race organizers using RunSignup’s registration platform: Multi Person pricing and Group/Team discounts. Both build in incentives for participants to encourage others to participate in the event with them greatly expanding your reach.

RaceDay CheckIn App Update

Race Directors and Timers are invited to watch this Webinar where we provide an update on the RaceDay CheckIn app’s latest improvements and newest features, including pre-set and configuration changes. RunSignup’s Matt Avery talks through the advantages of using the app and gives practical guidance on how to set up the CheckIn app so that volunteers can efficiently use the app for processing participants.

Reserve Holdbacks Lowered Back to 0%

We lowered the Reserve Holdbacks to 0% effective today. This is a very happy day and another sign of recovery in our endurance community. As you may recall we always had a normal 0% holdback (meaning we pay out when people signup), but instituted a 20% holdback at the beginning of the Pandemic. We have […]

The Advantage of Fundraising

Below is a recorded webinar on The Advantage of Fundraising. This session offers some valuable information on how fundraising can help increase revenue and registrations and how to take advantage of these tools within your RunSignup dashboard.

Timer Training: RaceDay Scoring Data Actions

Below is a Timer Tip Tuesday training on RaceDay Scoring using Data Actions. This is a quick training session that walks through different what if scenarios such as automatically switching events based on check points or location reads. 

Increase Registrations with Pricing: Building a Sense of Urgency

RunSignup offers many features and ways in which events can creatively encourage a greater amount of registrations for their upcoming races. This is a first in a series of blog posts to help provide specific methods to increase race registrations through pricing. Two approaches that can be used in tandem that build a sense of urgency for earlier registrations are Event Size-Based pricing and Date-Based pricing.

RaceDay Scoring Quick Setup Guide

The following webinar provides a quick guide on how to use RaceDay Scoring for basic race scoring. This is an ideal session for timers just getting started in RaceDay Scoring or for those that would like a refresher before the busy season ahead. Step-by-step instructions on setting things up and scoring an event is covered along with a product demonstration.

RunSignup RaceDay Suite Demo

RunSignup RaceDay Suite Demo At RunSignup’s recent Summer Symposium we showcased many of the products available to our customers. Below is a look at some of our RaceDay Suite products, including RaceDay Registration, RaceDay CheckIn, RaceDay Scoring, and RaceDay Results. Check out this recording where Kevin Lai walks through a quick demo of these products. […]

Why Every Race Should Consider Adding Teams

Why Every Race Should Consider Adding Teams Below is a recorded webinar recently held that covered the benefits of offering team/group registration options and examples of how this can be deployed using RunSignup’s features and tools available to our customers. If you are wanting to increase registrations, teams are what we like to call a […]

RunSignup Spotlight and Insights

RunSignup Spotlight and Insights RunSignup’s Bob Bickel was recently interviewed by William Blair, a premier global boutique investment firm, to get an update on RunSignup and the industry. You can read the full report to get a pulse on the company and the industry, how RunSignup has prospered in a competitive and challenging environment, and […]

Founder’s Corner – Choosing Consistency

Part of Bob’s continued ramblings. One of the things that a lot of companies do is “chase the deal”. They close on sales tactics and quite often “special” pricing. I’ve been at lots of companies like this, and one of my goals at RunSignup was to avoid this spiral. Create a good product for a good […]

Peer to Peer Fundraising Event Updates & Improvements

GiveSignup continues to invest in helping nonprofits raise more money and grow their fundraising events. Today our development team made several releases that improve the user experience for fundraisers and donors making a donation to a fundraiser. 1. Selecting a fundraiser automatically brings the donor to the Donate option. On the main fundraiser page, the […]

2022 Midyear Trends Update

We release an annual RaceTrends Report each winter to provide a thorough assessment of the state of the endurance and fundraising events industry. This year, as the industry adapts to a post-pandemic world, we pulled a reduced round of midyear data to help event organizers better understand the current state of the industry. The Data The data […]

SMS (or Text Marketing) Guest Blog from RUNGP

This is a guest blog written by Gerry Perez of RUNGP, an SMS (TXT) provider for endurance events. He talks about the benefits of SMS marketing, and includes some of the RunSignup customers who successfully use his service. Note: RunSignup provides txt messaging for results and emergency notifications for free, but does not allow marketing […]

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