Field Trip Reflection Journal

Introduction of Event Chosen:

The Adidas Sundown Marathon is Asia’s first ever night ultra marathon event, and have given athletes access to the global running stage. The marathon which was taken place around the island's eastern region was held on the 31^st of May 2008, with the first flag off at 8.30pm and a closure at about 11am the next day.

This marathon is unique in the part where the route will utilize the Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network, maintained by the National Parks Board (NParks) in the eastern side of the island as mentioned. Marathoners will run one lap while ultra-marathoners will have to complete two laps. Starting and ending at Changi Point along Nicoll Drive, the route will go past Changi Beach Park, Changi Coast Road, East Coast Park, Siglap, Bedok Town Park, Bedok Reservoir, Tampines, Pasir Ris Park and Loyang.

Featuring extreme race distances of 84km (Ultra-Marathon) and 42km (Marathon), the event will see runners persevering through the night for the finishers t-shirt and medal and top runners of each category stand to win trips to premier international marathon races in Berlin and Auckland respectively. Furthermore, there are Team Relay Challenge (10.5km x 4 runners) and Corporate Relay Challenge (10.5km x 4 runners) where top teams from the both categories will receive $1,000 worth of Adidas products per team.

Background of the Organizer:

Headed by Adrain Mok and Jeffrey Foo, HiVelocity is a company built on the pure passion and love for sports. HiVelocity is created based on convictions and idealism with a great deal of enthusiasm. The team is made up of very energetic and driven people who live in the sports realm.

HiVelocity is made of two units – Brand Team which markets and distributes top international sporting brands for performance sports and the Events Team which specializes in sports marketing and sport event management. What sets HiVelocity from the rest is their ability to out-of-the-box thinking and creative ideas. HiVelocity go the extra mile to make events extraordinary such as bringing the Aviva Singapore Ironman 70.3 Triathlon competition to Singapore last year and the recent Adidas Sundown Marathon.

Role of Event to the Organizer / Attraction / Venue / Singapore:

The main tourism and economic roles of events are event as attraction, place marketing, animators, image makers and catalysts. The roles of an event can be important for a community or destination, and it should be evaluated on how the event can make a positive contribution or tap into tourist markets. As for Adidas Sundown Marathon, the roles of the event are events as attraction and events as place marketing.

The Adidas Sundown Marathon is an attraction as it is the first longest night running race in the region which appears to be unique and different from the other races such as Singapore Marathon which starts around 5am. Furthermore, it has collaboration with the National Parks Board, to have the route set along the Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network which is something equally different as many races usually use the route of the East Coast Park and the city area. Although the race is mainly dependent on local participants, it has also attracted quite an amount of overseas participants; of about 10% of them travelled from countries in the region like Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong as well as Europe and the US.

The event is as place marketing as it identifies the value of the event in enhancing the image of communities and in attracting tourist. As mentioned, the Adidas Sundown Marathon is catering mainly towards the local participants’ level. The collaboration between the National Parks Board and the marathon, to have the route set along the Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network was mainly to increase the awareness of the park connectors to locals as convenient linkways to the parks, providing additional recreational areas for all. In hopes to encourage more people to use the park connectors for activities such as jogging, cycling and inline skating. This is part of the plans of NParks to enhance the quality of life by creating memorable recreational experiences in our Garden City.

Stakeholders:

Stakeholders are people or organizations that can influence the event. The stakeholders of the Adidas Sundown Marathon are the organizer and staff from HiVelocity, volunteers – 500 volunteers mainly make up of student volunteer, participants / runners, media, governmental agencies, sponsors, spectators.

The picture below shows all the sponsors and the governmental agencies, and a picture of the student volunteer as road marshals:

Target Market:

The target market of the Adidas Sundown Marathon is mainly the runners and corporate teams which consist of participants aged between 20 to 35 years old. A total of 6029 participants registered for the marathon, with 310 participants for the 84km Ultra-Marathon, 4427 participants for the 42km Marathon, 126 teams (504 participants) for the corporate challenge and 197 teams (788 participants) for the team challenge.

A statistics was given showing that almost everyone 1 in 3 participant will be doing the 42km marathon for the first time, and for the 84km ultra-marathon, 56% of the participants have completed the distance before the event.

An age breakdown pie chart is shown below:

Oldest Participant: 74 years old
Youngest Participant: 18 years old – minimum age required
Average Age: 32 years old.

Marketing Strategies:

The “marketing mix” consists of those elements that one can manipulate or influence to achieve goals, which might directly affect the customer’s experience at the event. It consists of the 8Ps – product, promotion, place, programming, people, partnership, price and packaging & distribution.

The product of the event is the Adidas Sundown Marathon itself. As mentioned earlier, it is the first ever night marathon held in Singapore which is differentiated easily from the rest making it special and out of the ordinary. Furthermore, with the title sponsor Adidas, it makes up part of the product which attracts many to participate. The four different categories of the product are mentioned in the introduction above.

The promotional tools used to increase the awareness level of the race includes: newspaper, internet, banners and also posters. Print advertisements of the marathon were seen in the newspaper – The Straits Times and it was chosen to be used as it has a bigger ability to reach to the masses around Singapore. Secondly, a website - http://www.sundownmarathon.com/index.php was set up for the marathon to allow people to get more information about the marathon such as the background, pricing, program flow, updates, promotions, results and promotions. Next, posters were being place at bus stops, and the one seen was at the bus stop along the east area at Tampines Ave 2, in front block 302 bus stop and also banners were seen place on lamp post along the roads.

The place that the event was held was at the Changi Point (Changi Beach Park) where there was an open space area. It is also the place where the carnival took place, which includes a media centre, information centre, massage area, tents of the above sponsors, VIP area and the center stage. The atmosphere was not felt to be as fun and happening unlike others I have went. The crowds were only there during the start off for the first race and then dissolve. Furthermore, the tents were stretched wide apart, and without good lighting for a night event the whole ambience was brought down along with the atmosphere.

As for the distribution of the event products it was well done, having the different advertising tools to promote the marathon island wide grabbing all attention, and also having the race expo and race pack collection at the Millenia Walk which is at the city area that is easily accessible to all.

For the packaging, the inaugural night marathon in Singapore has created a logo, incorporating title sponsor Adidas into the image. Sporting new streamlined curves, the Adidas Sundown Marathon logo looks set to take the sporting scene by storm and embed a lasting impression on runners’ minds.

The picture below shows the program flow of the Adidas Sundown Marathon:

Next, the people involved in the event which were mentioned earlier under the stakeholders, include the organizer, staff, volunteers, spectators, media, participants / runners, VIP participants and the guest of honour.

As for the partnerships it includes all sponsors that are participating in the event which was shown above in the picture. Some examples below:

Last, not to forget the most important is the pricing charges of the marathon. Participants are supposed to pay an amount of $100 and above for ultra-marathon, $50 and above for 42km marathon and $250 for the team and corporate challenge. Privileges were given to participants who registered earlier, by paying a lesser amount as compared to those who have registered later. As for the team and corporate entry, it had extended the early bird registration due to some technical faults creating a late opening for the registration.

Rate of Organization of the Event:

I would rate the organization of the event as 6 out of 10. I feel that there are still many possibilities in improving the event as this is the first time the Adidas Sundown Marathon is held and having a race at night has many factors to be considered.

The volunteers were seen to be trained and aware of the surroundings and happenings of the events. This reflects that the organizer spend an amount of time in preparing the volunteers, unlike some other events where volunteers only know on their specific job and have no clue about other information relating to the event.

Secondly, the amount of aid stations were of usefulness to the runners as it was of a long distance route. Subway cookies, banana, powerbar gel, 100 plus, mineral water and first aids were provided at a subsequent distance to allow the runners to keep up their energy. But it was also commented by some racers that at some areas it was really exhausting due to the route structure and stations were not being found.

Next, the set up of certain areas of the whole event which includes the start/ finish points were spacious and bright enough, the sponsor board area along the way were attractive especially the glow in the dark Adidas sign, and also information board regarding the race was place around the carnival were plus points to the event. However, as mentioned earlier, the atmosphere was not up and was to be dull and dead. A possibility was due to large space in between the carnival which makes everyone drifted to different corners, and also the lighting around the carnival area, whereby people would tend to stay by the sides instead of soaking in the atmosphere.

Another negative factor is the accessibility to the venue. Parking of cars was a problem that many faced as there were many cars, making access the area that night a problem at the earlier stages. Although there were shuttle services provided, it was not enough to cater to everyone, with only minimum picking points.

Lastly, it was seen that there no distance signs, therefore runners were not able to judge the pace and distance left. Furthermore, the routes were not clearly lighted up by the light sticks which were difficult for runners to follow. In addition, comments that some stretches were too narrow and had many low branches, which was difficult and dangerous for runners to overtake.

In all, the most appealing factor to all whether are you a participants or spectators was the overall packaging of the event which include the finisher t-shirt, medal, race pack and prizes. Overall, the event was considerably well organized as it is only the first time being held.

Potential of the Event to Meet Tourist Demand:

I feel that the Adidas Sundown Marathon has reached to meet the tourist demand in a certain extent.

This is so as mainly the marathon route of using the Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network was catering to increase the awareness of the park connectors to locals as convenient linkways to the parks, providing additional recreational areas for all. However, it could be applied to tourist as the plans of NParks to enhance the quality of life by creating memorable recreational experiences in our Garden City links to the image Singapore has created to tourist as a garden city.

Unlike the yearly Singapore Marathon which attracts a larger amount of overseas runners, for this as a brand new event held in Singapore being the first and longest night running race it has already attracted about 600 (10%) overseas participants out of the total amount of 6029 participants. This shows that the event has a greater potential to attract more tourist as the event is more unique in comparison to other marathon races.

In addition, there is a growing potential in the sports tourism industry in Singapore, and special interest tourism which includes the sports lovers. Furthermore as this race has only started the first time, with a higher deal of publicizing the next time, more people will be aware about the marathon, and would join for the appealing factors such as difference of doing a cooling night run instead of the usual morning run. Therefore, it has met the tourist demand to a certain extent.

How to Raise Value of the Event to Align with the Tourism Mission:

According to the Singapore Tourism Board website, Singapore’s tourism mission is "We develop & champion tourism, so as to build the sector into a key driver of economic growth for Singapore."

As the Adidas Sundown Marathon is an event which might be held annually in Singapore it could be work hand in hand with the Singapore’s tourism mission and the vision of the Events & Entertainment sector, which is “to establish Singapore as the “Events & Entertainment Capital of Asia”.

Unlike the Formula One's first night Grand Prix, the Youth Olympic Games or the Singapore Marathon, the Adidas Sundown Marathon is not an event that is internationally and widely recognized which then not able to attract a higher amount of tourist participants.

There are many other ways that could be used to promote the event such as having the collaboration with Singapore Tourism Board, having the event publicize under the Uniquely Singapore website and event calendar. Secondly, with the current promotional tools, it could be further brought into the international platform with the collaboration between Adidas outlets over the world or other governmental agencies. Next, the organizer - HiVelocity, could invite media from international publications, or more write up and advertisement placed in sports magazine.

With the increase in awareness, it will increase the number of overseas participants registering, which will also increase the amount of tourist arrivals. In return, participants might also stay a few days instead of just coming for the race which increases the length of stay, in all generating more economical and tourism growth for Singapore.