Official 2020 Star Wars Rival Run Weekend - CANCELED

[rteetz]

Couple of thoughts. The collapse of RunDisney has already kind of happened. The number of events from five years ago to today is significant to say the least. California RunDisney collapsed, Tower of Terror is gone, the 5k scavenger thing at Animal Kingdom in May (can't remember the name) is gone at WDW. I definitely could see Star Wars just not coming back and maybe Wine and Dine going away. I doubt they will get rid of the Marathon Weekend, but it may become the only races left in the next year or two. But that is not strictly Disney related. Running events are collapsing everywhere. A lot of bad actors damaged events, everyone doing a race for whatever charity or cause they could think of and inundated the market and the novelty has worn off. People are not as interested and the amount of participants (I almost said runners) just aren't there like used to be.

As for Disney weathering this storm. Sure, they will survive as a whole, and while they have money to survive, I think you will definitely see a lot of things get cancelled or scrapped that are not necessary or aren't far enough along to keep doing. Parks have helped support the company for a few years, but now they will be in the red for at least a year or two. I expect them to reduce the number of cast members across the board, eliminate some of those extra magic things (could be character meets, extra fireworks shows, etc). Anyone familiar with the parks for years can recall when the parks were just the parks and not non stop entertainment, shows and events. Even letting some of the talent in Epcot go already, that will probably spread. If its not making money, don't do it until they return to the profits they want.

They will have to convince people to come back and as already said, this virus is not going away. Flattening the curve prolongs the infection rates over a greater period of time. Right or wrong, that is the approach they are taking. Maybe they will be able to find some treatments that save lives, but people will still get it and lives will be lost. There is no right or wrong answer and this will be debated for years. Even after 9/11 it only took a year or two for everyone to rehash every decisions and politicians to try to explain away why the supported something at the time.

California races were more or less forced to stop. They had logistical issues, the Anaheim council and Disney weren’t getting along and the parks were going through some major construction.

Yes Tower and Everest stopped but you also had Star Wars added. runDisney also added virtual races and two Paris races. So there certainly was some additions with the lost events.

Wine and Dine sold out in minutes. It’s also an event they can connect to food and wine and play with the theme a bit.

I guess I need some evidence of events collapsing everywhere. At least not near me. Yes field sizes have come down a little bit I’m certainly not seeing events go away altogether.

Like you said they’ll need to convince people to come back. Disney does that with a few things, events like this, and discounts. Don’t expect a price drop but fully expect discounting on packages and rooms.

 

[Dopey 2020]

How I spent my morning,
I still plan on completing my training runs and will run my own challenge in four weeks. Going to make the best of it and hope Wine and Dine as well as Marathon Weekend work out as planned.

 

[mmm_texas]

My DH and I are new to the virtual race, so please forgive what is probably an easy question. We had signed up for the Kessel Run Challenge. To submit our virtual times, I found the link to do the certificates. At the end of that, there was a tab that said “submit time,” which I hit and then printed the certificates. Is there somewhere else to submit time to make it official (and to get the medals), or am I overthinking it and I’m done? I can’t seem to locate any other place to submit the time. Thanks, and sorry for what is probably such a basic question.

Congratulations on finishing! I'm new to this as well, also signed up for the Kessel Run Challenge, and also expected a little more when I submitted my time. But as I understand it now that's all there is to it. Since it's on the honor system the time is just used to generate your certificate, and you get the medal no matter what.

 

[1lilspark]

FWIW tower was essentially replaced with wine & dine becoming a day race and adding the 10K/Challenge & Everest being replaced by Star Wars due to later DAK hours brought on by Pandora + Studio construction

When I made my initial comments on here and possibly even the W&D board my reasoning behind RD ending/being on a hiatus was based on the fact that Epcot construction will now be greatly set back + the company wanting to allocate the funds used to put on the races to other fascists of the company

 

[rteetz]

FWIW tower was essentially replaced with wine & dine becoming a day race and adding the 10K/Challenge & Everest being replaced by Star Wars due to later DAK hours brought on by Pandora + Studio construction

When I made my initial comments on here and possibly even the W&D board my reasoning behind RD ending/being on a hiatus was based on the fact that Epcot construction will now be greatly set back + the company wanting to allocate the funds used to put on the races to other fascists of the company

They’d cut other things to work on Epcot before cutting something like runDisney. runDisney and construction don’t come from the same pool of money. Much of the Epcot project is already budgeted for. Delays of course will happen at this point but they aren’t going to cut major events to fund construction, that’s not how it works.

 

[camaker]

FWIW tower was essentially replaced with wine & dine becoming a day race and adding the 10K/Challenge & Everest being replaced by Star Wars due to later DAK hours brought on by Pandora + Studio construction

When I made my initial comments on here and possibly even the W&D board my reasoning behind RD ending/being on a hiatus was based on the fact that Epcot construction will now be greatly set back + the company wanting to allocate the funds used to put on the races to other fascists of the company

I hope you mean”facets” of the company!

If anything, Disney needs more events like this during construction efforts, not less. They offer an enticement to people who might normally say “there’s so much construction right now, I’ll delay my visit until after it’s done.”

 

[TisBit]

California races were more or less forced to stop. They had logistical issues, the Anaheim council and Disney weren’t getting along and the parks were going through some major construction.

Yes Tower and Everest stopped but you also had Star Wars added. runDisney also added virtual races and two Paris races. So there certainly was some additions with the lost events.

Wine and Dine sold out in minutes. It’s also an event they can connect to food and wine and play with the theme a bit.

I guess I need some evidence of events collapsing everywhere. At least not near me. Yes field sizes have come down a little bit I’m certainly not seeing events go away altogether.

Like you said they’ll need to convince people to come back. Disney does that with a few things, events like this, and discounts. Don’t expect a price drop but fully expect discounting on packages and rooms.

Correct, the California races had other implications. I think Paris is also a bit different, its a completely different clientele and is used to try to get some of those runners to go to Paris. Big races are still going, as they have long before races were a fad. Marathon weekend prior to 2014 (I think) was a completely different atmosphere and Disney included room and ticket discounts to get people in. My first Disney Half race (and the last one that had room/ticket discounts) I literally signed up for about 5 weeks before the race. Up to the actual start of the race, you could sign up. Star Wars this year did not sell out and still had half registrations available until they cancelled it.

But, there are not nearly as many 5k races and even fun runs like color runs and such as there once was. At the height of the running fad, there was a 5k almost every weekend in the town next to us and you often had your choice of a 5k on any given weekend within a 30 minute drive. Now, you might be able to find one 5k a month happening. Charity's and fundraisers saw more and more competition and less and less participants over the last 3-5 years. 5 years ago, every Disney race sold out almost immediately.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

Yes. I believe closing everything for 2-3 months is wrong. The damage it will do to the economy, society and infrastructure/supply chain that all of us rely on to live will far out weigh the damage the virus does.

You seem to be taking a very extreme view point - people are buying guns to prepare for an economic apocalypse so we should just let people die to prevent that because more people are going to die if we don't. I'm not sure how people we can make you feel better. I think that maybe you should stop watching the news for a few days.

 

[1lilspark]

They’d cut other things to work on Epcot before cutting something like runDisney. runDisney and construction don’t come from the same pool of money. Much of the Epcot project is already budgeted for. Delays of course will happen at this point but they aren’t going to cut major events to fund construction, that’s not how it works.

With Epcot construction I’m talking about physically running as I know more walls were added between Princess/current closures I mean they can always reroute

I hope you mean”facets” of the company!

I was autocorrect

 

[rteetz]

Correct, the California races had other implications. I think Paris is also a bit different, its a completely different clientele and is used to try to get some of those runners to go to Paris. Big races are still going, as they have long before races were a fad. Marathon weekend prior to 2014 (I think) was a completely different atmosphere and Disney included room and ticket discounts to get people in. My first Disney Half race (and the last one that had room/ticket discounts) I literally signed up for about 5 weeks before the race. Up to the actual start of the race, you could sign up. Star Wars this year did not sell out and still had half registrations available until they cancelled it.

But, there are not nearly as many 5k races and even fun runs like color runs and such as there once was. At the height of the running fad, there was a 5k almost every weekend in the town next to us and you often had your choice of a 5k on any given weekend within a 30 minute drive. Now, you might be able to find one 5k a month happening. Charity's and fundraisers saw more and more competition and less and less participants over the last 3-5 years. 5 years ago, every Disney race sold out almost immediately.

Disney did those discounts because they needed to in order to fill rooms. Discounts have been less over recent years and/or they have more requirements such as certain length of stay or must have park hoppers and stuff like that. Disney races have definitely died down a little bit but still are very popular. Like I noted earlier wine and dine sold out no problem within hours of registration opening.

 

[rteetz]

With Epcot construction I’m talking about physically running as I know more walls were added between Princess/current closures I mean they can always reroute

There was but nothing that would prevent the finish area used for Princess with exiting out of world showcase and under guardians.

 

[Critter2020]

How I spent my morning,
I still plan on completing my training runs and will run my own challenge in four weeks. Going to make the best of it and hope Wine and Dine as well as Marathon Weekend work out as planned.
[/QUOTE]

I'm in! I'm planning on keeping up my training and do my own run on the original runDisney date. I have come a long way on my journey and lost 65 lbs over the past year and a half. I'm remaining positive. I have a 10 mile run tomorrow, then the next 3 Sundays are 8.2, 11m, 12m and 13. As I mentioned in a prior post, I'm going to do the wine and dine too. I'll switch (run with Hal) to a new training plan after the 13.1 on April 19th.

May the force be with you!

 

[TisBit]

Disney did those discounts because they needed to in order to fill rooms. Discounts have been less over recent years and/or they have more requirements such as certain length of stay or must have park hoppers and stuff like that. Disney races have definitely died down a little bit but still are very popular. Like I noted earlier wine and dine sold out no problem within hours of registration opening.

Yeah, which is kind of where I was going with it, prior to 2014 the race wasn't enough. When the race fad kicked in, they no longer need extra incentives and the races took off. They could lose races like Tower of Terror and the timing was good for that race to stop for construction and never come back, because that was about the same timing as less participants all around.

There will be an effect of "another" cancelled race. Yes, all with good reason and very little backlash that participants were cheated when something happened. But, it can create a further pause in people signing up, especially early. I think Marathon Weekend will stay, it is the staple and Star Wars and Wine and Dine will stay as long as they are bringing in money. They are not necessarily as much about a super slow time of year, like the Marathon Weekend originated as.

 

[TisBit]

And I will say this is even true for me, about will I sign up again. I have run every Run Disney Race, with the exception of Star Wars, Paris and Everest. Everest ended the year before I was looking to do it, but the format just wasn't a huge draw for me. The Star Wars I would have likely done the year after Anaheim was cancelled and was kind of waiting to see if it might eventually come back.

So, this was our year. We signed up, I was ready to do it and kind of take a break from RunDisney. I did Marathon Weekend, only because my daughter was finally old enough to do it and I thought it would be a cool first half marathon for her. If I had gotten Star Wars, I likely would have taken 2-3 years off then looked at the castle to castle as a big splurge and to have a reason to go to Paris Disneyland!!!

 

[Nina0126]

Ok, help me out here guys: does anyone have a bib from the 2019 SWRR kids races?

If so, can you take a picture of it and post it on here? I've been looking online and haven't been able to find a clear picture of them.

I was supposed to do the kids races with my best friend's kids (they were really looking forward to it, too ) but since everything got cancelled I wanted to make them bibs so they can run the distance in their backyard on "race day."

TIA!

 

[Nina0126]

If I had gotten Star Wars, I likely would have taken 2-3 years off then looked at the castle to castle as a big splurge and to have a reason to go to Paris Disneyland!!!

That was me this year. My mom and I were planning on SWRR next month and DLPR in September and finally go to DLP, runDisney to earn the C2C medal and visit Europe for the first time. 2020 is the 5th anniversary for both races, so that was the icing on the cake. 3 or 4 birds with one stone, lol.

In a way, I'm kind of glad I was holding out for bib only DLPR registration to really start working on everything as I would be having to deal with a lot of headache right about now trying to cancel stuff.

 

[Novatrix]

Ok, help me out here guys: does anyone have a bib from the 2019 SWRR kids races?

If so, can you take a picture of it and post it on here? I've been looking online and haven't been able to find a clear picture of them.

I was supposed to do the kids races with my best friend's kids (they were really looking forward to it, too ) but since everything got cancelled I wanted to make them bibs so they can run the distance in their backyard on "race day."

TIA!

I don't have last year's bib, but would this work?

 

[hecmd23]

Here’s last year‘s bib, my son ran the 200m. I just erased his name (sorry I do not have the best photoshop skills)

 

[smctopia]

My medal for the virtual arrived today. The spinner on it is very cool and it's quite heavy! I wonder if Run Disney saw a spike in people registering for this once the other races got cancelled since this one goes until March 31.

 

[Krandor]

If this collapses runDisney than one would have to assume it collapses many other races. Sure it’s a possibility but I think it’s one of the last ones anyone is thinking right now including Disney themselves. I for one am really failing to see right now why this is a big possibility because frankly it isn’t. Not saying it couldn’t get there but at this point in time it’s just not.

Yeah at this pint RD has had to cancel one race and doesn't have another one until November. So at this point parks reopening on April 1 or even august 1 has little effect on them other then planning purposes.

I do a lot of OCR races and have seen a lot of companies fail but one race cancellation doesn't fail them. It is overextendeding too much too quickly kinda things which rundisney doesn't have and when they fail it is multiple cancellations at a time.

As for the comment about racing in general collapsing somebody else said, I'll add to the OCR comment above. There wa a period a few years back when a lot of novelty races like color run and glow run became real popular and on the back of that there were a lot of "copycat" type races trying to take advantage and like the OCRs above a lot of these started and then tried doing events in 20 cities in year 2 and it just didn't want. It was oversaturation and races trying to do more then they had capitl and manpower to do.

So yes overall there are fewer races today then there were a year or two ago but that was mostly these novelty and theme races that spiked and peaked and while some are around are not near as prevelant. Your traditional race that were there before are mostly stil around. I like in Atlanta and Atlanta Track Club still does great and tons of events. They do some themed races (like an NFL and MLB themed race) but those are still very well attended, still put on the largest 10K in the world, and just hosted the Olympic trials. NYRR and Boston and places like that are still doing fine as well as well as series like rock and roll.

Any reduction in races are a lot of these piggy back races who were trying to just ride a wave and failed. The tried and true races are still fine and there some newcomes over the past few years who have done good (like on the OCR side Bonefrog) by controlling growth to something reasonable.

Just may 2 cents.