I would be very grateful if I could pick the brains of riders and fellow organisers here.
I'm formulating my business plan and budget for LEL for 2025, and I face a significant challenge with costs. About 50% of my event costs relate to running controls, and prices in the three components of running controls - food, fuel and staff - have rocketed and continue to rise. I have several options to control this.
- I can increase the size of the event to bring in more revenue. This is high risk as I'm not sure whether demand for the event has plateaued or not. It also places a significant burden on controls, and although I can mitigate that by spreading the field out further, those extra riders still need to be fed and looked after.
- I can decrease the amount of paid staff. We have about 150 paid staff working at the event, mostly cooking and the heavy-duty cleaning. The only part of this I can safely hand over to volunteers is cleaning, and unsurprisingly volunteers do not want to spend long periods behind the scenes doing dirty work.
- I can cut back on catering. Rider feedback is quite clear on this though - they would like to see a better food offer, and reading through the feedback over the years one point jumps out. If the food at a control is low quality or unavailable, riders will hate every other aspect of the event. If they eat a good meal, they are generally happy with the event.
So my best option, as I can see it, is to raise the ticket price. The last time I did this was in 2017, in order to pay for better catering and cleaning support so volunteers could focus on looking after riders. I think I am going to have to raise the ticket price by another £90 compared to 2021/2 in order to meet inflation and to bring the quality of catering up to the standard of Moffat and Barnard Castle.
Can I ask your opinions on the challenge I face and the prospect of a price rise?
(Sorry to ask now as everyone is focussed on PBP, but I need to make my plans now rather than in the Autumn)