Morton Games, Friday 22nd July

RayCun

This Friday evening - field events starting around 5pm, IMC races from about 5.30, and the international programme of track races starting at 7. Ciara Mageean, Thomas Barr, Amy Foster, Joan and Phil Healy, David Gillick, and a bunch of other Irish and international athletes.

10 euro in, 15 for a seat in the stand, under 16s are free
http://mortongames.ie/spectator-information/

and if you can't survive three hours without a pint , the Clonliffe clubhouse bar is open

Myles Splitz

RayCun wrote: »

This Friday evening - field events starting around 5pm, IMC races from about 5.30, and the international programme of track races starting at 7. Ciara Mageean, Thomas Barr, Amy Foster, Joan and Phil Healy, David Gillick, and a bunch of other Irish and international athletes.

10 euro in, 15 for a seat in the stand, under 16s are free
http://mortongames.ie/spectator-information/

and if you can't survive three hours without a pint , the Clonliffe clubhouse bar is open

Will be working in the treatment room myself at it again this year so may not see a whole lot of the action or beers but definitely some great events on show

Looks to be some good depth in the Men's 800 with 9 sub 1.47 lads towing the line including Mexican,New Zealand, World University and European Junior Champions

Myles Splitz

Flotrack covering pre Morton Games session for Cory McGee (one of the favs for the womens mile)

http://www.flotrack.org/video/985434-workout-cory-mcgee-does-5x300-with-perfect-pacing-before-morton-games

RayCun

Was that a boardsie beside me when I was talking to David Gillick after his race?

morceli

Great evening of races really needs to be promoted better as its a great event .

Chivito550

Organisers have a lot to answer for having a separate pricing structure for the main stand. It was about 40% full as a result and had no atmosphere. Poor crowd in general, but there were no big international stars (like Blake last year).

dublin runner

Chivito550 wrote:

Organisers have a lot to answer for having a separate pricing structure for the main stand. It was about 40% full as a result and had no atmosphere. Poor crowd in general, but there were no big international stars (like Blake last year).

I think it's fair enough to pay a bit extra for a seat.

The lack of advertising was shocking. I only heard last week it was on because someone mentioned it to me. Think I saw one advertisement this week. It's like they wanted to keep it a secret!

Chivito550

dublin runner wrote: »

I think it's fair enough to pay a bit extra for a seat.

The lack of advertising was shocking. I only heard last week it was on because someone mentioned it to me. Think I saw one advertisement this week. It's like they wanted to keep it a secret!

No it's not. It's stupid. Last year the stand was pretty much full when it was just a flat fare into the grounds. This year just over a third full. There's your answer. People have voted with their feet. Many people up in the stand were VIPs too who wouldn't have paid. Literally everybody I talked to in the clubhouse after thought it was a really stupid move.

Murph_D

Well I paid the fiver extra for the stand but there was no one checking tickets so anyone could go up there anyway!

Chivito550

Murph_D wrote: »

Well I paid the fiver extra for the stand but there was no one checking tickets so anyone could go up there anyway!

I saw guys checking tickets.

Chivito550

One of the recent years, not sure which year:



This year, at around 8:20pm, around the time of the men's 400m:



I rest my case.

Murph_D

Chivito550 wrote: »

I saw guys checking tickets.

They must have gone home early!

Birdsong

morceli wrote:

Great evening of races really needs to be promoted better as its a great event .

dublin runner wrote:

The lack of advertising was shocking. I only heard last week it was on because someone mentioned it to me. Think I saw one advertisement this week. It's like they wanted to keep it a secret!

Very true, have been before & really enjoyed it. However didn't know if was on until Thursday night which was to late. Didn't even see a Facebook post on it.

RayCun

They have a Facebook page and twitter account and were forwarded by the athletics Ireland account, and I got a flier in email with a request to send on to our members.

I'm just curious, what kind of advertising should they be doing that would reach more athletics fans?

average_runner

RayCun wrote: »

They have a Facebook page and twitter account and were forwarded by the athletics Ireland account, and I got a flier in email with a request to send on to our members.

I'm just curious, what kind of advertising should they be doing that would reach more athletics fans?

A4 page in the papers, popup on all national news papers website.

Flyers at races even.

Chivito550

average_runner wrote: »

A4 page in the papers, popup on all national news papers website.

Flyers at races even.

To be fair, they don't exactly have a high budget.

Myles Splitz

RayCun wrote: »

They have a Facebook page and twitter account and were forwarded by the athletics Ireland account, and I got a flier in email with a request to send on to our members.

I'm just curious, what kind of advertising should they be doing that would reach more athletics fans?

+1 bit bemused by the advertisement comment's perhaps it was because I was at the event in a working capacity (not the organisational side) and was aware of it but in terms of social media presence over past few months I saw regular updates

Facebook:

- Morton Games Page
- IMC page
- Dublin Athletics Board
- Athletics Ireland

and in terms of twitter blasts
- Cork City Sports Page
- Irish Paralympic page
- Numerous clubs
- Athletics Ireland
- IMC
- Bring back the mile page
- Numerous athletes from US and Aus tweeting and retweeting info

On top of this:

http://www.irishsportscouncil.ie/Media/Latest_News/Mageean%20to%20headline%20Morton%20Games.html

http://sportsnewsireland.com/other_sports/european-medal-winner-ciara-mageean-the-star-attraction-at-morton-games

http://www.rte.ie/sport/olympics/2016/0721/803988-mageean-to-tweak-rio-preparation-at-morton-games/

http://www.athleticsireland.ie/news/mageean-to-headline-exciting-morton-games

http://www.discoverireland.ie/Whats-On/morton-games/512562

http://irishrunner.com/ciara-mageean-to-pursue-irish-800-record-at-friday-nights-morton-games/

https://dublin.ie/whats-on/listings/morton-games/

Despite the attendance the meet itself was top notch with many great performances;

Stadium records in the PV and Women's Mile, Mageean going 4th on the alltime list for 800m, Robinson continuing his comeback with a sub 4 performance.

Given the proximity to Rio, the fact that many have travelled to US for final prep for the games and the European season in a bit of a lull outside of the Diamond League meetings was always gonna be hard to have star pulling power on board (remember despite Blake being a house hold name last year he was in worst form of his career following his hamstring issues and couldn't get into the top meets)

The meet still attracted 2 World Medalists (Gordon and England) as well as a host of other top talent across.

Feedback from the athletes themselves was hugely positive also and seems to be getting more and more popular among the international athletes at least if not the fans.

happygoose

Myles Splitz wrote: »

+1 bit bemused by the advertisement comment's perhaps it was because I was at the event in a working capacity and was aware of it but in terms of social media presence over past few months I saw regular updates

Facebook:

- Morton Games Page
- IMC page
- Dublin Athletics Board
- Athletics Ireland

and in terms of twitter blasts
- Cork City Sports Page
- Irish Paralympic page
- Numerous clubs
- Athletics Ireland
- IMC
- Bring back the mile page
- Numerous athletes from US and Aus tweeting and retweeting info

On top of this:

http://www.irishsportscouncil.ie/Media/Latest_News/Mageean%20to%20headline%20Morton%20Games.html

http://sportsnewsireland.com/other_sports/european-medal-winner-ciara-mageean-the-star-attraction-at-morton-games

http://www.rte.ie/sport/olympics/2016/0721/803988-mageean-to-tweak-rio-preparation-at-morton-games/

http://www.athleticsireland.ie/news/mageean-to-headline-exciting-morton-games

http://www.discoverireland.ie/Whats-On/morton-games/512562

http://irishrunner.com/ciara-mageean-to-pursue-irish-800-record-at-friday-nights-morton-games/

https://dublin.ie/whats-on/listings/morton-games/

Despite the attendance the meet itself was top notch with many great performances;

Stadium records in the PV and Women's Mile, Mageean going 4th on the alltime list for 800m, Robinson continuing his comeback with a sub 4 performance.

Given the proximity to Rio, the fact that many have travelled to US for final prep for the games and the European season in a bit of a lull outside of the Diamond League meetings was always gonna be hard to have star pulling power on board (remember despite Blake being a house hold name last year he was in worst form of his career following his hamstring issues and couldn't get into the top meets)

The meet still attracted 2 World Medalists (Gordon and England) as well as a host of other top talent across.

Feedback from the athletes themselves was hugely positive also and seems to be getting more and more popular among the international athletes at least if not the fans.

Brandolini's Law.

clear thinking

€15 for the stand is good value. If you don't want to stretch the fiver just don't pay it. Atmosphere was because 1000 this year, 3,000 last year. Still good atmosphere Imo anyway.

Chivito550

clear thinking wrote: »

€15 for the stand is good value. If you don't want to stretch the fiver just don't pay it. Atmosphere was because 1000 this year, 3,000 last year. Still good atmosphere Imo anyway.

I'd strongly disagree with absolutely everything you have said.

15 euro is not good value to sit up in the stand, when it was 10 for all parts of the ground last year.

And people simply did "just not pay it", so there were hordes of empty seats in the stand which looked dreadful, and resulted in a muted atmosphere up in the stand. I know because I was one of the fools who did shell out the extra fiver to sit up there, and ended up spending half the meet down around the bend, where there was some sort of atmosphere.

And assuming your figures are correct, a 66% drop in attendance in Olympic year is a poor result.

morceli

RayCun wrote: »

They have a Facebook page and twitter account and were forwarded by the athletics Ireland account, and I got a flier in email with a request to send on to our members.

I'm just curious, what kind of advertising should they be doing that would reach more athletics fans?

1. Make sure our best run - we don't have many internal class athletes and should be mandatory for anyone that is funded to run.
2. I know a lot of armchair fans and none of them knew is was on, if I didn't follow them on Twitter they would have missed out.
3. Some clubs didn't know it was on , so communication missing there .
4. News even after the event it wasn't even mentioned on any of our news stations (radio) and the ones that I listen to.
Do they give free tickets to all juvenile clubs in the area?

Chivito550

morceli wrote: »

1. Make sure our best run - we don't have many internal class athletes and should be mandatory for anyone that is funded to run.
2. I know a lot of armchair fans and none of them knew is was on, if I didn't follow them on Twitter they would have missed out.
3. Some clubs didn't know it was on , so communication missing there .
4. News even after the event it wasn't even mentioned on any of our news stations (radio) and the ones that I listen to.
Do they give free tickets to all juvenile clubs in the area?

Your first point is flawed. Why force Mark English to run against B graders when he could be in London racing some of the best in the world? That is not in the interests of our best athletes.

Maybe they should stop scheduling it the same weekend of London DL. Same happened last year.

dublin runner

Myles Splitz wrote: »

+1 bit bemused by the advertisement comment's perhaps it was because I was at the event in a working capacity (not the organisational side) and was aware of it but in terms of social media presence over past few months I saw regular updates

Facebook:

- Morton Games Page
- IMC page
- Dublin Athletics Board
- Athletics Ireland

and in terms of twitter blasts
- Cork City Sports Page
- Irish Paralympic page
- Numerous clubs
- Athletics Ireland
- IMC
- Bring back the mile page
- Numerous athletes from US and Aus tweeting and retweeting info

Sorry, I would have to completely disagree . The marketing 'campaign' was shambolic and resembled how the GAA promotes it games game i.e pretty terribly. All the above is targeting the same audience. What about everyone else? To really succeed and engage with the public one must campaign to both the serious athletics supporter and the general public at large. You have to create a story (Ciara M., for example) to drum up interest and capture media attention, not just stick an post of Facebook.

Now, I really enjoyed the previous two years but unfortunately was working that day so could not attend. With that said there was definitely less of a build-up this year in my opinion. Of course that may be Olympics related.

RayCun

Probably a bit of spectator fatigue this year , with the early nationals and the European champs, and Olympics still to come. And the internationals make it harder to get the athletes

Chivito550

RayCun wrote: »

Probably a bit of spectator fatigue this year , with the early nationals and the European champs, and Olympics still to come. And the internationals make it harder to get the athletes

Attendance at Nationals was low because of Euro 2016. Not a huge amount of Irish went to Amsterdam, probably less will go to Rio. You can't have "spectator fatigue" when there are no spectators!

Why do we make excuses for the poor attendance? They didn't get the numbers, so they need to figure out why, and rectify it next year. Simple as that.

Chivito550

dublin runner wrote: »

Sorry, I would have to completely disagree . The marketing 'campaign' was shambolic and resembled how the GAA promotes it games game i.e pretty terribly. All the above is targeting the same audience. What about everyone else? To really succeed and engage with the public one must campaign to both the serious athletics supporter and the general public at large. You have to create a story (Ciara M., for example) to drum up interest and capture media attention, not just stick an post of Facebook.

Now, I really enjoyed the previous two years but unfortunately was working that day so could not attend. With that said there was definitely less of a build-up this year in my opinion. Of course that may be Olympics related.

Agreed. Why not put flyers in fun run goody bags. Promote the event at these type of fun runs. Try narrow the disconnect between recreational running and track and field. Kill 2 birds with one stone.

average_runner

Myles Splitz wrote: »

+1 bit bemused by the advertisement comment's perhaps it was because I was at the event in a working capacity (not the organisational side) and was aware of it but in terms of social media presence over past few months I saw regular updates

Facebook:

- Morton Games Page
- IMC page
- Dublin Athletics Board
- Athletics Ireland

and in terms of twitter blasts
- Cork City Sports Page
- Irish Paralympic page
- Numerous clubs
- Athletics Ireland
- IMC
- Bring back the mile page
- Numerous athletes from US and Aus tweeting and retweeting info

On top of this:

http://www.irishsportscouncil.ie/Media/Latest_News/Mageean%20to%20headline%20Morton%20Games.html

http://sportsnewsireland.com/other_sports/european-medal-winner-ciara-mageean-the-star-attraction-at-morton-games

http://www.rte.ie/sport/olympics/2016/0721/803988-mageean-to-tweak-rio-preparation-at-morton-games/

http://www.athleticsireland.ie/news/mageean-to-headline-exciting-morton-games

http://www.discoverireland.ie/Whats-On/morton-games/512562

http://irishrunner.com/ciara-mageean-to-pursue-irish-800-record-at-friday-nights-morton-games/

https://dublin.ie/whats-on/listings/morton-games/

Despite the attendance the meet itself was top notch with many great performances;

Stadium records in the PV and Women's Mile, Mageean going 4th on the alltime list for 800m, Robinson continuing his comeback with a sub 4 performance.

Given the proximity to Rio, the fact that many have travelled to US for final prep for the games and the European season in a bit of a lull outside of the Diamond League meetings was always gonna be hard to have star pulling power on board (remember despite Blake being a house hold name last year he was in worst form of his career following his hamstring issues and couldn't get into the top meets)

The meet still attracted 2 World Medalists (Gordon and England) as well as a host of other top talent across.

Feedback from the athletes themselves was hugely positive also and seems to be getting more and more popular among the international athletes at least if not the fans.

Your hitting a select audience there though, to get the general public interest they need to do more.

average_runner

Chivito550 wrote: »

To be fair, they don't exactly have a high budget.

Fair enough, but what about having their staff promoting it at parkruns, low cost there. There is ways but the PR team is very poor.

Was there any push at the docklands 5k for it?

Chivito550

average_runner wrote: »

Fair enough, but what about having their staff promoting it at parkruns, low cost there. There is ways but the PR team is very poor.

Was there any push at the docklands 5k for it?

Isn't it run by Clonliffe Harriers AC? It's all volunteer based as far as I understand.

average_runner

Chivito550 wrote: »

Isn't it run by Clonliffe Harriers AC? It's all volunteer based as far as I understand.

Still no excuse for not promoting it at parkruns or other races, it's what other clubs do and they are volunteers

clear thinking

Chivito550 wrote: »

Why do we make excuses for the poor attendance? They didn't get the numbers, so they need to figure out why, and rectify it next year. Simple as that.

Poor attendance may have been due to the lack of a big name. Media wont pick up on any event like this without a few big names - eg. blake last year. Someone like blake costs money, big money. As does actual advertising. The only way a club event can get coverage is if there is a story that will get free press, plenty of hacks on here will affirm that.

Athletics has also had major bad press recently so there's no doubt that any walk-up spectators didn't walk up.

As for value on 15 quid, you have a better view from the stand, its worth a fiver more. My ma went and had a great time watching from the stand.

The amount of people I've heard whinging about this offline is unreal too. It was flawlessly run, 3 minutes ahead of schedule by the end, the stadium was set up to take a crowd if a crowd showed up. For a tenner you got to be on a grass bank 20m from the finish line. Multiple meet records, the last four races were top class to say the least. The athletics crowd is always going to be about 1,000.

Unless someone want to rock up with €100k to spend on big names and big advertising this is gonna be as good as it gets, so why not write to the volunteers running it to ask for your fiver back.

Chivito550

clear thinking wrote: »

Poor attendance may have been due to the lack of a big name. Media wont pick up on any event like this without a few big names - eg. blake last year. Someone like blake costs money, big money. As does actual advertising. The only way a club event can get coverage is if there is a story that will get free press, plenty of hacks on here will affirm that.

Athletics has also had major bad press recently so there's no doubt that any walk-up spectators didn't walk up.

As for value on 15 quid, you have a better view from the stand, its worth a fiver more. My ma went and had a great time watching from the stand.

The amount of people I've heard whinging about this offline is unreal too. It was flawlessly run, 3 minutes ahead of schedule by the end, the stadium was set up to take a crowd if a crowd showed up. For a tenner you got to be on a grass bank 20m from the finish line. Multiple meet records, the last four races were top class to say the least. The athletics crowd is always going to be about 1,000.

Unless someone want to rock up with €100k to spend on big names and big advertising this is gonna be as good as it gets, so why not write to the volunteers running it to ask for your fiver back.

More excuses. Blake wasn't there 2 years ago and the crowd was about 3 times as big. The cost was a tenner, and you could enter the stand with that. The stand was full. The stand would have been close to full on Friday if they kept that the same.

I don't want my fiver back. I knew the cost and I was prepared to pay. But most people clearly weren't, so therefore it was proven to be a poor decision. I'm not moaning about the loss of a fiver. I'm moaning about the loss of a full crowd sitting up in the stand, providing atmosphere for the athletes on the home straight. I found the atmosphere so muted I ended up spending half the meet sitting on the bank on the bend, even though it provided a poor view of the 100m and 400m.

shiibata

Was just an unlucky night for it, sitting at home, I was able watch the World Juniors, the Morton games and the Diamond League. Was a great night of athletics between the 3, although didn't find out til after a few races were over at Santry, that there was an actual stream..

morceli

Chivito550 wrote: »

Your first point is flawed. Why force Mark English to run against B graders when he could be in London racing some of the best in the world? That is not in the interests of our best athletes.

Maybe they should stop scheduling it the same weekend of London DL. Same happened last year.

Yes I know it's flawed and was waiting for you to make that point. But still if athletes know they expected they can plan their season around it.

RayCun

attendance was 1300 two years ago, so last year's attendance was the outlier

average_runner

morceli wrote: »

Yes I know it's flawed and was waiting for you to make that point. But still if athletes know they expected they can plan their season around it.

To be honest, if your going to want our top athletes to run here, give them the respect they deserve and give them the quality race where it will test them. A soft race is a joke and a insult to Mark

clear thinking

Chivito550 wrote: »

More excuses. Blake wasn't there 2 years ago and the crowd was about 3 times as big.

I'm moaning about the loss of a full crowd sitting up in the stand, providing atmosphere for the athletes on the home straight. I found the atmosphere so muted I ended up spending half the meet sitting on the bank on the bend, even though it provided a poor view of the 100m and 400m.

The first point is totally made up to fit your narrative. Let's call a spade a spade: 2,000 extra people showed up last year to see a former drug cheat hoping he'd break 10s.

Your point on atmosphere may be valid, but that's comparing it to the bigger crowd, which, short of the organisers sponsorship fantasies coming true, wont happen very often - once in a blue moon when a high profile athlete is looking for a low key comeback for example.

morceli

Exactly build it around our best.

average_runner

morceli wrote: »

Exactly build it around our best.

No point having our best running against poor quality. We slate Mo Farrah for doing that

Chivito550

clear thinking wrote: »

The first point is totally made up to fit your narrative. Let's call a spade a spade: 2,000 extra people showed up last year to see a former drug cheat hoping he'd break 10s.

Your point on atmosphere may be valid, but that's comparing it to the bigger crowd, which, short of the organisers sponsorship fantasies coming true, wont happen very often - once in a blue moon when a high profile athlete is looking for a low key comeback for example.

It felt like there were considerably more people there is 2014 than this year. Maybe it was a poor distribution of supporters in the grounds that made it feel like even less than it was this year. Organisers should be ensuring a full grandstand. How you can defend the decision that allowed a two thirds empty stand to happen is beyond me. 2 years ago the stand was virtually full. I've been to the last 3 years of it and this year had by far the poorest atmosphere.

Chivito550

morceli wrote: »

Yes I know it's flawed and was waiting for you to make that point. But still if athletes know they expected they can plan their season around it.

No. This isn't a national championship. They have zero obligation to compete at Morton Games. Most Irish athletes would choose a DL meet over MG if they could. Very few are actually good enough to have the choice.

Ososlo

Imo, there should focus on targetting the non-running public, just as much as they are the clubs and athletics societies, and running related social media sites. Just because one is a runner, doesn't mean one automatically has an interest in watching pro athletics. I know a few runners who couldn't name one current professional Irish athlete and couldn't care less. I know quite a few people who have never run a step in their lives, but who are very interested in athletics but would not have been aware that this event was taking place but might have travelled to see it.

I think they could do much more locally to promote it too. Duffy's Circus is on in the area at the moment. Every man, woman and child is aware of this, as there are posters all over the shop. I think I only saw one poster on main entrance to the stadium for this event, but there was very little info on it. No list of events that I could see.
They have an enormous passing audience they are losing out on being made aware of this event also. It's a very busy road with the airport etc..
With Athletics Ireland and the SSC all very close to the stadium, it's becoming a bit of an athletics hub which is fantastic.
Inside the park next to the stadium, there was no information about what was taking place that night, just a sign with some prices on it and a closed gate. Passing people wouldn't have had a clue what was going on inside. There should have been a poster with a list of events, and athletes taking part, highlighting some of the big names who will be representing us in Rio and that gate should have been an entry gate, or at least had directions to main gate. It didn't look very welcoming. There should have been posters up for a few weeks prior to the event.

Just some ramblings...

average_runner

Ososlo wrote: »

Imo, there should focus on targetting the non-running public, just as much as they are the clubs and athletics societies, and running related social media sites. Just because one is a runner, doesn't mean one automatically has an interest in watching pro athletics. I know a few runners who couldn't name one current professional Irish athlete and couldn't care less. I know quite a few people who have never run a step in their lives, but who are very interested in athletics but would not have been aware that this event was taking place but might have travelled to see it.

I think they could do much more locally to promote it too. Duffy's Circus is on in the area at the moment. Every man, woman and child is aware of this, as there are posters all over the shop. I think I only saw one poster on main entrance to the stadium for this event, but there was very little info on it. No list of events that I could see.
They have an enormous passing audience they are losing out on being made aware of this event also. It's a very busy road with the airport etc..
With Athletics Ireland and the SSC all very close to the stadium, it's becoming a bit of an athletics hub which is fantastic.
Inside the park next to the stadium, there was no information about what was taking place that night, just a sign with some prices on it and a closed gate. Passing people wouldn't have had a clue what was going on inside. There should have been a poster with a list of events, and athletes taking part, highlighting some of the big names who will be representing us in Rio and that gate should have been an entry gate, or at least had directions to main gate. It didn't look very welcoming. There should have been posters up for a few weeks prior to the event.

Just some ramblings...

Well said.

Timmaay

Ososlo wrote: »

Imo, there should focus on targetting the non-running public, just as much as they are the clubs and athletics societies, and running related social media sites. Just because one is a runner, doesn't mean one automatically has an interest in watching pro athletics. I know a few runners who couldn't name one current professional Irish athlete and couldn't care less. I know quite a few people who have never run a step in their lives, but who are very interested in athletics but would not have been aware that this event was taking place but might have travelled to see it.

I think they could do much more locally to promote it too. Duffy's Circus is on in the area at the moment. Every man, woman and child is aware of this, as there are posters all over the shop. I think I only saw one poster on main entrance to the stadium for this event, but there was very little info on it. No list of events that I could see.
They have an enormous passing audience they are losing out on being made aware of this event also. It's a very busy road with the airport etc..
With Athletics Ireland and the SSC all very close to the stadium, it's becoming a bit of an athletics hub which is fantastic.
Inside the park next to the stadium, there was no information about what was taking place that night, just a sign with some prices on it and a closed gate. Passing people wouldn't have had a clue what was going on inside. There should have been a poster with a list of events, and athletes taking part, highlighting some of the big names who will be representing us in Rio and that gate should have been an entry gate, or at least had directions to main gate. It didn't look very welcoming. There should have been posters up for a few weeks prior to the event.

Just some ramblings...

On the point about non running public, personally I think when it's mostly a volunteer effort I think focusing the advertising effort on just clubs and largely ignoring the more general public is a reasonable step. You make a valid point that not all club athletes are Interested in the likes of the morton games, whereas some of the general public are, however I'm sure if you break down the statistics something like 50% of club members will be interested, whereas I'd guess less than 1% of the general public will! Capturing the attention of the likes of 20000 club members, and hoping to get 3k of them to attend is in my view a hell of alot easier and cheaper than targeting 300k of the general public and getting 1% of them.

However I'll agree with your final sentence, about adding a personal element to it, the one marketing trick that was largely missed was ciara mageeans sub2 attempt, obviously using that as a headliner puts pressure on her but by now I'd be sure she'd handle it well, and would enjoy the extra exposure.

I'd agree also with previous comments that the 15e stand charge was largely a waste of time, and if anything it was abit of greed following last year's large attendance. Having a good atmosphere is vitally important for events like this, bumping up the ticket price at the very best will result in more profit for the organisers if they keep the same attendance of previous years (which of course would be great for clonliffe, especially if they made next year's event bigger and better as a result), however the potential downfalls far far outweight this upshot, with the risk of what happens this year, much reduced crowd, lesser atmosphere, which will reduce the incentive for international athletes to return again next year.

It's all a fine juggling act and I hate being critical considering the countless unpaid hours that goes into organizing it, I still hugely enjoyed the event this year as I do every year, however I would like to see it continue to grow and become bigger and better and I cannot help but consider the 15e stand tickets largely a failure.

morceli

average_runner wrote: »

No point having our best running against poor quality. We slate Mo Farrah for doing that

Where was the poor quality field ? In the 400h or 800m.
Could have got one or two maybe in the 800m but as shown in the nationals and cork city sport last year English wouldn have it that easy.
To beat Mo you need 12:5x runners for us it's a 1:45 800m runners and in sure we could get a few.

average_runner

morceli wrote: »

Where was the poor quality field ? In the 400h or 800m.
Could have got one or two maybe in the 800m but as shown in the nationals and cork city sport last year English wouldn have it that easy.
To beat Mo you need 12:5x runners for us it's a 1:45 800m runners and in sure we could get a few.

Mark English PB is 1:44.8, how many in that field from Friday are close to that?

Chivito550

morceli wrote: »

Where was the poor quality field ? In the 400h or 800m.
Could have got one or two maybe in the 800m but as shown in the nationals and cork city sport last year English wouldn have it that easy.
To beat Mo you need 12:5x runners for us it's a 1:45 800m runners and in sure we could get a few.

Do you really think it's in Mark English's best interests to be dragged kicking and screaming to Morton Games instead of competing against the likes of Amos over in London?

If there was no clash then I'm sure he would have run. He ran in 2013 and 2014.

morceli

Chivito550 wrote: »

morceli wrote: »

Where was the poor quality field ? In the 400h or 800m.
Could have got one or two maybe in the 800m but as shown in the nationals and cork city sport last year English wouldn have it that easy.
To beat Mo you need 12:5x runners for us it's a 1:45 800m runners and in sure we could get a few.

Do you really think it's in Mark English's best interests to be dragged kicking and screaming to Morton Games instead of competing against the likes of Amos over in London?

If there was no clash then I'm sure he would have run. He ran in 2013 and 2014.

If planned well in advance it wouldn't be a problem, but they way things were he was best to run in London. I'm talking ideally I would like to see all our top guy there , that would attract the public.
If i was me I would have had a 3000m women steeplechase also not often we have so many Olympians .

But I haven't organized an event like this and don't know the work involved, but sill think the organizers put on a great event. (just been selfish wanting to see our best compete)