Yay, challenge
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO in general. I would rather no challenge.
My letter to RD:
Not sure if this is even a monitored email address - but as a long time runDisney participant who has tried every one of your non-female specific races (not for lack of desire to do them but because I understand women want to have a women's race so I intentionally leave it to them), but hey why not, while I'm happy to finally have the info I think this is a huge mistake. I totally understand the reasoning behind this - you needed to add capacity and deal with the fairness issues associated with Corral A runners finishing and getting 2 hours more afterparty then Corral L finishers. I understand how if you added a daytime 10k, it wouldn't really draw people away from the half because people would be looking for that nighttime experience. But the solution here isnt to take away the nighttime experience. You could have had the 10k at night as well the day before, but then that leads to the problem of well do they get an afterparty (and hey I'm all for having 2 afterparties! but I certainly see the problems it would cause). The other option would have been to have 2 different races going off at the same time - this would have reduced the half marathon load significantly, but would have required you to realistically have either 2 separate starting areas, or more easily, use the left side of the road for the half, and the right side of the road for the 10k. But then no challenge, which means no extra entry fees/etc. While I don't envy you making these decisions I wish there was a way to keep the character of this race while addressing the capacity issues.
The whole experience of the night race was why this race sold out in MINUTES or less. In fact anyone in business can tell you when you have a product that's that hot, smart money doesn't get rid of that, you do more of it. You should have taken the Wine and Dine template and stamped out another race weekend or two that seemed exactly like it but with its own twist. If you wanted to double down on this idea easily a night race with after party - Star Wars finishing into Flower and Garden for a night party would have been spectacular, and would have actually sold out unlike the current version of the race. Yes Tower of Terror was never quite as popular but that is because it was literally competing with this race a month later, and the after party in DHS didn't even come close to the EPCOT experience. The park was crowded, cramped, the food and drink selections were pathetic to say the least, and the course cut the park cleanly in half causing all kinds of issues. You could barely go anywhere without having to deal with that.
But now the after party is going to be no different from any of
MNSSHP or
MVMCP, just at EPCOT. Its going to be something people goto, not a party after a long run. In fact I would almost even caution you that you're going to have to restrict sales of after party tickets as anyone who happens to be in the park that weekend might just want to buy those tickets, making it too crowded to be functional. You're not going to have people walking around with their bibs and running costumes, the little bit of a limp going station to station to get food. The smiles of accomplishment of people who literally just finished their first half marathon and can't wait to tell you all about it. The sage advice from us experienced folks like "oh you're having trouble going down the hill, try walking backwards". The general camaraderie of 1000s of fellow runners all walking around meeting each other. You're not going to have the giant line of friends and family who are all waiting for their runners coming in cheering. You wont get the amazing exeriences of the parks at night, running through animal kingdom in the dark is almost haunting some years, and rivers of light could have been awesome. The reason this race was so popular was its uniqueness in your lineup of events.
You're going to have to pull something amazing off to set these "new" races apart from the older Wine and Dines as you have a lot of expectations to meet. I hope you keep that in mind in the planning of this event. And really plan something to knock peoples socks off to get them to forget the experience of the previous Wine and Dine's.
