Music at Post Race Celebration

[Arlon]

Not all races lend themselves to this amenity but, for those that do,
locating decent music at a reasonable price is a chore (I know).
LOCO has already booked our band (The Spectras) for the Jun Will Run
for Beer 5K but I was just contacted by last year's band (All Together
Now) as they were looking for fun events to play at - they had a ball
at last year's WRFB. Anyway, they are a Beatles cover band and are a
big hit with runners of all ages and the kids that invariably get
dragged to the race. If any of you are intersted i can get you contact
info for the band. They are reasonable (around $1,000), play 2 sets
wrapped around the awards ceremony and even let us use their mike for
announcing race winners!
A

[Jay]

I agree that it is always nice to have live music at the end of a
race, regardless of the size of the race or the venue. I also agree
that finding good music can be challenging (many musicians don't
really want to be playing that early on a Saturday or Sunday), and the
price can be a limiting factor for some races. For the Great Bay 5K,
we have a versatile guitarist/singer who plays from when the first
finisher crosses the line until the award ceremony, and charges us
about $100 (his 'non-profit' rate). Before we had a mike set-up at our
building, he also let us use his mike/speakers for our award
ceremony.

If you don't have the budget for a great band like LOCO hires, you
might want to look at local fairs or the Portsmouth summer farmer's
market (where they have music every week) for good musicians who might
be a little more budget-friendly, and who are not afraid to play
earlier in the day.

Jay

[veteran.runner]

Though I have a personal interest in a positive comment here, I will say
that at Applefest we've had a professional announcer and a band for a number
of years.

At an event of any size the race management is way too busy to notice that
the event may be quiet, dull and may border on boring unless there is music,
regular instruction or other perhaps interesting information. This is
particularly true during and after runners are finishing.

Keeping runners around for the awards is difficult at best but when they
notice a long wait (because there is nothing to distract them) more will
leave than might have stayed had they been entertained.

Most bands are happy to work for way less than $1000. However bands that
play pubs may not be good for a race. The volume needs to be controlled and
the song choices need to fit the age of the crowd.

Here is how I look at costs at races. For instance

I figure if it cost me the entry fees of 20 runners to have a band to keep
the other 400-800 people much happier and likely to come back, that is a
great deal.

Steve

Jay

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[Mike St Laurent]

ANY time you can upgrade your "Race" into an "Event" you will see positive benefits.
For larger events, where weather is not too much of a concern, a concert is always much appreciated

Entertainment in any form, creates more of an ambiance,  The longer you extend the fun aspect of the race, the better the
"event" experience.  So even though we poo poo a race Expo the day before, - this actually adds some cache to the event
You may run into an old friend, go out on the town or whatever in that area because of the expo..

So even if your race SUCKED big time, you had a good time at the After-race party and well you' just might come back..
Mike out.


.

--
Mike St. Laurent
LOCO Sports, Inc.
603 659 2824

[Kiyoshi]

New Hampshire Acoustic Music Association is a good place to find local
musicians. http://nhama.org/

On Mar 29, 11:16 am, "veteran.runner" <veteran.run...@gmail.com>
wrote: