A question I'm sure most Relays have to deal with. When do you end your Relay? We were 18 hours and lost a lot of people the closer we got to the end. We did 15 hours this year (ended at 9am). Still lost a lot of people who weren't there until the end. People on the committee are questioning whether we should end at 6am and make it a 12 hour event in hopes of keeping more people. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this. I hate cutting Relay short, but it's hard to argue against closing even earlier so we'll have more people there at the end.
I know one argument - if there's plenty of entertainment and activities throughout, people are more likely to stay. I agree to a point, but still think most people will leave at like 6 or 7 in the morning.
So what are your thoughts? When do you end your Relay? How do you keep people there until the end, whenever that is? What do you say to people who want to end early (like 6am)? When they say most people leave around then anyway, and you've seen it with your own eyes, what do you say?
I have participated in both 12 and 24 hour Relays and I have to say that I personally like the 24 hour ones better. I understand the problem of keeping people there but one thing that may help is adjusting the times. If you start in late afternoon or early evening (say 4 or 5pm) and do a 24 hour Relay that way, people will be more inclined to stay in my experience than if you are ending in the morning.
Our relay is a 24-hour event so I understand how difficult it can be to keep people. We always ask the Team Captains to please not breakdown their campsites until 9am Sunday morning when our Relay ends and to let their team members know to come back. We have a free pancake breakfast Sunday morning for all.
This year we had a large flat screen tv donated to our cause which we used as our a raffle during our Fight Back Ceremony as well as other prizes like gift certificates. We advertised this raffle beforehand to get the word out. You had to show up Sunday morning to get the ticket and must be present to win. We had the Fight Back ceremony first and then had the raffle afterwards. We had a lot of people come and stay for this.
We usually start at 7pm and then stop at 7am... This year we had a tornado and everyoone wanted to kind of go early. so we did closing ceremonies at like 6:15 and people were out of there by quarter till 7.. Usually opening ceremonies are at like 6:55...
Joined: 2006-11-10