Chaos Rush - too much rushing, too much chaos?

Remember Chaos Rush? We published an article recently, with a little bit of advice to the race director.

Slow down, dude. Slow down.

Happily, ORM is here to report that he has listened to that article *and* the community feedback it received – all of which had the same message. Slow down.

The Chaos Rush website is scaled back, and no longer accepting money from people. There are no dates, venues or plans.

They appear to have gotten it, and are going to spend some time planning the event through. They sent us an email with the following:

We’ve decided to take a step back and spend quality time on every aspect of Chaos Rush instead of skipping forward and coming off as sloppy. We hope to begin events in late 2014 or early 2015.

It’s probably for the best.

As consumers and athletes, we can – to some extent – protect ourselves. It’s relatively easy to spot a race that is heading straight for failure, and there are steps we can take to protect ourselves when they DO go under – it’s not perfect, by any means, but it’s something.

As race directors though – most of these guys mean well. Maybe they have a background in event planning even. They genuinely want a piece of the OCR market to help raise money for a cause, or to setup a successful business. The success of Spartan Race, Tough Mudder and Warrior Dash are well documented.

But OCR is a different world to motor cross races, country music concert any or other events – it’s a new market and it’s SUPER competitive. Brand recognition is important – people will give their $80 to Spartan Race, or their $150 to Tough Mudder because they have a reputation of consistently solid events. On a local level, the price point for a local OCR is usually much lower (they don’t have to move their event, for a start), so even though you don’t recognize the name at first, you’re prepared to gamble $30, $40 on it.

But to crack the traveling roadshow market? To host an event in a different city twice a month, and move your gear from place to place – source volunteers at each venue – and all the associated costs, problems and headaches tied into those?

Chaos.

*Editor’s note-We at ORM want to reiterate that this would not have happened without your input. There are possibly hundreds out there, that without knowing any better, would have registered for one of these “future” dates only to be disappointed down the line. We also hope the guys at Chaos Rush can learn from this and produce a quality local race or two and then grow from there.

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Paul Jones

Paul Jones is the Idea Wrangler over at the New England Spahtens and has been a contributor for ORM since it's inception. The NE Spahtens are one of the most active, and successful obstacle racing communities in the world.