The 3 C's of the Mercer Cup

There were many different things to think about when preparing for the event. These are three things that were the most important.
Customer: There is definitely a pre-existing fan-base for Cyclocross. Spectators and racers keep up on their own with all of the races. This meant that our job was to try to increase new spectators coming out; specifically, Joan wanted us to get college student interest up. Using things like facebook and posting fliers on campus was how we went about getting information to this untapped generation.
Capabilities: Our biggest set back to capabilities was that one of our significant sponsors pulled out. With a huge deficit, we were forced to find ways to publicize and produce an event that was used to a much larger budget. But because our event had been going on for many years, we did not have to work through some of the kinks of a first time event. In the end, the addition of our event planning team was a significant help to filling in the gaps that were left by the budget deficit.
Competition: As mentioned before, there is a pre-existing fan-base to Cyclocross so getting people to come out was not the biggest challenge. Cycylocross racers love getting messy and would come out no matter what the conditions were. Unfortunately, the weather was our biggest competition for getting new spectators to come out. On weekends with good weather, any number of random people will be out in the park that would have been potential spectators. But because of the rain and cold, many people decided to stay home. Luckily though, it did not effect too many of the die hard racers and fans.