Managing Marathons

Marathons and fundraising walks/runs are a wonderful new trend. Marathons are a chance for competition, while walks/runs raise awareness and money. Both of these activities require a great deal of crowd management and safety to be done correctly.

So, how do you manage large crowds of runners, staff, and onlookers? It’s not easy and requires a lot of planning. Marathon runners are going to be physically fit, but this strenuous event can be dangerous if the right procedures aren’t in place. For a fundraising walk, it is likely all your participants won’t be in perfect physical condition and may push themselves too far. Not to mention re-routing traffic and having a location for onlookers.

The first step you have to consider is the disruption that will occur in the community. Ensure that proper detours are in place to re-route traffic on the day of your event. It’s also nice to alert local residents of the event with some sort of flyer. Trust us, this will cause significantly less confusion the day of your event, which means less headaches for you.

With roads blocked off though, how do you get participants to the event site? You’ll need a designated route and parking zone, or some sort of shuttle service. You need to close not only the roads of the event, but the roads nearby to ensure there are no accidents. This can make travel to the event difficult, so make sure you have clear instructions and accommodations.  

The biggest challenge is handling the crowds on the day of the event, and keeping everyone safe. A great way to do this is to break down each area into different zones. These zones can be as big or small as you want; a new one every block, every five blocks, every ten…whatever you need. This way you can have staff dedicated to each zone to watch for issues with the participants, keep onlookers in their designated areas, and make sure no non-event traffic is making it through.

And make sure you have enough water and cooling stations! It will be a logistical nightmare if you choose to have only several throughout the course, as it will cause backups and make it unsafe for other participants.

Proper planning will make your next event a huge success. Follow these guidelines, and people will be talking about your event for all the right reasons.