I was reading through these posts during a teleconference this morning (being the "SME" on someone else's teleconference is my favorite way to waste lots of time at work.) Anyway, I'm a little surprised that the notion of personal utility hasn't really come up. There's been quite a few comments on what you get for your registration fee, and almost all of those are service-based. But
those values exist only in the context of the event itself. For example, at Shen you get stocked aid stations, free food afterward, police protection at intersections, etc. - beyond the context of being at the race, there is no unique utility to those things: you'd spend money to eat that day anyway and you wouldn't need to be on the road to require protection without being in the race. Maybe the shirt you get is a unique value that can only come from the race itself, but even that is not entirely true (you can get
a shirt cheaper on your own: the only
unique value of
that specific shirt is that it tells anyone who sees you wearing it that you did the race.) So it seems that arguing from the point of what you actually get for your money is kind of incomplete here: it's missing the intrinsic value of the activity itself that (probably) brought most of us to this sport in the first place. Instead of asking if the total fee is too high or too low, perhaps the first question should be "what is the cost you are willing to pay to do this if you weren't guaranteed anything tangible for it in return?" To go back to the original post: if it seems high at $45, what is the value you would place on the experience alone independent of any swag, etc.? That may sound like splitting hairs since, net-of-net, the total cost is still high enough to give you concern. But I think there is (intangible!
😀) value in approaching it this way: let's say you answer that question with "$25". So your issue is then really $20, not $45. You can ask yourself what you would do to add personal utility (happiness, self-fulfillment, accomplishment - however you want to define it) during the time you'd otherwise be racing that would either equal the personal utility you gain from the event and save you that $20 OR would increase your personal utility at its own cost. If you can't come up with anything, then it kind of seems like perhaps you've under-estimated the value of the event to yourself and $45 may even be a bargain.
It may seem overly-analytical to think this way, but in all honesty this is actually how I decide where and when to do events anymore. I've had this conversation with my wife a few times over the last couple of years: as much as I love to ride with a number on my bike, there are definitely parts of it I loathe. I always hate the run-up to events. I like to travel but I hate to travel for racing because the days beforehand are lost days to me: getting settled in to a hotel or getting up early to drive to an event is horrible because I've got the one-two punch of anticipation
and logistics to worry about, and I hate that. And on top of that, since I typically use vacation days to travel, I also have to face the fact that I am doing a thing I hate with limited time off! So when I decide where and when to race, those costs have to be part of my thought process. And my way of balancing that is that I almost always think in terms of what it'll cost me if I
don't go. Shen is a great example: I get there two days early and basically lose two days of my life because I have to be careful what I do and how much rest I get because I know it's going to be a challenge and the lingering anticipation of suffering is always in my head. The only day I really enjoy is the race day itself. The moment they say "Go" all of the anticipation stuff is instantly gone. I love it and I don't want to miss it because I want the experience of the actual ride. And because of that, I'm willing to not only pay the fee regardless of what it is (BTW,
@Santapez - the pricing is staggered over time: if you can commit early in the year, I think it only costs $150 and then goes up every few months from there) but I'm also willing to pay the time cost of wasting two days out there (and even that is a choice: I drive down two days early because I've done it one day early in the past and it was too much of a crunch.)
So, anyway, just another way to think about the real cost of race fees. I know it doesn't address the question of
why promoters charge what they do, but I think this kind of thought process may be helpful in determining whether or not you personally are willing to accept those costs.
