Yes — for most runners, race entry is still a discretionary spend, and that makes the current boom more fragile than the sell-out crowds suggest. Demand is at record highs, but entry fees, travel, accommodation and gear all rise together, and discretionary categories are historically the first thing households cut when living costs climb. The races that survive a downturn won't be the ones with the biggest marketing budgets — they'll be the ones embedded so deeply into the runner's journey that runners cut other costs first.
1. Space for Personalisation
Running is booming. Events are selling out and demand is at levels we've never seen.
The 2026 London Marathon ballot drew a record 869,803 UK applications — nearly double the 578,304 received for the 2024 race. Parramatta Half in Sydney sold out 8,000 places in its first year. By every visible measure, the sport is thriving.
But booming demand and durable demand are not the same thing.
Political and economic turmoil has one consistent outcome worldwide: rising costs. Fuel, food, travel — the basic standards of living are all affected. And history is clear about what happens next. When budgets tighten, discretionary spending is the first to go.
Entering a race costs money, and it's not just the entry fee. It's the travel, the accommodation, and the gear that comes with it. A destination race can easily cost more in flights and hotels than in registration.
So when financial pressure increases, what actually happens? There are two possibilities, and they lead to very different futures for race organisers:
If racing is still discretionary, the boom is vulnerable. But if running has crossed into something more meaningful in people's lives, registrations are one of the last things to go. The organiser's job is to push runners toward that second behaviour.
The answer is simpler than it sounds: embed your race into the participant's journey so completely that skipping it feels like a loss.
You can't run the same event every year and expect to create runners who come back again and again. Look hard at what's happening inside your event and what can be improved. Listen to your participants. Improve something every year — whether that's what's on offer at aid stations, the medals, your race content, the event photos, or the race tees.
There's no single right way to do this. We're all still learning what moves the needle and what doesn't. But three events show three different levers you can pull.
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| Race | What they changed | Why it worked | Lever it pulls |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cocodona 250 (250-mile ultra, Arizona) | Daily bite-sized recap videos throughout the multi-day event | Gave fans and runners a way to engage with a race that's hard to follow live; livestream and channel views jumped sharply | Content & engagement |
| World Marathon Majors | Seven-star medal awarded for completing all six majors | Turned finishing into a multi-year goal, driving repeat entries and deep brand loyalty | Long-term loyalty |
| Ballarat | Full LED finishing arch | Created a premium, memorable finish-line moment that stays with participants | On-the-day experience |
Content: Cocodona 250
The Cocodona 250 is a 250-mile ultramarathon through Arizona — a multi-day race that's notoriously hard for outsiders to follow. They bridged that gap by putting out bite-sized recap videos from each day, giving people a way to get involved and engage with the race and with other fans. The result was a massive uptick across their livestream and other channels. Content is often the cheapest lever an organiser can pull, and Cocodona shows how far it reaches.
The World Marathon Majors are the clearest example of building loyalty by design. Complete all six majors and you earn a seven-star medal. That single idea encourages runners to keep coming back, race after race, until they've completed the set. It fosters exactly the brand loyalty every organiser wants — a genuine "rite of passage" that runners are proud to chase over years, not weeks.
Ballarat set out to make crossing the finish line the best moment of the day, investing in a full LED arch to welcome runners home. It created a premium race feel and a finish that sticks in the memory — the kind of detail runners describe to their friends afterwards, which is how races sell themselves.
I run a business built on the parts of a race runners take home — so I'm biased toward believing those details matter. But that's also why I watch participant behaviour closely, and my honest view is this: most runners haven't yet decided whether racing is essential to them or optional. That decision gets made event by event, year by year, in the quality of the experience you give them. You can influence it. Most organisers don't try hard enough.
Is running still a discretionary spend? For most runners, yes. Entry fees plus travel, accommodation and gear make racing a flexible cost, which means it's vulnerable when household budgets tighten.
Will rising costs hurt race entries? They could. Discretionary categories are historically the first to get cut when fuel, food and travel costs climb. Whether runners drop events entirely or just trade destination races for local ones is the open question for organisers.
How can smaller races compete with big destination events? By improving the participant experience year on year rather than relying on novelty. Ballarat's investment in an LED finishing arch is one example of creating a premium feel without being a major.
What's the most cost-effective way to improve a runner's experience? Content is often the cheapest lever. Cocodona 250 grew its livestream and channel engagement simply by posting short daily recap videos — no major capital spend required.
What does "embedding your race in the runner's journey" actually mean? Giving runners a reason to come back beyond a single finish line — like the World Marathon Majors' seven-star medal, which turns completing all six races into a multi-year goal.