Novant Health Charlotte Marathon made full use of RunSignup’s RaceDay products from the RaceDay CheckIn app to RaceJoy’s GPS tracking and live results. Charlotte Marathon Runners get to experience the sights and sounds of the Southeast’s fastest growing city, including the Queen City’s signature tree-lined streets, historic landmarks, major sporting venues and the most eclectic neighborhood parties.
With entertainment along the course and major headliners at the finish line festival, the Charlotte Marathon takes place every November featuring five different races: the marathon, half-marathon, marathon relay, 5K and kid’s 1-mile run.
RaceDay Check In App:
Race organizers used RunSignup’s RaceDay CheckIn app to help process the 5,200 participants signed up for the race. The race had 15 check-in stations at the expo where volunteers used RunSignup’s dynamic bib assignment approach on a combination of Android and Apple devices. The Android devices were Chrome Books with Google Play services enabled.
How dynamic bib assignment RaceDay CheckIn works:
- Participant lookup: by name or team name
- This can be done by the participant or the volunteer.
- Assign the Bib
- Enter in the next bib number.
It’s that simple!
As typical in most expo halls, there were times when Internet connectivity stopped momentarily. Fortunately, RaceDay CheckIn is designed for offline check-in and automatically syncs when Internet connection is re-established. So, the lags in Internet did not affect the check-in process. RaceDay CheckIn also includes an at-a-glance view of how many people have checked in by event.
Bar Code Efficiency Options:
To generate greater check-in efficiencies, races can email participants with their registration barcode. They then bring their bar code to packet pickup by either printing it out or showing it from their phone. The participant or volunteer then simply uses the RaceDay CheckIn system to scan the code to look up their registration and name. Races can also arrange to have the bib numbers have bar codes printed on them along with their bib number. The volunteers can then use the CheckIn app to scan and assign the bib’s. Both of these options help to create greater efficiencies and reduce mistakes that may occur with manual entries.
RaceJoy Live Tracking
The Charlotte Marathon fully embraced RaceJoy’s capabilities and took advantage of its key features. It was great to see such an enthusiastic response to the app, with more than 3,700 users over the course of the race weekend. Participants received audio progress alerts as they crossed each mile along on the course – 55,600 progress alerts were issued on race day! Thanks to race organizers, the progress alerts were highly accurate due to their providing an accurate course map and mile locations. Relay teams were receptive to RaceJoy’s interactive features, and used the team tracking to monitor progress and keep up with team members out on the course.
The race also took advantage of the geo cheers with audio sound files and messages issued at strategic locations long the course to encourage runners. Spectators also issued 7,000 cheers of their own.
Live RaceDay Results
Results were also lived streamed through RaceJoy on race day to help deliver scored finisher stats to participants in a timely fashion.
Special thanks to Charlotte Marathon for taking the initiative and embrace RunSignup’s RaceDay products! We enjoyed being part of a great experience with a positive group of race staff and volunteers.