Jamie Orr, founder of Run The East, a Greenville, North Carolina based race timing and event management service provider recently completed RunSignup’s RaceDay Certification program. We noticed he was making full use of the various RaceDay Suite of Technology that RunSignup offers. So, we checked in with him to get some insights that we could share with other timers.
Some key takeaways:
- Initially Jamie started with just using RunSignup for registration and has since expanded to use many of RunSignup’s technology tools.
- The tools and resources RunSignup offers has helped Jamie grow his business.
- Jamie tested out products like RaceJoy and RaceDay Scoring at an event he owns to become familiar with their capabilities prior to offering them to other races.
- He is focused on adding value to client events beyond just timing. He uses the RaceDay tools to enhance the participants’ experiences by making things easier and improve the overall race experience.
- Jamie is most excited about RaceDay Scoring and feels it will be much easier for others on the team to use.
Here are the specifics on what Jamie shared with us…
Which RunSignup products did you use at Cupids Crawl?
At this particular race, Cupids Crawl, we used RaceJoy, Results, the CheckIn app, Photos, and RaceDay Scoring alongside our existing scoring software. We’ve been using RunSignup’s Results at all of our events over the past few years. We’ve also been using the CheckIn app at many of our events, and Photos at a few. We’ve only used RaceJoy so far at a few races and have just recently started using RaceDay Scoring.
What was your intention with using these tools?
I really had a few goals in mind in using the technology:
First, many of these tools (RaceDay CheckIn, RaceJoy, Photos) enhance the participants’ experience at the race by making things easier or helping them to have a better time at the race. One of my goals is to always be doing things that help add value to our clients’ events beyond just timing and these technologies are all ways of helping to do that.
Secondly, I did use Cupids Crawl to get more comfortable with RaceDay Scoring and RaceJoy, in particular, because my company owns this event, so it’s a good one to use to roll out new things. By doing that, I was able to get more comfortable with them myself in hopes of rolling out to other events this year and helping my staff to be more comfortable with them as well.
What would you like to share with other timers about these products?
They’re great! I have been a big fan of these and other products that RunSignup has introduced over the past several years. I first moved to RunSignup for registration purposes only, but have been really impressed with all of these other products (including the ones we used at this event). It allows me as a timer to offer a race a nice bundle of services beyond strictly timing.
How do you plan on using these products with your races? What will your approach be?
We already have a system in place for using Results and plan to continue doing so.
We use RaceDay CheckIn at all of the races where we are managing registration (not just timing) as well as at some larger events. I anticipate that we’ll be introducing this to more and more races as we move forward, especially those that could benefit (larger races, large walk-up crowds, etc.)
Photos is one that I think has a lot of benefit, but very few of the races we work with are utilizing it. So, I’m hoping to encourage more of our race directors to look into adding that to their races, especially since there’s no added cost to them.
We currently do not work with a whole lot of longer races, but I do plan to discuss the benefits of RaceJoy with the longer ones and hope to encourage a few more to utilize it- right now, we have one other race this spring utilizing it besides this race.
The thing I’m most excited about right now is RaceDay Scoring. One of my biggest challenges has been training new staff members on the software side of things. I think that RD Scoring is going to be a much easier program for them to learn and work with, helping reduce the time it takes to get a new crew up and running. My current plan is to train some of my team on it this spring and get them to start using it, with the rest hopefully in the fall.
Anything else you’d like to add?
As I said earlier, I’ve been very pleased with these new offerings from RunSignUp and they (along with other RunSignup technologies) have been a big asset in helping me grow my timing business. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Jamie, for being a technology leader in the industry and your adoption of RunSignup’s RaceDay Suite of technology. Your commitment to your events and participant experience is clear with your willingness to embrace new technology.
If you’d like to become a certified RaceDay Timer, sign up for the web-based certification to be held on March 19 or attend the onsite certification at RunSignup’s Symposium in July. If you are a certified timer and would like to share your story with others, please email shelly@runsignup.com.
