Greater Philadelphia YMCA Gobble Wobble

Customer Snapshot

• 2024 Locations: 4 + Virtual
• In-Person Participation Growth 2022-2023: 44%
• Race Options: 5K and a Walk (1-2 miles)

It’s no secret that Thanksgiving day is the biggest running day of the year. And in the Philadelphia area, the Greater Philadelphia YMCA has traditionally hosted a local Gobble Wobble across several locations. In 2024, they’re continuing to refine their events, with a new location launching and big revenue and donation growth goals for returning locations.

In 2024, the Gobble Wobble will be be held in 4 locations, with an additional virtual option:

• Abington
• Haverford
• Royersford
• Philadelphia Navy Yard (new site)

While each branch has responsibilities for portions of their race, like volunteer training and race day setup on site, the registration and technology for the events is managed centrally. We talked to Vaughn Lawrence, the Director of Digital Platforms for the Greater Philadelphia YMCA to get a better understanding of how the organization coordinates races across locations.

Multiple Locations, One Registration Website

Moving to a Single Registration Site

The Greater Philadelphia YMCA has used RunSignup for it’s Gobble Wobble events for several years. However, in 2024 they’re restructuring the setup. Previously, each location had it’s own separate registration site. This year, they are moving to a setup with all four locations (and virtual) sharing a single registration setup. While this would not be recommended in every circumstance, it has a number of benefits for this organization:

• Easy for participants. With a single landing page, residents of the Greater Philadelphia area can easily see the local options and pick the one that makes sense for them.
• Time savings: Fewer website updates are needed with only one registration website to maintain.
• Consolidated reporting. Data from all races is easily pulled from a single point, rather than needing to aggregate from multiple registration sites.

Vaughn tested multiple setups to determine what would be the easiest registration flow for potential participants. Ultimately, he landed on grouping events by distance, then location. They used simple event grouping to create a 5K Run group and a Wobble Walk group, with an option for each location in each group. This makes it simple for participants to find and select the location within their chosen distance.

Websites V2

The Greater Philadelphia YMCA has it’s own main website for it’s general programming. But, they still need a race website that’s branded and easy to navigate. Vaughn used Websites V2 to build out a website that could house registration and event information. By using the custom domain “ymcagobblewobble.org” and uploading a custom favicon and logo, it’s clear that the races are connected to the area YMCA.

To make it easy for people to see the location and distance options, Vaughn opted for using a two column layout with background images. Then, he added buttons that visually delineate the options and drop registrants into the registration process. Vaughn also took advantage of the V2 upgrades to build out a full content website. This allowed them to easily create menu items with submenus, enabling individual pages for each location for course maps, volunteers, race day, and FAQs.

A Focus on Growth

The Greater Philadelphia YMCA has steadily been growing their Gobble Wobble, and they see potential for continued growth. In 2023, their in-person participation increased 44% across three sites. In addition to anticipating continued growth at those sites, a new run is being introduced in 2024 with a prime location in Philadelphia.

While there’s a wave of Thanksgiving Day race enthusiasm, there’s still work being done by the organization to push growth. A few key ways the YMCA is encouraging growth:

• Email to the YMCA’s existing members and contacts.
• Social media content utilizing their amazing race day photos and videos from previous years.
• Printed signage and promotion via screens installed in each YMCA branch.
• Limited advertising budget, focused largely on awareness of the new location.
• Focusing on improving the race experience from packet pickup to the finish line.

To better understand which marketing tactics provide the most bang for their buck, all signage the YMCA is using has custom source tracking links and QR codes. This way, they can gauge the direct success of emails, social media, print, on-site monitors, advertising, and more.

Managing RaceDay Across Locations

As noted above, a great race day experience is also a great marketing tool. The easier and more fun the event, the more likely participants will come back and tell their friends to join them!

RaceDay CheckIn

In this case “race day” technically starts before Thanksgiving with packet pickup available on the Tuesday and Wednesday of race week. To ensure a consistent experience, Vaughn helps with training on the RaceDay CheckIn app, and the marketing team has a presence at all sites throughout packet pickup. 50% of people pick up in advance, making it easier to manage the rush of participants on race morning.

RaceDay Registration

While they used to have a lot of laptop stations for race day registrations, the Gobble Wobble has pivoted to encouraging online registration all the way through race morning. To make it easier, they enable fast registration without an account for race morning and use QR code signage at both packet pickup and on race morning. A volunteer is still available with a laptop as-needed, but most participants are happy to sign up on their phone.

Corrals

In 2023 Willow Grove, the largest race site, implemented corrals to help people line up efficiently. This year, they’ll be expanding corrals to other sites as well. Why? Thanksgiving races are family races with a wide range of paces and a lot of inexperienced racers. The corrals, indicated on maps and by stickers, keep the race course moving for runners of all paces.

RaceDay Results

The Gobble Wobble is working with Bryn Mawr Racing Company for timing to ensure speedy results for all sites. Results automatically show on the RunSignup races website, making it simple for runners to find their results before they even start cooking.

Organizing Volunteers

While each location monitors volunteer signups and trains volunteers, the marketing team helps setup volunteer signups across locations. All sites use the RunSignup Volunteer Platform that’s integrated into the race website. This makes it easy for family members of runners to sign up to volunteer! They organize volunteer opportunities by location, and then have a link in the Volunteer submenu for each location that jumps to volunteer slots at that location.

To keep volunteer options organized, they use each location as a category, and then add specific tasks to each category, along with time slots. Additionally, they are able to add Coordinators for each task category. In this case, that means that each location’s volunteer coordinator has access to the volunteer information for their site.

Summary

The Greater Philadelphia YMCA Gobble Wobble is a great example of an organization iterating and improving on their event(s) each year, and seeing growth as a result. The organization is continuously implementing new tools, refining their technology use, and tracking their marketing efforts to ensure their events get better and better every year. And runners have responded by signing up in ever-growing crowds. We are looking forward to seeing what the 2024 Gobble Wobble has in store!