Event Information

Join Founder & CEO Bob Bickel and VP Product Allison Bickel for a look back at 2025 and a look forward to 2026. This annual webinar wraps up the updates and progress from the previous year and introduces what customers can look forward to in the next 365 days.

This webinar will cover:

• RunSignup, TicketSignup, and GiveSignup technology innovations in 2025
• Event industry trends and company priorities
• Product advancements to look forward to in 2026

View Slides

Summary of Webinar 

2025 recap: “Thank you” + why RunSignup keeps compounding

Cohort + employee longevity story

• Cohort analysis: customers’ transaction volume grows over multiple years (retention + expansion).

  • Examples shared: 2011 cohort up 15x; 2019 cohort up 41% vs first year.

• Employee retention: ~20 employees with 10+ years; ~80 employees total; combined “5+ centuries” of service years.

• Message: long-term employees + long-term customers create a positive feedback loop (better product + better support over time).

Big milestones + growth numbers

• $3B in customer transaction volume milestone (hit in February).

• ~11M registrations in the past year.

• Growth highlights:

  • Events with registrations (non-ticket) up from ~28k → ~33–34k

  • Tickets up 19%

  • Transaction volume up 16%

  • Donation volume up 18%

• Post-pandemic recovery: “races are up 8% vs 2019” (avg 1,000-person race → ~1,080).

Strategy: why they think they’re positioned well

Differentiated product stack

• Embedded website + email (and soon text) tightly connected to event data.

• RaceDay “real time” ecosystem (scoring, check-in, photos, etc.) described as unmatched in breadth.

• Ticketing: focus on recurring / calendar-based / timed entry events; “patent pending” architecture; matured notably in fall 2025.

• Membership: expanding beyond clubs into a cross-product membership layer (races + ticketing).

Operational advantages

• Fast product cycle: 2,000+ releases/year and ~6 minutes of downtime since 2015.

• “Renewed” reusable codebase → features built once apply broadly across products.

• AI approach: focus on tangible event value (chatbot first; broader AI infrastructure next).

• Efficient support + self-serve orientation (customers can do most things themselves).

• Long sales motion: they’ll talk to prospects for years until it’s the right time.

2026 tailwinds called out

• Endurance market leadership (50%+ market share, still rising).

• Market disruption: vendors “closing up shop” (examples named: In Motive previously; now ChronoTrack registration and Stack / “Get Me Registered” / “RaceWire”).

• USA Cycling becoming less exclusive → more events able to choose platforms.

• Timers switching from legacy timing software to RaceDay products.

• Ticketing maturity (references + proof points).

• Competitive pressure from Eventbrite changes.

2026 roadmap highlights 

Website V2

• Major strategy: new races created in 2026 will get Website V2 via the race wizard.

• Renewals: existing races not on V2 won’t be auto-migrated; manual migration still required.

• Enhancements: improved image gallery and more system images/illustrations; Event List improvements + additional display options.

• Strategic framing: V2 websites + structured data are key for AI agents to understand event info.

Text marketing (first half of 2026 target)

• Across entity types; each event can get a unique number.

• Pricing: “market rate” $0.01 per message.

• Strong emphasis: highly regulated, setup more like payment account verification (identity/brand/contact ownership compliance).

• V1: upload a permissioned list and send.

• Longer-term: text becomes part of “communications” alongside email and uses Super Lists for targeting.

Super Lists (email now, text later)

• Super Lists = advanced segmentation across everything you own (races, tickets, volunteers, fundraisers).

• Examples: “participated in 2+ events last year and within 25 miles of X zip.”

• Includes contact matching logic (Bob/Bobby/Robert = same person).

• First deeply integrated with email, then becomes shared targeting for email + text.

RaceDay technology roadmap

Results page V2

• New results cover page (likely Q1): tiles per event + summary stats + graphics (e.g., finish-time distribution).

• Includes weather; configurable over time (v1 more static).

• Adds AI chat/search inside results (e.g., “How has Steven Sigward done over 10 years?”).

Timer Dashboard

• Consolidated real-time view across multiple timing teams/races; ability to make corrections centrally.

RaceJoy modernization

• Incremental UX updates.

• Deeper integration: not just GPS tracking—timing mat split points integrated + predictive pace/positioning.

Mobile Tools → “RaceDay Tools” app

• Photo features expanding:

  • “Auto photo mode” (interval shots)

  • Prototype: on-device AI to detect runners and snap automatically

• Planned: “announcer mode”.

Scoring V6 + Series scoring

• More real-time + large-race capabilities.

• Better fine-grained series scoring; points upload into RunSignup; refresh series results mechanism.

Point of Sale (POS)

• Mentioned as prototypes starting (more ticketing-driven); later clarified in Q&A: don’t expect until 2027.

• Likely Adyen hardware (since Adyen is payment processor).

Platform “V2” modernization themes

• Continuing V2 program: memberships v2, email v2, website v2, invoicing v2 already done.

• Next: Volunteer V2 (target first half of 2026).

  • Solves long-standing issues (multi-task/time slot signup, etc.)

  • Can be standalone with its own site or embedded into races/ticket events

  • Reporting framework similar to ticket/membership reporting (saved reports, better filtering, improved UX).

• Bringing Store V2 / Questions V2 / Coupons V2 from tickets/memberships into races

  • Includes shared inventory across events + fulfillment via check-in app.

• “Rich image + data” project: upgraded templates for certificates, printed tickets, membership cards (images + live system data).

Fundraising & nonprofit roadmap

• Peer-to-peer fundraising remains strategic.

• Sidekick partnership highlighted (API-based integrations into nonprofit systems).

• 2025 fundraising additions: milestone notifications, improved fundraiser self-serve page, more reporting.

• 2026: Fundraiser Email V2 (target Q1-ish)

  • Dashboard-driven emails to fundraisers/donors

  • Fundraiser-side email tooling: templates, importing contacts, history, solicitations + thank-yous.

Ticketing roadmap

• Positioning: competitors put “calendars on top of generic ticketing”; RunSignup built purpose-built timed-entry database.

• 2025 maturity: wins from Fair Harbor / Eventbrite / legacy timed-entry platforms.

• 2026 priorities:

  • Category pricing (adult/senior/military/kids for same ticket type)

  • Better admin flows (pricing updates, canceling a night, etc.)

  • Customer-driven enhancements ongoing

Membership roadmap

• 2026: Membership ↔ Ticketing integration

  • Membership-based automated discounts for tickets (by membership level + ticket type)

• Likely next:

  • Upsell memberships to non-members with discounts (like registration today)

  • Enhanced reporting

  • “Loyalty” system (more 2027): configurable scoring of engagement across donors/volunteers/tickets/races → rewards/discounts

AI: what it means to them + what’s coming

Conceptual model

• LLM (ChatGPT/Gemini/etc.) → MCP layer → RunSignup API/database → response back in natural language.

• AI framed as a new user interface (like mobile was), replacing many manual dashboard workflows with “do it in English.”

Infrastructure investments

• Building internal AI infrastructure on AWS:

  • Bedrock to access multiple models

  • Agent Core to host “agents” for specific tasks (e.g., create coupons)

• OAuth2 improvements so third-party AI agents can authenticate safely.

AI chatbot (current)

• Website V2 chatbot is available: enable it + add FAQ component; uses site data + updates when site info changes.

• Improvements will track model capability gains over time.

Buying in chat (prototype)

• Demoed ticket purchase via chat; currently slower than standard checkout but they’re preparing for:

  • Website V2 embedded flows

  • External AI agents (ChatGPT, etc.) initiating purchases (“what’s near me this weekend—sign me up”)

AI Results Warehouse (planned)

• Warehouse of 16 years of results + MCP tools to enable results chat across any race with posted results.

• Inspired by Sidekick’s warehouse + AI analysis approach.

• Stated as experimental, but high hopes.

Internal dev productivity

• Heavy Cursor adoption; moving from code completion to prompt-driven development.

• Cursor acquired Graphite; hope: speed up code reviews without sacrificing strict review standards.

Q&A highlights (what was asked + answered)

• Ticketing vs registration: ticketing is fast checkout, minimal personal data; registration is participant-centric for results/awards.

• V2 for partner accounts: use organization website/email; Super Lists is key to fully replacing partner email v1.

• Satellite tracker integrations (Spot/Garmin): No plans.

• POS hardware/fees: not until 2027; likely Adyen hardware; development starts 2026.

• Volunteer “cross-event” view: not as a core volunteer feature; Super Lists will enable cross-event volunteer targeting first; loyalty later.

• Volunteer V2 reporting: yes—major upgrade + saved reports.

• Volunteer texting: eventually; V1 text is basic list-based; more targeted later.

• Super Lists timeline: they missed earlier estimates; “hope by summer” but acknowledged complexity.

• Optimizing pages for MCP/agents: “content” still matters (SEO-like rules); Website V2 infra handles most structure.

  • Noted: AI referrals exist today; ChatGPT ~90% of that traffic vs Gemini/Perplexity.

• Race insurance for multi-race bundles + claims reports: unlikely / not high priority.

• Chatbot for membership websites: “probably next two quarters.”