Keep Your Races: Offer Free, Integrated Photos

Event Information

Your race directors might not know you offer free, bib-tagged finish line photos — and that’s exactly how timers lose races they should have kept. In this webinar, we’ll walk through how to enable RaceDay Photos, position it as a value-add, and make sure you never lose a race over a service you already can provide.

What we’ll cover:

• What RaceDay Photos is — free, integrated, and automatically tagged to bib numbers
• How easy it is to set up for any race, any size
• Using advanced free features such as the RaceDay Mobile app for capturing photos that automatically integrate with results, setting up photo albums, enabling participant loading of photos
• How to use photos to promote sponsors with watermark logos
• How to include photo stats in your post-race report to make the value tangible

Part of the Keep Your Races: A Race Retention Series for Timers.

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Webinar Summary 

This third webinar in the Race Retention for Timers series explains how timers can use RunSignup’s free photo tools to add visible value for races, improve the participant experience, create sponsor exposure, and support timing operations. The webinar covers photo setup and management, branding best practices, RaceDay Mobile, photo-based timing, and upcoming product enhancements.

Why timers should offer photos

Tagged race photos were once limited primarily to large, premium events. RunSignup’s photo platform and RaceDay Mobile now make them practical for races of nearly any size.

Photos provide value in several ways:

• Participants receive a memorable and shareable race-day benefit.
• Races gain organic promotion when participants share their images.
• Sponsor logos can appear on photos through watermarks.
• Timers gain an additional service that differentiates them from competitors.
• Photo timestamps and bib recognition can supplement timing data.

The webinar’s central message is that photos are relatively inexpensive for timers to deliver but difficult for races to give up once participants and sponsors experience the benefit.

Provide controlled photo access

Anyone taking photos through RaceDay Mobile must have the appropriate RunSignup access.

Timers can grant photo-only dashboard access through the Secure Access and Sharing settings. This allows volunteers or photographers to use the photo tools without receiving unnecessary access to registration, financial, or participant-management areas.

For a more scalable setup, timers can create a general account specifically for event photography and grant that account photo-only permissions.

Clean up bib recognition

Timers should manage bib rules carefully so that automated tagging produces useful results.

Recommended practices include:

• Removing unassigned bib numbers.
• Setting valid bib-number ranges.
• Excluding numbers that appear frequently in the environment, such as the race year or road signs.
• Reviewing partially visible or incorrectly recognized bibs.
• Separating bib ranges by event when possible.

For example, a 5K might use bibs 1–500 while a 10K uses 1001–1500. Defining those ranges reduces incorrect assignments in both Check-In and photo tagging.

Organize photo albums

Separate albums make the photos easier for participants and timers to navigate.

Useful album structures include:

• Finish-line photos
• Course photos
• Individual timing locations
• Sponsor-branded locations
• Professional photography
• Volunteer or automated RaceDay Mobile photos

When photo streams are also being used for timing, device- or location-specific albums make it easier to understand where each read originated.

Timers should also select a strong cover image for each album so the photo experience looks intentional and professional.

Use watermarks and sponsor branding

Every event should use at least one watermark on its photos.

Watermarks can include:

• The race logo
• The timer’s logo
• A presenting sponsor
• A location sponsor
• A combination of event and sponsor branding

Timers should test the watermark’s size and position before race day. If a sponsor logo is not appropriate for display on the public race website, it can be added as a hidden sponsor and still used as a photo watermark.

This creates lasting sponsor exposure because the branded photos may continue to appear in social media posts and digital memories long after the event.

Coordinate outside photographers

When professional photographers are involved, timers should clearly communicate:

• Upload deadlines
• Recommended file sizes
• Maximum file sizes
• Album assignments
• Watermark expectations
• The desired photo-delivery timeline

The current browser upload recommendation is approximately 250 photos per batch, with files no larger than about 4 MB each. Very large uploads may fail because of browser-memory limitations.

Make bibs easy to photograph

Automated tagging depends on clearly visible bib numbers.

The webinar recommends:

• Asking participants to wear bibs on the front.
• Including bib-placement instructions in announcements and communications.
• Using signs such as “Photo Ahead—Show Your Bib.”
• Avoiding low-contrast bib designs.
• Using clear spacing between digits.
• Keeping bibs to four digits when possible and no more than five.
• Avoiding unnecessary letters and symbols.

Participants are also more likely to pose and display their bibs when they know a photo location is ahead.

Add a branded photo area

Timers can increase the value of the service with a simple finish-area photo booth or branded backdrop.

A volunteer can use RaceDay Mobile to capture and upload photos automatically, eliminating the need to pass participants’ phones back and forth. A controlled backdrop also provides more consistent lighting, framing, and sponsor visibility than candid finish-area photos.

Report the value after the race

As discussed throughout the retention series, timers should make the service visible to race directors.

Useful post-race photo statistics include:

• Total photos captured
• Total tagged photos
• Number of participants with tagged photos
• Album views
• Year-over-year photo growth
• Examples of high-quality branded photos

These metrics can be included in a post-race report alongside timing, Check-In, notification, and RaceJoy statistics.

Photo counts alone do not tell the full story. Reporting how many participants actually received tagged photos demonstrates the service’s practical value.

Create participant highlight videos

RunSignup also offers a timer utility that combines a participant’s tagged photos into a short video suitable for platforms such as Instagram Reels or TikTok.

Participants can select and order their photos, while the opening and closing slides provide additional sponsor-branding opportunities.

Photo-based timing

The most significant feature discussed in the webinar is photo-based timing.

RaceDay Mobile can capture photos automatically, upload them to RunSignup, recognize bib numbers, and send the resulting timestamps into RaceDay Scoring as timing reads.

The workflow is:

1. A phone or tablet captures a photo.
2. RaceDay Mobile uploads it to RunSignup.
3. The system recognizes and tags visible bibs.
4. The image timestamp becomes a timing read.
5. The read is returned to RaceDay Scoring.
6. It can generate split, RaceJoy, email, or SMS notifications.

The full process generally takes around 30 seconds.

How photo reads interact with chip timing

When both chip and photo reads exist, the chip read takes priority. Photo reads fill gaps where chip data is missing.

Timers can therefore use photos as:

• A backup for RFID timing
• A finish-line verification tool
• A standalone course split
• A supplement to manual timing
• An additional data source for RaceJoy tracking
• A low-cost timing point for trails or remote course locations

Within RaceDay Scoring, timers can open the underlying image for a photo read, review the timestamp and source album, and ignore the read when appropriate.

Testing results

In a half-marathon test, two tablets were placed on opposite sides of the course and set to capture photos automatically at timed intervals.

The findings included:

• A single device captured approximately 75–77% of participants.
• Using devices on both sides increased the tagging rate to approximately 89%.
• The photo system captured at least one participant missed by the RFID antennas.
• The equipment was substantially easier to transport than traditional timing hardware.

These results suggest that photo timing can be useful for lower-density locations, trail events, smaller races, and supplemental split points.

Photo-timing setup recommendations

The webinar recommends:

• Using devices on both sides of the course when possible.
• Positioning them near an aid station, course marshal, or volunteer.
• Monitoring the devices to prevent falls, theft, or framing problems.
• Testing the setup with a sample bib.
• Using a wider field of view rather than framing participants too tightly.
• Accounting for the planned watermark location.
• Turning off tap-to-focus so the camera does not focus on the background.
• Testing image clarity while participants are moving.

Wider framing gives the interval camera multiple opportunities to capture a readable bib and reduces motion blur.

Data usage

RaceDay Mobile estimates data consumption based on:

• Photo quality
• Compression settings
• Capture interval
• Total capture duration

In the example provided, capturing every two seconds for two hours was estimated to use approximately 2.6–4.3 GB of data. Actual usage was slightly below the high end of that range.

Timers should review cellular plans and data limits before deploying multiple devices.

Upcoming photo enhancements

RunSignup is continuing to invest in race-photo functionality.

Planned improvements discussed in the webinar include:

Bulk photo management

• Select individual photos, ranges, or all filtered photos.
• Delete photos in bulk.
• Move photos between albums.
• Eventually download selected photos.

This will be particularly useful for removing all untagged or unusable images after applying a filter.

Results-page photo preview

• A photo banner will display selected images from leading albums on the new results overview page.
• This will increase photo visibility and provide more exposure for races and sponsors.

Additional mobile and photo-related enhancements are also in development.

Final takeaway

Free integrated photos are an effective race-retention tool because they benefit every major stakeholder. Participants receive immediate, shareable memories; sponsors gain measurable brand exposure; race directors receive a premium experience without a traditional photography cost; and timers gain an additional timing and verification data source.

By combining RaceDay Mobile, automated bib tagging, branded watermarks, post-race reporting, and photo-based timing, timers can offer a highly visible service that is inexpensive to deploy and difficult for races to replace.