A lot’s been written about the Washington, DC stop on the Ghirardelli Hot Chocolate 5k/15k races recently at National Harbor. The stories all take the position that the race was an unmitigated disaster; you can see examples here, here and here. If you were there, you know that description is generous.

But I started to wonder…what lessons does the race hold for promoters? Viewing this from my combined experience in being an athlete and a lawyer, what can we learn from this series of problems that led to a seriously unhappy group of customers? I don’t do this for a living, but here are just a few preliminary thoughts:

The first thing that struck me was the reference to fixed costs in putting on a race of this nature and the fact that the promoter, RAM Racing of Chicago, seems concerned about their liability. They should be. I’m hoping that each of their separate races are organized out of a separate legal entity. Many will see this as an unnecessary additional step, but when everything goes wrong you want to make sure your liability is limited as much as possible to that specific race. This is the example that proves why.

I was watching the race, not running in it. My wife—who doesn’t even like chocolate—was running this after supporting me at Ironman Cozumel the week before, and our neighbor was running with her. The husbands were cheering, and I turned to him when the 5k runners went by and said, ‘this is why they place a cap on the number of athletes.’ Every promoter thinks that tripling their wildest dreams would be great for their race, but especially the first time you run an event in a new venue you should simply cap it at a reasonable number. Overreaching leads to bad results, and even successfully managed events like Ironman races get grumbling at the number of competitors. This builds buzz as well.

Third, you need to make sure that the venue is appropriate for the event. Part of this is the location, but an even greater amount is the working relationships with local authorities and partners. There are always two sides to any relationship, but if you don’t have complete confidence that your partners are willing to work with you to make things successful then you shouldn’t put on the event in the first place. I can’t tell you how many of my clients have heard this advice, decided to do the deal anyway because ‘there’s no one else’, and then the deal ends up as a disaster for everyone involved. Usually ‘there’s no one else’ means ‘it seemed like the best deal at the time.’ Your partners hold your reputation in their hands. Treat them better than your bankers.

Most of these problems could have been avoided. (But, RAM racing has a history of disappointing on these very issues, in multiple cities.) Maybe the problem was hubris, maybe it was random…I don’t really know. But I think many problems can be avoided by having someone on staff to poke holes in the planning. I’m biased, but I prefer a lawyer for this role because we’re trained to raise questions about poor outcomes and have the confidence and position to raise them to leadership’s attention. Many people view this as a negative force when having a ‘red team’ is just part of an effective planning process. Look, you can hire me (legal) or my wife (pr and marketing). Actually, we have great jobs already, but you know what I mean. You should hire both roles to be part of your team. But what most people do is skimp on the former and outsource the latter. What happens then is you hire several (very expensive) lawyers and a vast team of PR and marketing folks to try and keep the 20,000 former customers and their pitchforks from your castle, instead of building the right relationships from the start. Have someone on your team as the designated contrarian, at the very least.

Finally, I haven’t reviewed the participant release that RAM prepared for this, but I think every race promoter should sit down with their lawyer and review theirs in light of what happened. Same with their contingency plans, and their agreements with municipal and location partners. At the Association of Corporate Counsel meeting in Denver a month ago they had a panel discussion on race promotion legal issues, and hopefully your lawyer was there and up to speed on the latest issues. You know what they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!