The same team at Hivelocity, who made the Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore Triathlon dream possible, has now put together a new race experience- a night run after sundown. An endurance athlete, ran an Ultra marathon of 168km in 2005, he mentioned that running in the night is a totally different feeling. He quoted: ‘ it’s quieter and you are able to clear your mind to focus on your run. I want to bring this experience to all runners’.
The addidas Sundown marathon was Singapore’s first ever night long- distance runt event. The categories included 4 different runs- the 84 Ultra marathon, the 42km marathon, team challenge and corporate challenge. The route for the various marathons comprised of the part connector network, which is an island-wide network of linear open spaces, that link up major parks, nature sites and housing estates in Singapore. The adidas sundown marathon is a unique experience for seasoned runners with a route and terrain that is designed to challenge the mind, body and soul of the athletes, and the director of Hivelocity Pte Ltd, Mr. Adrian Mok looks forward to improving the race experience next year to attract more serious athletes from all over the world.
There are many sports events organized every year. But what sets Hivelocity from the rest is their ability to out-of-the-box thinking and creative ideas. They go the extra mile to make events extraordinary. Headed by Adrian Mok and Jeffrey Foo, Hivelocity is a company built on the pure passion and love for sports. Hivelocity is created based on the different idealism and the members’ conviction.
Hivelocity is broken up into two teams, - the ‘brand team’ and the ‘event team’. The brand team markets and distributes international sporting brands for performance sports. They believe they know what customers are looking for and constantly add value to it. With this understanding instilled into them, they are certain they are able to build lasting product brands that become the part of the lives of their customers. They also aim to add value and deliver loyalty brands. The event team on the other hand, specializes in sports event management as well as sports marketing. The team constantly uses creativity to plan events and a lot of their work involves them to convince skeptics to allow them to do things. They provide a suite of sports events services which includes- race management, logistics planning, route planning and E-marketing.
This synergistic working relationship between both teams has given Hivelocity the common dream they all share which is to create a great sporting experience for all.
The role of this Adidas Sundown Marathon event can be served as a tourist event, more than an attraction. Being the first Singapore night marathon, it would definitely attract a lot of ‘buzz’ among the rest of the countries and attract a lot of foreigners to come and run this night marathon. For foreign runners, it not only serve as a marathon for them, but because this marathon has a unique running track of the park connecters, the foreign runners will be able to see and experience a different side of Singapore which they don’t usually see. It also gives the Narks a chance to promote them as well as to promote all the different parks around Singapore in such a unique way.
The stakeholders for this event include, the runners, organizing committee, supporters, media coverage, paramedics, security, marshals, event partners, event sponsors, staff, and not forgetting the volunteers. All this people, in one way or another, be it small or large scale, contributes to this macro event. Sponsors include Adidas, Powerbar, 100 Plus and Oakley. They sponsor the essential items to make this run a success. Runners are also very crucial because they are the main reason for the event to be a success. And runners bring along spectators and supporters. Media coverage is also important because it allows the rest of the people to be updated with the current situation of the marathon. It also gives publicity for the event and creates awareness. Event partners like National Parks Board also play a very crucial role in this marathon because this marathon’s route is based along all the parks in Singapore. Paramedics as well as security, though minor, but play an important role as well for the safety and security of the runners and people involved in this event.
The target market of this marathon would probably be the long distance runners and more endurance athletes. They also focus on corporate people for the corporate relay challenge as well as runners who want to compete as a team.
This is quite a balanced target market as it challenges the long distance runners to push themselves for either the 42km run, or the 84km ultramarathon. They also cater to runners from the same company, and interested runners who might want to run as a team, to complete different legs of the race. This can cater to the different needs of different people.
This time round, Hivelocity used a route of park connectors instead of the usual CBD area or marina bay or even sentosa. This serves as a very good marketing strategy, because people might think, it’s a new route and would want to test the route, because most of the avid runners, would have already ran the usual routes along sentosa or CBD area. This would attract foreign runners even more because they most probably would have never ran the parks before and it would be as great an experience as it is an attraction.
Apart from the unusual route this time round, Hivelocity engaged Adidas to be their title sponsor. Adidas is more well known compared to Hivelocity, thus having them as a title sponsor, would definitely attract a larger amount of people compared to having the marathon called:‘Hivelocity sundown marathon’. People would definitely be more attracted if it were called ‘Adidas Sundown Marathon’. With this said, having big and famous companies would increase the awareness of the event as well as attract more people to sign up for the marathon. It can also increase exposure.
As for the organization of the event. I would say that they considered everything, even to the very tedious details to ensure everything is set correctly and not have any clashes. They also make sure their runners are safe. Security were hired to ensure the runner’s safety and at times, traffic is either controlled or stopped for a while to make sure the runners are safe to run that leg of the race. Apart from that, water stations are also set up along the race route, to ensure that the runners constantly hydrate themselves. Volunteers and marshals are also stationed along the race route to not only guide the runners, but also to ensure their safety and to provide help should any of the athletes run into any difficulty along the way.
The day’s program schedule is also planned very well and they even predicted and cater to the timings of which the 1st person of that certain marathon might be coming in. for example, the start of the ultra marathon is at 8.30pm. In the program schedule, it states that the 1st Ultramarathoner is expected to complete the first lap at 11.30pm. Not only that, they even made provisions as to what time the last Ultramarathoner might be finishing the race. The whole program flow is very clear and that anyone who reads the program flow would know what is going on and at which point of time, what is happening.
Also, they have lined the 4 different marathons at four different timings to as to ensure that there is no clash in the routes and runners and that runners would not make a mistake and accidentally join a route that might not be according to their marathon route.
Thus, I feel that the organization is very efficient in their timings and on race day itself, followed the timings very closely. The flagged off timings were not delayed and infact, when I was there, the officials were already ready and set everyone ready to flag off the different marathons 10 minutes before actual timing. And after making sure everyone was ready, both officials and runners, and also that traffic was controlled, then they flagged it off, on time.
With that, I believe that Hivelocity did a job well done for the event, ensuring not only the runners safety but also their health and that they keep everyone in view, even till the last runner of each marathon. After the event, or after each flag off, they were efficient in clearing up as well.
With these entire large scaled event being held in Singapore, like the Singapore Flyer, and the first ever F1 race in Singapore, having the Adidas Sundown marathon does meet the tourist demand. People could see that Singapore is try its best to meet the tourist demand, whether it’s for sports or other recreational facilities and events. This event has the ability to bring in a lot of tourist cause like I mentioned, it has a very unusual route of park connectors and that, it was a marathon held in the night, people will definitely be attracted to the event and thus, more tourist would want to come to Singapore, and with them, they would bring their family and friends.
The tourism mission for Singapore is ‘ we develop and champion tourism so as to build the sector into a key driver of economic growth for Singapore.
I feel that Hivelocity should have incorporated STB (Singapore Tourism Board) into their event sponsors. Having STB with them, there would definitely be more publicity involved and this would increase the awareness of the event. From what I know, a lot of the people only came to know about the sundown marathon recently and only after the event registration closed. Not only that, Hivelocity should have opened up the marathon into an international marathon, this way, a lot more people from all over the world would come to know about this event and would definitely attract runners from all over. And in a long run, people would want to come to Singapore to join such events. This would definitely be a driving factor to attracting more tourist and foreigners and in turn, increase more exposure on Singapore and like the mission state, build the sector into a key driver of economic growth for Singapore.
reference:
http://www.sundownmarathon.com/adidas
Sundown Marathon Fact sheet
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