Late fees - Enough already!

I'll get straight to the point. At the top of my list of targets to take down is the continued practice of late fees by event promoters. This is a sore subject for racers and brings to mind all the times we've had to fork over an extra $5 or $10 bucks unnecessarily. That's right, this practice is outdated, outmoded, antique, old-hat, obsolete, anti-customer, unfriendly and just plain wrong.

For the record I fall on both sides of this fence. I race and promote, so I see, feel and understand the issue from both angles. First and foremost I am a bike racer, a customer, and I do my best to view every issue from a customer's point of view.

I'll remind you that we're in the connected information age, the year 2007 for goodness sakes. Everybody has the Internet, an email address and buying everything online from books to cars to registering for a race. We are all connected and comfortable with the online world. Not only that, but we are informed with relevant and timely information more than we've ever been. Moreover, we've got more opportunities of fun and pleasure aggressively competing for our time and money.

My feeling is either an event is worth the initial $25 or $30 entry fee or it's not. The value of the event does not increase just because time has passed and we're now a few days closer to saddling up. An event stands on its own merits or it doesn't. I could see if that extra income was being poured back into the event to increase the prize list, but those extra dollars are padding the bottom line without a return for participants. It's not a late fee as much as it is a penalty for procrastinating.

If you think road race or mountain bike promoters are the only guilty party then think again. There are charity ride events all over that charge extra if you pass a certain deadline. In the age of online registration this should be unthinkable and something all participants should balk at. I can assure you there's no promoter out there who hasn't already found a financial solution to their budgeted expenses, which means late fees are simply extra income.

So now we're faced with this continued practice simply because "they can." Well, we "can" do lots of things, but that doesn't make it right. Just a few weeks ago I registered by mail for the first time in years because online registration wasn't even offered. Had I not done so it would have cost me $10 to register day of the event, and by the looks of the record crowd my guess is many did not pre-register. Cha-ching!

Here's something else I encountered recently. A race set a postmark deadline date that a mailed entry form must have in order to avoid the late fees. At the same time this race has online registration that continues beyond the postmark date. However, once the postmark deadline date passed the race increased the online entry fee price by $5 for each race! So now not only would someone registering online pay the service fee to the online registration provider, but they're also paying an extra $5 for the race. In other words, if you didn't register online or by mail by the postmark deadline then you're financially better off showing up day of to register. There's simply no logic in any of that, is there?

I know back in days prior to the Internet and online registration the late fee strategy was a necessary evil. Promoters needed that reassurance and safety net knowing they would have people to show up to race. Fair weather racers have difficulty committing, especially if they've seen a negative weather report! Early registration requirements lowered their risk and allowed them to cover their tails financially. If not, they'd have an empty start list beginning the race day and a lot of work to do in order get everybody registered day of.

I will admit, incenticizing racers to pre-register is something worth looking into. Forget about late fees for a second; pre-registering is a HUGE time savings for an event promoter. It not only creates a more efficient registration system for the promoter, but in theory the racers should spend less time in line because of larger pre-registration compliance. Like I said though, in theory!

Lastly, more and more bike racers are racing every single weekend. Often times our planning for the weekend doesn't begin until Tuesday or Wednesday before the weekend events. If you're off racing on a weekend the last thing you're going to worry about is registering for the following weekend's races. To avoid all late fees it would mean staying a week ahead at all times, and let's face it, a lot of LIFE can happen from week to week that would determine if you can actually attend an event. Oh, and I won't even touch on the financial considerations racers must factor into their travel schedule. Promoters must consider these issues and become more flexible in their thinking.

I don't think I've left you with any gray area on where I stand regarding late fees. I have never charged a $5 late fee for any race I've promoted and I never will. It's time for all other promoters to follow the same strategy and stop charging extra unnecessarily.