Discussion: Organizing tips?
in: 2015 Corn Maze Champs (Sep 5, 2015 - Sunderland, MA, US)
Sep 1, 2015 2:57 PM
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Looking to put on a CMO event in October in Tucson, AZ. I'm not there in person to go talk to the corn maze folks face to face, so I'm looking for tips from other people who have organized CMO events about what kinds of concerns they might have before I approach them. Field size limits? Limiting corn damage? Liability?
Sep 1, 2015 3:53 PM
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At RMOC's usual maze at Anderson Farms, the main concern is that our runners aren't knocking over kids and families while racing in the narrow corridors. Otherwise, the staff doesn't pay any attention to us at all (it's a big operation with lots of crowds and activities).
Anderson Farms is a Maze Play design with hole punchers at each control post. Sometimes there will be a crowd of kids and parents all taking forever to punch their cards when an orienteer arrives; that has been an issue with parents getting crabby that an orienteer has grabbed the punch and run away quickly, or has acted impatient while the kids are taking their time...
Anderson Farms is a Maze Play design with hole punchers at each control post. Sometimes there will be a crowd of kids and parents all taking forever to punch their cards when an orienteer arrives; that has been an issue with parents getting crabby that an orienteer has grabbed the punch and run away quickly, or has acted impatient while the kids are taking their time...
Sep 1, 2015 4:07 PM
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I'm hoping we can do this on a weeknight when it's not open to the public, otherwise I imagine it would be a bit of a mess with kids in the maze.
Do you use e-punch?
Do you use e-punch?
Sep 1, 2015 4:08 PM
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We use e-punch and run the event in the first week when the maze just opens, there is not much public then. That is in SMOC land.
Sep 1, 2015 4:19 PM
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PG:
I've always done it while the maze was closed to the public, therefore either weekday late afternoon or (recently) a week before they open to the public. It obviously helps I know the owner. The first couple of years I did it without paying anything. The last few I pay him the going rate, figure it's a good long-term investment.
It's much easier not having to worry about (bad) interactions with the public.
The problem originally, when we did it a weekday afternoon in October, was less daylight, plus one year especially, the corn had taken a beating already. Of course, had I realized how cool night-O' in the corn is, then the less daylight wouldn't have been a problem.
Corn damage -- people have been pretty conscientious, hasn't been a problem that I know of.
My other concern always is weather. So far we've been lucky....
It's much easier not having to worry about (bad) interactions with the public.
The problem originally, when we did it a weekday afternoon in October, was less daylight, plus one year especially, the corn had taken a beating already. Of course, had I realized how cool night-O' in the corn is, then the less daylight wouldn't have been a problem.
Corn damage -- people have been pretty conscientious, hasn't been a problem that I know of.
My other concern always is weather. So far we've been lucky....
Sep 1, 2015 4:19 PM
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Field size limits?
It's not necessarily the size of the field, but the design of the maze. CascadeOC uses Bob's Corn Maze, which is about 10 acres, but it's very much a "one way in, one way out" style of maze, so it can take a while to get through. Our corn maze event falls during our Choose Your Adventure season, so it's a score-o. Since it's a small area, we have a map exchange and everyone goes into the maze twice to find two sets of 12 checkpoints. Winning times are around ~30 minutes.
Depending on the size of the maze, the style of the maze, and the style of event will depend on how long the race is.
Limiting corn damage?
Reading Bob's website, I knew this was an issue, so I pretty much said from the start, "We'll make sure everyone knows the rules. We'll disqualify anyone shortcutting corn." In previous years, we went in mid October when the shortcuts were more of a problem because there are more ornery kids in the previous night's night-maze busting new paths. Bob uses colored plastic tape on all of the official paths, though, so our runners still know what's out-of-bounds. But it shows good awareness upfront when you let them know that you know the rules and will play by them.
Liability?
They've got insurance, too. I mentioned the first time that we had our own insurance for the event, and they weren't expecting that. It wasn't an issue.
Runners aren't knocking over kids and families while racing in the narrow corridors.
Yeah, this was the main concern that our maze had, too. It opens at 10am, so we have our wave starts from 915-930am. We have the maze to ourselves, and by the time the first public people arrive, it's usually 1015am or so (they have to take a tractor ride from the barn over). By then, the fast people are usually done and pretty much everyone else is back in the maze for their second loop through. Since it's one-way-in, one-way-out, we just need to get a head start.
Our first year we had ~40 people. We had 150 people last year, as the buzz gets bigger. We'd been going early on Sunday mornings in mid-October. Mid-October is when they are busiest, so even through we don't have crashes in the maze, after the race is over, the place is a zoo (we're cleaning up as the crowds get big, we're getting back to the other festivities and parking when it's packed. This year we're going a lot earlier, so we'll see how that changes the feel of the race.
We also enforce the one-way-in rule. There's a general flow to the maze, so we have everyone enter in the entrance and exit through the exit (ie: no doing the course backwards).
Map
A lot of places have fancy, detailed maps (like Peter's and RMOC's). Our farmer makes his with graph paper and a grid of stakes, and the map that they provide you is an aerial photo, which usually isn't good enough for nit-picky orienteers (the photo they used the first year we went was especially bad). So I make an ISSOM version, but that's overkill.
Scoring
We've been using our own checkpoints and punchcards for the first three years (there's no MazePlay game already there), and people seemed to like that because you can easily see which controls you've been to and which controls you haven't (remember, we have a score-o). We're switching to e-punching this year, so I think we'll probably have more people accidentally skip some controls. It can get really confusing in there, so all of the controls look similar.
It's not necessarily the size of the field, but the design of the maze. CascadeOC uses Bob's Corn Maze, which is about 10 acres, but it's very much a "one way in, one way out" style of maze, so it can take a while to get through. Our corn maze event falls during our Choose Your Adventure season, so it's a score-o. Since it's a small area, we have a map exchange and everyone goes into the maze twice to find two sets of 12 checkpoints. Winning times are around ~30 minutes.
Depending on the size of the maze, the style of the maze, and the style of event will depend on how long the race is.
Limiting corn damage?
Reading Bob's website, I knew this was an issue, so I pretty much said from the start, "We'll make sure everyone knows the rules. We'll disqualify anyone shortcutting corn." In previous years, we went in mid October when the shortcuts were more of a problem because there are more ornery kids in the previous night's night-maze busting new paths. Bob uses colored plastic tape on all of the official paths, though, so our runners still know what's out-of-bounds. But it shows good awareness upfront when you let them know that you know the rules and will play by them.
Liability?
They've got insurance, too. I mentioned the first time that we had our own insurance for the event, and they weren't expecting that. It wasn't an issue.
Runners aren't knocking over kids and families while racing in the narrow corridors.
Yeah, this was the main concern that our maze had, too. It opens at 10am, so we have our wave starts from 915-930am. We have the maze to ourselves, and by the time the first public people arrive, it's usually 1015am or so (they have to take a tractor ride from the barn over). By then, the fast people are usually done and pretty much everyone else is back in the maze for their second loop through. Since it's one-way-in, one-way-out, we just need to get a head start.
Our first year we had ~40 people. We had 150 people last year, as the buzz gets bigger. We'd been going early on Sunday mornings in mid-October. Mid-October is when they are busiest, so even through we don't have crashes in the maze, after the race is over, the place is a zoo (we're cleaning up as the crowds get big, we're getting back to the other festivities and parking when it's packed. This year we're going a lot earlier, so we'll see how that changes the feel of the race.
We also enforce the one-way-in rule. There's a general flow to the maze, so we have everyone enter in the entrance and exit through the exit (ie: no doing the course backwards).
Map
A lot of places have fancy, detailed maps (like Peter's and RMOC's). Our farmer makes his with graph paper and a grid of stakes, and the map that they provide you is an aerial photo, which usually isn't good enough for nit-picky orienteers (the photo they used the first year we went was especially bad). So I make an ISSOM version, but that's overkill.
Scoring
We've been using our own checkpoints and punchcards for the first three years (there's no MazePlay game already there), and people seemed to like that because you can easily see which controls you've been to and which controls you haven't (remember, we have a score-o). We're switching to e-punching this year, so I think we'll probably have more people accidentally skip some controls. It can get really confusing in there, so all of the controls look similar.
Sep 1, 2015 4:23 PM
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Payment
Oh yeah. We collect the going rate for maze entry at our registration table, so the participants just pay us, and then we pay the farm at the end of the race for all of the money we collected for them. We get the group discount. The corn maze makes more money on the event than the orienteering club, but that shouldn't surprise you if you've been reading Attackpoint for a while.
Oh yeah. We collect the going rate for maze entry at our registration table, so the participants just pay us, and then we pay the farm at the end of the race for all of the money we collected for them. We get the group discount. The corn maze makes more money on the event than the orienteering club, but that shouldn't surprise you if you've been reading Attackpoint for a while.
Sep 1, 2015 4:27 PM
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Weather
The first year we did this, we didn't have any rain for several months leading up to the race (Seattle's summers are pretty dry, if you didn't know). The paths were hard packed dirt. It was great!
But then two days before the race, the winter rains came, and came, and came. Which meant that on race day, we had a slick, sloppy layer on top, and a hardpack layer underneath. And lots and lots and lots of sharp turns.
It wasn't rainy on event day, but it was one of the dirtier races that I can remember!
The first year we did this, we didn't have any rain for several months leading up to the race (Seattle's summers are pretty dry, if you didn't know). The paths were hard packed dirt. It was great!
But then two days before the race, the winter rains came, and came, and came. Which meant that on race day, we had a slick, sloppy layer on top, and a hardpack layer underneath. And lots and lots and lots of sharp turns.
It wasn't rainy on event day, but it was one of the dirtier races that I can remember!
Sep 2, 2015 8:01 PM
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Great tips! I'm hoping to start a CMO in 2016. The biggest maze in SoCal isn't that close, but it's in a spot that's marketable to both LA and San Diego. This year, I'm going on a weekday just to scope the place out, see how they run things, and hopefully talk to them about next year.
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