Discussion: Not sure which O'Fest stages to sign up for?

The lowest entry fees are available through tomorrow, Sunday, Jan 12. If you've been waiting to sign up because you're not sure which stages you wanted to be in, consider signing up now for the stages you're pretty sure about so you can get the lowest fees - you can always add more stages later (at the then prevailing price, of course). You can register here. BTW, if you do want to add one or more stages after you've already entered, do not go back to EventRegister; rather, write to our esteemed Registrar (registrar@cal-o-fest.com) and she will modify your entry and have something sent to you that will enable you to pay for the additional stages.

Over 400 (!) people have already signed up for the O'Fest, from 21 different countries (and I'm not even counting our Belgian Beer Brigade). This is going to be exciting!

In case you have somehow missed it: The Cal O'Fest runs from July 21 through Aug 2, featuring 9 days of high class orienteering (the first 3 in the Bay Area, the next 6 - including the North American Orienteering Championships - near Lake Tahoe), followed by the World Rogaining Championships, also near Tahoe. You don't have to be a top competitor to enjoy participating in these events. These are all high quality venues with top notch course setting, and the spectacle of having so many people from so many places who love our sport as much as you do will lead to a gratifying experience.

There appears to be no discount for OUSA memberhip. Is that really the case?

Please clarify this situation, BAOC.

One of the few remaining perks now for OUSA membership is discounted entry fees at National ranking events....

The OUSA membership perk is that the event doesn't have to pay the additional $4 in sanctioning fees to OUSA for non members. That has frequently been presented in the form of a inflated price with a member discount, when it is really a non member surcharge.

Regardless, there is no difference shown for non-members - discount or surcharge whatever you want to call it. If you wait till the end of the sign up process and spring a surcharge on non-members, that is a mistake.

This is a question I'd asked the organizing committee some time ago, and they had a rationale, but since I'm not sure I remember all the details of that, I will bring this to the attention of the committee and see if I can someone to address this concern here.

OK, I've checked with the organizing team, and here's the story:

"We are expecting hundreds of entrants from foreign countries (and the entry list so far indicates that that is an appropriate expectation). Members of foreign federations are also eligible for the OUSA discount. But federations from different countries have different rules about who is or isn't a member of their federation, and the organizing team decided that it would be too difficult and time consuming to determine who is eligible for the discount, plus it could lead to bad feelings if some entrants felt they should get a discount and yet didn't get one. So, the organizing team decided that all entrants should pay the same fees, and built the OUSA discount directly into the posted fees. So, you ARE getting your OUSA discount, and so are all the members of foreign federations, and, yeah, maybe a few people who aren't members of a federation are getting a discount they don't really deserve, but we decided to err on that side rather than create a whole lot of extra work and possibly generate bad feelings"

That's an interesting point. For a meet of this level, especially not near a population center, how many non-members are typically paying the non-discounted fee? Is it essentially zero? Seems very unlikely that someone would travel all that way from a foreign country without being a member in their home country. I know there are some organizations that deal with this differently, not by giving a discount, but by just requiring membership to enter sanctioned races.

Thanks for the good explanation.

There are members of the AR community (adventure racing) that have never been members of an O club, or members of OUSA. The fact that the fees are the same for everybody would be seen favorably by the folks that have never belonged to an O club, and yet, have much experience in finding checkpoints in the wilderness.

Do many of those AR people show up at an event like the NAOC? I also have the impression that they are used to paying much higher entry fees than what we charge.

When OCIN Flying Pig had a ultra-long course years ago, some of the Kentucky/Indiana/Ohio AR folks signed up to do just that course.

The 10-hour Rootstock Racing Crooked Compass event near Frederick, Maryland, on April 3, 2020, is $65.

Gavin says:

There are almost certainly AR people signed up for WRC, though perhaps not for NAOC. NavX events attract up to 50% non-orienteers, including Adventure Racers, Ultra Marathoners, IronMen and other general long-distance athletes who are not in any orienteering club, nor OUSA. We were cognizant of them in our deliberations, since they are a big part of NavX. NavX is the only orienteering only club in North America exclusively devoted to Rogaining (or Map Trekking as they like to call it, because of the hair tonic) and are therefore our primary benchmark.

By the way, there are others, like some JROTC groups, who are are also not affiliated with any club, nor OUSA.

Rootstock has magic pricing I don't fully understand - this would be somewhat akin to making Raccoongaine the benchmark expectation for rogaine entry costs.

Typical AR event entry fee is more on the order of $10/hour.

Rogaines of any sort are a different kind of thing than national level orienteering meets.

With O/NA out of the picture, I could imagine making a change so that federation membership is required for entry to national meets, with exceptions for residents of other countries or people under 21. It's not something I would be interested in arguing for, and I expect there would be a lot of resistance, but it might be a good plan.

Typical AR event entry fee is more on the order of $10/hour.

Based on the ones I've done, that's actually understating the price by a fair margin! Mind you if you want to work on hourly margins, our orienteering series events (Metro and sprint) work out to be much more than that (sprint especially, could be $40 per hour if you do just one course). Bush possibly lower if you manage to turn your course into a 2hr adventure.