Competitors Silly and InSINcere Offer for Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon Victims

Those of us that were lucky enough to survive the Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon or Half Marathon (Full Story) earlier this month received an email from Competitor (company that puts the race on) today offering us $50 off the entry fee for Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona that takes place on January 15, 2011.

  1. Offer was made via email today, Dec 13, for a race on January 15, 2012.  Very tough and short window for runners to plan and arrange travel/training.
  2. $135 – $50 is still $85 to run Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona. Add in travel (gas, plane, rental car) and hotel and you are going to be down $500-$1,000 to run a race you didn’t want to run in the first place (or else you would have already signed up for it.)  $50 off is a small percentage of the cost it would actually take to run the race.
  3. Almost all RNR LV runners that plan to run RNR AZ have already signed up and paid full price for it.
  4. Offer was likely made knowing that very few could accept it.  That way Competitor can say, ‘Hey, we tried to make up for our mistakes at Las Vegas.”
  5. Competitor/Rock ‘n’ Roll is not going to get the benefit of the doubt from anyone anymore.
  6. Most runners I’ve talked to seem to agree. Insincere offer. Some deleted it immediately as they broke out the SMH!
  7. Some believe it’s a way to fill a race that hasn’t sold out yet.
  8. While some runners have sworn to me they will never run another RNR event even if it was free.
  9. Runners by and large are whiners or running divas, but what went down in Vegas was absurd. After the merge, every runner’s safety and health was in peril unless you were an elite or at the head of the pack for either race.
  10. The offer would have had legs if it had been for $50 off of any RNR race in 2012.

Competitor is right to offer something to try to smooth over what went down on December 4, 2011, but this offer is coming across to runners as an offer that most are unable to accept for a variety of reasons.

What happened that night in Vegas for sure didn’t stay in Vegas.  Competitor’s reputation, which was already mud among marathon veterans, is at an all-time low with almost all runners that were in Vegas.

40,000 runners ran that night. Those 40,000 runners have lots of running friends. Word of mouth is believable due to the heavy amount of complaints coming from an array of runners and stories on the news and in print.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Facebook page has been an endless ticker of negativity and hatred towards Competitor.

The CEO of Competitor, Peter Englehart, called me late last week and he did seem sincere in listening and wanting to find out everything that went wrong in Las Vegas so they could make changes for 2012.

I bet you can’t MERGE this offer with any other discount codes!!

Agree or disagree? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

How bad was Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas? Nightmare on the Strip: Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon and Half Marathon Full of Sin

Dirty Rumors from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon

2011 Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon & Half Marathon Medals

[photo of runners trapped inside the Mandalay Bay. via A Trail Runner’s Blog]

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This post was written by:

- who has written 1138 posts on Run It Fast®.

Joshua Holmes has completed 325 marathons/ultramarathons while running 100+ miles 62 including races such as the Badwater 135 (9x), Western States 100, The Last Annual Vol State 500K (4x). He is the founder of Run It Fast, the most driven club on the planet. His favorite races to date are the Vol State 500K, Badwater 135, Barkley Fall Classic, Catalina Eco Marathon, Chimera 100, Across The Years, Savage Gulf Trail Marathon, Strolling Jim 40 Miler, Tunnel Hill 100, RUTS, EC100 and the Flying Monkey Marathon in his home state of Tennessee. Follow @bayou Follow @joshuaholmes on Instagram

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8 Responses to “Competitors Silly and InSINcere Offer for Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon Victims”

  1. Kimberly says:

    I totally agree. Everything Competitor has done so far has been one giant empty gesture, and with each one they are digging themselves further into a hole that they will not be able to come out of.

    I already have entry to RnRNOLA and am thinking very long and hard about flying down from Wisconsin with my family for the weekend to run it. I have such disdain for Competitor and Rock n Roll at this point. If the $50 code was good for ANY RnR race I’d probably use it for Chicago since it’s closest and travel would be minimal. That said, I’m still not thrilled about running any more of their events after what has happened since Vegas.

  2. Billy says:

    Nailed it on the head, its a slap in the face for those of us who had to deal with Las Vegas, spent the money for a great experience and got nothing but a below average race one would expect in a neighborhood 5K. By the way, even if you didnt run the Las Vegas Marathon, you can use the $50 Coupon Code.. They are trying to fill Arizona up, they are not trying to make amends. If they were they would have offered the $50 to any RNR race.

  3. Jennifer Ward says:

    I agree! I would accept this offer if the discount were for ANY of the RnR races in 2012. I have work/family obligations (as well as limited funds to travel from Philly to Arizona) that prevent me from running a race that’s a few thousand miles from home in 4 weeks. I hope they reconsider and provide a discount code for any of their races (that is able to be combined with other discount codes as well).

  4. Naresh Kumar says:

    They make an offer which one will surely refuse. 🙂

  5. Dean says:

    I was going to run RockNRoll New Orleans but because of the complaints for this race decided to do a non RNR race. There are so many Races out there just stop doing the RNR races

  6. jen says:

    I didn’t run RNRLV because for once in my life, being broke paid off and I was unable to swing such a trip right now — but it was one that was on my “I soooo want to do this race list” – uh not any more.

    I’m sad to see what went down for all of my running friends.

    I think that if RNR can’t afford to out and out refund everyone’s race fees then they should at very least offer every racer who ran LV a free entry into the RNR event of their choice. Case closed. Even if runners, so disgusted by this race, chose not to use the offer, it would at least give RNR the opportunity to prove that this race was a fluke and that going forward things would be better. It’s still second best to a full refund but I think it would repair at least some of the angry feelings out there – and is a bit more meaningful.

  7. Kino says:

    “I bet you can’t MERGE this offer with any other discount codes!!”
    The word “Merge” still sends shivers down my spine because of RnR LV.

    For some reason I’m not on the email list, so thanks for sharing this info!

  8. Suzanne says:

    I’ve been thinking about going, but obviously the offer expired yesterday. I contacted (via the contact form on RNR) Competitor, asking if they would honor the discount today (one day after expiration). I will let you know what they say. I am in SoCal, so AZ isn’t too far to go.
    Let’s see if they bend on this one.
    P.S. The merge was the fall of my Vegas marathon. My EFT severely suffered once I hit a bunch of partying walkers. They ran out of Cytomax near Treasure Island and the water tasted like it came out of the water the pirate’s ship is in.

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