Questions for Ace Race TD's

[BlueRidgeMtnMan]

Who here has ran an Ace Race Event?

How much experience must a person have to TD an Ace Race?

How do you get permission to use a course for an Ace Race?

How many people can you expect to show up at the last minute wanting to play?

Is there a problem running an Ace Race at a course that only sells Innova Disc in the club house?

How long do you make the holes? do you make them shorter or longer than Discraft's suggestions?

how much money can you expect to raise for your club?

 

[E_Rock25]

1. I am running one this year.

2. You don't really need any.

3. Ask the city you may have to pay a fee to rent the park for the day or half the day.

4. It depends on the course and the area. It also depends on how may ace races are being run it the area. I just went to one and there were 10-15 walk ons. I know the TD of the one I went to very well he is helping me a bit with mine and what to expect.

5. I dont think there would be a problem here. The ace race is about bringing new players into the sport.

6. Make the holes shorter than Discraft says too. The more aces the more fun IMO.

7. If you don't have to pay to use the course you are going to make about $5.50 per player. So it all depends on how may people you get. Your not going to make a ton of money unless you have other events as well. CPT, Random Dubs, EXT

 

[CaptainAnhyzer]

All good questions.....

I'll be running my 4th Ace Race this year.

The Ace Race was my first ever as a TD. Super easy to run one.

As far as course permission goes, if its a public course go to the local Parks Dept/City hall to see if you have to request a reservation of said course/pavilion/etc. There may be a fee involved but its minimal.

Depending on your local player numbers, you could have a substantial number show up the day of. Best way to aviod that issue is to advertise the event early and strongly reccommend that players pre register.

Should be no issue running the Ace Race at a course with an Innova "store" onsite. But you should appraoch the club house and ask.

As far as holes go, you're left to be pretty creative with them. I make mental notes all year at the course while playing to come up with my tees.

Discraft asks that you charge $25 per player. The cost for player packs is $18. That's $8 per player that can go toward the club, expenses, course fees, etc.

 

[E_Rock25]

The players packs are $18 + shipping. It is about $2 a pack to ship them.

 

[JRW III]

Pretty much what E Rock said, but I will add a few insights from my past three years of running an Ace Race.

Regarding the distance, there are a lot of varialbles. The two largest are the type of disc and the skill level of you expected participants. Last year, the disc was the Hornet, and long holes were good. This year is a putter. I would recommend having quite a few holes between 100 and 125 ft. The best thing to do is to get a group to test your holes prior to the event to see how it would play. You most likely will get the players packs the Wednesday before your Ace Race so that will give you some time to test the holes (or you could buy a disc out of the Market place here on DGCR.

Estimating the number of players packs is one of the most difficult things to do. Under estimate, and you end up turning people away, over estimate and you get stuck with extra packs. Depending upon how many you get stuck with, you might be able to sell all of the extras at the event. Bottom line is push pre-registration.

When looking at finances, the packs cost $18. I have found shipping to generally be about $1.5 per pack. Don't forget to budget other costs (water, ice, comps for volunteers, park fees if applicable, etc...). You can definately make some money, but don't expect a whole lot unless you have other stuff going on.

 

[BlueRidgeMtnMan]

Follow Up Questions:

I think that we could have about 45 participants, how many volunteers do you think I would need or could i manage by myself?


In your experience, what addition activities generate the most participation/funds? CTP, Ace Revenge, Distance?


Do you sell mulligans? If so, do you cap the mulligans? (Say mulligans 2$, max of 6)

How long does an Ace Race last? 2 hours?

Are there any additional difficulties in running an Ace Race on a 9 hole course?

 

[CaptainAnhyzer]

Volunteers are not really neccessary, except for set up and scoring. Could be a couple buds that are planning to play anyways.

We usually run a doubles round afterwards. You could generate funds that way. A distance comp with the Ace Race disc sounds like a cool idea.

Don't sell mulligans, that just turns the event into "who can pay for the victory". My $.02

2-3 hours max for an 18 hole course. Discraft guidelines says to play two rounds with each player throwing once. I prefer to just have them play one round with tow throws per hole. This format gives the players a good chance at more aces/metals because they can adjust their throw from the first shot(if neccessary) while it's still fresh in their mind.

As far as a nine hole course goes, it's not really much a problem aside from the number of players you start on each hole. Since players are just throwing and picking up(no upshots/putts), you could easily have 6-7 players on a card. Makes for a kind of "gallery" feel too. Nothing is better than a big crowd seeing & reacting to your ace !!

 

[JRW III]

While you could manage by yourself, it would be good to have someone help with registration to speed things up.

We had two seperate rounds. There is water on our course, and if someone lost a disc during the round, the second disc was used as a back up. Plus, there are several players who like to use only one disc so that they can keep the second one in a new condition.

We had between 4 and 6 per card.

 

[jhgonzo]

In your experience, what addition activities generate the most participation/funds? CTP, Ace Revenge, Distance?

:thmbup: :hfive:

It's great to see an event I just created last year (and am trying for the second time this year) get mentioned alongside the more common side games at an Ace Race! The Ace Revenge went over really well last year, and out of about 40 that I had in the Race, about half of them played the Revenge...at $10 a pop with no player packs, that's $200 of profit (which wasn't really too much profit since most of it went to the portable basket we awarded to the winner).

I'm doing the Revenge a bit differently this year. Last year it was identical to the Race (2 rounds of 18 holes using 2 discs of your own), and even with those 4 rounds of only 1 shot per hole people were kinda tuckered out at the end; thus, I am making it only ONE ROUND this year, using any THREE discs of your own, and you throw all 3 at each tee. I'm also doing a point system for the Revenge this year...10 for an ace, 3 for metal (basket and above), 1 for bottom pole.

 

[Todd Wiley]

I am running my first Ace Race this year.

Besides the $25 registration fee, there is a $5 option for 10 Mulligans over 2 rounds giving 46 throws instead of 36. That $5 goes directly into the Ace Jackpot fund for from the local League. The Ace Jackpot fund will then be paid out after the Ace Race on a per points basis, with Aces being worth 2 and Metal being worth 1 point. Our current Ace Jackpot is $68 (we have had 1 Ace hit during Club Events back in May). I am also placing 9 holes between 75-100 feet and 9 holes between 101-125 feet to hopefully encourage more chances for hits. Since our club is poor and still fairly new, I required pre-registration and mentioned that Players Packs will be limited on the day of the event. I have only had 12 Pre-Register so far... and I won't order extras unless I have to. However, if I get players who show up on the day of the event in significant numbers, I will split the players packs up to allow them to play and then order more players packs after the event and get the discs out to who needs them.

This Ace Revenge sounds like a great idea!

 

[jhgonzo]

I don't advertise this, because obviously I'd like to sell as many packs as possible, but for example when a couple registers, I give them the option of buying just the one pack at $25 and adding a second player to that pack for $10 (again, this is $10 pure profit for your club!)...then they can each pick one disc and fight over the rest of the player pack goodies. I've also done this in the past when I had walk-ups but no more packs to sell, but if they knew someone there and the player was willing to split the pack, I let them play on that pack for $10.

What's nice about the Revenge is that when someone pre-registers for both of my events for $35, this essentially covers the cost of 2 player packs ($18 each), allowing me a bit more leeway to order extras for those walk-ups.

Gotta go dump some more money in the bank, ordering packs tomorrow!

 

[JRW III]

I am running my first Ace Race this year.

Besides the $25 registration fee, there is a $5 option for 10 Mulligans over 2 rounds giving 46 throws instead of 36. That $5 goes directly into the Ace Jackpot fund for from the local League. The Ace Jackpot fund will then be paid out after the Ace Race on a per points basis, with Aces being worth 2 and Metal being worth 1 point. Our current Ace Jackpot is $68 (we have had 1 Ace hit during Club Events back in May). I am also placing 9 holes between 75-100 feet and 9 holes between 101-125 feet to hopefully encourage more chances for hits. Since our club is poor and still fairly new, I required pre-registration and mentioned that Players Packs will be limited on the day of the event. I have only had 12 Pre-Register so far... and I won't order extras unless I have to. However, if I get players who show up on the day of the event in significant numbers, I will split the players packs up to allow them to play and then order more players packs after the event and get the discs out to who needs them.

This Ace Revenge sounds like a great idea!

It is always good to order a few more players packs. With such a good deal, it is not that hard to unload a couple of players packs after the event to recoup your costs. My first Ace Race I had 15 preregister before I placed the order. I ordered an extra 10. All 10 extras were spoken for before the day of the event. This most recent year I orded 25 extra, and all were spoken for well before the event.

I agree that the shorter the better regarding holes. However, I still left a couple of longer ones.

 

[Todd Wiley]

It all depends on where you are... considering that disc golf is still new to a lot of players in my area.. ordering extras would only dent my bank account and recouping would take a while.. I'd most likely end up giving them away... so extra packs is not in the budget off the get go for me this year... but I hope that this is the start to something great for 2012! and you gotta remember, its the first discraft ace race for my area...

 

[BlueRidgeMtnMan]

Thanks for all the replys.

I am still waiting to hear from our Parks and Rec Department and our local club director. It seems as if no one wants to return an email this week. I hope to get the go ahead next week and start advertising.

One last question:

Do you guys play in your Ace Race, also?
I really want to participate; I obviously would accept the grand prize(not that I would win).

 

[JRW III]

Thanks for all the replys.

I am still waiting to hear from our Parks and Rec Department and our local club director. It seems as if no one wants to return an email this week. I hope to get the go ahead next week and start advertising.

One last question:

Do you guys play in your Ace Race, also?
I really want to participate; I obviously would accept the grand prize(not that I would win).

I play in mine. It was the whole reason I started one. I throw two throws on each hole to finish faster.

 

[BlueRidgeMtnMan]

That's why I want to start one as well. It sounds like alot of fun to play in one.

 

[DiscJunkie]

We had 90 players this year, so I didn't play.
we've decided that someone will need to hang out at the TD Central to answer questions, take pictures, etc.

 

[netposer]

I'm filming our local Ace Race at Sunset Park in Rocky Mount, NC

I might throw a few holes but it would be really cool to capture a few Aces that day and capture the festivities.

 

[jhgonzo]

I played the first year, but not the last two (I was running EVERYTHING solo), but this year I"ll have some volunteers so I probably will. I also play with the understanding that *if* I win, the prize will go to the runner-up...

 

[jcf5083]

Discraft asks that you charge $25 per player. The cost for player packs is $18. That's $8 per player that can go toward the club, expenses, course fees, etc.

Something about that doesn't seem right...