Color Fun Fest

I’ll start by saying that I have done many organized races, some good and others not so good. This, unfortunately, landed on the not so good list.
Registration:
After seeing a living social deal for the same race, we finally decided to sign a group of my family up. After stacking a coupon code, I ended up getting them for just under $ 16 each, this was a much better deal than the $ 25 they were charging on the site for «early bird» registration. They had been advertising that kids were free to register which was great since my niece was going to join us until… caveat– you have to pay an online registration fee of $ 5 for any ticket. Not only that, but I went to register with my living social codes and I had to register each person individually only to be slapped with that same $ 5 fee for each ticket. You guessed it, this meant I had to enter my card and be charged 5 separate times for all of the registrations. I called living social because I was not pleased with this additional fee that was not mentioned on the voucher since they are usually quite good about being transparent about those things. The customer service rep quickly apologized and let me know that it was never communicated to them that there would be an additional fee so she credited me $ 25 in deal bucks to compensate.
Packet Pick Up:
Anyone who has ever been to a packet pickup has to know what to expect, there’s going to be a LOT of people trying to get to the same place. The event was at Dick’s Sporting Goods off sport arena which in general is a good area unless there is a concert going on which there was. Once we were inside the line wasn’t too bad and the pickup process was pretty lax. I was able to get the registrations for the rest of the people in my group and pick up for everyone. Oh, did I mention that if you didn’t pick up your packet at this even that there would be yet ANOTHER $ 5 additional fee? Your packet included nothing more than the color packet, bibs, and safety pins. I was a little disappointed that you didn’t get a shirt or anything to keep (except a paper sticker) for completing the race. They were selling cotton tee shirts for more than we paid for the race registration! You got a 20% discount for the store and could buy a Nike tech shirt for the same price as their cotton tees.
Race Day:
I was a little skeptical about race day, doing this race with my family and young niece (15 months) not knowing what to expect. We walked up to the arena and heard music blaring, we got there early so we weren’t sure if it was because they had not gotten the levels right but it was really that loud the whole time. There were plenty of other families and kids there as they marketed this as a kid friendly race, and then there were the half-​naked people walking around. I felt SO bad for the people with kids old enough to understand how inappropriate some people were dressed, there was a woman literally walking around in booty shorts and a tutu. How they handled those conversations, I have noooo idea. The color throw was pretty cool, they filled extinguishers with the color and sprayed the crowd and they also threw out some extra color packets. Great idea to give freebies, probably not a great way to do it– my brother in law ended up getting scratched on his face by a woman trying to grab one of the color packets. The course was cool and the color stations were decked out with black lights and plenty of volunteers throwing color. My complaint about the course was that they routed the course through a dirt field which was tough to trudge through, I had mildly rolled my ankle a couple times because the ground was uneven but I’m shocked I didn’t see someone get seriously hurt from it. It was also poorly lit and not the best place to be trying to push a stroller through (again this was marketed as a kid friendly race and specifically mentioned strollers being ok).
For those of you wondering about the color and if it came out– I couldn’t believe how easy it was. I wore layers and it seemed like after you shook it out of your clothes, most of the color was gone. One wash and it was like new!
Overall it was a good concept and a fun environment once the race got going but there were more than a few times that I found myself shaking my head out of disappointment. My biggest annoyance was how many times I felt like I was getting nickel and dimed for whatever they could get out of me. It seemed like the event was thrown together at the last minute and they did what they could to make it happen. I will say that this is probably not the best race to do with a family, it is a more party/​chaotic atmosphere. Even the people working the event were darting through the crowd on longboards and through the race on a dirt bike. Is that the safest thing to do in a big crowd? Probably not. We made the best out of the situation and ended up having a good time, I just think there’s definitely room for some improvement.