Our takeaways from the 2022 Running USA Industry Conference

Running USA Industry Conference Takeaways | Estimated Read time – 3:08

We had an absolute blast with everyone at the 2022 Running USA conference in Orlando! Our team really enjoyed connecting with everyone throughout the week and we found ourselves feeling inspired by various presentations. In this recap, we are covering our experience and takeaways from the Running USA conference!

This year was full of innovative topics, inspiring organizers to think about what’s in store for the future of our industry, and encouraging organizers to explore how they can recognize the unique wants and needs of their participants. Many of us were raving about the “What women (runners) want” presentation by Caroline Fitzgerald. She inspired us to take the time to consider and recognize the high amount of women within our industry who are just getting started with running! Her talk had many attendees exploring ideas on how they might be able to tailor their content and events to better connect, support, and engage with women. She showed us some great statistics to take away:

We loved that many talks focused on Diversity & Inclusion and had attendees thinking deeply about how our industry has room to evolve into a safer space for all individuals.

Some great takeaways from these talks were to:

• Work with a Diversity & Inclusion consultant 
• Form a team of diverse minds that can offer various perspectives
• Consider working with BIPOC brands for event merchandise and other assets
• Be mindful about the language and images you use
• Consider that people go where they see themselves represented
• Consider the accessibility of your event – How easily can everyone participate?

Lauren Lubin April inspired many to think about how we can break the gender binary sport model and allow each individual the opportunity to participate as themselves.

Pro Tip: Consider your registration questions.

On Race Roster, you can choose whether you are collecting sex or gender on your registration form. Gender options contain man, woman, non-binary, and prefer not to disclose.

Navigate to your ‘registration questions’ and select the ‘personal information’ tab to do this!

If you attended our VIP brunch event, our CEO, Alex Vander Hoeven gave an insider scoop on how ASICS is approaching race sponsorship, running communities, and the ever evolving runner journey. The connection between ASICS, Race Roster, and Runkeeper opens up new possibilities to enhance the runner experience like never before. Alex touched on the opportunities you have to engage with your participants throughout their journey, and how you can offer them value at every step before, during, and after your event.

Innovation was definitely a common theme around this year’s conference, along with CRM, Inclusion,  “the participant journey”, NFTs, and the Metaverse. Joe Pace, Head of Business Development at ASICS Running Apps, really had us thinking about technology and our industry in ways many of us might not have before!

CRM has certainly become a must-have component in the endurance event industry. Being able to truly know and understand the unique needs of each individual participant is getting more and more necessary and possibly even expected by many individuals. There were many great ideas presented on how to take that extra step to tailor your content to each person and personalize your marketing communications!

Long Dai, Salesforce Administrator here at Race Roster, went into the depths of how truly powerful your mountain of data is, and how valuable building a 360 degree view of your participant can be!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out! We’d love to talk about anything you want to learn more about, or if you weren’t able to attend the conference, we can give you a breakdown of what you missed!