Follow up on the Great Grove Bed Race

The Bed Race committee had a follow up meeting last week. We are thrilled with the results last Sunday, there was a huge crowd who had a great time. There were complaints but there are explanations for most of them.

I personally was stopped on the street by merchants who thanked me for the great day and of course I told them it is the committee who needs to be thanked, especially Daisy Lewis who works 24/7, I don't know when she sleeps. Right after the Bed Race follow up meeting, without missing a beat, she went into a new meeting with Brian Davis from Barracuda to discuss their Pumpkin Carving Carnival, or party or whatever it will be called, coming up October 29, details to come.

Anyway, back to the Great Grove Bed Race. The biggest complaint was the lull and dragging time between races. The races were actually three hours and planned that way. The lull time was caused a lot of the time due to logistics, it's not easy coordinating 40 beds, but everything did run on schedule. The pacing was all done on purpose. One thing about the lull was that people would actually leave the viewing area and go spend money at the bars, restaurants and stores, then they would return to the race, so that was a good thing and actually part of the plan and the whole purpose of the race -- to bring people and money to the Grove.

Daisy said it was better to have people hang around and spend money than to be in and out of the Grove, which would have been the case with a two hour event.

Bathrooms were a concern. The merchants actually liked that people came into their businesses to use the bathrooms, they spent money while passing through. People preferred this to filthy port-o-potties and no merchant turned anyone away who wanted to use their facilities.

Bleachers were not used due to safety concerns. While a large set were used last year, smaller ones along the track would not have been as safe and the larger ones would not fit on the sidelines, last year the large bleachers were at the very end by the finish line and hardly anyone used them. Also, the goal is to have people move around the Grove, not stay in one place. This is a Disney technique and highly effective for events -- having people move around and not bring everything to them.

More tomorrow.