When people search for a local running event, they’re usually looking for the race: the route, entry information, start time and results. But what if a running event could offer something for the people who aren’t running too?
That was the thinking behind our work with Falkirk Victoria Harriers’ Round the Houses in Grangemouth.
Over several months, Scribli worked alongside the club to help develop the event beyond the race itself, creating a larger family and community experience around an already established sporting event.
It became much more than just another running event at Grangemouth Stadium. It involved months of ideas, planning, creating products and thinking about how local families, supporters, children, runners and the wider community could all be encouraged to take part.
Running a Race
Running events naturally attract spectators. Partners come to support runners, parents bring children, and families can spend a considerable amount of time waiting around the start and finish areas.
That creates an opportunity.
Instead of spectators simply waiting for the race to finish, we looked at how the event could become a family fun day and community event in its own right. The aim was to add activities and attractions around the race, creating more reasons for families to attend, stay longer and engage with what was happening. This is something that can work particularly well for running events, road races, athletics events, charity races, sports clubs and community festivals. The race remains the main event, but everything around it adds to the overall experience.
From a Race to a Community Event
One of the biggest lessons from Round the Houses is that successful community events don’t begin when the gazebos go up. There is a huge amount of planning that happens beforehand. Across the months leading up to the event, our involvement included developing ideas for the family area, considering activities and attractions, looking at how children and families could be involved and creating personalised products specifically for the event.
Creating Bespoke Products
This is where Scribli can offer something slightly different. We’re not simply an event supplier. We can design and create products around an event, organisation or campaign. For Round the Houses, this allowed us to combine event support with Scribli’s personalised product capabilities, creating materials that create a stronger identity and uniqueness for the event.
Bespoke event products can be used in lots of ways: to encourage participation, rewards or prizes, promote an organisation, support sponsors, create giveaways or simply give tangible memories to take away from the day. These are kept, remembered, and some are treasured. For sports clubs and community organisations, that creates opportunities far beyond traditional merchandise.
Creating a Marketplace for Community Engagement
This is probably the part I find most interesting. A successful event creates its own little marketplace. You have the organisation hosting it, participants, spectators, families, local businesses, sponsors, activity providers, charities, community groups and potentially hundreds or thousands of people passing through the same space.
Bringing those groups together creates opportunities for everyone. A local business gains visibility. A community organisation can reach new families. A sports club can introduce itself to children who may become future members. Sponsors have meaningful ways to interact with attendees rather than simply having their logo displayed somewhere. Families get a better day out. And the event itself becomes more memorable.
For me, community engagement isn’t just about increasing footfall. It’s about giving people something to engage with once they arrive.
Why Family Activities Matter at Sporting Events
If you’re organising a community sports event or race, it can be easy to concentrate entirely on participants. Of course they’re incredibly important, but they’re only one part of your audience. Think about everyone who comes with them. Creating a family activity area, children’s entertainment, face painting, games, stalls or other attractions can help turn a race into an event people choose to attend even when they’re not competing.
It can also help with:
- increasing event attendance and footfall
- encouraging families to stay longer
- creating a stronger community atmosphere
- supporting local businesses and organisations
- increasing opportunities for sponsors
- improving the spectator experience
- encouraging children to engage with sport
- generating content and visibility for the event
- building an event people want to return to the following year
That’s particularly valuable for clubs trying to grow an established race into a bigger annual community occasion.
Bringing Scribli’s Different Services Together
Round the Houses also demonstrates something that’s become increasingly important to what we do at Scribli. Our different services don’t necessarily have to operate separately. We can create personalised products and printed materials, provide face painting and children’s activities, help organisations think about family engagement, and support the development of a wider event experience.
For an organiser, that can mean working with somebody who understands both the practicalities of entertaining children and the commercial side of creating products and experiences around an event.
Could Your Sporting Event Become Something Bigger?
Round the Houses showed us just how much potential there is around established sporting events. You may already have the runners. You may already have the venue. You may already have hundreds of families coming through the gates. Sometimes the opportunity isn’t creating an entirely new event. It’s looking at what already exists and asking: What else could we create around it?
If you’re organising a running event, athletics competition, community sports event, family fun day, charity event or festival, Scribli can help explore ways to increase family participation and community engagement through activities, face painting and bespoke event products.
You can explore our Personalised Products to see how we create products specifically for organisations, events and communities.
People might come for the race, but it’s the experience that makes them stay, remember, talk about — and come back next year.