The only industry conference for adventure sports events organisers.
Introduction - ASEC 2024
In association with the Kendal Mountain Festival, Shane Ohly of Ourea Events and James Thurlow of Open Tracking are hosting the fourth industry conference explicitly aimed at those who organise adventure sports events on Friday, 22nd November 2024. The conference is being held at the Castle Green Hotel, Kendal. The Adventure Sports Events Conference (ASEC) will once again provide an opportunity to hear some highly regarded speakers whilst networking with other event organisers and industry professionals. We hope that delegates will make a weekend of it, staying in Kendal for the internationally renowned Kendal Mountain Festival.
When? Friday 22nd November 2024
Where? Kendal, Cumbria
Who? You!
Tickets? £99, including refreshments and lunch. Limited availability HERE
Conference Aims
The conference will be a chance to be informed and challenged by a great selection of speakers on a range of topics relevant to those who put on Adventure Sports events. For us, the definition of Adventure Sports events is more about where the event is held and the challenges it presents, rather than the type of event taking place (e.g., an off-road triathlon Vs a city-based triathlon).
ASEC pulls together a range of exceptional speakers with real insight and expertise, and our conference goal is to share good practice examples and stories amongst the community of Adventure Sports events organisers, whether they are small community focused events, or some of the UK’s largest commercial events.
Who Should Attend?
The conference is for Adventure Sports event organisers. This likely includes operational staff and managers, course planners, race directors, and event directors at larger commercial events, but independent race and community event organisers are also most welcome.
If you are a volunteer event organiser working on a community/club not-for-profit basis, don't hesitate to contact us for eligibility for limited free-of-charge tickets.
The following organisations attended ASEC… why isn’t your business here?
Your Hosts
James Thurlow – occasional cyclist, orienteer, walker – previously Event Director for Open Adventure, hosted over 120 events in 16 years, including the ITERA Expedition Race part of the Adventure Racing World Series, the C2C in a Day, a sportive for over 1000 cyclists from one side of the country to the other, and the Lakes in a Day 50-mile ultra-run through the Lake District. James is the owner of Open Tracking, which provides live tracking and timing services to around 250 events each year in the UK and throughout the world with their operating partners.
Shane Ohly - is the CEO of Ourea Events and works as the Event Director of the Dragon’s Back Race®, Cape Wrath Ultra® and Salomon Skyline Scotland®. He was the organiser of the Skyrunning World Championships in 2018. He has a fascination with risk management within adventure sport, and has not been afraid to push the boundaries of what is achievable with events like the Glen Coe Skyline®. Shane is also a well-known mountain runner, multiple mountain marathon champion, and esoteric FKT record holder.
In association with the Kendal Mountain Festival taking place in Kendal the weekend of 22nd-24th Nov.
Why not make a weekend of it?
08:30 - 09:15
Registration
Join us from 08:30 for coffee, pastries and breakfast baps, and enjoy the chance to meet other conference delegates for some informal networking before the day kicks off.
09:15 - 09:30
Welcome
Kendal Mountain Festival Director Steve Scott, and your ASEC hosts Shane Ohly and James Thurlow will welcome everyone to the conference.
09:30 - 10:00
Paul Foster
Chief Executive, The Great Run Company
Launching the 13 Valley Trail Event
The Great Run Company organise many of the most famous mass participation events in the UK, including the iconic AJ Bell Great North Run, the World’s biggest half-marathon. An incredible 4.7 million runners, swimmers and cyclists have crossed their finish lines. Paul reflects on the experience of creating, launching, and staging the new 13 Valleys trail running event in the Lake District, the rationale behind it, and the lessons learned so far. This fascinating insight will, of course, consider the differences between organising the Great North Run and the 13 Valleys and how a business with experience in road running has bridged the gap to trail.
10:00 - 10:30
Paul McGreal and Linda Cairns
Paul: Managing Director / Owner, Durty Events
Linda: Volunteer Coordinator Extraordinaire
Volunteer and Professional Events
Both Paul and Linda have a wealth of diverse and extensive event management experience and, in this presentation, reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of volunteer-led and professionally organised events.
A lifelong orienteer, hill-runner, and adventure racer, Paul founded Durty Events in 2011 to create events that enabled ‘amazing people doing amazing things in amazing places’. Durty Events organises the ITERA Expedition Adventure Race, The Heb, and Lakes in a Day, to name but a few. Paul has also co-created the Celtman Extreme Scottish Triathlon and IRONMAN 70.3 Edinburgh. As a consultant Event Director, Paul was responsible for the 2015 World Orienteering Championships and worked for several years on the 2024 World Orienteering Champs.
Linda has an incredible amount of experience managing and organising volunteers at events big, small and enormous. This includes World Orienteering Champs 2015 Volunteer Manager, IAAF London World Athletics volunteer selection, Olympics Team Leader, Commonwealth Games volunteer for Triathlon, MTB and road cycling. Keswick Mountain Festival Volunteer Manager 2019-present, managing the medal team at the London Marathon for seven years. She was also the Event Directors elected representative on the Parkrun members board and helped shape Sport England’s volunteering strategy.
10:30 - 11:00
Break
Coffee, tea, refreshments and biscuits, and the opportunity for catching up with friends and colleagues, and to network with conference delegates.
11:00 - 11:45
Dr Natalya Kennedy
Medical Director, Ourea Events
Event Medicine
The aphorism "ask 5 medics what they think & you’ll get 6 opinions" exists for a reason... Dr Natalya Kennedy is an experienced Medical Director who has worked with Ourea Events, the Great Run Company and UTMB (UTS) as well as smaller local events. In this presentation, Dr Kennedy will explain how an analysis of medical incidents from previous events could provide an evidence-based approach to medical cover, de-mystifying medical risk assessments and ensuring that event directors have the information required to commission relevant and necessary first aid and/or medical services. She’ll explain the importance of a new industry-wide initiative to collect data from across a variety of events to provide an evidence-based consensus for appropriate first aid provision for off-road running events.
11:45 - 12:30
Gordon Parker
Financial Director and Orienteer
Event Finances and Fiduciary Duties
A lifelong orienteer and cyclist, Gordon is a member of South London Orienteers, a committee member, and actively involved in all their events, in particular the annual London City Race weekend. Gordon is also a chartered accountant with extensive experience as a company director of over 200 companies, with a career spanning the banking, property, and leisure sectors in the UK and Europe. He will provide insights into the options available to professional events organisers establishing their business, the financial, tax, and legal implications of such options, fiduciary duties you have as a director and finally, considerations on what the implications are if your business struggles or fails or alternatively succeeds and you wish to sell it.
12:30 - 13:30
Lunch
Two course buffet lunch served in the Greenhouse Restaurant. Last year, this was a real highlight for delegates, with ample time to relax in the comfortable hotel restaurant, enjoy the spectaular views over Kendal and mingle and network with other race organisers.
13:30 - 14:30
Industry Updates
13:30 - 13:45 Scottish Access Law Update
Shane Ohly, Chief Executive, Ourea Events
The Land Reform Scotland Act 2003 has existed for over twenty years, but these hard-won access rights are under pressure from a minority of landowners in Scotland. This update shares Ourea Events approach to access negotiations with landowners and statutory bodies, with case studies from the Cape Wrath Ultra® and Skyline Scotland®.
13:45 - 14:00 NSAIDs in Ultra Running
Eve Pannone, Medical Student and Researcher
We know that the use of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen, naproxen, and others is widespread in endurance sports, and there are many anecdotal reports of adverse side effects. Still, it is also a confusing area for race organizers, with the London Marathon sponsored by Voltoral (another NSAID) while other organizers actively discourage their use. Published in February 2024, Eve Pannone’s Scoping Review looks at the evidence for the health effects of these drugs.
14:00 - 14:15 The Latest Technology
James Thurlow, Managing Director, Open Tracking
Technology continues to revolutionise adventure sports events, with advancements in GPS tracking, communications, safety management systems, and live footage all contributing to a rich participant and spectator experience. However, as event organisers we face bewildering choices and an increasing requirement to understand how to implement tech. In this presentation, James will share his wisdom on what technology to seek out and what to avoid.
14:15 - 14:30 Sustainability
Lucy Scrase, Events Sustainability Consultant
It is four years since Ourea Events embarked on an ambitious program to operate as a net zero business. Along the way, we have learned many lessons about measuring the sustainability of our event operations, calculating the carbon emissions, and reducing the business's overall environmental impact. This update shares hard-won lessons and should support other organizers to make decisions that are sustainable and good business.
14:30 - 15:15
Safeguarding Female Participants at Events
Sophie Power
Sophie Power founded the incredible SheRACES initiative to ensure women have opportunities to race without bias and prejudice. Where women are encouraged to participate, gender differences are taken into account, and women’s achievements are celebrated in equal regard.
Edwina Sutton
Tea and Trails Podcast
As co-host of the famous Tea and Trails podcast, Edwina ‘Eddie Sutton has the ear of thousands of trail runners, and her brutally honest and hilariously funny stories from the world of trail running have helped to ensure that Tea and Trails is the UK’s most popular trail running podcast.
Event organisers have an obligation to take reasonable measures to minimise the risk to our female participants from sexual offences, stalking, assault, unwanted attention, and other such inappropriate behaviour regardless of whether these threats come from strangers, ex-partners, other participants, the event crew or members of the public.
Discussions with female participants demonstrate that incidents of unwanted attention and behaviour by men towards women occur at events and that some females are concerned about the risk of sexual violence or physical assault linked to the use of public GPS Tracking.
This panel discussion will delve into real and perceived risks. It should raise awareness of safeguarding threats at events, suggest good practice strategies and mitigations that minimise risk, and reassure women that, as organisers, we take their safety seriously at our events.
Ourea Events - Participant Safeguarding Policy
To facilitate a really effective conference-wide discussion, we will be sharing the internal Ourea Events Participant Safeguarding Policy with all the ASEC attendees in early November.
15:15 - 15:45
Break
Coffee, tea, refreshments and biscuits, and the opportunity for catching up with friends and colleagues, and to network with conference delegates.
15:45 - 16:30
Diversity and Inclusion
Renee McGregor
Renee is a trustee for Black Trail runners, Montane athlete and a highly respected Sports Dietitian who has worked as part of the GB team across several sports at Major championships. Renee became a trustee of Black Trail Runners in August 2024 and has led the launch of BTR Cumbria, expanding the great work and awareness of the community, campaigning charity, and encouraging people of colour onto the trails, fells, and mountains. She has competed in some big events over the years, including multi-day races in Nepal, UTS 50, and The Spine Sprint, where she came 3rd lady and 9th overall in 2022. She was also British Trail running Champion in the short course in her age group in 2022. Earlier this year, she completed the Lakeland 50 in the top 9% of finishers. She lives in Kendal with her partner and two dogs, often participating in community events related to sports and female health.
Grace Natoli
Grace is an ultra runner and Trustee of Black Trail Runners, a campaigning charity that seeks to increase black people's inclusion, participation and representation in trail running. She is also a lead Trustee for Black to the Trails, the most ethnically diverse trail event in the United Kingdom. Her accomplishments include completing 100 marathons, having run the Comrades Marathon twice, and chasing the two remaining marathon majors to achieve her stars. Grace, a mother of two, a wife, and a grandmother, also runs a successful business consultancy.
Adventure Sports have a diversity problem. Anyone who has taken part in or organised an event can’t have failed to notice how few ethnic minorities are present. Why is that? In this session, we want to highlight examples of discrimination that ethnically diverse participants have faced through their lived experiences at events. At the same time, we want to showcase what good practice looks like with examples that help move the dial to a more positive and progressive state of inclusion. If there is one thing that Ourea Events has learnt from its ongoing diversity and inclusion work, it is that it is insufficient to be silently not racist; you need to be anti-racist in both actions and words.
16:30
Is it time for an Association?
To wrap up this year’s ASEC, we want to ask all the delegates if they believe that a representative association might be helpful or required. The context is the growing existential threats that events face, such as restrictions on land use, demands for access fees, and proposed event medicine regulations, and how the viability of grassroots, volunteer-led events is protected. Would a UK-wide representative association be helpful in advocating on behalf of adventure sports event organisers, and if so, how?
Not for profit.
This conference is being run on a not-for-profit basis. Your attendance fee covers ticketing, the hotel conferencing facilities, drinks and food, as well as any expenses for the speakers. Any excess fees will be rolled into hosting future conferences.
