Founder & CEO, Mass Participation World · Author, Mass Participation Sports Events

By Phil Dumontet, CEO, Laurel Innovations

1.1 million participants across his career · Vision 2050: 1 billion more people moving

I recently sat down with Chris Robb — founder and CEO of Mass Participation World, the only author to have written a book specifically for our industry, and one of the most globally connected voices in mass participation sport. From scaling the Singapore Marathon to 60,000 runners to launching Vision 2050, Chris has spent a career asking a question most of us haven't even thought to ask: are we building events, or are we building infrastructure? Here are the 10 lessons that stayed with me most.

 

01 — Industry Identity

We are not race organizers. We are health and wellbeing infrastructure.

Chris has been making this argument for years, and it hit harder than ever in this conversation. We call our events "races," our participants "runners," our leaders "race directors." But that framing undersells what we actually do by an enormous margin. Lagos, Nigeria just showed the world what it looks like when a government truly understands our industry: 20,000 participants, zero entry fees, all funded by the state, because the president recognized that mass participation is preventative health care.

"We market ourselves as races, race day, race weekend, race director. But we're far broader than that. We are health and wellbeing infrastructure — and the sooner we own that narrative, the more governments will fund us, protect us, and champion us."

The Brussels Marathon lost its permit after 20 years. That doesn't happen to public health infrastructure. It happens to events that haven't told their story well enough. The narrative shift starts with us.

Takeaway: Reframe your event to government stakeholders across five pillars: economic impact, public health, community integration, tourism, and sustainability. Economic impact alone is not enough.

 

02 — Industry Risk

Parts of our industry are drunk on numbers — and it's the biggest threat we face

Chris used the phrase provocatively and intentionally. Record numbers. Fastest sell-outs. Ballot announcements. There's a fixation on growth for the sake of growth that he finds genuinely worrying — not because growth is bad, but because operational expertise hasn't kept pace with marketing ambition. COVID wiped out a generation of experienced race directors. Young, digitally-skilled operators came in. That's largely a good thing — but is operational depth keeping up?

"All it takes is one disaster — heaven forbid — a major event where people are seriously injured or killed. That makes headline news globally. Governments start putting restrictions in place. And with the weak balance sheets much of our industry operates on, we lose the base of the pyramid that feeds everything above it."

The answer isn't to slow down. It's to grow responsibly — use crowd scientists, invest in safety protocols, build financial reserves, and never cram in 5,000 more entries just to hit a record.

Takeaway: Before your next growth decision, ask: does your operational infrastructure support this, or are you growing the headline number faster than your ability to deliver safely?

 

03 — Collaboration

A rising tide lifts all boats — but the tide is starting to go out on collaboration

COVID forced our industry to collaborate like never before. Open books. Shared operations plans. Alliances formed in Australia, Sweden, the UK, Canada. And then, as quickly as the crisis passed, so did some of the spirit that drove it. Chris described a race organizer in Asia whose posture had shifted to "cards close to the chest — protecting my own rice bowl rather than building a bigger rice bowl for everybody."

The legacy of that collaborative era still exists in pockets — Running USA, MPW, the Africa Running Conference — but it needs to be actively protected. Because we are only as strong as our weakest link. A disaster at one poorly-run event creates ripple effects for every well-run event in the industry.

Takeaway: Find your tribe of race directors and commit to staying collaborative even in good times — especially in good times. The relationships you build in prosperity are the ones you'll rely on in crisis.

 

04 — Tourism Strategy

You're not just marketing a race — use data to find your diaspora and go to them

When Chris consulted for the Istanbul Marathon, he didn't start with a tourism brochure. He started with a question: where is your biggest diaspora? The answer was Germany. So the recommendation was to take an expo stand at the Berlin Marathon and engage the Turkish community living overseas — people who hadn't been home in a decade and might make a marathon the reason to go back.

For the Maldives event, 44 nationalities were represented — yet almost all participants were local. One of the world's most iconic destinations, and no structured tourism engine. Chris's point was blunt: you're probably sitting on the same missed opportunity and don't know it yet.

"There's a temptation to fixate on the race — showing runners crossing a finish line. But the peripheral imagery of your destination, your culture, your people — that's what creates the emotional pull that makes someone book a flight."

Takeaway: Use AI to identify where your biggest diaspora lives, then build a targeted marketing strategy around them — not just generic running channels.

 

05 — Participant Journey

Stop treating first-time participants as a finish line — treat them as the beginning of a journey

Chris described what he called the nine-month silence problem: entries open, participants register, get minimal communication, race day happens, and then complete silence until the same process starts again the following year. No nurturing. No pathway. No stickability.

His alternative: build a connected ecosystem of 5Ks, 10Ks, and half marathons that funnel toward your marquee event. Share databases. Collaborate with other events rather than treating them as competitors. Back in the pre-digital days, Chris would literally stand at finish lines handing out flyers for his upcoming race. The principle was simple — cross-pollinate audiences. Today we have better tools. We just aren't using them.

"How often do you see: entries are open, please sign up, here's the medal, here's the shirt — and then complete silence for nine months? Build the journey. Create stickability. Treat registration as the start, not the goal."

Takeaway: Map what happens to a first-time registrant in the nine months after they sign up. If the answer is "not much," that's where your retention strategy should start.

 

06 — Sponsor Strategy

Put all your sponsors in the same room — and watch them build something together

Early in his Singapore days, Chris started running sponsor workshops — bringing all his partners into the same room to share their planned activations. The initial reaction was resistance: why would I tell my competitor what I'm doing? His answer: you're category exclusive, you have nothing to lose.

What happened instead was remarkable. Two, three, sometimes four partners would look at each other's ideas and say: let's co-own that. Pool budgets. Build something bigger. The result was activations that none of them could have funded alone — including a National Safe Cycling Day born from five sponsors spontaneously deciding to do it together in the workshop.

"I've never paid a cent for that day. We brought five people into a room with an idea, and it became this massive community impact moment. That's what happens when you stop treating sponsors as isolated transactions and start treating them as an ecosystem."

Takeaway: Host a sponsor workshop before your next event. Put everyone in the same room, share activation plans, and watch what they build together when you remove the competitive assumption.

 

07 — Overlooked Audience

The most underserved person at your event is the fan — not the runner

This was one of the sharpest insights in the whole conversation. We design everything for the participant: the corral, the medals, the finish line, the post-race nutrition. But who designs the experience for the partner who didn't run their long run this weekend because they were supporting? The kids who were pulled away from football to come cheer? The family who traveled across the country?

Chris's vision: when participants register, collect data on their supporters too. What do they like? What are their interests? Then use that data to create a fan experience — a coffee shop at mile 10 for the partner who loves coffee, a pet-friendly zone for the family with a dog, partnerships with local businesses that activate specifically for the spectator crowd.

"I've got 50,000 engaged runners and 100,000 engaged fans. That's first-party data. That's a commercial opportunity. And it's almost entirely untapped."

Takeaway: Add one question to your registration process about who's coming to support. Then build one activation specifically for that audience. Start small — the data and commercial opportunity will follow.

 

08 — Volunteers

Volunteers are your most underinvested asset — and the hardest to replace

When asked the one mistake large-scale events repeatedly make, Chris went straight to volunteers. Not because we don't value them — but because we haven't built a real strategy around them. Younger generations are less inclined to volunteer. Recruiting is getting harder. And yet most events treat volunteers as a logistical requirement rather than a community-building engine.

The deeper point: volunteers are often the first point of contact with a race for people in underserved communities. Chicago's experience with their 13.1 expansion showed that new communities don't always enter as runners — they enter as spectators, then volunteers, and eventually as participants. The volunteer pipeline is a participant pipeline if you build it right.

Takeaway: Design a volunteer recognition program that's as intentional as your finisher experience. Find a sponsor to underwrite it. Then track how many volunteers eventually become participants.

 

09 — Kids & Youth

The kids dash is not a bolt-on. It's the future of your event.

Chris was candid about his own mistake here. At the Singapore Marathon, the kids dash grew to 5,000 participants — and his team treated it as a revenue add-on. Come run. Leave. No ongoing engagement. No pathway. No follow-up. He called it out directly: "I put both hands in the air."

The missed opportunity was enormous. Every child comes with one or two parents. Every parent is a potential runner. Every engaged kid is a future marathoner. Programs like the UBS Athletics Kids Club — 240,000 kids participating in their second year across India and Switzerland — show what's possible when youth engagement is treated as a strategy, not a side event.

"You've got two or three bites at the cherry. The kid, the parent, the family. If you engage those kids, you're creating a future generation, increasing the health and wellbeing of communities, and potentially building your own future participant base."

Takeaway: Audit your youth program. Does it have a pathway? A communication strategy? A sponsor? If it's just a dash and a medal, you're leaving the most valuable long-term opportunity in your event untouched.

 

10 — The Joy of Running

Before we ran on roads, we ran on paths between villages — just for the joy of it

This was the moment in the conversation that caught me most off guard — and stuck with me longest. At the Africa Running Conference, Dr. Paul Tergat offered a line that Chris described as a new aha moment. Before organized running, before marathons and majors and timing chips, Africans ran on the paths between villages. Sometimes to deliver messages. Mostly for the joy of it.

Chris grew up that way in Zimbabwe — single tracks through the bush, an old Seiko stopwatch, nothing in his ears, just the environment and the movement. And his question, sitting in a world of digital boards and personalized playlists and fan engagement data, was a genuinely important one: are we sometimes over-complicating the most simple and powerful thing we do?

"There's a reason trail running is exploding. Maybe in an ever-increasing complex, overloaded digital world, there's an opportunity to do things more simply — to protect the joy of running in its purest form."

Technology should amplify the experience. It should never replace it. And sometimes, the best version of your event is the one that gets out of the way and lets people remember why they fell in love with this in the first place.

 

Takeaway: Ask yourself honestly: are there moments in your event where the technology or complexity is getting in the way of the joy? Then remove one thing and see what happens.

"The future of mass participation is shared infrastructure for better health and wellbeing of communities."

Chris's closing words — not a tagline, a mission. The events are the vehicle. The destination is healthier, more connected communities. Build accordingly.