On Aug 21, 6:31*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
Alas, the more you charge people who drop out, in terms of non-
refundable deposits and so forth, the more pilots will simply show up
at the last moment without registering. *One could, I suppose, send
them home, but then we end up with even fewer pilots and even fewer
contests.

Let's think instead about how to make contests more fun and more
attractive so more people want to show up in the first place, and less
costly to put on so more clubs and operators want to run them.

John Cochrane BB

Good point - I was focused on some of the bigger western contests with
significant numbers of super-dedicated racing pilots typically in
attendance. I suspect the behavior would vary - the few contests that
regularly fill up would likely loose only a few pre-registrants,
smaller contests would likely loose a lot more. The problem of course
is no-shows affect the smaller contests much more adversely since they
are at the low end of the scale curve.

I still think there is a balance whereby you can create an incentive
for both pre-registering AND for not dropping out last-minute while at
the same time not sticking organizers with an un-economic proposition
should significant numbers of pilots no-show. I am a bit less
concerned with the drop-in crowd since you can usually accommodate a
few before towplane capacity becomes an issue and you can turn away
people if there are too many. I would think the risk of being turned
away would be an incentive to register since many of us spend almost
as much on gas to get to the contest as we due on contest fees (aside
from tows). I wonder whether there is a "maybe" status that costs more
but is fully refundable and puts you on a lower entry status than the
"non-refundable" entry. Airline tickets often are priced this way.

As a strawman imagine you could register for a contest for $200 (non-
refundable) prior to the preferential entry deadline and for $275
(refundable) after the PED. After the PED you'd also stand in line
after all the early registrants in terms of priority, including the
possibility that you won't be admitted like today. At 10 days prior to
the contest all entry fees become non-refundable. Organizers could
relax some of the restrictions for cancellations beyond the pilot's
control such as broken glider and legitimate work/family emergencies.
Registration fees would go towards fixed expenses of the contest so
the overall cost for participants wouldn't change. It might or might
not help early registration, but at least organizers would have a
better sense of who's really committed to coming versus not.

Just a preliminary idea - I'm sure it's full of holes.

9B