Originally Posted by
globecanvas
That's interesting. I always pre-register when I can, assuming it helps the promoter most to be able to anticipate the turnout.
It works both ways. As a promoter I always note the pre-reg numbers. Okay, I don't, but the Missus does. Any day-of is sort of like a bonus. There are some promoters that rely only on pre-reg and they don't even let registration close before deciding to cancel the race. This happened with a RR locally. I strongly encouraged the promoters to stay on with a week to go. They were super discouraged at the low registration numbers. I told them that it's like eBay, that things will pick up at the last second, and I think they saw 250 registrants in the last two days. Previously the promoter (I think a different set of people) canceled the race about a week before registration closed. I think that was a mistake. Even with all the pre-reg, even with the massive day-of fee, there were still 50? day of race registrants at that RR.
I've been chided by volunteers at registration that "I could have saved $10 if I registered online". I reply that I try to do day-of-race so the promoter gets more money. The few times I pre-register it's because I think the field may actually close.
Of course I have the luxury of doing this. A Cat 5 doesn't have this luxury - they have to pre-register in order to make the field. At larger races, especially road races, pre-registration is almost always a must, due to closing fields. Some races are pre-reg only, but almost never a crit. Etc etc.