Event Planning and Promotion

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Race Overview

The CU Amazing Race is based on the hit TV show “The Amazing Race”. However, this race is at Carleton University and features its talented students! Eager racers spend the day chasing after clues and completing various challenges to make it to the finish line before the other teams. Just like the popular television show, the last team who arrives are eliminated.

My Role

Running only in its second year, I planned and implemented the CU Amazing Race for 2014 and 2015. To keep the races creative, interesting, but consistent, I used themes:

2014 – Popular Trends and Media (better not have been under a rock!)
2015 – Fear Factor Edition (My only thoughts here were “I am sorry you thought this was going to be easy”)

2014

In 2014, students completed various challenges such as having to wrap a cast around an arm and finding a Justin Bieber Pinata to obtain their clue (hint: the clue was inside the pinata filled with confetti). The grand prize was a free trip during their winter reading week. It was a great way to relax from all their running.

2015

Since the race was a success, I decided to throw another race in the winter of 2015. However, since we did not have a planned budget for the second race, I surveyed students who signed up and surprisingly learned they wanted gift cards as prizes to support their expenses.

Within our budget, I purchased grocery gift cards and some tech gadgets and reached out to restaurants and theatres to donate gift cards and movie passes. This became the “student survival package” along with donated merchandise from Carleton University.

As snowflakes covered the campus in 2015, students raced again in their t-shirts and shorts across Carleton for their chance to win the survival package. One of the challenges in the Fear Factor theme was popping several balloons between their partner’s belly to get their clue and singing to a stranger (yikes!).

General Tasks

Obtaining and filling out legal waivers for Campus Safety for approval
Advise on health and safety issues
Creating and maintaining the budget
Successfully connecting with local businesses and sponsors to donate prizes
Room bookings
Recruiting volunteers and following up with them until the race
Booking and conducting interviews for teams
Purchasing products and supplies for the race and putting them together
Managing floor plans for challenges
Maintaining relations with the services that worked with us and donated prizes during and after the race
Conducting a follow-up analysis of the race from the teams to measure overall effectiveness for future CU Amazing Race planners