Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Peep Pursuits podcast. My name is James Sieber and this week I'm joined by Shane Johnson from Transcend Ultra Trails, one of the race directors there. Those that may have followed along with the race would have known that myself, Brodie and some others were on their live stream as commentators this year and that gave me a chance to really see more about what makes Transcend special and see what they've managed to create in what is quite a short period of time, specifically leading the charge in Australia with the live stream. Now, because of that, and also wanting to get more of our dive diverse experience of the whole of Australian trail racing, thought it would be great to have Shane on to chat more about Transcend, the Western Australian scene. We get into a lot of different topics on here to talk about how Transcend came about, how Shane's own experiences helped shaped it, how they're trying to create the experience for the whole field, the cost challenges of running an independent event, why they're putting so much focus into the live stream and how that could be replicated. supporting elite athletes and getting more people involved in the sport along with a lot of other conversations. So I really hope you enjoyed this one. It was great fun to chat to Shane, hear more about him and his story. And with that, let's get to the podcast with Shane Johnson. Shane, welcome back to the podcast. I appreciate you coming on today.
Speaker: James, thanks for having me back on. It's been been a little while, but great to be here. i was think the last time you were on the show was just before Transcend 2025. Just or just after. So there's ah a lot's happened in that time. We've had the pleasure now. I've had the pleasure of coming on and doing the live stream for you this year. And it's kind of give me a bit of ah an insight into more of all the work that you guys are doing. And that's prompted this conversation as well as I've mentioned to you coming off the back of interview with Nigel Preston a few months ago, which I thought would be interesting to get the WA input into some of those conversations.
Speaker: Yeah, like we um love sort of having WA put on the on the calendar for some of the East Coasters this year, which was really exciting. I think ah we haven't really seen a lot of East Coasters head West over over the years. We've sort of had a couple and now this year being our you know, a clear standout year for Transcend with East Coast representation. And it was absolutely amazing to have you feature on the broadcast. I touched base with you to see if you could pitch in and sort of help us get get something up. um And I was sort of only thinking maybe we might get, like yourself and Brodie, for like one or two hours and straight up you were keen for the full full deal. So, um yeah, no, thank you. We've had absolutely amazing feedback from your your engagement in there. and your wisdom. I appreciate the calm going to make me feel very uncomfortable. I'm meant to be the one asking you and making you feel uncomfortable. But as I said on the the main show as well, when you reached out to me, Transcend comes across as an organization, as a race that's really trying to do a lot for the community, no matter where you fall in that field. And so the opportunity to take part in the live stream and hopefully help that reach more people, have a bit more of an impact. I was more than happy to and quite gladly be be involved in. So again, I appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker: Yeah, I always just say to people, we're trying, like like literally, <unk>re we're putting so much time and energy into Transcend. I actually think it's a little bit embarrassing how much we we talk about it in ah in a 12 month period or or put time and effort into it. And ah yeah, it's nice to see it coming to fruition. We feel like we've still got a long way to go and there's always lots of learning curves but it's an exciting time I think it's exciting time for us exciting time for the industry there's lots of growth and opportunity so it's gonna be cool to go into the depths of that today I'm looking forward to it and i think that's a good place to start is any person that has put on an event of any type knows how much work goes on in the year before it's and even if that event only happens for one day it is there is a lot that has to go to make it happen so
Speaker: When you and Mitch, the business partner and other registrator in Transcend, were having this idea, what was it about Transcend that you felt so um i obliged to to start up?
Speaker: Yeah, so a bit about me and Mitch. So Mitch and I run an allied health clinic and we've been doing that since 2011 down at Floreau Beach Surf Lifesaving Club and that already takes up a lot of time. And Mitch and I both got two young kids. So we've both got about the same age. Mine's four and six and his four and seven. So we're both in a very similar life position and they're both probably lacking time. So starting an event during COVID was probably a really wise thing to do. But yeah,
Speaker: Yeah, for me, i guess I was really keen to see, and it's not disrespectful to any of the events that exist in WA, but I felt like um we've got a couple really large organisations that put on events. We've got Perth Trail Series that do a lot of grassroots events, a lot more shorter distance. They've got a couple longer stuff, but... A lot of their events went really positioned towards like a stepping stone to something on the East Coast or internationally. They weren't, you know, sort of necessarily um lodging their results with ITRA or UTMB and stuff. so
Speaker: um And for me, I've definitely never been an elite, but I've sort of been a higher end amateur, I guess. And... um I've always wanted to be, you know, when I was trying to work out how do I get into UTMB and I need these points or I need to do these things, like how do I get more involved and bigger in the scene? And and there honestly wasn't really much of an honest, obvious pathway over here. So then we've also had Ultra Series WA.
Speaker: um They joined up or they sort of jumped into the scene a bit later after PTS, but they've been around for quite some time now. And both of these guys have bucket loads of events. um Ultra Series WA were doing some events where they do some results on published and not. and um But still, like, because they're doing a lot of events, I felt like it was really hard for them to focus on one event and make that a really quality event that um sort of,
Speaker: offered a lot of the finer details that I'd experienced over East or internationally. So um i kept pitching to Mitch that I sort of had an idea of a location and whatnot um to put through. And he was hesitant after working with Ironman and sort of thought, I know how much these events are to put on, like cost and effort.
Speaker: And um somehow I managed to twist his arm enough to him saying, all right, let's let's have a go. i think I was probably just going to do it regardless. So he sort of had to um get on with it. And and for me, it it truly had to be like a quality event. Like I wasn't just going to put on a location.
Speaker: I felt like a lot of our courses go around in circles um and didn't necessarily offer like a true adventure. And and I wanted Transcend to be an adventure where – people venturing into places they didn't normally go, you know, like a course that maybe they couldn't experience every day of the year and had a bit more of a story to it and a few more detailed components that um other events just purely wouldn't have the time or energy to focus on. The details that you picked up from the East Coast, but I'm probably getting more so internationally that you wanted to bring across. Is there anything that really stands out as these were the features that I thought was missing?
Speaker: Yeah. Like when you look at the research, a lot of people are looking for that big event feel. Like they might not necessarily be looking for an event that... has you know thousands of people at it. but A lot of people looking for events that sort of have more than 500 people in it and that's sort of like the category of where they're starting to classify it as a big event. So when I'm going to an East Coast, you just notice the polish a bit more of these events like just the the branding and the set-ups are just are a little bit more established and um they have a bit more atmosphere and vibe about them and and just you aren't left guessing with a lot of um, materials like there's very clear information that's displayed and you can sort of learn about the course and, um, they might have better, better prizes. mean, for me, like i was always more interested in racing, like a quality field of runners rather than pitching up to a local race and sort of winning by, you know, it could have been a couple of hours or something like that. Like, yeah um, not that like I'd always appreciate racing local, but,
Speaker: you get to a point where eventually you want to start to challenge yourself against some ah like, I would decent runners and sort of see where you lie and you go east coast and you realize you're a small fish and ah in a, uh, sorry, you're a big fish in a small pond. Like, so you go over there and you know, you're lucky to finish in the top 10 of some of these races and stuff like that. So, and I personally love that. I got, I got a lot more out of that than, um, I guess not being challenged at some other places or not being challenged as as much.
Speaker: And the work Mitch had done in the past with Ironman, were there any ideas you brought to him first up that he was just like, no, this is not going to work? uh well i'd also had a fair bit of experience in um like i'd raced a lot of like half ironmans and stuff like that so um i guess we had both had a fair bit of experience being to these events and sort of knowing what was going to work and what wasn't but i think the biggest challenge is we wasn't necessarily getting approved with mitch but like our honest battle at the start was just getting ah a quality course approved like like so we're using the avon valley and i paddled
Speaker: down the Avon Valley as a part of a ah ah like a historic race that we have here is Avon Descent. I'd done that three times and thought it's really interesting. You know, such for me, it's like a beautiful pocket of Western Australia that not many people have explored on foot.
Speaker: And there's a couple of reasons for that. But I just thought we need to put an actual foot race through here like this. This is like actually truly challenging landscape. There's not much of that and in WA like uh we don't have we have Perth hills but we don't have mountains you know we have to go five hours away to the sterling ranges to get decent um terrain so yeah for me it was about trying to really hone in on on that location and we kept on hitting roadblocks like we originally had planned to have the whole course on the north side of the river and we just couldn't get through
Speaker: then we're having issues with ARC infrastructure, the rail line that goes through there and their idea of risk mitigation was just a hard no. So we had to sort of try and, you know, and they were flagging our risks with us like uneven grounds, the risk of falling trees, stuff like this. And we're just like, how do you drive a train through there? Like, this doesn't make sense. Like,
Speaker: you guys are a bigger risk than what we are and trail runners are aware there's an inherent risk of going out into the bushland and tripping on a rock like it's that's that's what this is all about so um we had to be very was very very persistent and keen like i was I think it would have been very easy to give up.
Speaker: And then there was a number of times, I think even when we got to, we got a 65K course, originally it was meant to be a 42, 45K course and it it actually kept on blowing out because we were trying to find a way through the valley.
Speaker: um And eventually we had a sixty five k option But we we were down to about the last 400 metres. it was a 400-metre section towards the back end that we couldn't get approved.
Speaker: And I thought we going to have to throw in this project that I've been working on for over a year just because we couldn't get this 400-metre section approved. And it literally took me doing some pretty heavy Google searching and and ah turning up to this person's house and basically playing with them and um yeah and then sort of convincing them that we're actually trying to do some good things for the community and and now every year they're sort of on board but um it was yeah it was really touch and go there for a while when we were getting ready to do the last few minutes paying like much closer attention there's obviously it looks like 2020 2021 was the first year correct
Speaker: yes yeah yes and then the course changed substantially enough for you to call it an old course for 2022. yeah so it it's it's not a crazy change but um in in essence it's still following the valley and i think like all trails are pretty live right like when you look at the long fkts and stuff like that none of them ever stay on the exact same same course but uh We were originally finishing um in ah in a flat section, which was amazing. it was very easy to set up a finished village, but um it was very close to the rail line and um the rail infrastructure structure guys were getting very demanding on what
Speaker: we were going to have to do each year to to keep the event going in that area because they were very paranoid about people wandering onto the tracks ah which you know is is a bizarre thing because it actually was just open to the public anyone could have going down there any day of the year but you know because we're putting a group of people there that they suddenly become um concerned about that so we had a contact with the property that we actually passed through um and in the final stage of the event and they have a beautiful view out into the valley and we just thought you know what we actually this whole 65k course doesn't cross a road except for in the last 400 meters so what about if we didn't actually cross that road and kept it in that
Speaker: paddock and i think it's been amazing change like I feel like every change we've been forced to do has actually ah actually made a better event um and then a couple other little detours we made we found a really cool nissen hut in peruna um which we actually use for one of our aid stations so we diverted of course it was the same distance but it actually added in ah an extra hill So, um and as an event organiser, you always want to use existing resources as much as possible rather than actually having to use supply. And it also allowed that aid station to become um a point of contact with spectators and and stuff like that, where the other one we originally had there was too deep and too complicated to to get into. So again, it sort of made the event better.
Speaker: And then the other little changes we've had to made into around Leg 1 and 2 around our first aid station, which um we were using an easement either side of that aid station, but it's a really complicated part of land where it's a fire easement. So technically it's public land, but it's within public private property.
Speaker: but within private property um And what's really weird about that is the fences for the private property are actually before the easement rather than actually behind it. So it was very confusing the way it was all sort of set up.
Speaker: So we started getting a little bit of ah conflict there and we just decided we didn't want to risk or jeopardize the event long term. So we decided to drop the trail down into a bit more.
Speaker: of some single go track sort of sections through there, which has made the event more challenging, but it is a lot more. awe And again, we sort of popped up onto this um sort of shoulder of like a a ridge and we discovered like these beautiful views of bell being on top of Bell's Rapids. And now it's like one of our most favorite photo points. So again, it sort of made the event a little bit more special. So yeah it's interesting, I think.
Speaker: Sometimes these things are for the better, but they often come with a lot of hard work and people might not necessarily understand why these things are happening, but most of the time they're forced. I think if an event director could keep a course exactly the same each year in in and out, they they would because it's just easier from the paperwork and having all GPX files and all your you know correct measurements and then all that done. But um the harsh reality is it's it's not that easy to do that, especially when you're doing like a a point to point course. where We have about 10 or 12 different key stakeholders that we're dealing with. So I think these events where you're just in one park going around in the one location, got one person to deal with, that that sounds like an absolute dream to me. And I realize, yeah, we we definitely chose the hard path.
Speaker: Yes, you have. Even listening to all of that, there's a lot of events out there that still might be point to point, but they have only three key land stakeholders. And it's still, it's it's relatively straightforward. Whereas going through private property, having to connect those all out, having those those conversations sounds incredibly complicated. One of the um kind of common themes of people that are coming onto the live stream, whether it was Erica or Claire,
Speaker: They were saying how the course felt like you managed to find every single meter that exists in that valley and put it into this course from elevation perspective. Was the intention to try and make it ah ah a harder trail event?
Speaker: Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like the West Australians are like, oh, you know, there's so many hills and stuff like that in this course. But I think in the reality, if you compare it to an East Coast course or international course, people will laugh at it and, you know, and say that the actual elevation is not not anything. It's Charles' play. So, um yeah, it it was somewhat intentional. Like, because for me, well, for for me more so, it was more about...
Speaker: trying to put on a course that when you get to the top of the hill that would be a good view or um and yeah often when you get to the top of the hill you can see over the river or into a valley or something like that so i was more thinking about the beautiful aspects of course like trying to get close to creeks or up into things that open up into big open views and stuff like that as much as I possibly could.
Speaker: Um, and I definitely wasn't scared of it because I had gone and done east coast races and international races. And yeah, I think I enjoy a challenge as well. Like I've i've always enjoyed, um, I guess, a harder style race. I feel like, um, it's a different skillset and it, and it,
Speaker: and It's what sort of makes roadrunners different from trail runners like like as well a little bit, you know, it can bring out like the people that are truly dedicating to the trails versus someone that's just uber fit on their footpaths and and roads at home and then they turn up onto a trail race and they keep everyone honest if it's if it's too flat and too smooth and runnable. I think we see this a bit in the States with all their California carpets sort of stuff. Yeah. yeah And it it does, know, like when we're looking at the the profile and sort of roughly 3000 meters over 65k, it does prepare people but a lot better for international or or East Coast races because that isn't a particularly hilly ultra, but it sounded like the way the elevation comes was was quite aggressive.
Speaker: The thing with Transcend is you've to be super fit, like, because a lot of the climbs are runnable. And I remember Vlad said this once, um and I thought, geez, that's actually like spot on, that in Perth, you actually have to run the hills all the most of the time because you know that they're not that long, right, and the down's not that far away. So, like, for someone like a Charlie and Billy who's, like, trying to go shoulder shoulder and and compete, like,
Speaker: you You just sort of have to push through it and and sort of work. And so your death is by a thousand cuts. um Like the intensity is like really high. I actually think like, and this is where Perth's got potential to make amazing athletes. I think the long, slow climbs and the long descents, like people probably get distracted by that a little bit when they're trying to grow as as an athlete. Like they see that as like the be or end all. But in the day when when you're doing these big long climbs like the quality is dropping pretty quick because it's hard to sustain like ah a pace like you're going to be hiking right and and obviously building hiking skills is a is a fitness and a skill in its own own right but
Speaker: you know we've seen so many good cyclists come out of perth and i think it's because we have a lot of short rideable climbs and a lot of good weather like you know we've produced um like johinley benna connor we've got samuel we've got michael storer like luke derbridge i think perth would have the highest density of elite proper elite world tour cyclists than any other city in the in the world um and you know if we can do that in cycling which is also viewed as something it like should be you know you should live in areas where you have to go up big mountains and why can't we do that in running you know and that that was one of the nice things to see this year is
Speaker: I think, and we we'll talk about the live stream in more detail later, but it felt like with Transcend getting a bit more of a platform, and then you also have Margaret River, which has sort of been able to breach the East Coast attention a bit, is that we're starting to see some names that are potentially trapped a bit by the geography of WA, but are making it a bigger name. We're realizing the level of performance as well.
Speaker: Leeson, for example, is a great example of someone that we've not really... ah maybe not be paying anywhere near as much attention as we should do the entire lorry family as well in that so it's it's good that transcends kind of created that opportunity yeah and like obviously vlad's been living here for a long time and we had scotty hawker living here for a long period of time when he was like close to his prime doing um ccc and utmb sort of podium era so yeah Yeah, definitely can can be done here and WA's got potential. i think for us it's quite, you know, I think half the reason why East Coasters haven't come over here is because sometimes it can be harder, you know, like there's there's a lot of options over on the East Coast so they haven't really had the need and West Coasters have always
Speaker: had to um head west to to get seen. But now we're sort of making our own scene every year, which is really cool. In terms of the things that Transcend does, like you have the live stream, there's the prize money, you're pursuing like a bigger event atmosphere to really bring something to the WA scene.
Speaker: When you guys started to Transcend and you were thinking, okay, this is going to be something that we really want to develop and build, what were the the key focuses for the event? but what What were you really trying to achieve?
Speaker: Yeah, so I think it's it's a challenge because you don't want to be purely elite like Nick. We can't just be seen to be only, you know, sort of channeling all that effort into to sort of like the top end of the field. We have to also give the greater experience of all at the end of the day.
Speaker: the people who are contributing most to the event is the the bigger part of the field, right? So, um yeah, so we really wanted to do a number of things but had to find a balance or try and have it from both aspects. So so if we have um like a focus on the elites and, you know, sort of what their course records are and having prize money and stuff like that,
Speaker: We've also got um quite a well-established record page on age group records and stuff like that. So for further down the line and trying to motivate other aspects of the race. Now, we don't have them all announced at the ceremony just because it's a struggle to keep people at the ceremony for for what we do to announce. yeah And it also gets ridiculous, like the amount of plaques and prizes and stuff like that we do but yeah we feel like at least you know i always have people going oh i got second in this age group and that now so that is becoming a bit more of a thing and and i also sort of originally felt like the event needed to get to a certain size before that probably meant too much even as as a like you had to get to a point where there was a deep enough
Speaker: quality field there to actually winning it meant something and you're saying for an age group ah of it being value that they got second in the age group if there's only two people in the age group coming second doesn't really mean too much so yeah you know it's i think that's very hard for for events to sort of provide that depth you know and we still got a long way to go with that with a number of different events and so many different age groups but you know we would love the event to eventually be at the size where that means a lot to people because they've gone up against enough people in their own sort of right um so so there's that um i think the experience from how your data is published like from from actually engaging the event so originally well i did ultra tour monta rosa um back in 2018 or something like that um one of lizzie hawker's events she's won utmb five times um probably enough she's not a massive utmb fan now but um she has you know designed an event in an amazing part of the world that um
Speaker: she wanted to sort of give like ah a bit of a higher end experience so everyone got like their own satellite trackers and I was like this is really cool I wonder if we can do that for everyone that's involved in the event so there's a point there for everyone that was involved in the 65k the 40 and actually last year we did the 28 as well so we had something crazy like 660 trackers out there which no one does um and it's excessive so we've sort reviewed that but that all comes like it was it was really awesome and and some people were disappointed that we didn't offer that to absolutely everyone this year but the costs and the logistics around putting on because there's two and fours right like for us to give out that many trackers meant that we had to get every single person
Speaker: to a friday night function to get their tracker and so we could issue it because there's no way we could do that on event morning that's just too crazy um especially because we were using cellular trackers back then and start line doesn't actually have phone signal so that would be very hard to issue them there so there's a lot implications so people were like oh we don't want to do not everyone but a lot of people would say we don't want to do the friday night and have to come and do stuff ah then some people are like disappointed that they don't have tracker now. So it ah you can never really win these battles. But um I think what we're constantly trying to do is think, okay, what if we have to compromise, what's the best option here? So this year we ran with trackers for all our teams because we felt like,
Speaker: giving teams the most amount of information about where their runners were so they could sort of plan their changeovers um was pretty important. So we went with that and then we dedicated um a number to sort of like the front of the field. So the broadcast guys would have something to talk about. um And that was our motive there. And we're using a ah really nice slick system now that we actually get some guys from South Africa involved because they're using a platform um called Streambridge that we positioned a lot of our broadcast through, but their results for their timing and all that was sort of well linked and synced with that because they're the same sort of guys.
Speaker: And they also had some GPS trackers. So, and that map was all sort of tied in a lot nicer than what it would have if we'd gone with independent sort of parties. And that's what we sort of want to strive to do. And then it's it's work in progress, but we want that user experience for,
Speaker: the the spectator or for when they want to go back and have a look at stuff to be high notch because when you look at UTMB it's pretty it's pretty slick like like with the run live sort of experience and you can track runners and the little video recordings they have and stuff like that so yeah but obviously they have to be pretty slick because they're running about 60 odd pretty big races in a calendar year now.
Speaker: I think that's something that really struck both Brody and I was the Streambridge software itself, but then actually just how Transcend felt like it was run, is you guys made it feel like you were operating something that could have been, or in some cases, was genuinely better than what the UTMB service provides. Like Streambridge having its multiple cameras that you could choose, the quality of the um the tracking like site, being able to see people on there, like that was really smooth and not what you would expect for...
Speaker: i set like What is still quite a small event? Because you're a thousand plus or minus participants still. Yeah, I think this year we had 950. So it was actually just slightly less than last year. yeah, like...
Speaker: yeah like that this is it to our own detriment because all that stuff comes at a cost you know like you know we're hand-picking stuff like like people said to me like you know we could use blue chip timing locally and we did look at that but something also mindful of is that everybody's using blue chip timing and that experience is very ah same same for everyone and I wanted it to be something special and unique and you know link up with everything so for me we went to the extra yard to contact this specific company brought them in and um you know they they were great they were really hands-on for the whole week leading into the event and We got a debrief tomorrow night and we'll sort of see see where we go from there. Like, that was the first year working with these guys. And I guess if we continue to work with them, it can only get get better, hopefully. So um we we both learnt some hard lessons um in the weeks leading up and then during and post. So, yeah.
Speaker: it's i yeah it you could definitely just take the easy options with events like we could um put a couple witch's hats out and uh some pink ribbon along the course and say go and see at the finish line and put out some water and coke but Like again, like when we talk about little touches and stuff like that, like I've known, like I went to in that Monte Rosa event, I got to an aid station and it was up on the top of this like 3000 meter um mountain and he came in his cabin and it was so special. It was like sponsored by one.
Speaker: and they had trail mail in there so like friends and family could have left like little notes for you and they like more clever they gave it to you there was like someone out there doing massage the heart was like you're freezing it was i think it was like minus one or two outside or something like that and you walk in it's wood heat and you know everyone was so friendly and they couldn't do enough for you this team like it it was the most amazing experience and It stuck with me and I sort of, and I, like I said before, it was on running. Like I knew what brand it was that, that sort of was connected with that aid station. And I've sort of said to our aid station four guys, we have the foot studio, like a podiatry clinic and they come down and I've said, like, explain to them this scenario. And I'm like, you know i'm not expecting you deliver that higher end of the experience but let's make this like special so they like put on coffees for all the spectators and they do like full like podiatry sort of rescues of people's races when they're like in trouble because they've got 12k's to go and you know they're almost there but they're broken and they've just been like come on we're going to get you out of this door and that sort of stuff so we you know we've tried lots of little things like this and um
Speaker: and And even just like food displays, like for me, it's very easy. We can put a couple of bowls out with some chips and just a party mix and stuff like that. But we thought like, let's do a full grazing table experience, you know? Like how special is that when you rock up to a party and like they've gone to the extra yard and there's all these like really nicely displayed and special touches and stuff like that and we're like that's going to mean a lot to people you know like it's a lot of effort um and we buy something stupid like over 150 kilos of lollies for the 50 meters and it costs
Speaker: Cost a lot of money, but um everyone talks about our aid station setups. You know, like someone was joking the other day saying, I'm going to start a transcend like category where we weigh in beforehand and see if we can put on weight.
Speaker: one course you know like with all the slices and got hot cooked food and stuff like that you know we're offering a 65k course like a lot of people are thinking that sounds ridiculous for a 65k event you know it's not 100 mile or something like that but it's long enough like some people are spending 14 hours out there so it it means a lot to them yeah And as you were saying before, yeah it's not just thinking about what's the elite experience or what's the experience for somebody taking seven, eight hours. The experience for someone taking 12, 14 hours is is completely different. And it it brings up ah brings up a thought of hearing this a lot at the moment of the talk about which like there are a lot of events and obviously you have the UTMB ones, which which are so big. And then there's a lot of like the more localized ones that you were talking about before. And it's sort of what's going to happen to the middle. And I feel like...
Speaker: listening to you talk the events that aren't taking your approach that are trying to be sort of middle scale but doing it cheaply are unlikely to get the the repeat participation and to get the brand reputation out there whereas you do you put the the extra touches in like you are and that is what's going to like yes it's going to cost you more money but it's going to probably be the success long term yes yes um Yeah, we we are unfortunately falling into this middle ground at the moment where, you know, and for us, it probably even makes less sense because we only have one event a year. So we have bucket of load of equipment that we've had to purchase or chosen to purchase in the you last six years.
Speaker: that does nothing for 51 weeks of the year and then for one week a year it gets pulled out and then put away so we're not running an of scale business here as a as an event company but you know we've had a lots of people say to us put on more events and you know we've had councils reach out to us to say put on events and stuff like that but Well, there's few things we're really mindful of. there's one that we know how much time and effort we're putting into this event and we struggle to do that. Plus, you know, our day to day job of running a clinic and having a couple of young kids. um So we we don't want to sort of step over that line and
Speaker: you know just crash um the the other aspect is that it will dilute you know the more you put on like it's reduced really hard to stay as focused maybe for a period of time if we recruited some people maybe it wouldn't be the case because we'd have people actually truly dedicated to that and then they could just put more time and effort into it um so yeah not not sure but Yeah, it's it's a tough game. Like if if you are trying to behave like UTMB that has a lot of events and huge um amount of registrants and you're not behaving like a a small grassroot company, company but somewhere in the middle, ah it's it's risky. I think it's actually risky business. And we've seen that with
Speaker: ah in the UK. um There was that provider recently who went under, he had about five events sort of that fell into this category and it just got got too much and the the costs weren't being covered. So we we are, what makes us able to do Transcend I think has been the absolute difference for us and probably um why we can do it and maybe it's a bit harder for a Perth Trail Series or Old Series WA is we're running our actual Allied Health Clinic and we've been doing that since 2011 we're in an affluent suburb for most of that that company so we've come to meet a lot of
Speaker: ah business owners and stuff like that. um So what we probably seem to be doing better than than a lot is corporate sponsorship. um so So our focus almost instantly after the event is we need to start securing sponsorship for the year ahead.
Speaker: and That's almost like the first thing because all of a sudden if if you have money there to help us cover some costs, then we can go in with confidence a bit more with with spending and and purchasing and trying to grow the event.
Speaker: um And then the registrations can sort of be that extra bit that sort of carry you through where I think if you're just trying to rely on registrations from the get-go, it's it's very hard like to to go in And we also have the ability to spread costs through through the other business, you know, like Mitch and I's wages are paid from from the clinic and not from from the um from the event. and you know, our insurances, we can sort of put them under the same umbrella because they're both sort of health and orientated. so Yeah, we we have a lot of when we were able would start with a bit of cash because the business was there. So we didn't have to find that straight up. So our barrier to entry into the market was was a lot lower than what I think it would be for a lot of people.
Speaker: And I guess for us growing the way we are and having the event we have in just six years time has actually been pretty pretty solid. And sometimes we're probably a bit naive and think, oh, geez, we'd love to see it growing even more or sort of pushing in further. But the reality is that ah we're doing okay.
Speaker: You give me almost too much to go off there. So I'm trying remember to come back to some of these topics. But um I was touching the last thing you said there there first. The fact that you've actually gone you said a small step backwards in participation numbers from 25 to 26.
Speaker: Do you have ah an idea of what that limiter was to to growth this year? Yeah, I actually reckon I'm pretty sure exactly know what that is. And it's just the economic um instability at the moment. Like so um we were tracking along pretty nicely. It's pretty cool. Like we use events plus and you get these graphs and then literally when the Iran war happened or broke out, like our graph just flatlined.
Speaker: And as an event director, you're like, oh, you're like, okay, what what does this mean? And we're not a cheap event. Like our event's not ludicrous. Like, and I think people get good value for money because we, i could say that because we don't know how much time and energy we put into it. But I feel like we put, we we offer a lot of quality that people might not necessarily see when they're just registering. But I'd like to hope they would see that when they actually come.
Speaker: And going off our recent feedback surveys that we do straight after the event, I think that is experienced quite well. Like where we sort of get eight out of 10 or higher from 95 plus percent of the the people that you know, out of the 200 people that completed the survey. So so there's prove some pretty good numbers there. But what was really evident this year is I think families were struggling were unsure about the amount of disposable income they had and so our graph this year was it was pretty steady early flat lined when all the fuel prices started skyrocketing and then all the other um inflation responses happened but this year we had a crazy kick really close to the event like much steeper like way steeper than we've ever seen
Speaker: um and i think people were just holding on their money until they knew they truly had that money and then and then spen the money um which is you know it's fine for us it's a little bit nerve-wracking as an event director but in the day we actually had realistically thought that that was going to be the case we were sort of thought if we could sort of be thereabouts on last year then we would probably have done what we've probably have been done like deep down we wanted to grow but we just thought that it probably wasn't really where it was at yeah even though running is in a crazy boom but i think road running events are often quite a bit cheaper and so the yeah the accessibility to that and and then for the trail running you do often need a bit more equipment and we actually do ask for quite a bit of mandatory kit um
Speaker: for an event like ours. um And there's a few reasons for that. And that's because our event can be quite hard to get to someone quickly. So we're mindful that you could be sitting there for quite some time.
Speaker: And a bit we we were talking about before where you need to think about the elites, but you also need to think about your least capable person. And your least capable person is someone that has basically not trained for the event and seen it somewhere and thought, geez, I watched Ned Brockman run across the country. Maybe I can do something like this. And then they sign up and they're completely underprepared and they get exposed out there. And then all of a sudden we have to try and find them and and help them. So um we had a situation last year where we had a fair bit of rain in the week leading up and the water levels for this creek that we crossed were quite high i went and i was doing the flagging went to go across the creek and i thought i did that i quite enjoy doing creek crossings but there was moments when i was doing that creek crossing where i felt like oh that was a bit bit un unsteady like i probably could have gone down in the creek a little bit um and i had to think about someone that would be absolutely petrified of that and would they truly be able to do it and
Speaker: The answer was no. So we had to put a 2K detour in around there. So, um, yeah, I think you do have to really think of both ends of the spectrum and it's hard for me to do that because I've spent more time at the the hot of the front end of the field. Um, yeah.
Speaker: From your experience as a runner and a participant, were there any things that you came to transcend with the ideas of that you just realized weren't physically possible or or couldn't there's a reason why they weren't being done that way? I think the tracker one has been a realization. I think trying to give every single person a tracker is, yeah, especially as the event grows, it's just not not sustainable. um So, yeah, that that's been a bit unfortunate. Yeah.
Speaker: You know, we're not quite there yet. I think we would love to be able to support elite guys more and offer them sort of, you know help with flights and accommodation and stuff like that.
Speaker: And we sort of try and do that like a bit of a buddy system. We weve found like a bunch of the – hiring guys, some hosts host people to sort of go and stay with rather than actually forking out cash for accommodation and whatnot, which I think is actually really, and then actually turned out to be some really nice stories this year. So I think that that's a really cool way of doing it.
Speaker: um Yes, the stuff like that's hard. ah I ah and originally thought about putting on ah a longer version of Transcend, um sort of like a longer course.
Speaker: And I think potentially there is there is a course there that would be pretty cool. um But what is ah like, honestly, like the managing the permissions and and stuff like that, like we're already got a lot and to add a lot more on. And unfortunately, I've always been a really long course guy. So that's where my mind has always been. But um There's not actually a large portion of people that do the long course stuff. So you end up having to supply a lot more resource, it costs a lot more um and you're going to need, ah going to have to call on a lot more volunteers, which is already hard enough getting what we get and we probably could do with a lot more as it is.
Speaker: um So yeah, we've been nervous or reluctant to to sort of roll out something bigger. And at the moment, Transcend's got a really nice feel where it's all done in one day from ah an event perspective, which I think is also,
Speaker: not common because we had originally planned to span it out over a number of days because that's sort of what tourism were requesting like they or they sort of position as if they want to have more um night stays from people out in the region and they wanted us to put it in off-peak times and this has actually probably been the biggest realization to answer your question that we sort of thought we would be able to get tourism funding.
Speaker: um And so we ticked all those boxes. We were having yeah multiple things on different days and put it in the shortest day of the year and winter, middle of winter. And i honestly think it all backfired on us because it made the event a lot harder to deliver.
Speaker: We weren't taking people to the region when it was at this absolute premium and peak experience. So we moved it to August, which is like such a beautiful time in Amal Valley. Like we got wildflowers popping, canola fields that are nice and yellow glow.
Speaker: The river has built up and there's a bit of flow through there. Like the WA Avon River needs a bit of like quite a bit of rain to get functioning um well. It's not flowing all year round.
Speaker: um But when it is flowing, it's really special with all the rapids and whatnot. And then all the creeks and little waterfalls and stuff like that get flowing a lot better. So but soon as I've moved to there and we get like a little bit more daylight, the weather's more likely to be a bit better.
Speaker: um and now we also have a really cool atmosphere because all our events are happening on the one day and there's people about and there's energy and you get to the finish village and there's actually people there and you know it makes it more sense to have this party vibe sort of thing so if and and for us we're only calling on volunteers for that window of time not across many of days and and stuff like that and I know I'm well and truly cooked at the end of transcending 200 mile or any day, but um sort of doing something that goes on for days. I don't know how these guys actually put on the 200 mile events or the backyard ultras. They're truly special, the race directors that do that.
Speaker: Yeah, having been involved in a hundred mile, the concept of doing a 200 mile or see like Tour de Jean, for example, like Tour de Glacier even further. just yeah It would be an incredible undertaking. And you're right, like I know that there's there's event organizers out there that have brought a two day event weekend into one day because it just creates a better experience for the participant. But it's so much simpler from you from the organizer's perspective as well.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like today, we we still still haven't got tourism money. Like we've never really got – That's fascinating. haven't a grant or anything like that yet. We've applied so many times. We've actually given up this year. So and we're just sort of getting on with it and um doing now our sponsorship sort of packages.
Speaker: But, um yeah, yeah that that aspect has been frustrating. So i just would have thought there would have been – I feel like we're putting on that kind of experience. We're ticking all the boxes from environmental aspect, culturally, you know, quality of event and, you know, the low on, unlocking a location that is underutilized and all that sort of stuff. So I just would have thought we would be taking a lot of the boxes, but it just hasn't been that, that simple. when And, and I, I get a lot of feedback from other race directors that say, you know, a lot of these grants, like say like our rural one, like max you can get for that one anyway, is 40,000 year. and
Speaker: It's like, yes, you wouldn't say no to it, but they also say by the time you've done all your reporting and stuff like that, like, and maybe the restraints around it, like, is it an absolute game changer? Probably probably not it's not. It's not enough cash to actually change the event into what you want it to create it into. you You'd probably better off spending your time chasing after a corporate sponsor.
Speaker: And I think something you just said that's important for people that haven't been involved in this space is that 40,000 might sound like a lot of money, and but it comes with a lot of obligations as well. And the time aspect of that can be huge from reporting and just the communications, the huge you have to jump through.
Speaker: It's not as simple as here's here's some cash go play. Yeah, and and even for like we were appreciative of all our sponsors, but even small like corporate sponsors and stuff like that, sometimes they have very similar demands to some of our bigger sponsors and stuff like that. And you've got to be careful there because you got to create like value for your big sponsor. You can't just give everyone the same same package.
Speaker: um So, yeah, you want to give them as much value as you possibly can, but you have to sort of, but yeah yeah, you sort of need to create lines in the sand. Yeah.
Speaker: ah I do find it really interesting though that you haven't got any tourism funding because the live stream is obviously it's it's such a thing that people are really focusing on. As we've mentioned are already, it was an incredible thing to be part of the quality of the actual stream that you guys managed to put on given that it was all done, i think essentially using Starlink for service was excellent.
Speaker: And I think for any event, they know that that's not a one year return on the investment. It's a long term play. But I would have thought part of that might have been a tourism sort of requirement or a way to have secured the funding was to say, hey, well look, we have a live stream that gets this many unique views and it's going to showcase the area. But clearly that's not the case. No, that was honestly more of a passion thing. Um, it made zero sense for us to, to put on a lifeboard job. Uh, and then there's been, i think this is our fourth year. We started quite young in the events.
Speaker: Uh, it was a, yeah, must've been our third, yeah, third year. it could have even been our second. Um, And we've honestly been on the fringe of doing like this stuff like the whole way through. Like it used to be a company called Pulse.
Speaker: I literally messaged this app. I saw that they had like a live streaming option on their app. um But their main focus was like a GoPro uh footage facebook really like people were just putting up their live footage and it was like a a stream like like ah a feed of everyone's different footages and i got to meet arman the guy that sort of was the man behind that um by that and he just happened to be this south african trail runner so was like pure by chance and turns out he's quite well known in the scene and he's he's done some really epic right he just did ptl um he was with um a guy that was a um an amputee so he had had a um an adapted so imagine doing ptl with an adaptive which is pretty cool so he's done a finish
Speaker: I actually haven't. I've been in Trans Am land, so I haven't got too too deep into results. But, yeah, he he finished has finished BTL and stuff like that before. So um anyway, so got to sort of chatting with him and they actually changed their whole business model after our chats away from like a a personal feed sort of thing to trying to capture events.
Speaker: um they sort of ran out of funding in the end but now it's sort of been rebranded as streambridge and they seem to be like ai's helping and they seem to be getting a good role on now they just did comrades and if you tune into comrades like the feed was really cool i watched pretty much all that and um streambridge actually provided a lot of the input into that so um We are actually the second event, so we're well and truly in the in the um beta phase of of using these products. But, you know, Kunyani is speaking with them now, so whether they can get something together, which would be really cool. But, um yeah, we sort of are pushing to be at the
Speaker: um the forefront of all this because some of the you you would be mind blown at what events are spending on live streaming in the states you know like a western states they would budget 250 000 american dollars to to ah to a live stream um you know, any of these cycling events would be 800 million sort of stuff, like with helicopters, literally using planes and stuff like that to improve there.
Speaker: But Starlink's changing the game. So now you see pretty much all the trail were events in Europe and States and now they've got got runners with packs and bikes with packs. So,
Speaker: We went and did that and we had to work it all that ourselves. I was just fortunate that one of the guys I'd asked happened to be an engineer and 3D printer guy and he sort of, we worked on a few prototypes of frames and all the hours that go behind the scenes for these things, like no one really sees. And that's where mean, like when people like maybe don't understand how much time Transcend is is taken in our lives. um six years it's been pretty crazy but um we're getting there we're getting there and i guess we're we're paving a pathway for other events as well that that can leverage off it which is cool um we'll hopefully see the australian scene sort of i think we're in a really exciting place like i'm keen to see like a real key event from each state sort of link up down the road you know i think we've got a position where
Speaker: you could have a kunyani and taz and well we've already been budding up with kunyani for a number of years but you know transcendent in wa there's west mac monster and in the territory you've got things like guzzler and stuff like that up in queensland and in victoria you've got you know whether it's a buffalo or gpts and stuff like that like There's some really standout quality events um coming through now and I think they can all work together and complement each other um and and grow grow together and in the future. I think um it's going to be in every event's advantage if we start to see more intrastate and sorry interstate travel.
Speaker: um it's you know again we haven't been successful with tourism but it's what tourism wants to see they want to see not necessarily dollars being spent from their own people but they want to see it come in from other places which is a conflict for events because events is far easier to get someone locally, right? Like I'm gonna spend far less money from a marketing perspective, um getting someone from Perth to do my event than I would be to try and pull someone from Victoria and New South Wales or Tasmania or overseas.
Speaker: But that's what that's what the tourism wants. so that's where I see they they have to come to the party eventually if that's what they really want. just Just staying on the live stream for a bit longer, you say it's a passion project, but they must there must be some form of, of it has to be feasible.
Speaker: And yeah like you don't have to say like how much you think it costs you to put on. Obviously, it's pretty hard because you've got all that time in R&D and setting it up. So like it's pretty hard for me to isolate how much a year to year would cost. But there's got to be more, more of a purpose behind it than just, ah ah I like doing it or like making my life hard.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know. I feel most people would just say I'm a sadist and I make my life hard. like That's why I've done these stupid long events and FKT attempts and stuff like this. But um yeah, I like this. So it's interesting. I looked at the stats just before jumping on here. um So our 2025 broadcast, which had some headaches, you know, we still got it.
Speaker: We still got content up, like, like and at the end of the day, i always say to people, it's, It's more than a time split that they would get at a checkpoint or even a dot watching it on ah on a GPS map, right? Like every bit of camera footage we get up we is a win and the presenters are always giving wisdom and insight, which is also quite valuable, especially for people that don't understand the event or the terrain and stuff like that so or for future. people, these materials are evergreen marketing. They're staying on YouTube. So so what the point I'm getting to here is that I think after the 2025 event, straight after, we probably had 1,200 views or something like that.
Speaker: um I looked... today and we'd had 2,700 views on there. So that means we've had another 1,500 people since the event jump on, see the events, connect with the event in ah in a reasonable way. It's been further exposure for sponsors that we do have. We still are yet to pick up a dedicated broadcast sponsor, but you know we try and give the sponsors, we have got involved as much reach as we possibly can. So hopefully some of that 1500 people come over and if they didn't do it this year, they might do it future years.
Speaker: um And then this year, so after the broadcast that you guys did spectacular job of, we had um over, I think we had about 2,200 views straight up. Okay, so this year it's already grown by a thousand.
Speaker: Now, thousands still like sounds like lot people still not a lot of people but um you know we it's it's a reasonable jump you know by like 80 or something like that so maybe by this time oh this time next year maybe that's like three and a half or something like that right and you have to stay in the game like these things take take time and we've done four other broadcasts before this where we've learned a lot of lessons and you know even this year we learned stacks like i'd know next year how to put on an even better event uh like broadcast i say event because i see the broadcast as its own event yeah it takes that much of time but
Speaker: So, yeah, and I think if we could truly get some funding and just dedicate some more people to it we we could actually take it to a whole new level. That's literally with two camera runners, ah two bike, camera bikes and aid station things and then, you know, a couple other people contributing and then we had some people actually out in the course providing content as well as they were passing through aid stations and then I think being able to provide this year's experience with, you know, about eight different um presenters was really cool as well so yeah now fund wise um so if we have 2200 people view it now and i think you know hard cash that we spent on there we are spending about five to ten dollars per view on on that so that's on a great great conversion but and that's actually not even counting hours spent right so that's just like
Speaker: fees for people and equipment and hire and stuff like that so um we've still got a long way to go before i think it's truly truly valuable but you got to start somewhere you're you're not going to be able to just roll out a stream and send it to a hundred thousand people you know like unless maybe if you're in a utmb event because you're leveraging off a well-established account but you're going to have to grow there the good thing is these things are getting all a lot more cost effective So um Starlinks are going to be within phones like in the next couple of years. Right. So we're not even going to have to fluff around with dishes on the backs of bikes and and stuff. for
Speaker: um Or at the very least, I've heard that the next Starlink Mini is probably half the size and it also needs about half the power demand. So all of a sudden the weight the you know the ability of these things is you know we're changing our batteries like three four times in that person's time and course where maybe we're just given one battery so things are simplified it's just easier or maybe that allows us to have another three resources out there and get more footage and increase the odds of getting footage up right so um yeah this is the challenges of of a live broadcast where if we spent all that money on instagram and probably just did pay promos we'd probably at the moment we'd get a far bigger reach
Speaker: um but i still think to move forward as a sport and an event long term it's it's what we need to do interesting question though bit chicken or the egg do you invest in the marketing the instagram the short form content the stuff that's more likely to well you're putting out so much more of it you could get something that goes viral and that creates the in the interest Or do you start with a long form content that's evergreen that can really sell the event? And like for my sense of the coach getting Kelly ready for it. That was great because I could look through and see essentially every step of that course. It was invaluable. But how many people are actually going to go and do that or or need and have that requirement? I think it's probably come down to me just being too passionate about the sport and what I really personally enjoy.
Speaker: is I love having a group of mates around and just watching a bit of UTMB or like Western States and Instagram rules. You just, you can't have that experience. Like like it's it's, you know, everyone's on their own little device and not watching on a big TV. The other thing i absolutely love, which you know is it he's actually hard to capture um this year. So we've always had one big screen at at the event. We did this for the last couple of years where we've actually projected a live broadcast.
Speaker: up on that screen but this year we realized that um we were paying too much money for a big screen to hire each year and these days you can buy just like 75 inch screens for absolutely peanuts so we went out and bought 75 inch screens and some really cheap stands and we just put a couple out in the in the finish uh village and much closer to like the bar and stuff like that and gave people something like made it easier to to connect with the broadcast and engage and i think that we had a really good response to that and we're toying up with actually doing that at aid stations next year like where we have like ah a screen at aid stations so
Speaker: I think that's really cool that that people can actually sort of be, what we do have, we have QR codes and people can watch it on their phones, but, we're in a pretty poor reception area so not everyone's actually got the ability to watch it on their phone so yeah I don't know no I I much prefer what you're doing I think it's it's a a more authentic to trail way of going about it I've got nothing got nothing wrong with paid marketing that's that's that is how if you want to grow fast that is how you're going to do it but you have to have the product and the experience behind that because otherwise people are going to find you out so quickly and listening to sorry go on
Speaker: Or the reality is we're doing both. Like we're also- Yeah, yeah, of course. About advertising and and stuff like that. i think I think you have to. I think if you really want to do what we're trying to do is, ah yeah, you're you're paying for ads and you know now we've got Okie Diggins, who's actually a pretty passionate trail runner, looking after our social accounts because I was just getting overwhelmed trying to do all this stuff myself and then Rachel doing our emails and stuff. so yeah that that was a big move this year with it first like finally i've been able to handle a couple little tasks and i think that's moving forwards mitch and i've got to get better at that is
Speaker: really hard to grow something when you're working in it too hard as well. So we need to start um putting faith and structure towards other people and and working on it.
Speaker: i Personally, the the feedback i've I've had on the, like having those screens at the finish has been really positive. and And you go to UTA and they have it on the big screen, but you can't hear anything. You can barely see it because you're 30 people behind them. Whereas if you've got a few 75-inch screens there that you can have the subtitles or or the the sound on,
Speaker: I think definitely keeps people around and then like you said it keeps people by the bar so it keeps the bar happy um it's honestly one of our biggest wins this year it was it was half the price and we get to keep so we can use them next year as well and we're not gonna have to hire like we were just like why didn't we do this earlier but um yeah no it's yeah like ah it's it's it's like technology is getting cheaper I think like the streambridge app you know like literally people can use their own personal mobile phones now and contribute to the broadcast we we didn't do a lot of that but that is the way it's set up so a technically you could do a broadcast without any additional equipment i don't know if you could do like a full-blown curated broadcast like we did but you could easily have
Speaker: the map with the GPX file like we did with all the cameras there and people just doing their own click through experience, which is cool. But um the curated thing is a little bit different.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a bit harder. Yeah, I feel like people are, because of the quality of stuff like the UTMB live streams and and a lot of by the UTMB events and and other live streams out there like Western States, there's an expectation of like, this is the level that needs to be there. And I don't think we're very patient for live streams that aren't meeting that that quality. um Like we we had no comments about it during, but um you see some of the live stream comments that people get sent to other events and you're like, oh, geez, you guys are really...
Speaker: getting like your your expectation here is a multi-million down pound product yeah and that is the problem when you're pitching a quality event that then everyone just assumes there's some massive organization behind it and i'm like oh hey this is just still mitch and i and like a huge amount of people helping us out here and then you know we talk our staff into doing a lot of odd tasks and stuff like that um that's not on their contracts um so yeah it's it it that that is That is a challenge. And, yeah, I do see that person. I think it's always really hard. Like like I've been from the athlete side of things. It's easy to be critical of events when you're you're not actually working in them. And I think, you know, it's easy to watch a broadcast and be critical of what's being produced when you're not actually – you're like, why can't they just get that footage up or – You know, and even I'm watching, I'm like, geez, they haven't clicked the stabilize button on the on the app like that that footage is shaky as like it shouldn't be like the app should automatically stabilize it. and
Speaker: i'm like someone telling him that what what can I do? you know say um and And live is just opening you up to mistakes, right? Like there's no way you're going to get through a whole lot broadcast without something glitching or long pauses or, you know, stuff like this. It's it's um yeah, it's just the nature of the beast. Last question on the live stream.
Speaker: As you said, you were the first to do it, I'm pretty sure, in Australia. UTA has included it the last two years since becoming the the major for the area, Oceana. And hopefully KMR, you said they've been talking to them, so hopefully we'll see that for the National Champs next year. But what do you think is really stopping...
Speaker: other race organizers from doing it? And and do you get the impression, like are you having conversations where you feel like we could see something different for 2027 where more events do start to pick this up?
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's a hard thing to know where to start. And i think a lot of the quotes that come through, through particular organizations are overwhelming. And, and like, Um, or actually I was even talking to, um, uh, the race directors of Hong Kong 100, right. And they dropped their live broadcast, um, because they were spending, i think somewhere around about 70 80,000 from the top of head.
Speaker: thousand from top of my head And they were getting something like, um I'm going to be guessing, but I think they were getting something like 50,000 views or something like that. right And they were disappointed with that.
Speaker: and And I guess it is a lot of money like when when when you look at it, like like dollar view to the dollar spend, like you sort of like, what did does it add up? Or maybe it was 50 and 50, but either way, it's still still a fair chunk of money and they decided not not to pursue it at the moment. but I think that's what's really good is Streambridge is going to be a disruptor. Like we had one person working in a studio, Trav, right? Laverse, a whole bus of people. um And sure, we might have missed content from time to time. Well, we definitely would have.
Speaker: um But it also made it achievable. Like, so you have to sort of be realistic with with what you're trying to put out and and the team you've got and the and the equipment that you're using. And I think, you know, using...
Speaker: we're literally getting like making up our own devices with like a battery pack with steaky tape cables and you know um stealing a digi gopro as a digi um gimbal thing and taking that on and chucking the phone in there and you know all these sorts of things just to just to make it work um because if you hire a A lot of lot of companies use um bonding units, so they're like like a backpack which um will have like multiple SIM cards in it, like up to four SIM cards. And then now they probably also have like the Starlink feed going through it and it bonds the reception together to increase the likelihood of sending that data up to the cloud so it can be worked with.
Speaker: Like those devices to hire in Perth anyway, they're a minimum three day hire and they're $1,500 per unit. So even if you want to just do a test run to see if you can go and like potentially get some footage up, you're down $1,500 just for that one unit. Then you need someone to process that footage and manage that. Where Restrainbridge is like...
Speaker: and and starlink is is cutting out all that now so you know you can get star links or hire them pretty cheap you know most people have phones or spare phones so you know if you've got some time and you can program the phones the way you want them programmed then you can sort of hack your way around these things so instead of costing you know fifty thousand dollars you can get it down to 10 20 and a lot of time okay this is that it depends how much time you're prepared to put into it yeah we don't put a price on time we get too yeah too upsetting and even for you guys like because I'm like the actual event director like I gave you guys well I was potential I was ah in essence the producer of the live broadcast but that I had to sign out like because I had to go and put on the event so I just I gave you guys a very brief spreadsheet of when people were going to be on And then before that, I'd given Trav like potentially when cameras going to be overlaid. I have worked with Trav for four years so and he's got lot libraries of all that footage and there's experience there. But, um you know, I give you guys like athlete questionnaires and link people up and just think, geez, I got to hope for the best year that enough footage comes up. And obviously behind that, we've, you know, worked with the camera runners and stuff like that in the months leading in and gone out and tested parts of the course and stuff.
Speaker: But, know we've had times when we've got absolutely perfect footage on a ride um we actually had it last year last year um we did leg four in torrential rain and i thought we got footage the whole way through and i thought if we can get rain through two hours of non-stop rain we can get any footage up and then we had absolute debacle like like it was so challenging that the actual event day and like it was blue skies and I was just like, how did that happen? But, um, yeah, so that you have to be prepared. I think if you can truly dedicate someone to it, which is what we would love to do sort of in the future, um, i feel like it would be a lot more achievable.
Speaker: I do feel like I need to shout out Trav and I'm curious to see how he came into this, but from the perspective of being on the live stream for the seven and a half hours or whatever it was, it was very impressive to watch one person do so many things at one time. And uh, like aside from, we would occasionally see something on a screen that he had hadn't seen yet. And we just say, Hey Trav, can you pull up camera three? And he would do it straight away.
Speaker: Like, It was very impressive to see someone do that. but And do you feel like that role can be recreated, obviously with knowledge and experience, but but that like having somebody like Atrav isn't too hard to get?
Speaker: to get Yeah, well, the good thing is like Trav can be used remotely with these things, right? Like, like Trav did that all from his house. Like he wasn't at the event, like no one was around Trav. Like you, you're in Victoria.
Speaker: Um, we had, you know, New South Wales was dying in like all parts of WA. So I think that's, what's really cool. And, and we're gonna start to see that happen more and more, even with like the biggest streams, like UTMBs and stuff like that, where,
Speaker: the presenters, like it's just so expensive to fly everyone around as to be a part of a broadcast. Like, you know, they might be really skillful, but like the time, the the hotels, the costs and all that sort of stuff. So now that you can tap into a Dave Stewart in New South Wales, he's got heaps of experience sitting line, like that's that's going to be It's going be cool for him.
Speaker: Like he can do jobs and not travel, um, stuff like that in, in years to come. Um, yeah. So Trav, Trav will be, you know, repeatable for sure. Yeah.
Speaker: And the software, we just get trapped. Yeah. We just get trapped. Yes. Yeah. And like I think the thing that stood out to me is that I didn't, at no point being on the live stream, did I feel like I was missing out from not being there. Aside from the fact I didn't have any actual course knowledge. Like I've never had my feet on the ground on that course. But then we had the people calling in that have done that or co-hosting with people that have have done that. So as long as that side was carried out, as long as you do have a local that has that experience, I think it can work really well.
Speaker: Yeah, and well Charlie Hamilton was saying to us even before this broadcast, he was coming over. so I had to chat to him after he DNFed from Montarosa and said, oh, we're going to do something with that fitness. So come over. And he said, yeah.
Speaker: And um he like just dived deep. he's ah He's obviously a nerd of the the sport. And um he studied so hard. like like He was watching all our content.
Speaker: I think we uploaded our course overview and he'd like liked it before I'd even told anyone it was up there. so um he And he just said, like I felt like I'd run the course. like By the time I watched most of the broadcast and ah you know all the little section clips that we've done and read content and GPX files and Strava maps, he's like, I pretty much knew what I was in for, which is, again, what a lot of these higher end guys, I think so still a lot of our higher end guys were were shocked and because there is some parts that maybe don't get caught in camera that well. but um
Speaker: Yeah, that will come out more and more as the year goes on. yeah yeah Speaking of Charlie, the elite side of the sport, and you've got a sponsorship document, which i think is I think it's post 2025 on your website, which i was going through today, and it's talking about initiatives to pursue.
Speaker: um And it's kind of the the tourism and growth perspective. and The things on there are like the prize pool, which you've got like the cash and then also the gold was on there this year to attract both interstate and international athletes. You've got the broadcast, which obviously we saw, which can be seen anywhere.
Speaker: Partnerships with other events. I know you've spoken about Colin from Singletrack before and obviously we've spoken about Kanani already. The national championships with Autra, which I think is an interesting one um to talk about as well. And then state trail and cross country championships, which is also another one. It's really interesting. But There's a lot of information there, but how do how do you think about the role of elites or the the front of the field in from a transcend perspective, but also you really come across someone just a general fan of the sport and wants to see the sport grow. So kind of how those two marry together. Yeah, I guess I'm excited to see how far someone can push the course, you know, from a female and a male perspective. and And that's been exciting this year to see course records on both those fronts on harder courses. Like like I think the course is probably 15 minutes slower than when Josh Chug
Speaker: set that initial record anyway. So, um yeah, I think it was it was definitely a a size weapon and the ARCHER score reflected that. Like, i think Charlie got 877 points for his ARCHER score, which is pretty pretty solid.
Speaker: And Holly's was 7.50. 7.57, somewhere around there. around there. So, I thought that was maybe a bit bit harsh, but anyway, it's just hard to judge with the different genders. Yeah. um Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, so good good question. Yeah, I think we're unlikely to get Ultra sort of status as a national champs now the way that that's gone. um So I think the fact that they'll probably push for like the the vertical sort of climbs and stuff like that to be be a feature of the event. we've We've tried a number of years and sort of haven't been...
Speaker: um yeah, given an opportunity. we did get offered the short, we applied for the long course one year and they offered us a short course, but we really wanted to put our best foot forward and we felt like our 65K was the course. And we sort of also felt like there was too much of a focus from Autra around um like longer distances for their long course where like,
Speaker: I was like, well, the world the the world champs is only 80Ks. Like, and we don't necessarily need to run 80Ks even to prove that we can run 80Ks, like, especially if it's going to be in close proximity. Like, would have thought a 65 would actually be a pretty good demonstration that you're you're up for a pretty solid 80K. So that was the angle we sort of came from. But they were picking short courses that were weren't that far from the distance of the sixty five k So it was a bit conflicting. Like, they probably would have had to go with, like, a 30k short course or something like that um which i think also could have been suitable but yeah um anyway that's i think what they're going for and i think what kunyani will roll out is really cool um yeah so
Speaker: I think that that's good. Sorry, and I'm blanking on half of this. No, that's okay. I gave i gave a lot of information. The price pool perspective, like making a conscious decision to put the money behind the podiums. yeah and And you mentioned about um initiatives to get elites or competitive people over interstate as well. So you could have put that money into paying someone's flights and accommodations, et cetera. So like yeah where does the consideration to do that come from?
Speaker: So the prize money thing, like, I guess I pushed pretty hard as a amateur. um And I was fortunate enough to step on a number of podiums, but like I never ever got $1 from trail running. And yet I was trying to fund myself to go east coast and it probably limited the amount of opportunities I really did jump at like, um, because they're just, it was just a bit harder, right? Like it was a long way to come from birth. Um, so yeah.
Speaker: yeah And there just wasn't, there haven't been a lot of opportunity from that sense in, in WA. So ah and I think it's just, ah like it amazes me like a western states and that doesn't really have prize money yet like or anything like that like i i feel like it's it's meant to be one of well it is the race of this america apparently and like i don't know i don't know how can you be if if you're not actually so if you're making the the elites like a in the spotlight like you put him on a broadcast and you know you know put him on his socials and using his modem and stuff like that yeah you're not actually giving them an opportunity to earn some kind of money from the event, then, yeah, it's like you're a conflict. um
Speaker: So, yeah, like, and i still think, you know, 7,000 in cash is a reasonable amount of money, but it's not huge, huge dollars. It's surprisingly higher than 99% the events in Australia. I think really is only UTA probably offering a bit more. Maybe um we actually do have...
Speaker: an event down south now that offers a little bit more cash um oh geez it's part of the uh part of a global series um not the um oh god yeah yeah it will come to me but um anyway so so they have like um a decent decent series and offer offer some cash there but the gold has been the game changer so Aurobanda definitely didn't have to, they hadn't committed to it um at that level. they actually did not say they were going to give us that much gold when we first came to an agreement.
Speaker: um But we sort of said, you know, we'd like to sort of join the connection a little bit more and, They really came to the party. while like They really went above and beyond this year with the amount of um gold they put up for grabs. Like our first place 65K guys getting $3,000. The value of gold changes a lot. So roughly $3,000 worth gold and $2,000 cash. And then we also have quite a lot of other goodies like all the other product sponsors and stuff like that have also thrown on that. It's ah it's a really nice...
Speaker: um package that they're getting and that goes like fairly across the whole spectrum of races. um Obviously you can always do more and more and some people would say we're not offering enough for the shorter stuff but when you've got a sponsor giving them and the sponsor chose like we we said this is what we got and they said we're going to do this for the 65 and the 40 and that that for the 28th and it's like well that's more than what we had before so um you know we're absolutely static and we do sort of see the 65k as the real standout experience like for us it's the whole journey through through the valley since it's not necessarily the distance uh that we're rewarding it's it' it's just the actual adventure that's what ah we want as many people to experience the full adventure as we can and we understand that some people aren't there yet but
Speaker: Uh, they might be in the future so they can come taste test other aspects of transcend. Yeah. And then. i' say How do you like, how do you think about the connection? You mentioned as well between other event organizers. So obviously you're a standalone event. You just have transcend yet. You're talking with the guys at single track. You're talking with, um, Lincoln at KMR. How, like, how can you see this benefiting the, the sport of trail running in Australia and not sort of creating divides between everyone? Yeah. Uh,
Speaker: I only see things again. Like like um Colin and Lincoln have both been amazing. um Especially for us, like we don't have in another event and it's really nice to sort of bounce ideas and and chat with other people in the in the industry. um i think the fact that we're in different states really helps sort of make it less of a threat i guess like um and i don't know even locally i'm like if you want to come and try and do what we what we're doing then all all the best here because like i know how much time and effort we're putting in right and i don't think many people are prepared to to do that or spend the money that that that we have so i'm not i'm not really over concerned about we' we're just sort of really out there to put
Speaker: the best possible event on and let the event do the talking. But I think interstate wise, it's been amazing. So we connected with Kunyani really early because they got similar distances to us. They've got the 66 and we are 65 and they do a team aspect and we do a team and they look like they do really good event and they're environmentally minded and culturally minded. And I was like, there's so many synergies here. And so Mitch has been over and done that event. I'll go and connect with them next year.
Speaker: probably work on the event bit um which is cool and Lincoln's come here and and done the event and worked on a transcend a bit so that that's been really good and he's taken aspects of transcend back to here and I was really uh stoked to see some of their content that went up early in year and I was like wow they've actually taken that from transcend like that's and it's it's like um I guess it's reassuring that you're on the right path and it's a compliment. lot If if if an event's doing something you're doing, then they've obviously thought that that's a good good way of doing it or a good idea.
Speaker: um Even our timing guys that came in from South Africa, the way that we flagged the course, he was like, this is like the best flagging system I've ever seen. you know like We have like a ah rope with like the metal pegs with the flagging stuff and and the way that we just sort of clip it onto the trees and pull it on and off. And he's like, I've never never seen anyone do that before. it was like um so yeah there's there's always stuff to learn from others um and colin's been super supportive we i'll be working at gbt mitch and i this year um yeah and colin's come and done our event the last two years with his um with chase his son and they've really enjoyed the 28k i think colin said that he's he's been uh
Speaker: it's pained him that chase enjoys our events so much when he's got his own events obviously turned into a nice father-son bonding experience for them and uh yeah and like he brought over three starlings for us which helped us sort of increase the capacity of of the broadcast a little bit and and they're watching and asking questions like how that goes so that's going to flow back to them and help them sort of deliver something in in the future and and whatnot so Yeah, it all goes both ways. And and like I said, big benefit or potential in the future is um for an Australian network where people sort of see other interstate events and and and travel and go and experience other parts of Australia, like one wander out yonder. that's um that's it ah
Speaker: That's why we all do trail running, right? Like for me, um i i feel like i'm just a big kid and i'm you know really enjoyed the the days when you just go out into a paddock and climb trees and adventure and find somewhere new and um if you keep going over the same paths that that excitement loses and i think the book i love was the explorer's gene where a lot of people just naturally have um the the desire to sort of know what's around the corner or beyond, right? That's how, that's how we all spread across Tangier and ended up in different continents and whatnot. So, um, yeah, I think it's cool that people go and see what else is out there and, and it's such a cool way to stay fit and motivated and and and happy. Speaking of,
Speaker: they're kind of The rest of the field as such, and and we've mentioned about the interstate, something that I was surprised at looking at this document was that ah think it was 23 people in 2025 came from interstate from an entrance perspective. What do you see as the biggest obstacle to that interstate travel now?
Speaker: yeah i don't know the stats but we would i think we would smash that this year but um it's interesting i feel like kunyani's done a lot more out of and i'm not uh spiteful about this but we've seen a lot more people go to tassie and do kunyani than they have come and to ah our event and i don't know i think there is like a bit of a thing on the east coast about traveling west like it's so we're viewed as being very very far away and fair enough like it is it is a distance and I've actually tried to explain the tourism like they they try and say our events not regional enough or like and and that's sort of been one of the reasons why we struggled to get funding um but I'm like Perth is regional life like we are the most isolated city in the world like how about we just consider the whole bloody region as yeah as this so um
Speaker: Yeah, and I think it's just so much cheaper to just duck up to new South Wales and Queensland. but I'm sure everyone's done that over and over to death. Right. And I think, now you know, again, it's probably another reason why it's important to do a broadcast and go, we've got some nice trails over here and really good community. And it's it's fun, like come over and check out transcend and it's not going to be a ridiculous holiday. It's not like if you go to, if you commit to going to Europe for three weeks and you've got two kids, you spend 20 grand right like you come to perth oh god yeah the three weeks you're not spending 20 grand this yeah so um yeah it's obviously not europe but you know it's going to be a fraction of the costs and then it's just more realistic and sustainable and that's also why know being in august like for us with trying to attract a higher end field to to transcend could have seen that as a real threat like in june it wasn't really too much of a threat but
Speaker: moving to August, in the week now the week before UTMB, which pains me because I'm not sure if I'll ever make it back to that scene again. but um Yeah, it's everyone's not going to Europe every year. Like, like even your best athletes, like, you know, even watch the guys in the States, like how many of the Boulder boys went UTMB this year? I think one of them or something like that, right? Matt and matt and Drew, but Matt didn't start.
Speaker: Yeah. The point, yeah, even even with all the funding, it's still a huge trip. These are all sponsored athletes who have actual contracts and some of them are choosing not to go.
Speaker: Yeah. So yeah. No, I think that it's one of the areas that I've definitely fallen foul of. And even my role on the podcast is, it's one of the reasons i wanted to have you on is to shed some light on the WA scene and essentially why it's a good ah ah opportunity. Because we're also so quick to go overseas, whether it's Asia or New Zealand or it is Europe, but forget that actually there's a pretty short direct flight that you can take to perth And then you have access to this entirely different environment. And Jess said it when you were on last year that the Perth trails are very unique.
Speaker: And that I think, as you said, we want to explore unique trails. We want to explore a unique environment and nature. And you don't have to go international to do that, which I think a lot of us on the East Coast forget. Yeah.
Speaker: Something i would actually, I really and try and encourage the athletes that we coach or I just run with as well is not to fall into the trap as well of like the UTMB cycle. And I guess there's a lot out there with this already. And I'm not saying from a cynical like big corporation perspective, but like, and I sort of say this from like, cause I did triathlon for a number of years and Ironman right, Ironman now owns UTMB.
Speaker: it's very easy to be like fixated on that breed of events. um And, you know, like when I went and ultra travel, Monterosa, that like,
Speaker: maybe a bit biased because I had had a good run there, but like it was a truly like magical experience and like really hooked me on trail mountain running sort of scene. And um it was the connections that I made with people in the race or just the aid station experiences or just the efforts that had gone into putting it on or, you know, meeting a Lizzie Hawker who's like a really um famous sort runner and that sort of stuff. Like there just so many examples of that.
Speaker: across the world and if you get stuck just fighting, just looking for a UTMB index score, um you you could miss out on a lot of that. um So yeah, i like now we've got the World Trail majors and we've got you know a GPT in our scene. I think it's really good to sort of go and explore different different options like that. And I think it's really cool that like even seems like Barley, sorry,
Speaker: Billy and Charlie, um, uh, not caught up on that as you know, to, to great depths, you know, like, um, Billy's off in Vietnam now doing, guess he is probably one of the world trial majors or something like that. Is it? Yeah. Um, so yeah. And he's come and done transcend and Charlie will go and do something else. Like that it they're not necessarily just one straight line. Um, yeah.
Speaker: No, and I think especially if you're looking at this purely from a competition perspective, the level in Australia is getting higher and higher. And so you can really you can you can become very, very good by just racing nationally. You don't have to go internationally to to to lift the performance that maybe you did 10, 15 years ago.
Speaker: Yeah, and like hopefully as a side effect, we're going to see Australians competing for podiums at UTMB. Like we haven't seen that yet. And it was it was pretty cool this year that we had um like guys like Luke Nichols. Like I've raced against that guy.
Speaker: And he had like a stellar run this year. Incredible run. He was in the top 50 or something like that. like And I was like... um everyone's lifting you know like ah michael dunston when he was like hammering at um utmb the other year like i was like there's this potential there like we've really um we've seen it you know we're on the real close like like mikey was like 17th and dnf at ruffager just before coming down the hill for ccc and um yeah well actually we have had a podium at utmb we've had millie millie and charlie who got on the ptl podium there but um hopefully we'll see some more of the other ones yeah
Speaker: We've obviously, we've had Kelly come fourth. Lucy's had five, four top tens in a row now at UTMB. But yeah, we we haven't. I Kelly was fifth. but She was still very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: yeah It was like, yeah, we're we're so close to the the podium of the finals, like the OCC, CCC, UTMB. So yeah, it it is, it's cool see, and we're definitely seeing that level really rise, which is awesome.
Speaker: Just closing us us out, I'm just conscious of time, Shane. Are you okay? true Yeah. yeah yeah um In terms of there's there's the youth side of the sport, there's the participation aspect, and I think you even have an adaptive category already. You've had ah quite a few adaptive runners in the past.
Speaker: What sort of initiatives are Transcend doing to encourage participation from the the non-core population, whether it's youth, whether it's adaptive um athletes out there? uh so yeah like the adaptive one's been really cool so at the moment it's just in the sixth gate because it's actually been like adaptive wheelchair bound which is actually it's a tough course like it's really hard like there's definitely some undulating rocks and and whatnot and some proper hills and they have to have full teams pulling around and um even like actually full kudos to to utmb for what they're doing in in that space i feel like they've put it really in in the spotlight the adaptive scene um
Speaker: And that's motivated me to sort of think, you know, what else can we do there? And then Mitch mitch has been really good with that, working with Breaking Boundaries. um We're, again, fortunate. A lot of this has just come down to what what's around, but there's an actual organisation called Breaking Boundaries in WA that take people out on these wheelchair adaptive um experiences and stuff like that. So they sort of get a few people together. We would love to grow on it. We've had...
Speaker: so some uh like one two percent vision guys go around the course and in like the 6k and stuff like that want to grow their confidence and ah you know i've reached out to a couple to see maybe if we can explore doing longer stuff um we we have It doesn't get used much, which is sort of weird, but we have like a ah scholarship application thing where we encourage elites or youth financially disadvantaged or um you know just disability. people to basically put in an email and just, you know, put a feeler out to see, you know, what sort of help we we can offer. um Yeah, sometimes it might be cheaper race entries or free or, you know, whatever sort of support we can sort of offer, it seems.
Speaker: relevant for or suitable for for that that particular person do you think people struggle to ask for that help that to do that reach out maybe maybe we just need to do a better job of promoting it as well i think um kunyani's done a really good job of that they've done a few um videos on success of participants that have done that.
Speaker: Again, this all comes down to to money, time and time and effort. like I imagine every time they produce a video like that, if it's high quality produced, it yeah could be costing you in between $1,500 and $3,000 plus dollars just to produce that bit of content that might sit on their page for someone so to see it for 10 seconds. even though yeah so um Yeah, it's tough, but I think Kuniani has also been pretty much better than us that sort of getting funding and whatnot. So that's probably going to be that. Us being health professionals, I feel like we should be able to tap into that even more, like with access to NDIS guys and sort of pushing that avenue.
Speaker: It's tough. And I think with elites, we just got to be – we've got to – like there's ah there's a line there as well, like – we would love to offer offer more, but we still are small in developing and sort of trying to work out how to pay for all these things ourselves. So um if we were to pay for flights for someone, that might stop us offering another couple more entries, you know, just freebies or something like that and it's a big commitment because also you could have that person say last minute that they're not fit or something like that or you know yeah there has to be a bit of a commitment from both both sides a little bit um so generally we can sort of help out with entries and and prize money and exposure that's that's our main sort of focus and there's going to be some kind of commitment from from an athlete at at the moment
Speaker: hopefully if you if they're sort of established enough like their sponsors should hopefully come to the party with more the travel costs and that that's sort of our views that's that's where the the sponsors should actually come into play a bit more and when you actually think about i'm sure you have a good grasp for this just judging by the way you talk about the sport over here is that i've been having some conversations and we've been looking at people that are our like free agents essentially that are in that top 30 consideration and it It is really striking how many sponsorship sponsored athletes there are now. It was different, very different like levels of sponsorship out there. But it is becoming more and more common. And as yourself, someone that's been in the sport over here for for for a long time, it's much something that you've seen really develop.
Speaker: um Yeah. Yeah, I think... There's a long way to go still with sponsorships. Yes. And unfortunately, the Australian market's quite small, like with only having like 28 million people in the country and and like a lot of the sponsors actually aren't truly in the country. They're they're sort of using um agents or i don't get whatever you want to call them to basically put their products out there. So I think sometimes that can affect how truly passionate a brand is about exposing that aspect of like their brand.
Speaker: I think at the end of the day, they're probably more about trying to get shoes and shops and just sell it and, you know, to spend money it and actually and grow a brand from that aspect. is a lot more costly right like um again they're probably looking at it's a bit like us spending money on a broadcast versus putting money on social media right like then putting money into athletes is like you should be doing it because it's like a really true and authentic way to grow a brand um and you're building community and connection and these people ah ah generally really good um assets for for for ah for a brand but it comes with work right so yeah yeah i i think personally i see athletes as the ultimate form of social proof when you see people that are running around in in that gear and they're doing well then
Speaker: that sells. Obviously people know that people are sponsored so there's that bad issue there but yeah obviously that's that's why it makes sense from a marketing budget perspective to do so. Okay so Transcend's come a long way in the six years you guys been doing this.
Speaker: What's the future looking like for you guys what's what's the goals where where do you want to be in and another five years uh it's a big question um i think we've got a lot of scope to grow from like a participant perspective like we're still well under where we could be with with that so um yeah i'd love to see see our numbers grow like uh you know and I don't see why we couldn't be a 2,000 plus sort of people at our event sort of thing. um And I just like to be like a ah date on the calendar that people are super excited to to go and come and do you know, that we truly become like an event in Australia that,
Speaker: ah people recognise and want to be a part of. like not just Not just elites, like like I think the whole experience, like they come and they see the appreciation for the land, culturally, see how we're giving back with the trees and um fundraising for Australian Wildlife Conservancy, stuff like that. um that you know the aid stations are are experience and um yeah you know i think perth's got a bit bit to offer as well as a as a location is there anything we haven't spoken about today that you think is important to bring attention to
Speaker: Um, i look, I think everyone's doing their little bit, even you guys, like, like literally as, as a again, like how much sense does it make for you guys to be putting in the hours you are to do a, do a podcast, right? Like as much as we're trying, you guys are trying, everyone's trying the sports really on a rise.
Speaker: Um, I think hopefully people are appreciating that and have a patient and, and keep, keep coming and turning up. Like I think Nige, you know, you guys had a conversation around how big road running is and trail running so far from that. Look, trail running never going to be the size of road running, but, um, I think it's going to be cool to watch it grow as long as we do it in a mindful way. Like, like we still need to,
Speaker: think about the impact of it all and that the experience is is still special and and in quality um and i think yeah just don't get necessarily caught up on on mainstream styles i i feel like everyone should go and experience utmb though well i like that sort of week though that's really special special week um yeah perfect there's other things A great place to end it, Shane. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been great to get to know bit more and to hear more about Transcend.
Speaker: Good luck for the future. I'm excited to see Transcend become a bit more of a mainstay on the whole national calendar for trail running. Nah, and thank you, James. um Yeah, your broadcast was was awesome. Thanks for taking control of it. and Appreciate it. Thanks very much.
Speaker: Thanks again for Shane for coming on to the show. What really stood out to me is how much Transcend comes from his own experience and how that has really shown through in what I witnessed on the live stream and the feedback that we hear from everyone that's running, whether it's people that I've coached or just the general... running population out there the moments that have stuck with him that make events feel special is what he's really tried to bring to here and that stands out in a massive way if that's got you curious about heading over west go have a look at transcend it's definitely an event that's shot right up my list in terms of ones i want to get over to and i'd love to hear what stuck with you from the event about the podcast is anything that's really left you wanting to go over there or any questions that you feel like you want to ask for shane definitely hit us up we'd love to hear from you
Speaker: If you have enjoyed it, please do share this with a friend, somebody that you think would appreciate this conversation I have with Shane and we'll catch you on the next show.
