There are probably many reasons for no shows, injury, need to enter early due to events filling up & of course "I forgot & double booked". Also you stated a modest entry fee which makes not bothering a cheap option. You can of course help yourself by doing what we did with the WyeForest 50, accept 10% over your entry limit and also set up a reserves list. Communication is the other key factor. I emailed all entrants a month before the event for two reasons, to make sure everyone was able to receive from my email address and also it acted as a reminder. I have to say that many people did notify me of their intention to pull out so that a reserve could be invited. A few even notified me during the final few days although they were recorded as no shows due to all the check point sheets being printed.

Just looked at the route - punishing - well done for completing

The reason not many runners today was due to the 50 and 100 ultra marathons starting at carding mill valley I've done the 50 today great course but hilly

Just finished the Clun Valley Challenge. 267 entries only 22 no shows. Reasons? well it was a lovely day (although indifferent forecast). Quite expensive for a walk - £22 (fantastic food though) and not many runners.

Tony Willey, although my video shows quite good weather later in the day, in the morning when people would have been getting up, the local weather was quite wet. This may have put people off.

In the past when I was entrance secretary for few walks, we always had around 10% no shows. But if the weather was bad it could have been a lot higher.

A few of us joked about what would make a perfect challenge walk. 500 entered, 100% no shows = we can go home early. :-)

I am sure you are right that part of the reason is the increasing tendency for events to fill up early, which encourages people to get an entry in early even if they may not be able to make it on the day.

Given that there will always be some no-shows, the answer must surely lie in a degree of overbooking (as happens for example with the 100) - if you have 200 places, you can confidently accept more than 200 entries, knowing that they won't all turn up on the day. The question, obviously, is how many excess entries to accept, but your figures suggest that it would not be imprudent of organisers to overbook by 20 or 25%. Maybe this should become standard practice.

Some central collation of figures on no-shows might help organisers know what to plan for - but I suspect that most organisers of individual events keep their own records and so know what percentage of no-shows to expect on their particular event.

Tony

Why not contact some of the no shows on your Spring in Lakeland and ask them.

One of the trends on recent events seems to be the high proportion of no shows. I see from the results that the Rhonda Rollercoaster had around 20% non starters. Our group's Spring in Lakeland last month had 25% non starters. Both events were full, so a significant number of people were denied an entry by the no shows. The weather for Spring in Lakeland was very pleasant, and John Pennifold's video suggests that It wasn't too bad for the Rollercoaster, so that is unlikely to be the reason for the high rate of no shows. I suspect part of the reason is that people are entering well in advance due to entries filling quickly and are prepared to write off our fairly modest entry fee if they change their plans. Any other ideas?
It would be helpful and courteous if entrants who change their minds could contact the organisers and let them know that they will not be coming.