Okay I obviously don't have the direct experience. At the same time,  a lot of my plans and opinions are driven from the conversations I had with Ian last fall, which were pretty detailed and he's a fairly reliable source :-p. And from the sound of it, some things were different (aside from the obvious thing of locations and stuff) at SF vs. Chicago. So we'll learn lessons from both no doubt.

Ian said a party (and hence a place to do so) at the end of the night was really important, which is why they had the ocean bonfire in SF. This is why I focused on the lakes and river fronts. The parks at the lakes are not too shabby and stay "open" nominally til 10, with of course quite a bit of flexibility in terms of people's ability to hang out in and around the parks after that. I've often been in parks after 10 pm!  The issue of ending at someone's house is Very dodgy to me. I've given that quite a bit of thought too, considering offering up my own house with a perfectly good firepit in the back yard! 

For one thing Chicago had 100+ (150?) runners. Plus staff? The line for this mythical free hot tub would be ridiculous :-D. I'd propose partially handling the end of the race matters from the perspective of the "user interface." 

For example, maybe giving lots of clear guidance in advance (a la Burning Man's <a href="http://www.burningman.com/first_timers/">first timer guide</a>)  thru web and other means to potential runners (all PR would have to have web site listings. I registered mnzero.org quite a while back with plans for that contingency--btw if you've ever wondered, mn0.org is registered by avidd, actually and I asked him about it). My other thought was to offer to manage the transportation issue at the end of the night with a shuttle. Ending at a house is too anticlimactic and I balk at the liability standpoint too (waivers and all, but man, that's someone's <em>house</em>.)

Though. THOUGH. . . this <em>just</em> occurred to me. It'd be close to trivial for a large enough group of organizers to pitch in for a hotel room somewhere and have directions/shuttle service from the finale to an After Party location available. Have the directions there at the end. Not everyone would take up the offer. And we can put out a donations can or something of course.  Anybody know any good hotels with poolfront party facilities? ;-)  

Actually the <a href="http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1546">Sheraton Midtown</a> would be a pretty awesome location. 

Laying that aside a moment: I still strongly resonate with Ian's intimation that the chasers --and I don't know if this was the case in CG0--understand one way to do it (right) was catching <em>fewer</em> people not more, trying for as few as possible but to scare as many as possible to keep going. But Dok you were on staff, presumably you were told <em>something</em>?  Reading TheAnimus' proof I'm worried at this rumour of a chaser "abusing the safe zone" or something. Dude, chaser discipline is going to be a high priority in my book. It's supposed to be fun for everyone! Getting a larger number of chasers makes good sense to me. It's a long distance.  

OH, speaking of which. The SF journeys have also allowed buses. The Journey:Chicago <a href="http://www.chicag0.org/journey/rules.html">prohibition against buses</a> might just be a reflection of the complexity of the train system in CHI, but we don't have that option here. I'd like to believe it'll work to our runners' advantages in a couple key locations (hennepin for example, nicollet mall for another, and other places). I insist we keep the buslines in play--and of course bus stops. Ian was firm in saying the start point be close to public transportation. Maybe we should evaluate the endpoint on similar lines...

So the other thing we'll do from an organizing standpoint is <em>totally</em> lock down a) an alternate finish line, b) a preestablished backup procedure at the last checkpoint. I mean like pre-print new maps if we have to. Then when they hit the last checkpoint before finish they can get a new map. Then we hustle down and do ongoing eval at the finish, ready to make a change decision by the time the first runner hits the last checkpoint. (I would love to do the start. I don't need to hog any spotlight organizing, but tonight just thinking about how bad my back hurts right now, and I'm sure as hell not running!)  

The confusion about checkpoints is completely avoidable. Looking at CH0 maps, I see some features that are good and some less so <a href="http://sf0.org/VeritasNoir/Journey-to-the-End-of-the-Night-Chicago/">VeritasNoir</a> has a good pic. The closing times of locations are excellent details. But any confusion should be cleared up by specific addresses and/or precise landmarks. Ian also said that something that DIDN'T work from Journey:NYC was having one checkpoint be a bar. So we'll avoid that!! Yes, checkpoint clarity is very high priority!

<a href="http://flickr.com/photos/jaschu/169798985/">Jaschu</a> has great detail of the first SF Journey, check out the map and manifests they handed out. They had landmark detail, plus address details on the manifest for <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/jaschu/171175603/">checkpoint sigs</a>.  

Oh, they wouldn't kick us out of bus stops. That's just a thought for checkpoints, by the by.  Also parking ramps. For example, if not the Rainbow in uptown, then the ramp at Calhoun square or the big Metro transit station--maybe we wouldn't identify it as the Metro Transit station but by its specific street address.  One thought I've had would be to, you know, plan ahead and work some community contacts. Talk to some people in potential checkpoint areas starting now and get something resembling <em>permission</em> to run a herd of people through there in the middle of a warm september night. If I have to start a non-profit foundation to get people tax breaks for letting us onto their store or restaurant, i'm willing to consider it. You know, having a checkpoint at a church might work out for something like that. I've been known to make church contacts. . . 

Oh, something I'd like to see happen: two sleeper chasers. Start them in blue, let them hook up with different parties, then call them on a cell relatively late in the run to activate and put on their red ribbons. You know, give their parties a fair chance to run, but how sweet would that be? Evil sweet, that's how sweet. And if they get caught, they'd have a card that says "good job chaser, this person is a sleeper agent. you may catch and release."

Okay we're getting long. Everybody who wants to do this, please send me a google id and we can launch and share a collaboration doc there. 

Love,
JonO

 ---- star5 on Apr 21 4:33 pm---- 

ok so.. just got home.. read through your proposals.. have some thoughts. moreso i have thoughts based on my experience in the game. i was a runner, but became a chaser. i made it to 2 checkpoints and one bonus.. got caught just outside 3.. which i hear a lot of people did. 

thoughts: it should be made a bit clearer where checkpoints are.. and where safe zones start. i got confused because the 3rd checkpoint was inside a bar, and didn't quite make it to there. if i'd realized, i probably could have ran and made it into the safe zone. and alternatively when i was a chaser.. there was confusion when i tagged someone across the street from a safe zone, and another in the crosswalk, they claimed that they were in the safe zone. so this would just need a clearer definition of what was a safe zone.. where they begin.

another thought is on the ending. it should be somewhere we won't get kicked out of and have to move it (they had to move the one in chicago and by the time i got there i was so tired and my feet hurt and wandering around to find the end was kind of hellish). also ideally it would be nice if it could be where an end party would be. maybe with food and beverages. even more ideally with a hot tub.. and/or people giving massages. i'm not sure where this ideal place would be. maybe someone's house? i realize that might make it trickier to plan the route..  but i do think it's something to be considered. all i wanted to do was sit down and chill out and relax.. but instead i had to walk back out of the park until we could find a cab to get back to the beginning.

also ideally a couple checkpoints could be places that have bathrooms/beverages. i like the idea of themes. i'm sad i didn't make it to checkpoint 4. after getting tagged at 3, we moved on to 5 to chase.

ok.. more later when i've had a chance to review the maps more.