Just under two-thirds of charities would be interested in a second marathon in London amid frustration at the difficulty in getting runners into the existing Flora London Marathon.
Research conducted by nfpSynergy found that 61 per cent of respondents would be quite or very interested in a second marathon, and only 13 per cent said they would not be able to fill fundraising places in a new race.
The survey found that demand for new running events shows no sign of slowing, with half of respondents raising £50,000 or more from their running event programme. However, 21 per cent of small charities and 4 per cent of the largest charities cannot get places on the London Marathon and those who have bonds for the event said they were heavily over-subscribed.
Despite the results, some respondents were concerned that a second race in London would detract from the existing marathon, and instead suggested building up more participation in local or regional running events.
Joe Saxton, driver of ideas at nfpSynergy, said the biggest conclusion was that “there’s a massive demand for fundraising running events, which isn’t beginning to be saturated”.
“The danger is this is about ‘let’s all get at the London Marathon’, actually, it’s about creating an event that meets the needs of fundraisers,” he said, adding that the organisers of any new event would need to make sure there was “clear blue water between the two”.
But Gwen Pearson, major events manager at Scope and chair of the Events Manager Forum, an online meeting place for events fundraisers, said that a new event in London would detract from the uniqueness of the existing marathon. In a separate poll on the EMF website, 72 per cent of the 90 respondents said they would not support a second marathon in London.
“By having a second race the novelty and the high unique value of the race would be devalued and nobody would be getting as much out of it.” She said at the moment fundraisers do not have to spend a lot on promoting their places in the London Marathon, but would for a second event, which would reduce its fundraising value. “Why not set it up in a city that doesn’t have a marathon, like Birmingham or Manchester?” she said.
Saxton said the next stage would be to look at the feasibility of staging a second event in London and finding a UK-wide sponsor willing to support it.
