How do you ensure that your participants return on time?

That's exciting! You're organizing a rally where all participants start at the same time. But you also want to see them back at the finish at about the same time. How do you do that?

Together out, together home!

Imagine: you have prepared your rally or tour down to the last detail. The catering is ready and there is a VIP to hand out the prizes. And then when the finish time has passed, the majority of the participants have not returned yet.

This doomsday scenario happened to me once. And I decided to never, ever let it happen again. The solution turned out to be surprisingly simple!

Reward on time and punish too late!

A good game requires clear rules. We introduced the following rules:

• arriving too early: penalty points
• desired time: no penalty points
• being late: penalty points

Clear communication

This approach requires clear communication, before and during your event.

Communication in advance

For this you use the Rule Book. In the Rule Book you clearly state the desired arrival times. An example could be:

• arrival before 2pm - 100 penalty points
• arrival between 14:01 and 14:15: 25 penalty points
• arrival between 14:16 and 14:30: 25 points
• arrival after 14:31: 10 penalty points per minute late

Emphasize this in your Driver's Briefing and mention the 'together out, together home' feeling. Everyone has an adrenaline rush upon arrival and everyone wants to share their experiences. That is also the added value of your team building or network event.

With the Connection Game we can also support you by hiding all hot spots, except the finish, after a certain time. This also prevents participants from secretly using the extra time to score points.

Communication during the event

As game leader you keep an eye on the participants during the event: where are they? Keep an eye on the global driving distance to the finish. You see the last known current position on the live dashboard.

Halfway through the time you can send a message to all participants about how much riding time is left. And if you see that individual teams seem to have strayed too far you can ask them individually to ride towards the finish.

The results

The results of these simple rules were spectacular! Even at a major international event like the 24 Hour Hydrogen Challenge we were able to get more than 95% of the participants back on time.

Arriving late is unavoidable, no one can control the traffic. But with good rules it can be managed well.

You're in the driver's seat

As a game master, we give you the knobs to turn: the interval of arrival times and the amount of penalty points you give. In addition, we enable good communication with our Rule Book template and the communication tools via the Game Master Dashboard.