Rogaining 2023 by Numbers

The NSW Rogaining Organising Committee / Board are having a strategic planning session in December to redo our 5 year plan. In preparation for this session, I have collected the following statistics to help reflect on the sport we love.

2023 In Numbers

High Level Entrant Data (One member can appear multiple times)

The average age of women rogaining this year is higher than men. This is unusual with women normally averaging a couple of years younger than men. I thought this data may have been skewed by some old competitors, but the median tells the same story.

Events Held in 2023

We held these events this year and the number of competitors is on the right.

By Age

We often worry that rogaining is becoming an old person’s sport and new people are not joining. This table suggests we do not need to worry too much because plenty of <30s are experiencing our sport. I think endurance events generally attract older competitors.

Distinct Competitors (Members)

The member of Rogaining is, by definition, someone who competes in at least 1 event during a calendar year. A member of NSW Rogaining is someone who lives in NSW and who competes in at least 1 event during a calendar year.

I always find this graph amazing, 79% of people who entered an event in 2023 only entered one event.

The fact that no one attended all events and every few people attended 8 events is probably misleading because it doesn’t count volunteers. I, for example, attended all 2023 events but only competed in 7 having catered at the Nightgaine and vetted at the Paddy Pallin.

2023 by NSW Events State

No real surprises in participants by State. The Aust Rogaining Champs has been excluded from this count since this event attracts a different set of competitors than most NSW events.

Crossover with Orienteering

Of the 1967 NSW based rogainers who competed in at least one event this year 106 of these or 5.3% have also competed in the Sydney Summer Series orienteering so far this year. There are lots of other orienteering events held on Sydney and around the regions but they do not publish their attendees in an easy accessible list. I suspect the real number of people who attend both a rogaine and an orienteering event each year is probably about 10% of all NSW domiciled rogainers.

Web Stuff

Number of members on NSW Rogaining Facebook group 2,251.

Number of users from Australia that have accessed our web site this year 21,411.

2023 Rogainers by Postcode

This list is the most popular postcodes used by members in 2023. Note that many post codes cover multiple suburbs. For this purpose, I have selected an indicative suburb for that postcode.

Time Series Data

How does 2023 compare?

This table is the number of entrants by event for the last 13 years.

Things to note include:
– 2020 and 2021 numbers were impacted by COVID.
– in 2023 NSW ran the Aust Champs which is rotated around the States
– We ran more events in NSW in 2019 and 2023 than in any other year.
– Over the years we have had many Paddy Pallin events with over 600 competitors, but not recently.
– The night rogaine only started in 2019
– The “Other events” were the 2019 Paddlegaine and the 2023 Weakata Surprise rogaine

In summary, we did pretty well in 2023 with an all time high of competitors entry events and the “Escape to the City Minigaine” Minigaine and the “Lane Cove Rivergaine V” socialgaine had record competitors taking in the last 13 years into consideration.

Are Rogainers Getting Older

Yes.

Rogainers are getting older, by the rate of about 70 days per year. At this rate the average age of rogainers will hit 100 by the year 2328, I just hope I am alive to see it.

Are More Women Participating?

Yes.

By this rate rogaining will be exclusively women’s business by 2137. There is an interesting kick up in male participation rate in 2023, this is caused by us hosting at Aus Champs which was attended by 66% male competitors. Women typically do more of the shorter events. At minigaines in the last 5 years there has been an average of 46% female competitors.

Event Duration

One thing we know for sure is that shorter events are more popular. Three and six hour events are much more popular than the longer event. When a 3 hour and 5 or 6 hour events are offerred together it seems that 3 hour and 6 (or 5 hour) events are equally popular. 12 and 24 hour events are less popular. The 12 and 24 hour events are typically frequented by the same group of hard core rogainers who turn up regularly to events.

Events by Member

We saw above that the vast majority of members only attended one event last year. In the chart below I have taken a 10 year timeframe to see if there is a different trend.

In summary of the 8,370 who entered a NSW rogaine in the last 10 years 5,131 or 61% only ever did one rogaine. If we could change this statistic rogaining might be a very different sport.

Novice Teams

If our sport is to survive we need to get new people into the sport. Novices can participate by teaming up with an experienced rogainer or by particpating in a team of novices. Here is teh count of Novice teams by event:

The next graph is really telling. In 2023, 2050 people entered a NSW rogaine of these 42.1% were newbies to NSW rogaining.

This next graph shows the average age of age of first timers versus the average age of all competitors. On average newbies are 6.1 years younger than the average competitor.

These stats in conjunction with the number of people only ever doing one event tells us that our major problem is retention.

How are the Other States Going?

To be honest I do not really know. There is, I think, an opportunity for the States to get closer together in terms of developing best practice. I am sure someone from one of the other States / Territories will read this and educate me, but some key differences as I understand it are:
– For its small size, the ACT does very well in participation rates per head of population.
– VRA seems to be quite active in schools and Scouts, much more so than NSW
– QLD runs regional events and also partners with a private company “Raid Adventures” to run several of its events each year.

Participation Rates

The population of greater Sydney is 5.3 milion people. We get 2,000 people turning up to events each year from all over NSW and ACT. This suggests that only 1 in 2,650 people in the Sydney region attend a rogaine each year. This begs the question of what our participation rates should be afterall an endurance event is not for everyone.

I suspect that, if given the opportunity, about 1 in every 100 people in NSW would do a rogaine each year, but probably 2/3 of Sydney siders have never heard of rogaining which makes it hard to join in.

The Oxfam Trailwalker attracted about 1,500 people to its one Sydney event this year and in comparison with rogaining, doing the Oxfam is like watching paint dry. What the Oxfam does well, but we do not, is marketing.

Conclusion

If you see an obvious (and material) error then please let me know, also if there is a statistic that you would like to see, then also let me know using the comments below.