13% drop in numbers for this years Rock n Roll Half-Marathon in Dublin

The Rock n Roll Half-Marathon in Dublin is one of the biggest races in the country and is held in August every year. There is also a 10k and 5k held in conjunction with it and the whole event attracts a huge number of visitors to the capital.

It also doubles up as the National Half-Marathon and Athletics Ireland make a substantial amount of money from it every year. Looking at the recent balance sheets of the association, the proceeds from the Rock n Roll probably keeps the accounts in the black.

Following the most recent event, I had a look at the numbers for the Rock n Roll Haldlf to see how it was doing.

The answer is that the numbers were down 13% for the half-marathon this year compared to 2017. Between all three races, there were 1884 fewer finishers this year. If we take an average entry fee of say €30 then that's a drop of roughly €60k in revenue.

I had a look at the breakdown per event and per gender and nothing really stands out. It's not like there were fewer women running or people were switching to the shorter distances, it just seems to be a general drop across the board. Maybe a sign of the general decline in numbers?

The one caveat is that 2017 seems to have been a good year so the numbers are coming off a high. I tried to have a look at previous years but the organisers seem to delete old results.