Expensive Race Fee?

Was going to sign up for the Energizer Night Race until I saw the race fee. Whoa, $65 for a 16km race! If I remember correctly, that was more expensive than the full marathon. So I chicken out. Too kiamseap. But that set me thinking, there has been many complaints in the Sgrunners forum about ever increasing race fee. Is our race fee really that expensive?

So I did some googling and came out with some findings.

Firstly, a comparison of the Energizer Night Race which is held in several countries. Unfortunately, I only managed to find the race fee for 2 other countries, one in far away South Africa and the other, the badly organised Malaysia Night Race. All races came with event tee or finisher tee, medal and other novelties items including headlamp. The Johannesburg race only has a 5km trail whereas the Malaysia had a version with full marathon and the full works so for equal comparison, I selected only the shortest category for each country and no surprise there, Singapore came out as the most expensive.

Next I compared another series race - the Mizuno Wave Run. This time I had Hongkong and Malaysia for comparison. And again Singapore  emerge as the most expensive race.

So it would seem that all the complains were spot on and Singapore is indeed the most expensive place to race. For a final comparison, I looked at the major marathon races among the region and surprise surprise, Singapore was not the most expensive. Tokyo had the most expensive race fee followed by Gold Coast, Australia. 

Conclusion from this mini unscientific survey. Singapore is indeed the most expensive place to race for smaller races but for international races, the race fee is average. So if you feel that the wallet is tight and want to save some money, take part in the longer distance/major races. It is better value for money.