Every event in the Rock N’ Roll Running Series is a spectacle to behold, drawing in massive crowds of runners and spectators to revel in the cheerful energy and enjoy the music in wonderful locations. But one stands head and shoulders above the rest—the mighty Rock N’ Roll Las Vegas. Barring past COVID-19-related shutdowns, RnR Vegas is one of only two times out of the year that the Strip is shut down, and everyone involved sure does their best to utilize that opportunity to the fullest.
And speaking of “everyone involved,” it’s just about all hands on deck to make the event as good as it can be. Staff flew in from all over the country for “the big one,” and we here at BCC mobilized just about every available staff member ourselves. Flying in on the Wednesday and Thursday before the event, we immediately set to work setting up the largest Expo in the series, with a mighty 36 point-of-sale machines. Check out a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the setup on the right, before we had it all ready for customers!
Though linking that many machines to a single network and getting them all powered was a king-sized task, our line of machines was ready to rock for the massive amount of attendees to the Expo—since all 36,000 runners would need to pass through to pick up their bibs, that’s a whole lot of potential customers to service!
Fortunately, we certainly had enough machines set up to accommodate everyone, and the Rock n’ Roll staff brought their A-game with plenty of cashiers to keep the line moving quickly. Everyone who came by with shopping in tow was put through the line in minutes… faster than a lot of permanent stores can manage! To help keep things speedy, the BCC team kept staff onsite to serve as technical support—and to run registers, since the opportunity presented itself!
While that was underway, the majority of our team broke off to start setup on the primary events. First up was the 5K on Saturday, taking place on and around Fremont Street—one of the most remarkable parts of Las Vegas, and home to the world’s largest LED-display roof. While some 5K events are relatively small affairs, the potential venue and the number of participants called for us to pull out all the stops. The 5K was set up with the same equipment we normally use for full marathons (including full lines of speakers and our primary arrays up on cubes, which you may remember from the last blog post), so participants could enjoy tunes from our thumping arrays through the majority of their run. Combine that with the view and experience of Fremont Street, and the end result was a killer 5K!
But nearly as soon as we were through with packing up the 5K venue, it was time to start setting up the venues for the main event on Sunday. The half-marathon and 10K took place on the Strip, and because it certainly couldn’t be shut down forever, we had less time than usual beforehand to get everything set up—in spite of the fact that the start and finish featured the largest speaker sets that we could manage, and we had an additional “transition” speaker line to get people hyped up on their walk from the start village to the start line itself. “Divide and conquer” was the name of the game yet again, and teams split off to set the start, finish, “transition,” and an Internet installation to support our livestream of the event. What started as a nine-person team soon seemed more like several independent groups of two or three—but when everyone knows what to do and how to do it, that’s the sort of thing that only speeds tasks up!
In what seemed like the blink of an eye, all of our venues were set and ready to rock (and roll!) for a wild event. Did we mention this run would be taking place at night, to let the lights of Las Vegas shine their brightest?
And shine they did. Amidst the neon and LEDs, BCC and the Rock n’ Roll team engineered a truly dazzling event. With a finish line right in front of the Mirage hotel (with its characteristic water and fire feature lighting things up,) it’s a far cry from the other venues we’re used to!
But we haven’t even made it to the best part yet. In a first for the team, we amped up the spectacle with the sort of thing we can only do in Vegas. Using a couple of wireless links patched into our cameras, we sent a stream up to the side of the ResortsWorld building to allow runners to see themselves on the biggest screen BCC has ever used. In addition to being a wonderful sight to behold, it provided a great opportunity for impromptu selfies!
Couple that with lights, pyrotechnics, killer sound, and a livestream so the folks at home could party along, and the event really lived up to its scale. There’s truly nothing like it!
Of course, running an event late at night meant we had to stay up even later than the athletes to clean everything up, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary. Energized by the promise of a very good night’s sleep, we packed up all of our gear into the Rock N’ Roll trailer and got ready to roll ourselves out. Everyone involved at BCC has a full schedule—and in this case, it meant no more than a day or two of downtime before we scattered to the four winds. Even now, BCC is preparing for new events every week, bringing our expertise to bear to make everything we touch as good as it can be. Where will we go next? Only time will tell!
