To be miffed about the effects of local marathon on my business?

[AvocadosBeforeMortgages]

For background, I've got a tiny, new, specialist business that primarily trades once a week at a local specialist market. I'm looking to expand, but the business is so new that's not yet been possible. It's my primary (often sole) source of income. I am not wealthy; my existence is frankly financially precarious.

Perhaps I am being unreasonable, but for the second time in a month there are going to be widespread road closures for a running race. It coincides precisely with my only trading hours for this week, and my business will be cut off by the road closures.

Last time this happened, my takings halved. Thankfully I still broke even (ie was able to pay the market managers for my pitch), but some of the other market traders lost money.

I'm not against people running, and I understand they're raising money for charity, but I can't help but feel upset that it's compromising my ability to make a living yet again, and there is no help whatsoever from the race organisers (either practical or financial), who are presumably making plenty of money from it themselves.

In my view closing roads, whose purpose is free movement for all, in favour of groups pursuing leisure activities, is not much short of an outrage. Ditto park runs through parks provided for the quiet enjoyment of all.

What options for expansion do you have right now? I can understand the exposure to risk but this a precarious situation and you may find that it becomes more frequent; or that the colder/wetter weather impacts heavily on that market too, it always does here.

I'm self employed too and happy to try and brainstorm if you like! But it's you'll never get much from the council, we've gone from one run a year that closed roads last year to four runs this year; plus three cycle events, and two "special events". I have no doubt it'll increase next year, too - ironically under the guise of increasing footfall and trade in the town; although our market would disagree!

It’s difficult to say without knowing what your business is, but is there anyway of capitalising on the events? Thinking like when restaurants offer a discount or freebie on presentation of a race number etc. If events are regular it might be worth sorting something with other stall holders who must be experiencing a similar impact.

I frequently go and support dh at various races. I have learnt to spot a nice place for a coffee and leg it for there as soon as the race starts as otherwise it gets really crowded with race supporters who have to hang around for a couple of hours until they can cheer their racer home. Is there any way you can capitalise on the race supporters who are looking for something to occupy themselves while they wait? Is your market well advertised at the starting point?

Yanbu.

People and animals have died because of these races. They're a massive inconvenience to locals.

In my view closing roads, whose purpose is free movement for all, in favour of groups pursuing leisure activities, is not much short of an outrage. Ditto park runs through parks provided for the quiet enjoyment of all

Closing roads is really good for air quality. When Ride London and the London marathon are on the air quality in London improves by some ridiculous amount like 87%.

And the benefit of parkrun on physical and mental health outweighs the inconvenience of dog walkers not being able to have "quiet enjoyment" between 9 and 10 on a Sat morning (unless you are in Scotland/Ireland in which case, plenty of time to walk the dog before 9.30).

we're in the Lake District and races are extremely common and yes, very disruptive to local businesses

but not in the same town and affecting the same market. And the OP mentions a city, I assume she's not referring to Carlisle or Lancaster. The only places in the UK I can see with affiliated UK Athletics marathons this weekend are Chester, Leicester and Bournemouth.

Where I live there are races most weekends somewhere within say a 20 mile radius, but in my town there are two a year, along with the aforementioned carnival and a Christmas fair. I don't think we have anything else that closes roads and they only close some roads on a rolling closure so as the runners get past, they reopen, so it's not the case that they are closed for the full 3 hours of a half marathon for example. There are bike rides too about twice a year but the roads are open for those.

Lots of, if not most, races take place on open roads and they maybe only close one small section of road for the beginning or the end.

Loch Ness might be this weekend too so that would affect Inverness, but only at the end, as the race starts way out in the countryside.

I think you should try to advertise your market to race goers if it's near enough or something that might be of interest.
These races are big money spinners for the council and the companies that organise them, it's only fair that they should be willing to discuss helping local businesses - they are not going to give you money but maybe some advertising posters or something at the race site?
I like having the events near me - traffic free streets for a few hours is bliss!

Prefer not to say which city I'm in, as it would rapidly become outing.

The race last month actually passed directly by the market, and the market was promoted on social media as being a place to go after that race for lunch, but I didn't see anyone spectating there, and I didn't make a single sale until after all the runners had gone past.

This time the run doesn't go past the market and the road closures are longer so I can only see it being worse.

For both races, the start / end point is about a mile away from the market, with a great many competing businesses that runners and spectators will find before they get to the market. The net effect is that the regulars are put off and people in town for the race don't make it to the market. For instance, I have one family of regulars who spend £15 with me most weeks (occasionally slightly less - but this is often my largest single transaction of the day) and have bought from me every week without fail since I first started trading - except the week of the last race.

I can try offering a special deal to anyone with a race number, but tbh my products are unlikely to appeal to the super health conscious.

I don't object to a run or even road closures in principle, but encircling the entire city centre seems unnecessary when different routes could be taken. I'll agree about the air quality, but the difference between my city and London is that there is the tube, which totally bypasses all road closures (used to live in London) whereas that doesn't exist in my city. Permanent road closures people adapt to (eg the main shopping streets have been pedestrianised), but temporary ones just make people make other plans that day.