First Day of Fairfax 2015 Athlete Registration Crashes System

Even technology at its very best can’t hold up to 750,000 page views on a single day!

With more than three-quarters of a million hits on Tuesday, October 1, athlete registration website actually shut down for a short period of time.

“That was a problem,” said World Police & Fire Games Director of Technology Craig Luecke.  “But it was a good problem.”  Within minutes, the system was back up and running and by the end of the day, registrations were on record pace.  In the weeks to follow, those figures increased exponentially as the system saw a major influx of both individual and team sign-ups.  

The impact was felt all the way in California, where Dan Ellison, Chief Administrative Officer of the World Police & Fire Games Federation praised the milestone launch.  “All the preliminary work that Craig has put in has paid clear dividends as first day registration numbers for Fairfax 2015 clearly outpaced the most recent Games held in Belfast and New York City,” he said.  “We are extremely pleased with the efforts that the entire Fairfax team have put forward to date.  Fairfax is raising the bar for future hosts.” 

The impressive numbers have not been limited to the registrants.  According to Luecke, the Games website had a 28 day average of just over 11 million page views.  Facebook numbers have also been on the rise.  Games page “likes” have jumped from 68,000 to over 74,000 in the past 30 days with a weekly average of 211,000 people viewing Games content.  A recent video posting highlighting the Games received over 20,000 views in 24 hours.

According to Luecke, the numbers are entirely consistent with the competition’s push to draw 12,000 participants for next summer’s Games.  The key to the success was five years in the making.  “Ever since we were awarded these Games in 2009, we have been building conversations among participants,” Luecke said.  “Even as participants entered the 2011 Games in New York and the 2013 competition in Belfast, the buzz about Fairfax built, grew and snowballed.  When registration finally opened last month, it was like a dam bursting open … that’s how prominent the interest has been in our competition.”

While some events are approaching capacity already, there are still openings in each of the 61 sports but as Luecke says, “how long those openings remain is anybody’s guess.”  To register for your sport, visit http://fairfax2015.com/registration.