Premier Event Management - Harahan, Louisiana

Jen Jen

Registered for the New Orleans Women's Half Marathon months in advance, booked accommodations and travel from Florida. I just happened to be looking at the race website February 4th where I found out it was cancelled January 13th due to low participation. Racers were given until February 15th to choose from 3 awful options for races, one of them in Las Vegas, but no refund. I NEVER received any notification that the race was cancelled and wouldn't have known had I not just been checking the page.

These races are not cheap nor are hotels and gas, notification should have been sent to runners regarding the cancellation. Refunds need to be given. I cannot afford to accept, nor can I take time from work for the 3 horrible race options I was offered instead of a refund.

B. P.

What a poorly managed racing company. I was scheduled to do the Las Vegas Women’s Half long before the covid-19 ordeal and the course wasn’t even finalized. The course changed drastically weeks before the race. I could tell that, if this race would have went on as scheduled, it would have been a poorly planned cluster. Luckily for them...they didn’t have to follow through with their plans because the event had to be cancelled by default. They sent out a notification that participants could either defer to their new race date or complete a virtual half marathon, for which they would mail out your finisher’s packet. When I emailed them completion of my race, they asked me to pay shipping for my packet, since they’d incurred too many costs and I had purchased my race entry for a pittance. I understand that the costs for shipping these items was high, but this should NOT have been an option if they were not prepared to incur the costs OR it should have been clearly stated that the participant was responsible for them. In the end, I chose to simply defer, even though I did run my half marathon. I don’t have a lot of faith that the event will go smoothly, or even at all, on its new date. Judging by previous reviews and my own interaction with the company, I have little hope.

Brett Bailess

Very poorly managed company. After an extremely poor experience with communication and processing of refund for the cancelled escape series tri in NOLA 2017, I was hesitant to sign up for the 2019 Blues Marathon when I heard they had taken ownership. Here we are nearly 5 weeks after the Blues and the Age Group medals have not been mailed as promised. I have sent multiple messages across multiple platforms with no response to any of those messages. Based on my two experiences with this company thus far, both of which have been remarkably disappointing, I would highly recommend staying far away from any event they manage.

Joey L

Canceled Tyler Half Marathon & 5K a week and a half out from the race and stated that refunds would be issued 3-4 weeks later. It is now 6 weeks later and still no refund and I've not gotten any responses to tweets or emails. After making a comment on their Facebook page regarding the status of refunds, I noticed that, instead of responding to me personally or providing a general update, they blocked me from commenting on any more posts. Nothing "premier" about this company.

Chris Ren

Poorly executed Veterans Day 10K/5K in New Orleans.

Severe lack of communication until the week of the event including where to pick up packets and changed venue location last minute. Boring course layout that was 300m too long, cheap event t-shirt and finisher medals. Despite having a link to proxy waivers to pick up pakcets for other people, the link ever worked.

Packet pickup on site the day of was very slow due to lack of staff which led to delayed race start. No corral assignments.

Perhaps the worse part was the chip timing. Lots of people's timing was messed up (mine read 15 minutes slower than my actual time). Cannot use this event to help place for future events.

I'm only giving 2 stars because the event wasn't canceled.

Patrick

I will never attend an event put on by PEM again. The way they handled the cancellation of 2017's Ochsner IRONMAN 70.3 New Orleans was very disappointing to say the least. The venue felt very understaffed (not enough volunteers) and the would be race screamed low budget. I won’t be doing this race or any other with this particular race director, Bill Burke, in the future. The expo was horrible, no personalized names on bibs, no swag in the bag, cheap bags, and the organization was terrible. There was also a lack of communication during the morning of the race about the lightning delay which was frustrating. The options they gave us to make up for the canceled race are laughable at best. If you are thinking about signing up for a race, any race, that is organized by PEM DONT DO IT!!! Literally any other race would be a better experience.

Kristen

HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! Oh my gosh, I have been trying for 6 months to get a damn answer. They were to transfer a race for me since one was cancelled in Utah, and they won't even acknowledge me anymore. Good thing it was only $10 that I raffled into. I don't even thing I would recommend them to tie your shoes. They are unreliable. Such a let down.

Brenda Fleeman

The National Women’s Half Marathon Nashville 9/29/2019 run by Premier Event Management was the most poorly managed and dangerous race I have ever participated in. They had posted in advance of the race that there would be water & Gatorade every 2 miles and Gu at mile 6 AND even reiterated this same information in the announcements to the runners right before the race started. There was no water stop at mile 6 and no Gatorade or any other electrolyte product at all - and finally a Gu type product at mile 12 (practically useless at that point). Most of this race was in full sun with high humidity and the temperature rising swiftly from 70 to 90 during the scheduled race time. A lot of the later runners and volunteers were further subjected to the water that was being provided becoming hot due to being set out in the sun with no cover or ice. This was totally abhorrent and dangerous race management. It was well known for days in advance that the weather was going to be hot, humid and sunny during this race. If this company was not going to actually provide the water, electrolytes and nutrition as announced and promised they should have let the runners know in advance so they could plan accordingly to bring their own or not participate. They also did not provide provide adequate medical support services for this high temperature event. I would advise other runners to avoid participating in any future events by Premier Event Managment.