Mudders,
You, our Mudder Nation community, are the very heart of this business. You’re the reason Tough Mudder, and the experiences it provides, are so special. The reason so many of us choose to work here. You are the incredible stories, the helping hands, the words of support, the motivation and the magic.
We thrive on the shared experiences and customer delight intrinsic to our product and company culture. It’s why we obsessively focus on you, our customer, when planning our events and why we’re so deeply saddened by the current situation. The COVID -19 pandemic has placed unprecedented stress on our business and, in navigating this challenge, we’ve had to make changes to our policies which I wanted to explain further.
An event season disrupted
We believe deeply in the value of the event experience we provide and set about 2020 planning focused on ensuring as many people as possible could enjoy those unique Tough Mudder moments. We’d never imagined that come May, we’d be facing a global pandemic, with much of the season already affected. We know it sucks when plans change, particularly when you’ve been training and getting excited with your team. We share your disappointment, having worked tirelessly to prepare for this year’s series of events.
For those who have accepted a Flex Ticket or postponement to a future event – thank you. By leaving your ticket with us you’re protecting the future events and supporting the dedicated team who work so hard to make that possible.
Once the world reopens, your ticket means we’ll be here, ready to provide a safe space for you to run wild, get muddy and enjoy those team interactions we all sorely miss.
Refunds
When this crisis began, we were confident that we could swiftly refund our customers and communicated these intentions in good faith. As a business we’ve overcome some significant hurdles in the past – but we simply were not prepared for a pandemic of this magnitude or the impact it would have on our business and the wider events industry. Our systems and policies were not set up for a total, almost overnight, shutdown of live events.
When we (OCR UK Holdings Ltd) acquired the Tough Mudder business out of administration from the now defunct Tough Mudder Ltd we agreed to honour existing tickets at a future event. We have not received any cash for tickets purchased prior to 2020, as these were purchased from the old entity, but these tickets make up >60% of refund requests. Without the cash necessary to refund these tickets we’ve been placed in a challenging situation.
We have made many difficult decisions over the last couple of months as we chart a course though this, but, ultimately, we need the business to be running as normal again before we can get refund processing back on track. As a result, we’ve been forced to adjust how we handle refunds going forward.
We need your support
We remain committed to getting customers out into the mud and have adjusted our policies to provide as much flexibility as possible.
What we’re doing;
- We’ll communicate any necessary event changes a minimum of 60 days out from the event
- We’ve suspended all previously planned ticket price rises until further notice
- We’ve brought forward the launch of our 2021 event season
- We’ve maximised flexibility with bookings:
- Introduced FLEX Tickets
- Waived event transfer fees through to 31 December (either to a different event or different person)
We ask that all customers affected by a change in event date consider these options which allow them to enjoy their event in the future whilst helping ensure we can take care of our employees and protect Tough Mudder events.
We recognise that some customers may still wish to pursue a refund. For those that do, we are committed to honouring your refund request, but may not be able to issue your refund until our business returns to normal – likely 6 months from now. Please email [email protected] with your ticket details for next steps.
This updated timeline is driven by our need for visibility into how many refunds we’ll need to process in total before we can more accurately predict how long it will take us to fulfill them all. Ultimately, this is dependent on the speed at which COVID-19 permits a return to live events.
Thanks to our team
Tough Mudder events in the UK are brought to you by a small team who work tirelessly to provide thousands of life-changing experiences each year. A lot of the difficult decisions we’ve had to make directly affect the team too. A portion of the team have been placed on the UK Governments Furlough scheme and those remaining have accepted significant salary cuts. This means we’re a very small team, working from home in isolation, whilst trying to cover a lot of ground – which is why you may have experienced slower responses than you’re used to.
I can’t thank my awesome team enough and thank you all for continuing to treat them with the respect and kindness they deserve.
Looking to the future
Like our courses – the future is a challenge best tackled together.
As a community, we’re among the very best at overcoming obstacles and I truly hope that you’ll work with us as we navigate this pandemic and join us once more in the mud when ready. For now, I’m asking for your patience as we continue on that journey back to normal.
Stay kind, stay safe, look after each other, and keep washing those hands.
Yours sincerely
Giles Chater
Managing Director