The IRONMAN Group has announced that the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series Liverpool event scheduled for October 23-24, 2021 will be the last event in the city and will not take place in 2022 and beyond.
This post-2021 cancellation includes the Rock ‘n’ Roll Liverpool Marathon, Half Marathon, 10k, 5k and Family Fun Run races. Specific reasons for the cancellation from 2022 onwards were not communicated in a release by the series owner IRONMAN Group.
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series originally landed in Liverpool in 2014, and has been an annual fixture on the UK Athletics and Liverpool event calendar for the last seven years. After a COVID-19-enforced hiatus in 2020, the race returned to the calendar in 2021 moving from its usual May date to October 23-24 with COVID-19 restrictions still in place earlier in the year.
IRONMAN notes that the event became one of the biggest running festivals in northwest England, attracting more than 20,000 runners annually across all distances.
Renowned for its musically themed approach and ‘Bringing Fun to the Run’, the event in Liverpool engaged a variety of local music acts to provide on-course entertainment for runners – in keeping with its tradition of music at every mile. This culminated in a headliner concert featuring acts such as SPACE and Toploader in recent years.
“With its global status as an iconic music city, Liverpool has been the perfect destination for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series brand,” said Declan Byrne, Regional Director UK & Ireland for The IRONMAN Group.
“We are grateful for the support we have received since the inaugural Rock ‘n’ Roll Liverpool event in 2014, and on behalf of my whole team I would like to thank Liverpool City Council, our runners, fans, friends, supporters, volunteers, stakeholders and partners for their commitment over the years.
“It is with sadness that we have to say goodbye, but we can look back on seven great years having shared lasting memories with the local running community and the Liverpool community at large. We look forward to celebrating the end of an extraordinary era of running at the last edition of Rock ‘n’ Roll Liverpool this year, on October 23 and 24.”
www.runrocknroll.com/liverpool
