No mud, no money back either for participants of cancelled Mud Hero event

Posted on August 2, 2024 by Peggy

Some Manitobans are scrambling after an event called Mud Hero was cancelled weeks before it was scheduled to take place, and participants are concerned they won’t be getting their money back.

Charmaine Bloomfield paid $185 for two tickets to participate in the Mud Hero event with her son and some friends. After she bought her tickets, she went online to learn more about how to prepare for her big race, and learned through social media that Mud Hero in Manitoba had a history of being cancelled without issuing refunds.

“I got the email saying it was cancelled, and I actually immediately emailed [Mud Hero] and asked them if I could get my money back, but I haven’t heard anything from them about that,” she said.

Mud Hero is an annual race put on by Crazy Canuck Event Corp, held across Canada where participants race through a mud-filled, six-kilometre obstacle course. Mud Hero states on its website it does not offer refunds in the event of cancellation.

The race was originally set for Aug. 10, but on July 25, participants started getting emails that the event would be suspended until further notice.

Bloomfield isn’t sure how successful she’ll be in recouping the funds.

“I’ve heard stories about the chargebacks and essentially [Mud Hero] will always dispute it, and say ‘oh, we gave you credit.’ However, the credit is for the following year’s event, which may or may not be cancelled.”

Jen Elsen and a friend also signed up for the Mud Hero run, and they were looking forward to having some fun this summer.

“My girlfriend that I was doing the race with got an email saying that the race was cancelled. I still have yet to receive an email saying that the race was cancelled, even though I was the one that purchased tickets,” Elsen said.

When Elsen learned about the cancellation, she reached out to Mud Hero to see if she could get a refund, but said they haven’t replied to her emails, and they turned off comments on all their social media pages.

“I’ve reached out to Visa to see if I can get the charges reversed, which seems to be the only recourse for getting my money back,” she said.

Past races well-organized

Mud Hero has been held at Hilltop Resort in the Grand Marais area almost every year since 2014. Gregg Kuhnle, co-owner of Hilltop, said in the early years of Mud Hero, the customer experience was amazing, it was well-organized and had a large turnout.

Kuhnle said ownership of the Mud Hero brand and its parent company Crazy Canuck Events Corp. has changed hands a couple of times since then.

“When they purchased it, it was right at the beginning of COVID, and they ran a race at Hilltop in 2022,” Kuhnle explained, adding the event was cancelled in 2020 and 2021.

“In 2023, they had one scheduled, but they felt that it was being lightly attended, so they spoke with us saying that they wanted to postpone it to Aug. 10 of this year. Then on July 23 they sent me an email saying they wanted to suspend this year’s event.”

Kuhnle said Mud Hero told him there would be 1,700 people attending this year.

CBC attempted to contact the owner/director of Mud Hero for comment but didn’t get a reply. Its website shows Mud Hero events are scheduled in Toronto and Ottawa this year.

According to Pitblado civil litigation lawyer Matthew Duffy, there are certain laws that protect consumers against what could be considered unfair business practices.

Duffy says Mud Hero’s website “I think, sets out in fairly clear terms that … deposits are non-refundable. So on the face of it, they’ve got some good merit to keep the money that has been paid up front.”

Duffy said even though the website was clear about refunds, there are two sides to this issue.

“I didn’t see anywhere on [the website] that the event may be cancelled due to lack of participation, and that would be the sort of thing that you might hope to see there, so people that who are purchasing entries into these events are going in eyes wide open, and understanding what the risks are.”

‘A shadow of its former self’: Ruppel

Mud Hero, although under different ownership now, was conceptualized and founded by Adam Ruppel and his business partner, Ted McLeod.

Ruppel said they created Mud Hero in 2011, and at the height of the event they were averaging 10,000 participants per race. In 2018, the brand was bought out by a U.S. event company called 365 Sports, who ran one race in 2019 before selling to the current owners of Mud Hero.

“Frankly they’re using a lot of the advertising and pictures and video from back in the day to show that experience, that isn’t the experience that the current Mud Hero is; it’s a shadow of its former self.” Ruppel said.

Ruppel said Mud Hero’s conduct sheds a negative light on all event promoters, and cancelling due to low attendance shouldn’t be the participants’ problem.

Ruppel said he’s had to cancel events due to low attendance in the past, but he offered everyone a refund.

“That’s on [Mud Hero], they should be giving out a refund to people on that,” said Ruppel.

“Once you sell an event, and you say that you’re going to put it together, you can’t just kick their money down the road for two or three years. It’s not right.”

Bloomfield hopes she’ll get the refund, despite what the website says.

“It just feels really unfair, to myself but to everybody that has signed up for this event, that there was never a real intent to run it.”