Visual planning helps make 2025 MACA Cancer 200 fundraising ride a success
This past October SpaceDraft was a proud part of the Harry Perkins Institute MACA Cancer 200 Ride, helping raise over $8M for the fight against cancer.
The MACA Cancer 200 ride has been raising money for cancer research since 2011 with an overnight road cycling event from Perth to Mandurah and back. This year’s ride was sponsored by MACA, Woodside Energy, Westrac Cat, Thiess, Northern Star Resources, Kais Hire, CJD Equipment and ett.com, with SpaceDraft providing planning and communication support.
The Challenge
Putting together an event like this is a major annual project for the Perkins team; pulling together the planning, logistics, communication and coordination for over 20,000 riders, supporters, volunteers and staff.
On top of organizing bag and bike drop-off, starting waves, Saturday night camping and the big Sunday finish line celebrations, this year’s ride had a special challenge:
The starting line was moving
Changing the start from Optus Stadium to nearby McCallum Park may not seem like a big deal, but having crowds of riders and supporters showing up before dawn on the big day in the wrong place was a potential nightmare scenario.
Solution
After successfully rolling out SpaceDraft in 2024, the solution to this year’s challenge was easy:
Keep using SpaceDraft to show - not tell - critical time and space information. Clearly show everyone the big picture and vital details visually, interactively and on their phones.
The Perkins team chunked their event experience into the critical before, during and after steps and created eight different SpaceDrafts for the ride website, anticipating and answering key questions about where to go, what to bring, and how to get there.
Including the all-important new start line location.
With an event like this supporters outnumber the riders, so it was vital to address one of their biggest pain points - spectator parking along the 200km ride route.
Built up from firsthand research and spectator feedback over the last several years, the Perkins team had curated a list of 11 prime locations to park and cheer on the riders.
Results
This year’s ride was hugely successful, with 178 riding teams raising over eight million dollars in the fight against cancer.
The rider and spectator SpaceDrafts on the Perkins website were viewed thousands of times leading up to and during the event, and with their help not one person showed up at Optus Stadium looking for the old starting line.
“SpaceDraft is proudly Perth, and we’re just as proud to stand behind the MACA Cancer 200 ride and all the incredible work Harry Perkins Institute is doing.” SpaceDraft Founder & CEO Lucy Cooke
What's Next?
With this year’s MACA Cancer 200 Ride successfully in the books, the Perkins team are on to their next projects.
But that’s not it for SpaceDraft.
In different areas across the Perkins, SpaceDraft is being used to help visitors navigate the busy hospital campus, find parking and locate amenities.
On the medical side, SpaceDraft is being used to help visually explain research and experiments in the rapidly growing field of bioinformatics - using computational tools to analyze vast amounts of biological data, like DNA sequences - which the Institute is leveraging to help study the causes of severe epilepsy.
Planning has already started for the ride’s 15th year and one thing’s for sure: SpaceDraft will be… along for the ride.
