In reply to Phil1919:
I've never participated in an Open Adventure event nor heard any comments, positive or negative, about them. Their site mentions that they often do the underlying organisation for branded events so might have done one of those.
My comment about "the ethos" is as much to do with the selling of such events as "adventure". Just where is the adventure in following a fully marked route? A better term would be "packaged activity", there's about as much adventure as a Park Run., but of course that isn't sellable. Adding the infrastructure for such events isn't without its problems either -
http://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/t.php?t=625639 which links to
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/flagging-and-paint-left-on-the-fell... too often when money is involved then the very essence of the experience gets lost, such behaviour by the organisers also makes it harder for others to justify events to landowners.
One aspect used to "sell" these events is that traditional fell races often require navigational knowledge and that is putting people off trying them. Id argue that navigation is a core competency of anyone heading in to the hills so why encourage the incompetent? As an aside, I'm membership secretary of the Bob Graham Club and there have been instances of (unknown) parties placing luminous marker posts along certain sections of the route so it's not restricted to commercial events.
In an increasingly commercial world where everything has its price, it's becoming ever harder for amateur (in the true sense of the word) events to take place. When landowners see event organisers charge significant amounts of money for participation then they start to ask why some of that isn't coming their way, United Utilities is one example. Of course once you charge for one event then charging for another isn't really a problem except when that event is low key, low cost and the "land usage charge" is more than their entire budget or income from entry fees.
I may be in a minority but I don't enter races or events because of the "goody bag" but because I want to do the race.
Sorry if the above is a bit of a rant