Participant numbers at the Canberra "Color Run" on Sunday were capped at 6000, a move organisers hoped would improve customer satisfaction in a busy market of colour-based fun runs.
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That the capital's heatwave had largely passed by the event's start time on Sunday drew relief from runners and organisers, with temperatures hovering at 26 degrees by 9am.
It was the event's fourth trip to the capital.
Luke Hannan is the general manager at events company Aratis Events, the "Color Run" rights holder in Australia. Mr Hannan said the company's arrangement with the US event - hence the spelling - made Australia the first country to licence the idea from the US.
About 12,000 people participated in its first venture into Canberra in 2014. There were 7000 last year, but in 2017, organisers say they capped Canberra numbers at 6000.
The company's national marketing manager, Tim Wiche, said the cap was an attempt to improve the event's "net promoter score" - a gauge of how likely customers were to recommend the event to friends.
"Last year, people felt like the course was a tiny bit crowded in some areas," he said. "The [fewer] people, the better the experience is."
Mr Hannan said it was about the event's longevity.
It's a score no doubt important to improve on, as the event competes in a busy for-profit colour run market. In Australia, the "Color Run" is joined by "Run or Dye", the "Dye Hard Fun Run", the "Color me Rad" and the "Colour Me Fun Run" events in capital and regional cities across the country.
More than 550 volunteers helped man the "Color Run" Canberra colour zones, merchandise tent, start and finish lines this year, joining about 70 paid staff and contractors.
A new "confetti land" area added to the clean-up efforts, where two workers used leaf blowers to corral any loose pieces back in the blow-up tunnel, which started with 50 kilograms of confetti and ended with an estimated half kilo.
A team of contracted cleaners descended on the park in the aftermath to rake up the one-inch pieces of glitter, discarded water bottles and emptied packets of colour. Mr Hannan said more cleaners will spot check on Monday morning.
"Out on the road we have industrial street sweepers, water cartage, all this stuff, we have a patented, pretty much [clean-up] method, that was borne out of America with the Color Run," he said.
Globally, more than 6 millon people had participated in the "Color Run" event. More than 700,000 people had participated in more than 60 Australian "Color Runs".
Members of a Facebook group, started by Gowrie's Emma Wolski, for mums who had babies born in May participated in the event as a group on Sunday.
Of wash-up, Madeline Woldhuis, who had participated in the event before, said: "It's kind of like, have a shower, figure out what you have to shower again."
"And what you can cover up for a couple of days," another mum Erin Savage added. "It's a multi-shower situation."
