Re: Championship Location Announced
 

*raises hand*

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

The only thing that I could ever ask anyone to try and get to happen, is someone somehow get the television show, The Great Food Truck Race, to stop by during that weekend... In general, I am a pro-food truck because you get "fast food" and its "cheap". The food selection at CMP, is somewhat limited to the local area and can be very chaotic and time-consuming, and this would just make it that little bit less.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

VERY SAD!!! I feel bad for everyone that never had a chance to experience Champs at Disney. No offense to Houston, Atlanta, or St. Louis, but Disney was truly special. You can't understand unless you were there.

On a related note, I truly hope that they figure out and solve the Finale Celebration overcrowding problem.
Not only was the 2013 Finale poorly run, but it was flat out unsafe.

All that being said there are many logistical positives about St. Louis, which make it a suitable place for Champs.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

We'll have three food trucks catering our offseason event. If it goes well, other offseasons - and maybe official events - may follow suit.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

no

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

Very very disappointed in this decision. I will definitely be sending a letter to FIRST. Many participants and I always walk away from St. Louis in a bad mood, especially after ALL of the events on Saturday (not just the finale, even though that's a major aspect of our disappointment). Will post letter later on. Thoughts? Anybody actually like St. Louis (those that have been to championships outside of St. Lous, like Atlanta or Texas)?

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

I like St. Louis, and we shouldn't complain about it, because it's a great place, and we don't know all the reasons that FIRST chose this location.

It's near a big airport, it's a pretty safe place, and there are plenty of great hotels in the area. The actual seating is really great, and the arena is very impressive. There's enough room for FIRST to get bigger if it needs to. In the area, there are a number of really neat restaurants that we always go to, and going up the arch is always a team favorite. I imagine that it is also cheaper/easier for FIRST, as they don't have to negotiate all the details with a new place, and they can keep everything mostly the same.

The food during the event is not great, but I don't remember ever being impressed anywhere else. As for the finale, that's not a problem with the location, but with FIRST's organization.

Having consistency is actually a good thing.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

I disagree with this, though. St. Louis's airport isn't nearly as big as Atlanta or Indy, the convention center is extremely cramped as it is, and there is absolutely no space to spread out like there was in Atlanta. Space was everywhere, and we only used half of the facilities there. Also, Atlanta had a great finale location, and the past finales in St. Louis were absolutely terrible and a logistical nightmare. It is actually a problem with the location because it takes over an hour to get there, and the place physically cannot hold the number of people that we have. Plus, the staff there was completely rude and the opposite of helpful. We walked away from that venue practically in tears because of the way we were treated.

I mean, I understand that there are obviously reasons that they chose it over the other candidates, but the only thing they said was that they were "impressed with the facilities," but everyone that I have talked to that saw the championship in Atlanta completely disagrees.

The fundamental problem is that the FIRST officials don't have to worry about organizing a team of people that needs to stick together, and they spend a lot of time in the VIP areas. i.e. they don't have the participant perspective.

Just something to much on.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

Can you specify what your complaints were. I have never been to champs (yet...), but judging from what I've read in this thread, not everybody agrees that St. Louis is bad, and very few people hate it. The way you wrote your post kind of assumes that almost everybody who is reading it would agree with you, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Also, don't let the details take away from the entire experience. At an event the magnitude of championships, it is impossible to make everything perfect. And it doesn't make things any better that everybody who attends expects the event to be perfect and absolutely amazing in every way, because of how much effort they put into getting there. The reality is that championships, no matter how hard FIRST tries and how much money is put into it, will never live up to its expectations. Sure, there are things that FIRST can improve upon (like the finale), but in the end we need to be happy with what we get. The championships are supposed to be culmination of all the sweat and tears that teams put into their robots. It is up to you to enjoy it as that. You can love it for what it is, or hate it for what it isn't. The choice is yours.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

Totally agree. In most of the key areas that are needed to be looked at for Champs, it seems like Atlanta is ahead of St. Louis.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

Keep an eye out for my letter. I will post on this thread once it is completed. It explains all of this in detail. Everybody that I personally have talked to prefers Atlanta FAR more than St. Louis. I'm not just letting little details take away from the experience. I'm letting the really big logistical aspects take away from the experience. The only people that I have talked to that prefer St. Louis are the ones that have only been to St. Louis. There are a few exceptions, obviously, but that will always happen. Also, people that have posted in favor of STL have either a) never been elsewhere for cmp or b) citing very specific aspects of STL that they like, but not saying why it would be better than other locations, like, say Atlanta or Indy. I have yet to hear a very strong argument for holding it in STL.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

The past layout of the dome floor is simply awful. They put it on the short end (because of the main hospitality area) and there is simply not enough seating for the opening ceremony or the finals. Smaller teams that don't have enough people to go reserve seats are just simply out of luck.

FIRST choosing a better vantage point for their VIP's over a chance for all the students to watch really sticks in my craw.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

Well, clearly FIRST has.

I haven't ever been to Atlanta, so obviously can't comment on it, but certainly St. Louis seems at least manageable. I would hope that FIRST is still looking into optimizing the layout of the event.

I for one am willing to believe that FIRST has the best in mind when choosing the locations of the championships.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

But thats just it, FIRST shouldnt settle for a "manageable" championship setup. FIRST should only want the perfect setup for the World Championships. When you bring in over 100,000 people to a city for close to a week and have them spending the amount of money into an economy, bringing the exposure to that city, and giving you a deal to continually have that for usually 2-3 years, FIRST should be able to pick any city they really want.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

+1 for that