Re: Championship Location Announced
 

To build off of what Libby and Rosiebotboss have stated.

Many of the FIRST staff, like Frank, are out "on the floor" for almost all of their time at CMP barely having enough time to stop and eat during their sometimes 15 or 16 hour days. Yes some of the staff is dedicated to the VIP and press areas. However that is because they do need to take care of the VIPs from the sponsor organizations and people from potential future sponsors. The fact is w/o those sponsors, FIRST as we know it, would not exist. Sure as teams we bear a lot of the cost of participating but not the full cost. FIRST does try its best to provide the best possible experience for teams, but we MUST celebrate our current sponsors, and recruit new sponsors that make it possible. I assure you that the overall team experience at CMP is a top priority for FIRST.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

I like the Culinaria/Schnucks Market on 9th & Olive.

I was a freshman when I attended the Houston CMP in 2003. In my mind it doesn't approach the high quality of the St. Louis event I had the privilege to attend a decade later as a mentor. This is true across all the parameters I care deeply about, including "average number of cockroaches encountered per day."

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

I've said this before. The fundamental issue, though, is that they don't have to deal with organizing 20-60+ youth and their parents in this venue. It was much easier to do so in Atlanta than in St. Louis. In fact in STL it's virtually impossible to stick together as a team because the layout is so cramped, convoluted, and confusing.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

You've said this quite a few times now. As someone who hasn't been to Atlanta can you please elaborate as to what makes St. Louis so much more difficult?

It seems to me that the FIRST staff organizing, 400 FRC teams, 3 different levels, FLL, FTC, and FRC, plus multiple divisions of each, plus VIPS, plus vendors and sponsors all while making sure that the teams have a good time and don't have the issues you are alluding too would have a much more daunting task than keeping a team together, So I'm sure that they understand the difficulty with organizing.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

Again, there are people who weigh into decisions who DO have team experience.

So, again, you're incorrect; FIRST does think about these things.

I'm going to echo Pat. What are your specific issues? Make them known.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

I would love to be on the committee! There are so many aspects of the championship that could be much better for the participants, that I have voiced to FIRST a number of times.

I understand that a lot of these people are out there on the floor. I'm talking about the logistics of organizing a rather large group of youth and parents, and keeping them together in the extremely cramped venue in St. Louis. While Atlanta had fewer teams, it was still exponentially more spacious and open than St. Louis. With the big wide foyers, the glass walls, the huge lawn, open concept dome concourse layout, and nearby open and spacious venues (such as Centennial Olympic Park and the CNN Center). Not to mention a huge airport hub that is actually cheaper for most teams to fly into than STL. The St. Louis facilities are cramped, small, filled to the brim with people, and stuck in a place where there is no outdoor space but a tiny concrete "courtyard" and sidewalks next to the streets. Plus, crowd management in St. Louis (from the event staff of the venue and the science center both) was absolutely terrible. This is something has been said numerous times that will be fixed for the coming year, and never actually does.

You're kind of comparing apples to oranges here. Yes, I know they have first-hand experience with organizing. But organizing a group of high school kids (that don't know the area or venue) multiplied by a hundred other teams that never seem to actually know what is going on, in a venue with such a convoluted layout is a little different. Maybe not as daunting, but just different. I understand the daunting task that they have. I'm just saying that we have a different kind of daunting task. Maybe it's not as horrible as it seems. Maybe my particular team has been particularly unlucky with this. Who knows. I'm just sharing my personal experiences.

Again, stay tuned for my response letter. This will also be complete with pictures and personal stories from the participants and those of us mentors who have had to deal with them. You may be surprised at how horribly we have been treated by the event staff in St. Louis over the past couple years.

Also, I will say this. Even if St. Louis was a great place, I feel that it needs to move around the country more than every 7 or so years. Not only does this give the kids experience in different cities, but it also gives these different regions the excitement of hosting championships and seeing what FIRST is all about. Give the west coast a chance at it for a year or two, then move it to the east coast, then to the midwest, and so on. Maybe this is impossible or not feasible. I don't necessarily have all the facts. This is just my $0.02. You can take it for whatever it's worth to you.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

I also think that, despite all of St. Louis' downsides, there are a number of seemingly little things that could make the experience ten times better while we are there. But again, I will address those at a later date.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

I disagree. Atlanta's layout was a lot more spread out, and my experience is that it was easier for people to get misplaced along the path from one place to another. The tactic of making sure everyone knows the precise destination works fine in both venues, and it seems to me that it's easier for everyone to naturally take the same path to the same place in St. Louis.

Cramped is a value judgement. I'll grant that there's less space to spread out in the St. Louis venue, unless you wander a little bit away from the main action.

Convoluted? Not in my experience. Around the America's Center/Edward Jones Dome complex, I find the directions to get from place to place quite straightforward compared with the multiplicity of options at the Georgia World Congress Center.

Confusing is again a value judgement. Here, though, I'll point out that it took me less than two days to figure out effective routes to most locations through the America's Center, while it wasn't until my third year in Atlanta that I had come up with a quick and efficient way to get from the pits to the stands.

I always saw plenty of unfilled space upstairs in the America's Center when I had occasion to walk around. If you need a non-cramped spot to gather, it's there. There's a very nice outdoor space just to the east of the Edward Jones Dome, comparable to the West Plaza between the Georgia Dome and the convention center in Atlanta. The park area surrounding the Gateway Arch isn't significantly farther from the venue than Centennial Olympic Park was. I'm sorry you seem to have such a bad opinion of what St. Louis offers in the way of useful space, but on these issues at least your complaints are not overly compelling.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

This is all easy to say when you have your reserve seat on the floor to watch all of the ceremonies but tell this to the team that goes home early because there's no place for them to sit to watch the finals.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

Ya, I am sorry to say that I have seen this happen a few times; the teams leaving early part. I guess the question has to be, which should be preferred: allowing participating teams to get to reap the rewards of their hard work over the year or keep the 6-figure/7-figure sponsor happy. I kinda dont see the reasoning behind keeping a sponsor happy but then putting out teams.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

I'm not gonna take sides in this argument, but the reasoning of keeping a sponsor happy is that without sponsors, there would be no championship/season/FIRST in the first place.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

I'm quite certain she would feel the same way if she was sitting in the stands.

Sure there are ways to optimize layouts to get more desirable seating for teams, but claiming that a VIP doesn't understand/care because they already have a good seat is pretty disingenuous.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

Just seconding this recommendation. My team ate here 3 or 4 times in 2012 due to the cheap food but insanely good burgers. (and sometimes some live music!)

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

Let's leave aside names here (and besides, Libby is a bad example to use since she's usually presenting the Imagery Award). The number of VIPs that get the primo seats is not so large in number that moving them out would help much--you might get one more team on the ground, but which team gets that rub? (Chairman's is already spoken for, and the 12 Einstein teams won't fit.)

When I watched Einstein 2012 from the tornado seats, there was plenty of room for more teams to get in. (Not that you wanted to be that high up that day, but that's different.) For the fiery hoops you'd have to jump through to give those seats to students, I'd just rather show some appreciation for those that make FIRST able to do what it does at the price that it does.

Re: Championship Location Announced
 

IndySam's point is that the Einstein field faces the VIP boxes up top - in Atlanta, they were on the 'long side' of the arena rather than the 'short side' in STL.

I'm not trying to say that this layout is ideal - I'm just echoing Pat's point that FIRST is going to arrange the field so that VIPs have the opportunity to see the finals and major award ceremonies that are held on that stage. It is a fact of life that without their support, we would not be able to have FIRST events on the scale that we do currently. If VIPs and sponsors don't enjoy the show, they might not support us next year. And then where would we be?!

I wasn't saying it's right or wrong, I'm saying it's realistic.