Re: On Saving Seats
 

It looks like FIRST has listened to some of the seating compliants at the championship. According to page 11 on this document, there will be special seating for the 6 teams currently playing.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I like the idea and glad FIRST is listening to us. My concern now is, will the team's 'normal' or 'regular' seats be lost/forfeited due to vacating to watch from the new viewing area?

Re: On Saving Seats
 

How about something like this:

1) Prime section(s) where No Reserved Seats is enforced. Intended for scouts, people who come and go, unaffiliated persons just wanting to watch.
2) Remaining seats are divided into Good, and OK sections.
3) Lottery for remaining seats
4) Team can either select a block of 20 seats in the Good section, or a block of 50 seats in the OK section.
5) Once everyone has been through the lottery once, teams wanting more seats are put through the lottery process again.
6) The number of seats a team can get are based upon the team size (number of registered students and mentors).

A trading forum is established so teams can trade (with compensation?) sections to get all their people together (or close together).

Think of the blocks as where the team has "priority", but "gracious professionalism" is expected to apply to seats that are not being used.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

Oooorrrrr.

Just a thought here.

We can just all be nice about seating space.

Crazy idea, I know.

Just throwing it out there.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

That's CRAZY talk. I like it :D

Re: On Saving Seats
 

The document doesn't give details about the size of the team viewing sections, but one possibility is that they would be geared mostly for the pit crew that will only watch one match anyways.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

This is an incredibly complicated and resource intensive solution for a problem that isn't really a problem.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I wouldn't be surprised at all if getting up from your team's normal seating area to move to this new designated area results in you losing your seats. They certainly couldn't save those seats for when they come back because "that's against the rules." Having teams constantly getting up and shuffling around in the seating area does not sound even remotely like a good idea.

I still believe there was nothing wrong with the previous seating system. You get your whole team to the venue early, and you get good seats. You can't expect to sit in ideal seats if you're not willing to do that. The only problem they really need to solve is the mad dash to the seating area in the morning. Set up ropes outside the doors to allow the formation of a line to help prevent people from skipping. They could also let only a few teams through the doors at a time to ensure that teams who got in line first will get priority in seating choice without having to sprint in a race against the other teams in their division.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

The old system is extremely unkind to small teams who don't have the manpower to have people camping in the bleachers for the whole competition.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

I'm interested to see how this goes. I will hold back on any judgement until the end of next week.

It seems to me that the constant traffic in and out of this area might create a totally new problem...But we will have to wait and see.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

We tried the "teams competing area" thing at NC and it didn't work at all. Teams don't want to keep moving (even if it is to great seats) every time they compete.

One argument FOR saving seats, that I haven't heard anyone mention (might have missed) concerns the extremely small teams that could completely abandon their seats out of necessity when everyone gets busy at the same time. Our team has traveled with only 18 members, only a handful of adults - and there are times when everyone is doing something. We still need a place (albeit not a large place) to have coats and notebooks and stuff. We do save seats - but I always stress being as compact as we can and taking up only the number of seats we will need. I think if everyone did that, this would be a non issue.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

We were unaware of the purpose for those 'reserved' seats until late Saturday afternoon. I don't know that the purpose of those seats were well communicated.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

At the PNW championship one team saved over 100 seats by placing pom-poms on them. When I found a seat with out a pom-pom a mentors came and talked to me about gracious professionalism. I was quite surprised.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

From the perspective of a small team with ~10 students.

So...in order to get good seats, and sit together as a team, you need to get there early. But, teams rushing to good seats is dangerous. So in order to make the rush less dangerous, each team should only send a few students up to the stands. But then they have to save seats in order to have enough for their whole team, which is against the rules. So if you send a few students up, then other teams will sit next to you, because they are good seats. Then there isnt enough room for the drive team to come back and watch the matches.

Here is my proposed solution, which is what our team already does. We save seats. There, I said it. We sit down, and put our jackets and bags on the seats next to us, to ensure room for the pit crew. But I think the problem with saving seats, and the solution lies after the big rush, and the claiming. Its what you do with your claimed seats. If someone wants to sit down in a claimed seat,let them. That is GP. And if someone who has been in the pits wants to sit with their team to watch their match, move over for them. GP is basically manners. Just be polite about seats, and no one will have a problem.

Re: On Saving Seats
 

They tried this at the NC Regional and it failed miserably. As far as we could tell it wasn't remotely enforced, they only announced it in a private mentors meeting, there was conflicting information about whether the rule had been repealed, and to compensate for "saving" these seats they allowed teams to "leave possessions in the stands.

I think it is an okay idea, but they need to actually enforce it and get the word around. If not they will just end up with a group of jerks sitting in it for the whole competition and end up splitting up team members who want to sit together.