though at the New England Regional the food was decent, but expensive, while at the New York Regional at lunch there was a stand where a guy was selling beef shisk kabobs for 2.00. That's great compared to the 2.50 for a soda at New England.

At J&J, I wish I had my car, but it could have been worse.

My pasta didn't have my chicken fingers in it :(. But hey, it was free, and I was hungry.

I wish they had more food available. I was tired of Sausage and Peppers :).

And I brought PLENTY of bottles of water, so I was satisfied there.

Food at SVR
 

As a rookie team mom, I didn't know what to expect, but did assume our kids could get fed at the arena. Unfortunately, there was only one (or one identical pair of) concession stand(s) at the Silicon Valley Regional in San Jose. The food available there consisted of hot dogs, fries, nachos, and hot pretzels. It was pricey, but that's to be expected: what I did NOT expect was the lack of choices and options for the kids. Three full days of hot dogs and nachos won't do it: many of the kids ended up eating essentially nothing but hot pretzels (many of them are vegetarians or don't eat hot dogs, and the plastic cheese on nachos isn't everyone's cup of tea, so to speak).

Additionally, the concession stand closed at odd hours, meaning there were no beverages available. Some of us team parents ended up walking across campus to buy food in town and calling in to whomever we could reach to come outside and eat something. Unfortunately, many of them were too busy to come out to eat, so they ended up without food.

Three days of a hot pretzel diet isn't very good for anyone. My dream for next year is that there is some consistency among concessioneers across the regionals, and some actual choice among food items. I'd prefer to see healthy alternatives, but hey, anything other than just hot dogs and hot pretzels would be a nice change. I think it's the lack of choices, as much as the cost, that tempts people to sneak in food CARE packages. Just my $.02 ...

I think there are a lot of upset people here. I'd like to add my humble opinions and understandings:

FIRST is not in control of the concessions at events. It's contract-based with the venue. Several other posters with knowledge of how this works for a particular venue have shown us that there can even be more than one company involved with this.

FIRST doesn't make the rule that you can not bring in outside food. That is, again, in the contracting for the venue. FIRST puts it in the rules because they are under contract to do so.

So it is important that FIRST knows you are dissatisfied with the food (or anything else) at a venue (or if you are satisfied!) at your local Team Forum to be held after the season. PLEASE do not address FIRST as if it is their fault, or that they ought to simply change the rule.

Remember we are working together to make all this happen, so compromises must be made. My team brought our own food, and ate it outside the Event Center at SVR. Had we had been hassled by event staff we would have moved a couple meters forward so as to be sure to be on university property, and not Event Center property. I realize this isn't really an option for every venue.

These concerns are very valid, and definitely need to be addressed. Just, when you bring them up, try to keep some perspective. Blame and demand is not conducive to change.

Again, just my humble understanding.

Re: Food at SVR
 

Haha... We snuck alot of food in via tubs. have one person stay outside the front entrance, another person bring an empty tub out, they'd load the food in, and then drop it off at the rear entrance.

when noone was looking, we made a retrieval run for the tub :D

Just sneek in a lot of food. This year at LA, we brought in like 4 pizzas, 3 cases of water, doughnuts, fruit, cheese and sodas. The security people were easily distracted and then we could all just hurry in with our food.

It was cool, when we made it to finals, we passed around some old pizza and called it "victory pizza!"

Its just the movies. Sneek in food often in huge volume!!

The food at Drexel wasn't bad at all. Better than the Subway that was near by and alot better than the food at the RAC.

At west michigan, the food was not as pricey as at midwest, I think, but the quality was absolutely horrible. I bought one of the cookies they were selling, took a bite and threw the rest away! It didnt, in my opinion, even remotely qualify as being edible. After that, we went to burger king.

At midwest, does anyone else know about the central restaurant(I think thats what its called)? Its a really awesome chinese place just down the road from the venue. I think I've been there every year we've gone to the midwest regional, the food there is extremely good.

At J&J, they were selling A pretzel and a small soda for 8 bucks.

I didn't eat lunch at that regional either.

I drank magic water instead.

Mmmm...magic water.