Re: Poll - Legalities
 

I think the issue of food at the events is an interesting topic. In the US we believe in free enterprize and open markets. FIRST has set up events that unfortunately, depend partly on the sale of food to students and mentors to fund the event.

Personally I think that is a bad idea. I would rather see the regionals held in a HS gym, if I can get excellent food and inexpensive drinks and refreshments, than to have the event in a domed arena, if it means the only choice of nurishment I have is a $4 hotdog that is 4 hours away from becoming slop at a nearby hog farm!

When the food at a venue is so expensive and/or so bad that you have to make a rule preventing people from bringing in ANYTHING ELSE to eat or drink you are legislating a monopoly for people who should have been put out of business by the competition.

So this resulting rule - who is it there to protect? The students? the mentors? The team sponsors or parents who have to pay $2.50 for a glass of water with an ounce of corn syrup in it?

No, the rule was created to protect the interests of the vendors who are taking advantage of the thousands of hungry people who dont have the time or resources to leave the building to eat somewhere else.

Somehow taking advantage of hungy children just sounds SO wrong!

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

I'm no event planner, I'm willing to bet that the arena will get its money somehow. If they can't get it through their take of concession stand money, they'll get it through increased facility rental fees. Suddenly, regional organizers are paying more, which I assume isn't particularly good for regionals and their sometimes-strained budgets. Until FIRST is in a position to build thirty or forty arenas of their own, I view buying at the concession stand or making the hike up to campus as a necessary evil.

(Off-topic: would it be possible for FIRST to alter their no-external-food policy to allow food to be brought in after the concession stands close? The Dagnabbit-it's-one-hour-to-closing-and-we-still-have-five-pounds-to-lose-and-we're-starving Rule, anyone?)

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

I really am for obeying the rules and stuff (usually...) but I hate that food rule. Not to sound whiny, but I'm not a fan of the food that they have at competitions and I have to eat every few hours if I wish to stay conscious. Being busy in the pits and driving makes that hard.

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

but here's the thing - The last team I was on the sponsors and the school would only pay for certain things: registration fees? no problem

food for the students or mentors? no way! the students had to get food money from their parents, or sell candy or something to cover meals.

How ironic is that? Most student would rather have that $50 box of M&Ms they sold, than the food that they had to eat at some of the regionals (which they bought with the same money)!

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

I have heard that FIRST did inquire about not using the concession stands at some venues and I heard that they were to something like $7.50 - $10.00 per person per day to allow people to bring in their own food.

This is how it works at venues. The venue puts out tenders for concessions. The best bidder (ie the one that pays the most to the venue) wins the tender and has exclusive rights to provide food at the venue. When FIRST goes to rent the venue they have no say with the concessions.

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

and so now we have this problem at some regionals - and this nasty rule that goes along with it

with the collective genius of the FIRST community its a problem that is too hard for us to solve?

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

Which is why I find myself never following this rule. It's not FIRST's fault, it just comes with the venue. The food doesn't support FIRST it supports the vendors.

If buying food and bringing it into an arena results in a team saving enough money to actually come and participate in a Regional, then I say do it. Situations might be nice for some teams, but others have to find a way to save money with the entry fees, hotel costs, travel costs, etc. It's hard to cut corners on the other things, so I can easily see this rule being broken in order for a team to have the money to do the rest.

I will never pay three dollars for a bottle of Coke if I can get one down the street for a dollar. 1 buck vs. 3 dollars - seems pretty clear to me.

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

This sub-topic on the no-outside-food rule (Section 7.12 in the 2007 Manual) is worthy of its own thread.

Can one of our esteemed mods please make it so? Maybe just split the last few posts off to get the thread started?

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

Team 1902 Exploding Bacon solved this problem by having one of the mentors/moms go out and get food every day and we all had a picnic in front of the arena. We also kept a cooler of drinks out in the car, and while I admit that in Atlanta it was quite a hike every day from the van to the picnic tables it sure cut down on costs. Didnt have to break a rule, got better food, cheaper price. it was win- win all the way.

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

The going out for lunch option. But if FIRST is saying the Venue is saying that 5000 people buying those junky hotdogs is whats paying for the arena

then if everyone went out for lunch they would lose money, and we would not be welcomed back next year.

If the venue really costs $10 more per person, then we should come up with that money some other way, or take our regionals to a different type of venue. Passing the cost on to the students in the form of expensive bad food, not enough food, and still being dehydrated for 3 days... is not the answer.

I know this has gone way off topic of the thread, but its an excellent example of 'WE HAVE A RULE' - 'ITS OUR POLICY'

and people feeling obliged to blindly follow it, being made to feel guilty if they dont.

When people create rules that are only in their best interest, rules that take advantage of others, are we obliged to follow them?

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

Personally I realize that the facts of the venue are the facts, but in the case that the venue's concession vendors were gone 4 hours ago, Im sorry that is just rediculous. If they really wanted to make money, they would have stayed open.

We tried this in Boston, unfortunately, at one point I walked into the pits to see the mechanical crew waiting for the electrical to get back from lunch... I relieved them so they could go eat, only to realize that now the entire drive team & pitcrew were missing (off trying to find food that didnt cost an arm and a leg) and we had to wire up a motor with a match in 15 minutes. I got that motor wired, but I was fuming that it was so difficult to adequately feed our team. I ate two hours later.

(Steve, sorry for diverting the topic!! But its one of the rules that I absolutely hate, and cant tell FIRSTers to uphold).

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

I follow the rules about the food thing because being a driver you don't really get a chance to eat, so I either just eat there or wait until I leave the competition and get food later. The rules are there for various reasons that I can not explain because I don't make them, but I do follow them because it is in the best interest for my team its sponsors and FIRST. That is one of the main reasons to follow the rules. :)

Re: Poll - Legalities
 

The food rule is just one of those rules that we'll have to try and change, in the places that we can. Meanwhile, we'll just have to do our best to respect the rules, wishes, guidelines, whatever they are that come from the people running the venue. That means that one might have to forego a chance to save a little money but is still forgiven for bringing water to a competition when they really need to.

I don't want to start saying that we can say there are different kinds of rules, and some are not OK to break and some are (aside from the "unjust law" part of it). But...forgiveness for bringing water is one thing, and I don't think someone should be forgiven for passing the robot weight limit, breaking major restrictions on parts, or, I don't know, dealing illegal drugs.

I'm also thinking about TSA competitions, where there's a strict, very reasonable rule about guys not being in girls' rooms and vice versa when an adult isn't there. Every year people in my chapter break the rule (ssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!) because we aren't doing anything IN the rooms that we aren't supposed to be doing, we're in groups instead of just one guy and one girl, and we're just hanging out. The teachers don't find out, so what harm does it do? It's pretty hard to find a reason not to break the rule.

At the same time, wouldn't everyone agree that cheating on a test or plagiarizing or doing something illegal to the robot is NOT OK even when nobody finds out?

I don't think we can accept that "it's OK to break rules, sometimes," at least not while acknowledging it.

So it seems that an individual might judge by themself whether or not breaking a given rule is OK. The poll itself asks whether we think it's ok to break a rule if no one knows, but doesn't ask when it is and isn't ok. I want to ask: Considering that there are certain situations when an individual would judge that it's either necessary to break a rule or ok to break a rule in secret, some people say that they would break a rule; can it be justified that some people say there are cases in which they would break a rule in secret?

EDIT: Sorry, that post could have been much more concise.

EDIT: My post continues from this thread but was then moved over here. (I wouldn't mind if it could be moved back but it isn't a big deal)

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

I split these posts from the Legalities thread because the discussion focuses a single rule and may lead to ideas as to how we might best amend such rule to be beneficial to both the venues and teams.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

I have absolutely no problem breaking this rule. With all the power and masterminds behind FIRST, I cannot believe that we have had to endure this no food nonsense for so many years. I say no more!

If anyone asks, "I have a special diet that does not allow me to eat this junk, I have a special phobia that requires me to eat at establishments inspected and certified by the county health department, and I have a special wallet that does not open for people anxious to rip off young high school students who are trying their hardest to become the next leaders of this country and world."

and if that doesn't work "I can make a big scene right here right now but neither of us want that right?"

And if that doesn't work, fake into passing out on the floor.

But I totally agree with you Ken, it is just so wrong. Like charging for parking too. I just tell them I'm a volunteer and they let me in free. :)

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

At FLR the food is infinitely better than at actual arenas where the food is almost always terrible and overpriced. I can put up with the inconvenience because I would rather be able to attend FIRST competition at top notch venues instead of having to pay an entrance fee or have to have competitions in school gyms instead.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

From what I remember I don't think there is any food actually sold at Arizona, so everyone just orders stuff and eats it in the parking lot outside the arena. Of course that could just be my team and me not looking enough to see the hidden concession stands, but I'm pretty certain on this one.

Take all the orders in the morning, have a few parents/mentors drive to get it and tell everyone to meet in the parking lot during the lunch break. Send a few people in to watch the pit/robot while the drive team inhales their food, then switch again.

This is not breaking the rules since you are not bringing food in (it could be argued that maybe you're breaking the "spirit" of the rule, but at least at our Regional you do this or don't eat), and you still get cheaper food than you might find at the venue.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

We have addressed food and hydration for several years as a team. One reason we formed a Parents Association was to help with this. The past 3 years we had a mom and 2 aunts who donated their vacation time to travel with the team to our different competitions taking care of our food needs and making sure we had tons of bottled water. In Atlanta, they were there at the eating/meeting area for the team. That was their focus, their 'job' during travel.

We discuss and plan the logistics of food/water at the competitions at parent meetings before travel and we notify the parents and the students that the team will need extra money, that it can get expensive. The Association sends extra money with our teacher in case anyone needs it. The Association is only 4 years old and has only been able to help with expenses for the past 2 years but it is one reason the Association formed. To help the team with travel. We have team meetings every night during competition and 'health, food, hydration' is on that check list. 'How's everyone doing, how's it going?' We know from those mtgs. how the team is doing. At competition, the safety captain lets us know if they need anything in the pit area by way of cell phone. Also, adults traveling with the team go check on the drive team/pit crew periodically to see if they have any needs. We know that they have a 'window' of time to eat and we make sure we have the food/water available and ready for them. The rest of the team helps get them fed and watered during that window. A lot of thought goes into this. We know travel is expensive and we work with that.

There are opportunities provided to all of us after competition season to makes suggestions for how to improve FIRST for next year, we take advantage of those opportunities.
Jane

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Since the topic is about food at venues; what's the price for some various foods at the Regional you attended (just something close, I don't expect anyone to know the exact prices right now)?

When my team went to Atlanta in 2004 I don't remember the food in the Gerogia Dome being extremely overpriced like it is at some sports competitions (it was more than normal, but no worse than you'd see if you went to a DCI competition or an unofficial robotics competition and a school organisation was selling the food to try to fundraise).

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Indeed, staying hydrated is an essential task at a regional, particularly for a drive team that spends more time under the lights that make the field about fifteen degrees warmer than anywhere else. (And you thought that sweat was anticipation.)

One thing that BellSouth did at the 2004 and 2005 Palmetto Regionals was to buy two cases of bottled water for each of the teams. Sure, it wasn't on ice or anything, but it was great for what it was. (The water wasn't distributed this past year, but the feedback at the team forums makes me hopeful for a return in 2007.)

There may be an alternative to buying bottled water, though. For your consideration: The water bottle. Every venue I've been to has a water fountain somewhere on the premises; I can't imagine them protesting if you fill up your own bottle of water from the fountain. Then again, IANAAO (I am not an arena owner).

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Ken et al,
The arenas that are in use often have contracts with vendors in the arena. Those contracts must be followed regardless of the event. The vendors establish their profit margins and ability to make a living based on an expectation that they will be able to sell a specific amount of food and drink over the year. They take the chance that the venue will be able to sell the space for the number of days they need to reach their goal. We should not interfere with the ability of someone to make a living. Bringing food to the venue and eating outside is a great way to reduce costs. But it reguires a volunteer group other than the team to take care of the logistics. At the Championship, we have a group of parents who purchase the food. Students then take turns transporting to and from a common area for the group each day. For a small fee we provide a breakfast, a bottle of water and some snacks for the day. Lunch and dinner on then on the students.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Hmm.. the value of NEMs is definitely noteworthy when it comes to food! :) As one who has been on both sides of the coin, I can relate to both the frustration of the team members who find the venue food lacking in quality/choice and expensive, as well as the committee members who may also wish to provide better food options but whose hands are tied.

If you would like to have pre-ordered box lunches made available, contact your regional planning committee now. They might be able to arrange it. If you want alternate ideas for how to feed the troops at competitions, NEMO could put together a white paper with ideas that have worked in the past.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

I disagree. The basis of capitalism is the people who provide the best value (quality at low cost) are the ones who succeed. In this situation we have just the opposite. The vendors have a captive market, a monopoly by decree.

If the best they can do is serve slop at exorbitant prices then they should find a job doing something else. They should not be sitting in a mansion in Florida somewhere while their food service business rakes in millions of dollars at our expense.

I acknowledge our situation is unique - these venues are normally used for sporting events that last 2 or 3 hours at the most. For those types of events grabbing a hot dog for a snack (for $4) is OK. Being in the building for 10 hours a day, 3 days in a row, and your only choices are to eat the same junk, or to wander off for an hour to find a good meal, just doesn't make any sense.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

If no one knows, no one cares.

I've never seen anyone have food or drink confiscated and then be kicked out of an event. Ever, not just in FIRST. Regardless, some people will forget food or drink, or be pressed for time and buy from vendors. If for some reason this doesn't happen, arenas will have to enforce their rules. It's a private enterprise, and sometimes it really sucks to think that their rules can be enforced simply by personal guilt. Your guilt fuels their company's pfofit to an extent. My opinion, like any other business, let them work for what they want.

If an arena tells me that I can only skip while inside, no walking, they had better have somebody breathing down my neck to keep me from walking.

It's just like advertising. They have to work to attract me- I don't attend everything someone tells me to go to out of guilt for the event. Capitalism means working or manipulating people to give you their money. Make them work.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

This is all good and fine in Arizona, but in wonderful Rochester where it was 38 degrees and raining, and a 10-15min walk+drive to get to your car and get to a food place, the option wasnt present.

FLR did do an awesome job with the preorder boxed lunches. And we took a huge advantage of that. And for my team (I think the reason this thread was started), my issue with the rule is that NO food was available dinnertime on thursday. It wasnt overpriced, it wasnt slop, it WASNT THERE. The concession stands were closed at 4pm. Our only option was to give up on our robot, our alliance partners in the morning, and go eat... or bring food in.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

I have been at events where the boxes are checked when you enter. I myself has had to send people back to their cars with food and drink. Most people when asked have not put up much of a fight and obey the rules.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

At FLR from what I remember it is like $0.75 for and apple, $2.00 for a bagel and cheese, $2.00 for a bottle of some kind of drink, $3.50 for nachos.

We also had boxed lunches there for $7.50 I believe, but you had to preorder them.

I don't see what the big fuss is about this whole thing. If you want to bring food in the bring it in! grab a back pack and put 3 bags of chips and have someone else bring pop or whatever. Hide a cooler in a pit box. It isn't that hard, one of the moms on our team brought in 2 ENORMOUS boxes of cupcakes(like 50 per box) and nobody said andthing.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

This is the same situation in NYC.
Our venue has a list of "approved" food vendors but they don't all show up because it is early spring during the regional. They don't see the profits or not available for 2-3 days only.
In the past years one or two (when we're lucky) street cart vendors may show up to sell hot dogs and drinks for a high price.
The line become very long.

The teams do what they can to feed themselves. I have seem students go without eating or drinking because they did not have the time to run outside and find food. One year I remember one girl passed out because she was volunteering and support the team on practice day.

Even the FIRST vendor that sells T-shirts and caps are not allow to sell to the teams because they are not "approved" vendors.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

This example is a little off-topic because it concerns an off-season event; however, IMO the way that food concessions and pre-planned meals were handled at the 2006 Indiana Robotics Invitational was exemplary. If every FIRST event could handle food that way, there would be no need to debate this topic on CD.

From what I saw, two of the secret ingredients that made it so easy to get everyone fed at IRI were

1) an excellent HS venue (Lawrence North) and

2) a large, dedicated crew of local volunteers to staff the food lines, tables, concession counters, etc.

I've recommended to my own regional planning committee that we seek a local HS venue as an alternative to the professional arena that we've used for the past four years. The idea was well received and we've started studying options. Maybe we're starting too late to implement this idea for the 2007 season, but I'm still hopeful.

I should have gone to IRI years ago.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

I have to add, at some venues the food is excellent. Im trying to remember off the top of my head here, but I think the Pittsburgh regional venue had franchise food vendors (Subway, Pizza hut....) right in their food court. No problem there.

Its the places that have two choices: a $4 microwaved hotdog, or a $4 slice of microwaved frozen pizza... those are the ones that everyone is rebelling against.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

I have never seen anyone get in trouble for this. But you have to realize that most of these venues are used for sporting events in which they make profit off of concessions and ticket sales. FIRST events are free to anyone that wants to watch them right? I think so. See since the events are free to watch they aren't making as much profit as they normally would so they depend on concessions to help cover the cost. Yeah FIRST pays them to have the event there but they probably still make more money off of the sporting events. Do I like it ...NO but I do follow it because it is in the best interest of my team. :)

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

I had mentioned that we have opportunities following competition season to voice our concerns/feedback. I didn't say how or where.
One of the ways is the survey each team receives. Our lead teacher fills that out and submits it with our feedback.

Here is an example of a thread asking for feedback for Lone Star Regional:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=46180

There were also the different team forums in which to partipate.
We are very lucky here with our regional leadership. They are attentive and listen to our concerns. I have always received a response to any questions or concerns I have had.

I'm learning a lot from these threads and one is that maybe I have taken our FIRST staff and volunteers here at the Lone Star Regional for granted. I'll try not to do that in the future.

Jane

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

I want to start out with saying that I did skip one whole page of this thread. Now, with that out of the way, I would like to voice my opinion/stories. Heh...

I openly disobey this rule and it's the only rule that I openly disobey. I cannot stand how much the food costs at regionals (and movie theatres). Our team gets lunch delivered to our bus at competitions. At Midwest it was Dominick's and at West Michigan this year we hired a church to cook our food and we paid them well. That was the best idea I had ever heard when someone brought it up at a planning meeting. Why not give our money to groups somewhat like us? First we started with a sorority at GVSU but they weren't interested, so we contacted a church from Allendale and they were gung-ho about it. Turns out one of the church members was a family member of one of 107's team members. Good. Anyways, we've only gotten into trouble once with having food in the parking lot of an event and that was in StL in 2003 or 2004. We just had to move our bus or food off of the arena property which was only about 3 feet away anyways. Just past the little itty-bitty string fence. But sometimes we have to take food into the arena to the students and mentors that don't have a chance to get out to the bus. We've even brought food into volunteers that were working from our team... :p

Now, I know rules should be followed all of the time but sometimes there's just no way to do it. We used to give out $10 to each student every day. That got rather expensive rather fast. Especially with 25-30 students. You're talking close to $1,000 for food. Why pay the arena bookubucks when we can get it catered to our bus with a tax-exempt discount and a multiple day discount from Dominicks and such? Now I'm not saying that every person should do this, but it's a good way to cut down on expenses.

I support paying a local charity to cook for you.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

so heres what we have to do.

Every team create a mascot - every mascot is a bird, a big bird, seven feet tall, with a giant head.

what the vendors at the events wont know is those giant bird heads will be filled with M&Ms, that dispense out the beak

and its 'traditional' for the mascot to feed the students and mentors (like real birds do)....

:^)

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

I've been on both sides. I'm in favor of simply going out to get food, because it gives your mind a break from constantly working on the robot, and you'll enjoy your food/drink more. I've also brought food in for our mentors (was actually starbucks) who'd been working around the clock on our robot, and needed their fixes. I'm not terribly worried about the idea of breaking this rule, though I'm less happy about it than simply going out for food.

That stadium prices are expensive isn't really an excuse to bring food in though. It's expensive, but as far as I've seen and heard you're always able to leave the stadium and go get food/drink elsewhere. You just can't do it and work on the bot at the same time. Our lunches provided by FIRST/stadium (whoever did it) sufficed as our drinks for inside the stadium.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Venue food stinks.

But...
Imagine running a restaurant.
But you are only open 30 times a year. You have to pay for all the equipment by spreading the cost across 30 days instead of 365 days. You don't buy THAT much food, so no bulk discounts. If you make/order too much - you lose it, no carrying it over till tomorrow.

I'd never want to run a food stand at an arena - just doesn't make sense unless you can do something to even out the cost - I.E being a monopoly.

Would it be better to have NO food served at an event, and be allowed to bring food in??? Maybe at some events - I know it would inhale audible at Great Lakes because there is no easy to walk to food places. Besides, the outside public would be sad if they couldn't get food right there.

I still don't like it... :( But it makes some sense to me.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

catering business. You have a central location where the food is prepaired, and you bring it to the event, precooked and ready to serve.

You dont serve food at only one place, once a week - you also provide food for parties, weddings, promotional events... and you provide food to all the sporting events in your area, not just one facility.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

The problem with leaving the arena is that some events are located in quite poor neighborhoods where parents would never want their children walking the streets.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Yeah, will give you that actually. We were in Richmond, Virginia (capital) which is fairly urban, and not the best of reputations for crime and whatnot. At one point me and my friend mildly felt followed by a guy, went into starbucks to be sure he left us alone (had asked us for money originally)... But yeah, that's an issue too :\

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Another point to consider is trash. Food wrappers and containers generate a lot of it and the venues have to dispose of it and this cost the venue money. Part of the cost of renting a venue and the food they sell goes to cover this cost. If everyone brought in food from outside then they are also bringing in trash from outside. The venue would have to make up the cost of cleaning up and disposing of this trash somehow. Granted we are all responsible individuals in FIRST and would never think of leaving any trash in the isles or halls and always dispose of our trash in proper collection receptacles but this is often NOT the case at other events. When I was in high school one of the ways we raised money for different organizations was to clean up the trash left in the stadium after an even. Students = Free Labor. When we all leave a FIRST event there is probably a mountain of trash that must be collected and disposed of somehow. The price you pay for that event food also pays to get rid of the cup, the wrapper, the boxes, and the half of the piece of pizza you could stomach. I agree that the food at events tastes less than ideal and is expensive and I don't have a solution to that but I think there are lots of other issues like trash to consider. Since the events are free the event has to cover their costs somehow. Many other events have the same restrictions on bringing in outside food and drink for the same reasons. I've been to lots of events like NASCAR races where you can bring in a limited amount of food and drink but I have also always had to pay a hefty premium for the tickets to the event. If we all want to start paying for tickets to a FIRST event then I think we have more room to negotiate about the food at the events. Until then I don't see things changing all that much. As far as I know, FIRST doesn't have much control over the food at the events and certainly isn't trying to make a big profit selling junk food to a bunch crazy robot building people. If it is a big problem get a cooler or two, stock them with drinks and sandwich stuff, and keep then in a team vehicle in the parking lot. At lunch eat there and take your trash with you. If you have a medical need to eat at a certain time or eat special food then I'm sure that FIRST and the venue can make special arrangements.

That's my $02.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

The venue doesn't directly profit off of the food sales so there is no direct connection. The venues sell the right to sell food to the highest bidders or the places that are there already. In the case of the latter the pay some sort of rent or whatever you wanna call it. The venue has general staff that deals with things like trash. Also I don't know if you noticed but at most venues they wait for the last day to clean up. I remember in the georgia dome if you were first in in the morning to get seats where another team sat the previous day there is trash there.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

As much as this can present a problem, I'd say that everyone should learn how to deal with situations like this in real life. Parts of my own town are places I'd never want to go at night. But in other parts, I'd feel fine leaving everything unlocked.

It's like the Championships in Atlanta every year and the homeless/hobos/panhandlers who press you every five seconds for money. If you've never been in situations like that before, you may panic. Once if you've learned how to deal with traveling through innercity places, they are no longer a major problem. And that's a nice life skill to have, especially at many Regionals and the Championships. :)

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

/Off Topic
Team 648 picks up their trash and the teams around them that left theirs. It's actually kind of cool. Missing a button you don't have yet? Search the floors. Want a Wildstang pen? Look for where Wildstang sat. I still have a pair of safety glasses from a team that was in Chicago, 74 I think. I have a BEAST headband that I found and all kinds of stuff. \Off Topic

Some of the venues are located in bad places I guess. But some are just located where it's almost impossible to find food. For instance, in StL if you want to walk to get food, it's about 1.5 miles to the closest Jack-in-the-Box. In Midwest, I don't remember anything around the UIC Pavilion. And WMR, I'm pretty sure the school was located in the middle of nowhere so it would take a long time to find food. But correct me if I'm wrong, I didn't pay much attention.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Pittsburgh does have pretty good food, with about four or five different restaraunts in the food court. You could also pre-order what you wanted from each place, and you got a slip of paper saying what you ordered and that you already paid for it, which really helped make the lines move faster.

At Chesapeake, the food is pretty expensive (I remember paying $2.50 for a can of soda in 2005), but they do offer preordered boxed lunches. The boxed lunches honestly aren't that fantastic, but they're not bad and do have enough in there.

In Atlanta this year, our team typically ate at the CNN center or somewhere else outside of the venue. I only remember eating in the pits one day, and then myself and the rest of the drive team ate pizza from Papa John's that a mentor went and bought for us when time was running short.

Honestly, I'm a bad person to ask about this; at least one day out of each competition I'm too nervous to eat anything (usually Saturday) and one other day I'm probably too busy to eat. I guess that comes into it when you consider that if the food was more easily accessable or if we were allowed to bring food in, the team members who are busy the entire day would be more likely not to pass out from dehydration.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Our team has always smuggled our food in. It's as simple as putting the tools from a toolbox into the safeway bag, and the food into the toolbox. They never look in the toolbox, and always just see tools in the safeway bag. That way we eat healthy, and we don't have to leave the pit except during our lunch break.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Every Venue is different but from the few I have worked in I'd like to give my perspective. Concessions income for an event is only second to ticket sales. In all the cases I experience two people got "points" or a percentage from concessions. Depending on the agreement the stadium would take a cut and the Concessions stand would get what was estimated to simply keep the stand running(pay wages, restock food, clean equipment, etc.). The Stands only ever turned a marginal profit and it was the Venue that walked away with the big bucks.


With an Event like FIRST Venues may be taking a hit. There are no ticket sales and It is seemingly apparent from this thread that FIRSTers aren't buying the burgers.

My solution would be to approach the venue to see if they have a contract with and outside caterer, for Weddings, Box Seats, etc. The company they contract to do this could be then used to prepare inexpensive generic food(Sandwiches and the like). The Venue would still get a cut, meet its contractual obligation to provide the food and we'd all eat better(and hopefully cheaper) for it.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

As a member of the Southern California Regional Committee, I can assure you that the venues are not "taking a hit". We pay them rent for the time we are there. Some venues, like those at a University, may "donate" the time or give us a reduced rate, but they decide what they can afford and FIRST pays it.

The concession question is more difficult. Generally the concessions are locked in by contract with the venue. They are set up to deliver a limited number of food items. Expanding their menu just for us would be difficult.

Some venues might have a separate contract for catering. However these can also be difficult to work with. Here in LA I know we tried to work with the designated caterer to set up pre-paid lunches and they basically no-bid the contract. But since they had an exclusive contract with the venue, we couldn't give the business to anybody else either.

Event food is one of the hardest issues to work, not due to any inherent difficulty, but because of the maze of conflicting interests associated with it. Generally we tell teams that if you don't like what is there, bring your own and eat it in the parking lot. We also provide information on local restaurants in our Visitor Guide. For your after hours dinning pleasure of course ;)

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Okay. I've been avoiding this thread because, frankly, it's silly.

FIRST has this rule because the vast majority of venues have vendor lock-in contracts for their concessions. They're more or less forced into this by the companies to be able to offer any food at all. FIRST can't do anything about this at all except find a venue without this. I don't want to have a competition in a high school gym, so I put up with this. To sanddrag, this goes for parking too. If you don't like it, I reccomend you trim your team's budget to donate to FIRST the several thousand dollars it'd take to make the problem go away.

Many regionals are already operating on tight budgets and get discounted rates from the venues. Reliant Arena accomodates the LSR machine shop in extra space in one of the large halls. We get that space through the venue's generosity and good will and because we don't use much space. When teams decided to paint in there, work on robots in there, and otherwise set up camp, they had to be kicked out. Yes there was lots of space, yes it wasn't exactly nice, but deal with it. Your only other option is to pony up a heck of a lot of money that it would cost to rent that hall for the weekend.

The same goes for food, parking, and probably whatever else annoys you at an event. Feel free to voice your concerns to the regional committee, but please follow the rules. ALL the rules in the FIRST manual are there for good reasons, including this one. I fail to see how everyone here can accept venue rules like no soldering, no grinding, no noisemakers, and no saving seats, but completely reject the no food rule. ALL of these rules are to keep the venue happy. Parking and food are just two more things that do so. All of these rules are to keep the venues happy with us, which is rather important. Unhappy venues mean higher costs, and higher registration fees for all teams. Do whatever you must to survive within the rules, but please stay within the rules. I can guarantee you that one of the main reasons FIRST had to put this in the official rules was simply because so many teams were already ignoring the instructions from the people at the events.

To further flaunt this rule will only make things worse, and discussing underhanded ways of smuggling food into a venue, cheating your way into free parking and otherwise completely ignoring the rules of FIRST and all the values we're supposed to be upholding should be beneath us and is frankly embarrassing.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Also, in the interests of full disclosure, my girlfriend is a celiac and thus can't have anything with wheat, barley, oats, or rye in it without becoming very ill. This means about all she can have at a competition is Dippin' Dots and juice or sodas. So we talk with the regional directors to get special permission to bring in a FEW snacks for her and still make the usual arrangements for lunch in the parking lot that goes for the whole team. Always better to work with the system.

Plus, like Billfred said, you can always bring in a water bottle for hydration. As I recall, FIRST very specifically allowed this.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

this is the heart of the matter with food and venues. What and when and how you eat is a very personal thing. You should not have to explain medical conditions or personal information to anyone to get permission to eat a candy bar, or to snack on carrot sticks or whatever.

Food and drink are one step away from breathing the air. For anyone to place restrictions on people because your are 'in our venue' is not right. Esp when you are there for 10 hours a day.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Somehow I don't think venue vendors need to charge $3.00 for a hot dog to make a profit on said hot dog. If you do, then you RUN A VERY BAD BUSINESS.

I'd hope these venues would stop being so greedy, recognize the relatively empty wallets of the majority of the youthful participants at a FIRST event, and lower prices at their food stands accordingly. Either that, or be creative in finding ways to bring cheaper meals to participants (catered prepaid lunches at GTR). Ya ya it's their venue and their contract, but WHO CARES? If you want your monopoly, fine, but don't penalize the thousands of kids visiting your arena who don't have that kind of money to spend on food every day. Basically, stop being such capitalist pigs, get into the spirit of FIRST, and lower your prices to REALISTIC levels. Maybe then, you wouldn't have so many teams trying to do an end around all your greed. If you're so dang worried about losing money on a few high school students, then go right ahead and jack up the costs for the people going to the next monster truck rally or Mariah Carey concert.

OR.....regionals can do it like Boilermaker, tell the big venues to take a hike, and have a multitude of vendors bid on food service contracts so the REGIONAL calls all the shots, not the corporations controlling the arena venues. Let's have more regionals on college and university campuses and get those colleges and universities directly involved - bring the future engineers of America directly to the institutions that will mold and shape them into productive members of society. But we've got to have FIRST on TV some day (right?), so does having events in "big league sports" arenas somehow validate our program and prove it is "worthy" of being televised? Are we kissing up to big media, too? Are journalists and reporters above driving to a boring old college campus to cover our "non-mainstream" activities? I digress....

All that being said, instead of circumventing the rules, let's live within them. Take the high road, and your character cannot be questioned. You could take the extreme route by boycotting the venues' steep prices and waiting to eat later. I venture to guess that most people would "survive" until then. You may be really freakin hungry, but you'll deal. Drink a lot of water. Or have someone order food for the team elsewhere and go across the street to eat it (or eat it outside the venue on venue property if they permit such "dastardly" deeds). Or buy the absolute cheapest thing on the menu to get you by until later on. Don't give these people the pleasure of making excessive profits at the expense of those who shouldn't be paying that much to eat a basic (and usually poor quality) meal.

Kevin mentioned that venues sometimes offer discounted rates to the regional committees to have access to the arenas for the competition weekend. I wonder if the venues think that charging high prices for food is one way to attempt to recover the revenues lost from being so "magnanimous". Some discount, huh? :rolleyes: If so, are we shifting the cost burden away from the regional committees and onto the shoulders of a group of people mainly comprised of high school students? Is that a good thing? I suppose if it was the difference between having a regional and not having one, it's worth it, but it's still disappointing that there aren't additional corporate and private sponsors out there willing to donate resources to an event to make it more affordable for all.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

you know what we need? A FIRST competition that is played outdoors!

In a park, or on a beach, in the woods, on a blocked off city street (ºuº)

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Oh yeah, instead of shooting poofballs, we get to shoot snowballs???

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Please, please, please, please, please stop making this mistake. It's been said several times here, and I'll repeat it with some justifications. The venues make NO money off of concessions or catering. They make a contract with a vendor and the vendor provides the food and makes the profits. Reliant makes no profit from: providing power outlets, audio visual equipment, table rentals, catered food, or concessions. They are not in that business. It doesn't make one lick of sense to think they are. I have seen the bills and they go straight from the regional to Aramark, Harper Wood, etc. The venues have land and a building, and they rent it out to people. They are not in the business of wiring outlets, setting up projectors, or frying chicken.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

I ahve to agree with Kevin and this could easily be another thread where we can discuss the relative ways a vendor must claculate cost and profit. However, for the record, a vendor pays for all the hardware reguired to produce and dispense the food, the payroll for the people behind the counter and likely rent from the venue for the space. For a normal business they can amortize those costs over the hours that they are open. A hot dog stand near my house is open from 10:00 AM to 8 PM everyday. That is considerably more than 8 hours once or twice a week in which to garner the same profit. Even at the cost of $4 for a hotdog, I bet the stand does not start turning a profit until it has been selling as fast as it can for 6 hours. It is only those last two hours in which it actually makes any money. Knowing the way regionals work, I am sure the vendors are happy to get three days of sales at less than a full house vs. only 8 hours at a full house.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

First of all the venues do make revenue from the sales. Part of the contract that is bid on gives a percentage of sales to the venue. The better the % the better chance of winning the contract. The high the % the more they charge so that the vendor can make a profit.

I have not notice a difference in price for any event at the venue. Hockey, FIRST, Lacrosse, Concert, they all have the same concession prices and food. People gripe at all of the above but they still must choose. To Buy or not to Buy, that is the question. Whether it is .....

I ramble sometimes. FIRST spends a lot of effort to get the best venue for the best price so that we can all have a great experience. I hope that they continue with this excellence and are able to improve what is already a great event.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

With all due respect to all of you, ranting about rebellion, sharing your trade secrets, and criticzing the venue system will not change yesterday's prices or make this competition season's prices any more affordable. Though FIRST officials and industry professionals may read Chief Delphi, I somehow doubt that Venue representatives do.

Multiple people have suggested contacting your regional committee, forming team support systems to provide packed lunches in the parking lots, and raising your voice in a productive manner. Why not give it a try? It will free up that crucial space in your trailer taken up by that trailer of food, at least.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Come to Chesapeake.

You can bring in any and all food into the pits. Bring those coolers. Teams set up assembly lines of food. You can have pizza delivered. You can eat in the pits. Sure, it's cosy, but you can walk outdoors and have probably the best view at any regional event eg, the Severn River on the Chesapeake Bay. You may not eat in the stands, because it is harder for those of us who stay until the very end on Sat. to clean up.

You can order a reasonably priced and convenient box lunch.

You can buy hot dogs and soda from a small cart. It is convenient.

You can visit the DryDock restaurant on the Academy. Gets crowded with all the visitors there during the competition, but it is reasonably priced and close.

You can walk 5 minutes out Gate 1 and to the City Dock area of historical and scenic Annapolis. No fast food places, but plenty of sandwiches.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

RoboMom has opened the door to a new era in FIRST.

If some venues will allow teams to bring in food, and other will not - guess which regional I am going to recommend to the team next year when its time to choose?

Vote with your regional fees! (ºiº)

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

*scratches head* I don't doubt you, but you might want to get things straight with FIRST. The site info PDF still has no food on site in the site restrictions.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

I know it says that, but all teams registered for the Chesapeake get my newsletter each year with updated info. As long as teams continue to clean up after themselves, the Regional Committee and the USNA will continue to consider this option.

We are grateful to the US Naval Academy for the use of Halsey Field House along with the Navy staff we work with. Last year we had teams from Alaska to England participate.

Everything isn't peachy. There are many challenges to holding the event on a military installation. Every team fills out bus clearance forms and there are lots of rules about access, showing id's, and there is a shuttle bus that many have to ride. Most teams need to commute to hotels as there are only a couple of expensive hotels within walking distance (and about 50 B & B's)

Annapolis is located under an hour from Washington DC and many teams who travel here visit DC. Some have even made appointments with their elected representatives.

FIRST, like life, is a series of trade-offs. Each regional event is dealing with a variety of challenges, trying to make this work.

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

So some solutions...

1.Make it less expensive

2.Provide options for vegans... and well some people have allergies to so many different foods that #3 sounds good.

3.Let people bring food in...many will still buy from the concessions...we're teenagers, we eat a lot...

Or some other reasonable option that the FIRST community can definitely solve. (Hey we build robots:))

Re: Bringing Food into Competition Venues
 

Yes I agree about the vegi thing. But when a team is selling pizza (at it's fund raiser) and another team goes out and buys pizza and soda and brings it into the same cafe the team is selling food I think that is really bad. That's what I heard happen last year. I did not see it but told to me it happen