Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

A bit more input as to how this really is a good thing for the FIRST community even though they've likely had to re-arrange the layout in the dome.

Many of you on C.D. don't follow the FTC blog by Ken Johnson so here is the link and quote. But you need to follow the link to see a picture of Will and a FTC team and robot.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

There is at least one other way to look at this phenomenon. First, think of something or someone for which or for whom you have a great amount of appreciation. Then search among your present talents for a way to express that gratitude. If you find your current talents unable to adequately convey your feelings, perhaps you should consider embarking on a self-improvement program that will eventually let you make that expression happen.

Too abstract for you? Consider this. A kindergarten child "wants" to thank mom on Mother's day. How to do it? Put his hand-print into a pancake sized lump of clay and scratch a name on the back. This is quite likely the limit of this person's ability but certainly not the only way s/he could do it. If you're reading this, I'm certain you have a greater range of ways to handle your appreciation.

Until I hear evidence to the contrary, I'm going to think of this concert as Will.i.am's way to show his appreciation of FIRST. We need to treat his effort with respect for the spirit with which it is offered. If it causes us to take a diversion from the usual, predictable path, it's not a big deal.

Thanks, Will.i.am, from another William.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Once upon a time, a man offered his talent as a way to show thanks and help promote the cause at a special event to celebrate the success of the cause. Now his talent may not have fit exactly with what those being entertained by his talent might have expected or desired. But, those organizing the cause, realized it could be a good thing, and took him up on his offer.

The world, being as it is, carried with that offer certain baggage. That baggage would potentially upset some of those attending the celebration event - the organizers weighed the pros and cons and came to the conclusion that it was still worth it. Not everyone agreed. The organizers did as they always do - they made the decision, and hoped most of the participants would understand.

Some folks will always see the glass as half full, while others see it half empty. It is impossible to please everyone.

Once upon a time, the FIRST program was called U.S FIRST - the premise behind the message communicated to the participants was focused on the importance of growing the future workforce in our country. The idea of making Engineers the heros, to look up to instead of the personalties from the world of sports and entertainment, was an important message - which still has merit.

Over the years, I found that this organization (like most organizations that survive over time) changed it's core values - in order to sustain growth.
The easiest change to implement was away from a "national" focus and for it to grow internationally. This was a very good thing to do, and no one grumbled about this (that I had heard anyways).

The message of sports heros being replaced by engineers - remained, but the message was being communicated by politicians, as the need for government support grew. Every venue and event introduced politicians that spoke of the importance of the program on the lives of the young students involved.
Eventually, even the entertainers themselves were used to help market and communicate the virtues of this great program.

It is so easy to live in a world of unblurred loyalties and virtues. Not so easy, if the world is very dependent on people volunteering their time and talent to help you - in any way that they can. Entertainers entertain, politicians talk, famous people get more attention than the normal guy on the street. That might NOT be fair, but it is real - it is the world we live in.

It only makes sense to leverage those folks that get attention thrown at them, when trying to draw attention to your cause, especially if it is inexpensive or free.

Enjoy the event, celebrate your accomplishments,
Keep an open mind, I find that it helps when you need to solve real problems.

Mike

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Bill's Blog.

According to Bill's Blog, the decision to move 2 FRC fields had little to do with the entertainment scheduled for Friday evening and more to do with the FIRST programs. FRC is going to be balanced alongside the other programs, giving equal prominence to each program.

Jane

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I don't believe that for half a second.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

@Madison: Me either.

I'm not even there, and based on reports from people who are, the stage is occupying half the dome for no good reason at this exact moment.

For 7 years in Atlanta, 5 FRC Fields sat on the dome floor. FLL played atop Einstein, and for 5 of them, F(V/T)C was also on the dome floor. FRC is the flagship program, nobody can even attempt to deny that. I would have understood if FRC fields got pushed out of the dome for the Collegiate level pilot, which in its original form needed 3 fields.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I can't speculate on the truth of Bill's blog post but the numbers are starting to bear more primetime attention be given to the other FIRST programs.
Total number of FRC teams this season approximately 2100.
Total number of FTC teams this season approximately 1600.
Total number of FLL teams this season xx,xxx approximately 17,000 (credit goes to Mark McLeod for that factoid)

So it is a valid argument that these programs need to be given greater access to the higher profile space at the event. I am not there and I cannot speak to how much space they are recieving this year.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

By saying that, it allows for making similar decisions in the future, using the space taken by the Friday evening event in any manner they choose.

Jane

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

17,100

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Yeah I'm with you on that. 1st off, you're telling me you planned on leaving the Dome Floor emptier then last year. Then the concert just happened to come up after the fact. When you have prime space like that, you do something with it, just don't leave it empty.

I understand why Bill would say that. As someone who's done PR in the past, sometimes when you make an unpopular descison mainly based on a pragmatic reason, you need to let the public a lesser idealistic reason to back it up. I'm sure the idea of having Dome feel more balanced did come up, but I'm sure that was only after the fact the idea of moving the 2 fields came to fruition, and FIRST chose to use that as the main reasons for good PR.

Also as Jane said, by using the balancing of programs as their reason will allow FIRST to continue this practice without a concert in the future. Now I'm sure some right now are thinking, that's horrible and I can't believe they would do that. Thing though. What if Collegiate FIRST comes to being as not just a pilot? To get them in the Dome, someone's gotta go, and at the moment FRC has the most real-estate.

With that said, I still don't appreciate FIRST not owning-up to the real reasons, or using a weak excuse, but it is what it is.

That said, I still thank will.i.am for his performance, as you yourself have done nothing wrong and doing something amazing for this organization!

Hope everyone out there has a fun weekend!

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I don't think - at least I don't hope that anyone here is blaming Will.i.am, although it's certainly a possibility that he played a part in the setup. It's about the FIRST people that created this setup.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

his video was played far. . ..too. . ..often. . .. ..

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

If they plan to make this a regular happening, I hope they come up with a better venue for future years.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

There is a theater in the venue. I haven't seen much of anything planned for that this year. Admittedly, the stage is kind of small, but it could work.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

is there a way i can watch it via webcast tonight???

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

same question :)

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First -- I don't know. Second -- I seriously doubt it. The booking fee for that band would be WAY higher if it were a broadcast event.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Great. I hope in the future they balance the registration fees as well.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

They told teams that no cameras were allowed tonight. That makes me think it will also not be webcast.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

You can hear the show a bit on one of the ftc feeds:
http://mfile.akamai.com/18569/live/reflector:24609.asx

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

the einstein feed is pretty ok too. Not much, but its something!

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I'm seeing people on Twitter say that the special is airing August 14th at 7 PM on ABC, and is called, "i.am.FIRST."

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Nothing showing up from ABC or google or all, probably hasn't been officially announced yet. Sounds great though!

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Wow, that sounds super eerie.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Ok I can say without a doubt that this concert was well worth the minor inconvenience of switching fields. The only nit pick was will.I.am calling it USFIRST and the 8 year old Will Smith video, still it was a great show and the crowd loved it (well maybe not Willow Smith)

I'll type more once I get a proper keyboard but I can't wait to see where this thread goes.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Second.
Honestly IMO it was a pretty bad concert overall. There were some cool things like the elevating platform on stage and the celeberty interview clips. It was pretty cool to see jack black. By far the best part of it all was when Miley Cyrus' video came up and she got boo'd. Now for the bad: There was a godly amount of bass, so much i swear my liver was shaking. I'm not a fan of the peas type of music to begin with but i can usually tolerate it. All of the music sounded pretty much the same. Another thing was the amount of auto tune, those people that know vocaloids will know what im talking about when i say That concert had more auto tune than a vocaloid song. There was also way too much use of strobe lights, it was very irritating. Willow Smith was painful for me to listen to, and didn't really seem to fit in with what was goin on. For it being my first concert, it was very disappointing. By far, the worst thing about it was the severe lack of cowbell. There was no cowbell what so ever. Had there been cowbell that would have completely changed everything for me.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

So what is the general consensus. I mean it is hiphop. Bass is gonna be crazy for the most part.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

The show was awesome. Great for the FLL kids to the suits. What a great celebration of the 20th year. Any negative expectations should be dispelled by now. Tomorrow will build on this energy. I've been "involved" since 1998, and this was a positive evolution. Best dancing since Disney. Great message. FIRST in every community. Ride the wave. Make it happen. Congrats to the Hawaiian Kids.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

The show seem pretty well received. All of our students loved it.

As far as the dome / field in the pits thing: I LOVE the fields in the pits and I hope FIRST continues to do this. My only gripe is that the bleachers need to be about 20% bigger.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Man, that was cool. Aside from the fact that we all got $150+ tickets for free, I was SO cool how into it wil.i.am and the Peas were. There was obviously a lot of effort put into it, shown by the videos from others in the music world, the entire stage (with official BEP stage crew), and the overall FIRST integration.

Downsides include excessive bass, crowd surfers, and the awkwardness of Willow's performance. She did her part well, but we weren't the right audience for her. We definitely aren't her target audience, which I assume is pre-teen/early teen girls, and I don't think she was expecting the lack of crazy enthusiasm.

Ryan Devlin was great, IMO. He did know sort of what was going on, and going into the crowd and doing the Twitter shout- outs made it a lot cooler.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

My guess is that was aimed at the FLL students, as part of the effort to celebrate all of the FIRST programs. If the majority of the audience was FRC teams, I can imagine the lack of enthusiasm, reminiscent of Mandy Moore's reception at the 2002 Championship.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I believe it for about ten seconds, myself. The amount of attention and space being devoted to FTC does make it plausible that they couldn't satisfy their need to give it prominence and still have all five FRC fields on the dome floor. I think the main problem with what they want to do is that FTC just doesn't work as a stadium sport. The fields and 'bots are too small.

It looks to me like everything would fit if they put FTC and Einstein at opposite ends of the dome...but that would mean inconveniencing one program by having it at the "back" side of the show, and it would place the FRC division fields perhaps too close together to keep the sound from one from interfering with another if it was too loud.

Hardly.

I knew I didn't care for their music before I went, but I still expected to be entertained. The word that describes what I got instead is "assaulted". I mean, you'd think that people designing the lights for a stage show would know to point them at the performers! I probably saw less than half the show because of the spotlights blinding me, and the strobes kept me from seeing a lot of the other half. The music was too loud by far; the bass literally had my clothes shaking in the breeze, and it was impossible to make out most of the words because they were drowned out by the rumble. I could hear the words if I covered my ears, but I still couldn't understand most of them.

And what was with that electric ninja DJ at the end? :confused:

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

According to Bill at FRC Live, the decision was made to move one field to the pits (due to moving the FTC fields next to Einstein) long before any notion of a concert or will.i.am came into the picture, due to physical geometry issues arising from moving FTC right next to Einstein. The addition of the stage for the concert caused another field to need to be moved into the pits, which at least evened it out and allowed them a more fair method of swapping positions.

Honestly, the biggest thing people need to know about the concert and the lack of music on Einstein and a lot of other different things at the St Louis Championships are all easily explained by one thing: this really is becoming the Super Bowl of Smarts.

The Super Bowl is operated around television cameras, announcers, and film/production crews. The Super Bowl needs a half time show. The Super Bowl is a lot of fun for the participants and spectators in person, but the event itself is much larger with a lot of attention paid to also making it enjoyable for the tens of millions watching at home.

For years FIRST has been telling us the Championship Event was the Super Bowl of Smarts, and this year it actually was. The FIRST Championship is going to be broadcast on Sunday evening primetime television on a major network. We had a half time show by the same artist who performed at the actual Super Bowl, in a concert that was donated and otherwise could have brought in millions in ticket revenue. The Dean's List and Chairman's Award (including equivalent FLL and FTC award winners) were celebrated during this half time show, with Regional Chairman Award winning teams enjoying the entire concert from the floor in front of the stage.

While there were a lot of minor things that could be tweaked and improved*, the overall new focus of the Championship was more than worth it for the participants there and everyone who will definitely enjoy the show at home on August 14th, 7pm, ABC. And as will.i.am said at the event, "FIRST is already cool, we're just making it louder!"

* The fields in the pits need to be moved next to the entrance so visitors who lack safety glasses and/or closed toe shoes can still enjoy watching the matches, and a third section of bleachers (similar to the arrangement at the CT Regional) need to be added.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

The show was well-received by my team, including the student who didn't want to go.

...and at the mentor breakfast, Dave Lavery talked about how it was part of a strategic plan to reach kids who otherwise might not make it in the door. I believe the line was a comparison to teams who offer free pizza at their informational meetings:

"I came for the pizza, but stayed for the robots."

So this is:

"I came for the Peas, but stayed for the robots."

If it works, AWESOME. If it doesn't work, then a major performing act gave a free concert of their own volition (they approached FIRST, not the other way around) to our kids. Also awesome.

---------------

I expected and wanted to be grumpy about this, but I'm not. The kids enjoyed the heck out of it, and it has the potential of really reaching a bunch of kids who might never get into FIRST.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Make it 50% bigger and do constant checks to make sure they are staying together as inteneded as the weekend goes on. I saw Newton's bleachers bouncing up and down and comming loose when people stepped on them. That is not good.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

If I can step in and add my two cents for just a moment.

The concert was will.i.am and his friends stepping forward to celebrate FIRST.

At the "Mothers of Invention" panel on Friday (which included will.i.am's mother, Evelyn Kamen, and some other very smart moms), Will stood up and said the following:

He went on and on about this - but what y'all should take from this is that WILL.I.AM WANTED TO DO THIS FOR FIRST. Nobody is 'pandering to celebrities' or trying to 'destroy your experience' for their own funsies.

When this show goes up on ABC, people will tune in for a Black Eyed Peas concert, that's true - and then they'll be bombarded with information on FIRST. Sure, they 'came for the show'...but they'll stay because of the passion and excitement that anyone can see as soon as they witness a FIRST Competition. That's the truly magnetic and addictive part of this program. It's why I stay, too.

If you were at the concert, I hope you remember that Will and the BEP's goodbye to the teams was a little something like this as they walked offstage...

"YOU GUYS ARE GENIUSES! THE FUTURE OF AMERICA! WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!"

I hope that your teams had a great time at the Championship, even if you didn't get exactly the field you wanted. I hope that when FIRST gets new teams, sponsors, and fans because of the i.am.FIRST show, you don't snub them because they took away your few extra hours on the dome floor.

I really hope that you all can appreciate why this event took so many resources and changes to happen, and that you can see the kind of potential "i.am.FIRST" has to truly infiltrate the culture we've been working on changing for 20 years.

Will.I.Am really wants the world to see FIRST. Let's give him, and FIRST, a little more credit for helping make that happen. No - the situation with the fields wasn't ideal. We all know that. But imagine what FIRST's growth can be like in the next few years with the support of big-ticket celebrities who truly 'get it' like we do.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Now that is pretty cool.



On another note, I did not attend the championship :( and I have heard mixed reviews from friends, and to be honest, after 8+ years of watching Chiefdelphi I really expected to see a few more negative posts about the concert here.

But the pictures that have been put up of the event speak so much more. It was a smashing success, it looked like it was executed pretty well, and it did not cause the event to come to any sort of serious grinding halt.

Interesting conclusion, FIRST might see some sort of success in developing a model that makes it more fun to be smart. Great job everyone who contributed to the event, and to Will.I.Am to finding his inner geek.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Well said. I'm beginning to see the light, so to say...

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Now just add a dub-step bass beat to that light, and you'll be where the FIRST leadership is: behind the effort as an experiment with almost no downside and a huge upside...

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I seem to be a grumpy voice here. I apologize for coming across like that, but...

It did halt things. Qualification matches ended an hour earlier than they would have otherwise and the dome was cleared out.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

The matches that were not finished in the dome were finished at the pit fields.
No harm. No foul.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

...and Newton only had two to play (one regularly-scheduled and one rerun).

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already (too many posts to read through them all), but I really wish we had a little more warning about awards being given at the concert. If we had actually won the Chairman's award, it would have been terrible not to have been there. (we and a lot of other students we talked to weren't)

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Blair would have been soooo much better!

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I have a strange urge to quote Still Alive:

This was a triumph,
I'm making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS.
---
But there's no sense crying over every mistake.
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

I was legitimately concerned about the execution of the whole works. It seems like FIRST HQ certainly has room for improvement, but the resounding response is that this was a huge success. Not only that, but think: Dean managed to catch the attention of will.i.am, and not only did will.i.am respond positively, he went out of his way to provide HUGE support to the program. If we managed to snag the attention of will.i.am, whose attention can we snag next?

I've always been a proponent of the quality over quantity measure of new teams, but I'm starting to think that maybe, getting the message out to as many people as possible, the quality will create itself. I brought my new girlfriend to three FRC events this year (FLR, Waterloo, GTREast), initially responded to by claims of not being interested. After FLR, she was excited to go to Waterloo and GTR. This has been my experience with everyone I've ever brought to an FRC event.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

My impression: Thumbs up, make some minor tweaks, do this again.

That was one of my complaints, were the teams that won awards allowed to bring in a camera or two to get pictures of their teams on stage?

Yeah, my second big complaint. I almost didn't go because I was under the impression that it was just a concert rather than an awards ceremony.


My overall feeling, and this is a 180, was that it was good for FIRST. If we could put all 4 fields in the dome (or just get bigger stands in the pits) I would actually be pretty happy with this. The music was a little loud and it all made me feel old but I think it celebrated FIRST rather than BEP.

Minor complaint: I didn't know who half those celebrities were... this is my fault for being old and lame and not watching TV.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I think many of the loudness complaints could have been dealt with by distributing ear plugs. Everyone sane who goes to a normal concert wears them! Why not here?

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

That said, the massage was nice on my back and feet.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I thought of that at the time, and wondered if anyone was enjoying it.

(Another piece of my curmudgeon side for your entertainment -- I discovered a few years ago that massages are very uncomfortable for me, and even make me a bit nauseous.)

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I never heard the announcement that cameras weren't allowed. My wife brought our SLR in and took pictures all night; no one told her to stop. Before we decided to bring it, I read the back of the ticket which explicitly said that pictures & videos taken are only for non-commercial use by the ticket holder. That implied to me that picture taking was allowed.

I really enjoyed the concert. I think all of our students enjoyed it too. My only complaint is that they gave out the Chairman's award without anyone, including the eligible teams, knowing that they were giving it out. I know some members of eligible teams skipped the concert to work on strategy. Imagine the disappointment if they missed the presentation of the award to their team if they won.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I'd venture a guess that with a high-profile event like this, that FIRST made sure the winning team for the Chairman's Award was notified before-hand that their presence would be required.

However, this is just pure speculation, but it seems logical.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

About the possibility of eligible teams skipping the concert and possibly missing out if they had won... Yes, some people who didn't win missed the event, but I'm willing to bet (don't know for sure) that the producers of the event probably dropped some pretty strong hints to the team that DID win that they should attend.

Lesson for next year: If you are eligible for an award and someone from FIRST lets you know that a previously unannounced event will have an awards ceremony, and asks if you are attending, say, "Yes."

My feeling about the event itself was positive. The kids loved it. It was one of the things that set the Championships apart from a Regional event. It felt like a reward for a season of hard work.

Comments about the tradeoff between the show and moving fields to the pits I'll post in the appropriate thread.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I liked the concert. It was fun. Although I'm still debating if it was worth the two fields in the pit because I would accept the fields in the pits if 1, better seating, and two, well this ties to better seating but allowed more dancing and team spirit down on the floor cause if you wanted to be next to the field, you had to kneel in order to watch the match so people in the bleachers can see too.

FIRST has been a special secret that my non-FIRST friends just don't get and hopefully this special in August ignites the culture change that FIRST was created for. We're even using the special as a sponsor recruiting opportunity, if a sponsor is on the fence about FIRST, we're going to heavily promote the special.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I was one of those who was strongly opposed to a concert going into the Championship. I felt that it would take away from the event. I felt that moving two fields to the pit to have a stage in the dome was some sort of an atrocity.

I can honestly say that I was dead wrong.

After seeing the stage and the spectacle that followed, I can fully understand the reasons for making room for the concert to happen. The stage was definitely awesome, and it was cool to see the various HOF robots on Stage. I really like how the High Level FLL, FTC, and FRC award winners were recognized during the concert and not upstaged by the finals on Einstein, though I wish they would've played Team 359's Video at some point. Recognizing the Dean's list winners in front of their peers in such a high profile setting was cool as well, many people did not get a chance to make it up to the initial DLA presentation.

My only complaints about the concert are very minor, Will.I.Am saying "US FIRST" was pretty annoying, and Willow Smith yelling "St. Louis" every 15 seconds was pretty bothersome. (I'm still fairly certain that she had no idea where she was other than being in St. Louis.)

I'd like to see this sort of show return in the future - but I'd like to see them leave the stage up for Saturday and play the Einstein matches on it. ;)

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I wonder if they'd do a show next year and if they did would they do another big stage show and would the Black Eyed Peas be back or who else will they get to perform?

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

That's 'cause the teleprompter told them to ;)

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Can anyone here post links to web-places on which the non-FIRST community discuss this event? That is, are there any BEP fan blog postings? I'm curious to read of what the "outside" world has to say about this.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

First of all, some excellent points have been made by thefro526, sanddrag and of course libbyk. You guys definitely hit a lot of nails on the head.

I'd like to encourage you all to think of all the time, effort, planning and dedication that went into this event. Many many hands went into the making of the FIRST Championship Event and almost all of them have gone unrecognized.

Rather than complaining about choices made, think about celebrating the fact that someone outside of the FIRST community was given the chance to show how much he appreciates what we all do every year between January and April, and beyond. Think about appreciating the fact that FIRST decided to think outside the box and do something new and exciting for everyone, rather than just sticking to what works.

Hasn't that always been the mission of FIRST? Don't settle for what works; strive for what amazes.


And just a quick response to this:

Qualification matches ended at 5pm, and they were scheduled to end at 5pm. While this may have been different from previous years, this was not wrong. There was a hard stop when there might not have otherwise been, but Championship fields are always encouraged to run on time and are not necessarily required to stay late to finish up matches.

The field crews of all of the divisions did an excellent job at keeping to the schedule, as evidenced by the very small number of matches that the pit fields had to play past 5pm and that the dome fields came back to play at 6pm.


This event had its pros and cons, but as apprehensive as we all may have been about the setup, I would 100% agree with the majority of you that the pros vastly outweigh the cons and that our first year in STL was a huge success. For the minority, I would simply ask that you emphasize the constructive part of the criticism and recognize the difference between giving feedback and finding reasons to complain.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

YES!!! I really hope that they consider this. My friend and I said through the whole concert: "You know, it would be awesome if this was Einstein tomorrow." That would also kill two birds with one stone... you get more floor space in the dome, and you get Einstein on an awesome stage

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The main complaint that I have was seating. Our team was stuck up in the nose bleed section. It was terrible. We could not understand the speeches, and could not tell who was on stage, it could have been 4 of our team members. I know that we are not the only team that feels shorted with these seats, everyone around us made it very clear. I wish FIRST could figure out a way that we could all get at lease reasonable seats.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Several teams, including the Hawaiian Kids but also several other RCA winners (perhaps all?) were told ahead of time by judges that they ought to plan on attending the concert on Friday night.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

From what I've gathered, all of the RCA winners that submitted at the CMP were given light blue wristbands to get onto the floor of the concert.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

It looked like all RCA winners and HoF teams. However, giving them what was essentially a different ticket is not the same as saying "be there." But it is somewhat comforting to hear that some/all of the RCA-winning teams were encouraged to attend.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I saw at least a couple people from RCA teams going in that had tickets saying something like "ON FLOOR" under "Section".

The only problems I had with the concert was the fact that the Chairman's Award announcement was most likely not a last minute thing to be put in there - they could have easily told every team. Having the floor of the arena half empty while people were up in the nosebleeds seems kind of strange too.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I'm glad to see some positive comments about the event - especially from those who thought the concert was a bad idea. It's not my kind of music either, but seeing all of those kids dancing and having a great time together, from all over the world, how can you not smile at that?

Most of St. Louis has no idea that the BEP's were even here, and are so suprised to hear that they played for US!

We are a Chairman's team, and we were given floor tickets and light blue wristbands.. we gave our 'floor tickets' to some much younger attendees (I thought we were unlucky to get floor tickets). We had been doing enough standing, we just wanted to sit for a while.

The bass. It was loud. They may want to get a structural engineer in there to check the foundations..the dome may have moved a few inches. LOL.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Newton was one of the fields affected by this hard deadline, but only had to play two matches back on the GaliNewton pit field (one of them a replay from earlier in the day). There was a holdup on the field while Galileo finished off their own matches, followed by the pre-planned ice cream social for GM teams that I half-crashed. (No ice cream for me, just a desire to make sure we didn't miss our match.) Even with all that, we were done around 7:15 or 7:20--plenty of time to walk a mile to dinner, walk back, and get seats (even if they were five rows from the top). Not the worst thing to happen to us.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I agree. The chances of everyone being at a concert is way lower than the chances of everyone being at the matches on Einstein.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

My hypothesis on the heavy bass was to discourage the audience from taking videos of the performance. The sound on the videos I took (as well as some found on youtube) was barely discernible due to the level of the bass. I can't even hear any lyrics...just bass.

I'm guessing the recording equipment for the official video probably didn't have any of these issues. Looks like FIRST didn't want too much of the performance revealed before its official debut on TV. :rolleyes:

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

really? the videos that i got on my Flip sounded awesome! but maybe it would be different for the lower bowl teams as the bees were in the nosebleeds...

cant wait to see how this show will be put together with the matches on Einstein! If its anything like the FIRST in Michigan program it should be great :)

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

same! my team and I were on the pit floor and even though I am really short, I got really good sounding videos. (by the way I am 5 foot and there was a 6 foot guy in front of me) lol.

I cant wait either!

The concert was absolutely amazing and I am so happy that we were so lucky to see it. FIRST will be known because music is a universal language!

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I wouldn't mind seeing Pink Floyd do a show on Friday night :D

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

If Pink Floyd was going to do a show they would probably require the whole arena plus you'd need extra security to keep Exploding Bacon from snatching their flying pig.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

2012...Justin Bieber w/ special guest Jaden Smith. Willow goes and tells bro how awesome it was, and he tells the Biebs....

I'm going to go ahead and call it right now. Maybe Koko Ed can make guessing the act part of Fantasy FIRST....

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I think that many of the perceived difficulties from the concert could have been easily dealt with by using better communication.

I will give you an example. We were one of those teams that got a match booted from the Dome and sent back to the pit fields.. We had to wait until 6:00 to start those matches... no big deal BUT we had our team dinner planned and we had food coming in addition to having to be at the Phillies and Willies for AutoCAD at the same time as being on the field to play our matches... this was tough to deal with because we didn't find out anything until 5:00 ... or a few minutes before...

If the information on how this was going to be handled was given to teams ahead of time we would have made our arrangements based on this contingency....

in the end we felt awkward about leaving the AutoCAD awards to go to the field to play... it felt like a snub to all of the other teams that worked so hard to get their awards...

Better communication.... the answer to many things... in fact ... it is always the BEST ANSWER...

We had a great time in St. Louis... we will be back... and now we can anticipate things better...

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

I am glad that FIRST is finding additional supporters that have the fame to be able to get FIRST more 'out there'. I will never condemn FIRST for that. Thanks go to the Black Eyed Peas. You made many FIRSTers feel special by being there (along with the huge boost in publicity).

We also had a good time in St. Louis, however FIRST will never sell me on the way this was handled.

1. I do not want to play in the pits. Some people seem to believe that the ends support the means: that the increased exposure for FIRST justifies the inconvience and decreased value the teams recieved at this year's championship. I wholeheartedly disagree.

2. Secrecy. The teams have begged for more transparency. Yet, FIRST has now come forward and said that FRC fields were going to be in the pits with or without the Black Eyed Peas. They had to plan that well in advance. So where was the upfront team feedback, the requests, the surveys, the trial balloons? Why weren't teams told in advance how it was going to be handled? Our team spent our Friday night elsewhere because we were not going to wait two days before the event to figure out how we were going to feed and entertain 80 people.

FIRST overall continues to be a positive experience for our team. I see areas in which they are improving, and trying to improve. FIRST Choice has the potential to be great - as long as FIRST doesn't use it as a way to decrease the total value we receive and then spin it as a positive. At the same time, I grow upset when I see problems the teams bring up glossed over as if they did not happen.

The true mark of an organization that works FOR it's participants is honest feedback. Admitting that people are upset or inconvienced, or that something didn't go off as well as had been hoped. An honest Mea Culpa gains far more respect in my book than a policy of trying to ignore mistakes. Putting a positive spin on an issue that doesn't deserve it results in a total loss of respect. I will use the rookie kit vs. the veteran kit as an example: when FIRST tried to spin that as an increase in value for veterans it was an insult. Indeed several posts on Chief Delphi documented that the decrease in the value of the kit - in useful parts - far outstripped the 'savings' to the team.

Stop spinning things. Give truthful explanations. Give REASONS. Give the teams as much warning as possible. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

For instance - I certainly hope FIRST is planning on giving honest feedback on the surveys we all sent in. What were the top issues? How does FIRST plan on addressing them?

St. Louis was a positive experience, but FIRST can be so much more.

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

B.E.P. watch - ABC Sunday 22nd - Billlboard awards show scheduled appearance. Who's going to be "disappointed" if they don't mention their little soirée-gig in St. Louis?

Re: Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests
 

Why would you expect them to mention the FIRST gig?