[thefro526]

Conceptually the Finale was pretty cool with shuttle buses to and from the Science Center, food at various stations, different activities to keep busy, etc.

The problem seems to lie in the fact that Einstein ran late as usual (not a bad thing) and the Finale had the same 6pm start time. This delay combined with the weather made finding a shuttle and getting on pretty hectic and apparently there's a law restricting the pickup and drop-off points for the shuttle buses which meant waiting in the bus for about 25-30 minutes while it moved forward something like 500'.

Once inside the center, it was obvious that there were just too many people. I'm not sure if the weather played a part in this as well, since I'd imagine that some team members would have ended up outside instead of crammed into the center. I was genuinely concerned for my students safety at some points as it was very apparent that there could/would be issues getting everyone out in an emergency. There were also a handful of occasions where I found myself walking extremely close (goes back to the packed in too tight thing) to some younger FIRSTers, possibly FLL/FTC age and felt that I had to be extremely cautious and make sure that I didn't inadvertently hurt them. (I'm ~6'5", so many FLL/Some FTC kids barely come up to my chest)

Moving forward, it seems like it may be best to either do a series of finale events (as done in the past) or stagger the times for team arrival (FLL goes earlier than FTC and/or FRC) or something of that nature.

Also, I really dislike that one of the yearly decisions seems to be 'Do we watch Einstein and the end of the closing ceremonies or do we go to the finale and arrive early enough to enjoy it?' For some teams the answer is obvious, but to those of us that enjoy watching Einstein or have some vested interest in it, it's not always clear.