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Originally Posted by AJCaliciuri
I myself am still a little confused at the district system having never attended one or really read a thorough explanation/description.
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Currently, there are three regionals in Ontario (GTR-East, Waterloo, GTR-West), with a fourth planning on being introduced for 2014. From the rumours, a district system is in the works for introduction in 2015, with three or four additional districts added on top of the existing four regionals that would have been converted.
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From what I've heard, Western Canadian (Calgary, AB) and Festival de Robotique de Montreal (Montreal, QC) would remain regionals.
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A general rule of thumb for districts is that you need enough district events to provide 2 events for every team. So using NE as an example, there are roughly 150 teams. That means we need 300 "spots". Every district event is supposed to have 30-40 teams, so we need between 7.5-10 events. Some teams will want to play 3 events, so NE made it an even 9 events.
If Ontario & Quebec were combined into a district, it looks like there are somewhere around 109 teams (lets say 110). For 110 teams, you need 220 spots, or 5.5-7.3 events. So my guess would be with your current teams, you would need 6 or 7 district events, plus a Championship.
In general the district events are intended to be "smaller" and a little more "low key" - think more of the well run offseason style. And another big intent is to save money, so for example, New England is trying to make sure that all of their sites are free or in-kind donation, so places like expensive convention centers that were used in the past will generally not be used at the district event level, and instead we will go to colleges or very large high schools (which still have some very nice venues, but just much less cost). So if some of your current venues are cheap or free, then the district may stick with them, if they are expensive, chances are they will move to another venue (perhaps in the same area, but more of a college/high school).
Also, most events will be Fri/Sat or Sat/Sun, reducing the amount of time that mentors & students have to take off from work/school. There are still occasional Thurs/Fri events, but it seems like the preference is Fri/Sat where possible.
On the team side of things, teams get at least 20-24 matches for the same registration fee they pay for one regional now, where they usually only get 9 or 10 matches.
Currently progression to the District Championships is based on a points model set by the region. If FIRST standardizes this as Frank mentions, it will allow much easier cross-district play (but the regions still have to have/allocate enough slots & events for "extra" teams).