Quote:
Originally Posted by magnets
I like St. Louis, and we shouldn't complain about it, because it's a great place, and we don't know all the reasons that FIRST chose this location.
It's near a big airport, it's a pretty safe place, and there are plenty of great hotels in the area. The actual seating is really great, and the arena is very impressive. There's enough room for FIRST to get bigger if it needs to. In the area, there are a number of really neat restaurants that we always go to, and going up the arch is always a team favorite. I imagine that it is also cheaper/easier for FIRST, as they don't have to negotiate all the details with a new place, and they can keep everything mostly the same.
The food during the event is not great, but I don't remember ever being impressed anywhere else. As for the finale, that's not a problem with the location, but with FIRST's organization.
Having consistency is actually a good thing.
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I disagree with this, though. St. Louis's airport isn't nearly as big as Atlanta or Indy, the convention center is extremely cramped as it is, and there is absolutely no space to spread out like there was in Atlanta. Space was everywhere, and we only used half of the facilities there. Also, Atlanta had a great finale location, and the past finales in St. Louis were absolutely terrible and a logistical nightmare. It is actually a problem with the location because it takes over an hour to get there, and the place physically cannot hold the number of people that we have. Plus, the staff there was completely rude and the opposite of helpful. We walked away from that venue practically in tears because of the way we were treated.
I mean, I understand that there are obviously reasons that they chose it over the other candidates, but the only thing they said was that they were "impressed with the facilities," but everyone that I have talked to that saw the championship in Atlanta completely disagrees.
The fundamental problem is that the FIRST officials don't have to worry about organizing a team of people that needs to stick together, and they spend a lot of time in the VIP areas. i.e. they don't have the participant perspective.
Just something to much on.