[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

I think the fairest system, and the one requiring the least amount of work to implement, is the one that many teams (including my own) try to follow now -- you show up early in the morning with as many people as seats you want to claim, and stand in line.

Originally Posted by Karthik

I'm 100% in agreement with Pat here. If lineups were clearly marked and enforced each morning, there would be absolutely no issues. There's no need to implement a complicated solution for what is a relatively simple problem to solve.

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Lotteries, etc... are silly and resource intensive.

From the perspective of someone who only needs to line up early when I'm visiting with a team that has that objective, and even then, only when I'm not otherwise engaged as a volunteer, I'm not really in favour of making the line at the door into part of the competition.

Sure, it's one more way that a motivated team can gain a useful advantage through their disciplined efforts off the field—but it's also an arms race in which the fanatics and the scouts will be keeping each other company for the lonely hours before sunrise. And while I suppose it's their prerogative, it's a little undignified and kind of overlooks the bigger question: is the first-come-first-served allocation of seats so essential to the competition (as a whole, rather than on a per-team level) that it couldn't be replaced with a system that is fair through randomness? If the few teams currently lining up very early lose their advantage, but everyone gets more sleep and less stampeding happens, are the event and the experience improved or degraded overall? I don't have data to estimate the relative benefits, but the costs to the event of enforcing an orderly line seem greater than the costs of assigning scouts' seats in advance.¹


Also, lotteries are easy when you have a known set of entrants and don't need to do it in real time. The week before the event, with great pomp and circumstance, the regional director selects a hat and draws team numbers from it. A set number of that team's representatives are assigned to predetermined seating blocks in the order drawn. A slight improvement/complication involves the teams ranking their preferences for blocks of seating beforehand; when drawn, they get the most preferable block not already taken.

¹ Despite that, I have to admit, I'm sympathetic to the teams that are annoyed when their scouts are beaten to the front row seats, and then have to endure sitting behind people that stand up and cheer for their team instead of quietly observing the match. I'd wager that the loss of productivity of the scouts in the 2^nd row is greater in magnitude than the benefit the 1^st-row team gains by cheering—and in effect harms the competition compared to the situation in which the seats were switched.