[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by seg9585

Who here has attempted to run events of this scale? I've organized and ran several aerospace conferences with much fewer people in attendance and a relatively trivial amount of preparation, subcontractor hiring, etc compared to FRC Regionals that themselves reach 100k or more in expenses.

$5000/team barely scratches the surface to covering the cost of this endeavor. Assuming 55 teams at a regional that equates to $275k income. I'm willing to bet simply renting out the entire venue for 5 days (with a day for setup/cleanup) costs more than that alone, not to mention the network, electrical, safety, A/V, FIRST staffing, field construction, and all other infrastructure. And on top of that we get the kit of parts (value $1500-2k?) and an entire year of folks dedicated to designing a quality game with specific requirements, getting workable hardware and software solutions out to teams, and still providing logistical and financial support to practically every team including those internationally. I am personally impressed at how cheap these regionals are to participate in..

From what I recall in past discussions, regionals don't see a dime of registration costs. Regionals are incredibly costly; even cost was one of the major factors in MAR switching over to the district model