[Jon Stratis]

Is it really that big of a deal to prepare for competition? If you want something available, do what you need to do to bring it into the venue with you at load in. It's that simple. Thousands of teams do it, why should some teams have the privilege of a trailer full of stuff outside that they can pick and choose from during an event?

I would certainly argue that it's not "forcing teams to spend money/time for no net gain" - It's forcing teams to plan ahead, organize, and prepare. If you're presenting some new wonder-gadget for your company, odds are you bring spares with you to the venue. Odds are you have supplies to fix anything conceivable that could go wrong. Odds are you have a plan for the entire event, with sufficient redundancies that the product launch doesn't become a flop. It's the same thing here.