[Jon Stratis]

MN will not be offering early setup this year at any of our 4 events, but will be evaluating the experience at other venues to make a decision for future years later. We wanted to keep all events the same, and unfortunately there were some issues we just couldn't get past in order to offer it this year. Among these issues was projected volunteer availability and cost. Not to mention the pits are below freezing during load-in with all the doors opens in Duluth!

One item that came up in our discussion was one I hadn't considered before... A majority of teams end up travelling and getting a hotel for a couple of our events. Some (1/3 or more, we think) drive in Thursday morning instead of Wednesday evening, or only bring up a skeleton crew from the first day to cut down on costs. In this situation, you end up offering those teams that can afford that extra night in the hotel a perceived advantage of an extra hour or two Wednesday night spent setting up their pit that other teams may not be able to take advantage of. US be interested to hear thoughts from the community on that subject...