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Originally Posted by jlindquist74
Remember that bit about an "excess of venues"? It isn't valid in San Diego. Call it a consequence of us having better weather than the rest of you, but we have little history of building large or multiple gyms. We really don't have venues to offer.
Of 116 schools in San Diego and Imperial Counties, only 7 have two gyms. Three (Carlsbad, Fallbrook, Escondido) are at schools with no team. Grossmont (4919) and Mar Vista (no team, but same district as 2543, 3704, 4616, 5627) have a long distance between them. That leaves Ramona (2029) and Sweetwater (3704). (And Ramona's a bit off the beaten path.)
Can we fit pits into Mission Hills' (5137) or Canyon Crest's (3128) gyms? (Same design, a large spectator gym with an 84'x50' practice court stubbed off to the side.) Can 5137 get us the huge gym at San Marcos HS? (Large enough for three side-by-side courts, large-capacity bleachers cover one, bleachers closed on the third for pit space. Is that even large enough?) Can 1972 get neighboring Southwest HS in El Centro? (Similar config to San Marcos. And of course, that means driving two hours to El Centro.)
The junior colleges and private 4-year schools lack facilities, and the ongoing budget crisis has forced the state universities to treat outside rentals as revenue sources. (SDSU and UCSD won't give us any breaks.) If we can't be assured of three (maybe two) district events close enough to drive/bus to daily, I don't expect much support for a proposal which would eliminate our present home event.
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Thanks a ton for this valuable feedback. Yes, RC, Andrew and I are all from NorCal. Your feedback on gyms is very insightful. If I ever got some free time, I was going to start google-earth-touring around all the high schools (starting with FRC team schools and working my way from there) to start looking for venues, but you seem to have a strong grasp of the region already.
Hopefully you got to read in the proposal a bit on the venue needs for a 40 team district event (including stands for 1200 people, square footage for field and pits, etc). Maybe someone in another district could enlighten the conversation, but I am not sure that the pits need to be strictly a second gym? I've been to multiple unofficial FRC events where something like a cafeteria/MPR was used as a decent pit space. Maybe that could open up some more options in SoCal (and SD specifically).
Is something like a big tent/easy up a possibility for district event pits? I've seen this done once in the US (Sacramento Regional 2014), and the pits at the 2012 Israel regional were underneath a giant tent as well. I wonder what the cost is to rent one of those for 3 days?
Also, a note for parking. FiM will hire a bus/shuttle to move people from a remote parking lot to the event if there isn't enough parking directly at the venue. Turns out, when you are saving hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, you can drop 1-2k to hire a shuttle bus
Another aspect not touched on in the proposal is doing a multi-year district roll-out. The idea here is NorCal has a few more things in it's favor to switch to districts than SoCal, at least in the short term. Next year, NorCal will have 4 Regional events (at least 2 at High Schools, still waiting on the new Sacramento location). With just over 100 teams in NorCal, 6 district events are needed. Add in a DCMP, and that is 7 events. Subjectively, the jump from 4 events to 7 events does not seem that bad. Add in that NorCal already has 40+ team off-season events and established HS venues, I have no doubt that NorCal could make the switch fairly painlessly in 2018.
I am interested in hearing peoples thoughts on rolling out districts in California over multiple seasons.
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
-Mike