Perhaps the biggest thing that's missing in the scheduling discussion is that FIRST often doesn't have many options when it comes to scheduling. They sign contracts with venues each year, for the days that are available on the venue's calendar. I have insight into a few regionals, and I can tell you that many times there may only be 1 weekend available for an event, or if there is a second weekend available it may conflict with another nearby event. This sometimes causes nearby regionals to stack up back to back, or for the planners to choose one regional conflict over another.
The only way this can be solved is to contract with the venues earlier (like they do with Champs). But that can't be done until FIRST knows they are going to hold that event in that year and in that location - and I strongly doubt that FIRST knows much more in advance which events will be held again, and which ones won't. Contracting a venue now for the next 3 years locks you into it, which means wasted money if that area switches to districts or wants to change venues. And we've seen events
switch venues before, and areas
switch to districts (or
not), sometimes with very little warning to the community, especially the peripheral community that may have attended regionals in that area but are not part of the new district.