[Cothron Theiss]

I agree with a lot of the suggestions made in this thread. A few thoughts that I want to give in response to what I've seen so far.

While I would really enjoy in-depth strategy commentary in between matches, I can see that being a pretty difficult task to say something interesting, unbiased, concise, informative, and accurate for every event. Impossible? No. Just a pretty significant drain of resources that many events might not have.

Line dances and fun songs and mascot boxing matches are all well and good, but that should be happening a few times a day, not 10-15 times a day. There's a balance to be struck between silly and serious, and I understand that this can be difficult to achieve in every venue for every person. Another thing to consider is the difference in venue sizes/types. As more and more events move to smaller venues as more areas transition to Districts, we have a chance to mold how future events will be handled and what experience the audience will get.

There's a lot of great community-created content out there, especially the Chairman's videos. I've only ever seen a few Chairman's videos from other teams. I know I could find many of them if I went searching, but that's something I've never done. I feel like this should be the first resource events go to when they need to fill time.

Some have mentioned "Behind the Line" recordings, and others have mentioned the problems with this. I think that taking soundbites from behind the alliance wall, reviewing them to make sure they're appropriate, getting permission from the teams in the soundbite*, and planning to play those soundbites during the next year's competition might be a really attractive and not too difficult solution. The exact names for things might change, but the tension and passion never change.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this thread. This is a lot of discussion about how to improve the quality of events for everyone, from the seasoned veterans to the strangers who just stumbled into FIRST for the first time.


*Does FIRST already have explicit permission to use sound recordings of us? I know we agree to waivers so they can use pictures or videos with us in them. Does that include sound recordings? Could that include recordings?