Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests

[sanddrag]

I'd venture a guess that with a high-profile event like this, that FIRST made sure the winning team for the Chairman's Award was notified before-hand that their presence would be required.

However, this is just pure speculation, but it seems logical.

[ToddF]

About the possibility of eligible teams skipping the concert and possibly missing out if they had won... Yes, some people who didn't win missed the event, but I'm willing to bet (don't know for sure) that the producers of the event probably dropped some pretty strong hints to the team that DID win that they should attend.

Lesson for next year: If you are eligible for an award and someone from FIRST lets you know that a previously unannounced event will have an awards ceremony, and asks if you are attending, say, "Yes."

My feeling about the event itself was positive. The kids loved it. It was one of the things that set the Championships apart from a Regional event. It felt like a reward for a season of hard work.

Comments about the tradeoff between the show and moving fields to the pits I'll post in the appropriate thread.

[LightWaves1636]

I liked the concert. It was fun. Although I'm still debating if it was worth the two fields in the pit because I would accept the fields in the pits if 1, better seating, and two, well this ties to better seating but allowed more dancing and team spirit down on the floor cause if you wanted to be next to the field, you had to kneel in order to watch the match so people in the bleachers can see too.

FIRST has been a special secret that my non-FIRST friends just don't get and hopefully this special in August ignites the culture change that FIRST was created for. We're even using the special as a sponsor recruiting opportunity, if a sponsor is on the fence about FIRST, we're going to heavily promote the special.

[thefro526]

I was one of those who was strongly opposed to a concert going into the Championship. I felt that it would take away from the event. I felt that moving two fields to the pit to have a stage in the dome was some sort of an atrocity.

I can honestly say that I was dead wrong.

After seeing the stage and the spectacle that followed, I can fully understand the reasons for making room for the concert to happen. The stage was definitely awesome, and it was cool to see the various HOF robots on Stage. I really like how the High Level FLL, FTC, and FRC award winners were recognized during the concert and not upstaged by the finals on Einstein, though I wish they would've played Team 359's Video at some point. Recognizing the Dean's list winners in front of their peers in such a high profile setting was cool as well, many people did not get a chance to make it up to the initial DLA presentation.

My only complaints about the concert are very minor, Will.I.Am saying "US FIRST" was pretty annoying, and Willow Smith yelling "St. Louis" every 15 seconds was pretty bothersome. (I'm still fairly certain that she had no idea where she was other than being in St. Louis.)

I'd like to see this sort of show return in the future - but I'd like to see them leave the stage up for Saturday and play the Einstein matches on it.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by thefro526

I was one of those who was strongly opposed to a concert going into the Championship. I felt that it would take away from the event. I felt that moving two fields to the pit to have a stage in the dome was some sort of an atrocity.

I can honestly say that I was dead wrong.

After seeing the stage and the spectacle that followed, I can fully understand the reasons for making room for the concert to happen. The stage was definitely awesome, and it was cool to see the various HOF robots on Stage. I really like how the High Level FLL, FTC, and FRC award winners were recognized during the concert and not upstaged by the finals on Einstein, though I wish they would've played Team 359's Video at some point. Recognizing the Dean's list winners in front of their peers in such a high profile setting was cool as well, many people did not get a chance to make it up to the initial DLA presentation.

My only complaints about the concert are very minor, Will.I.Am saying "US FIRST" was pretty annoying, and Willow Smith yelling "St. Louis" every 15 seconds was pretty bothersome. (I'm still fairly certain that she had no idea where she was other than being in St. Louis.)

I'd like to see this sort of show return in the future - but I'd like to see them leave the stage up for Saturday and play the Einstein matches on it.

I wonder if they'd do a show next year and if they did would they do another big stage show and would the Black Eyed Peas be back or who else will they get to perform?

[548swimmer]

Originally Posted by thefro526

My only complaints about the concert are very minor, Will.I.Am saying "US FIRST" was pretty annoying, and Willow Smith yelling "St. Louis" every 15 seconds was pretty bothersome. (I'm still fairly certain that she had no idea where she was other than being in St. Louis.)

That's 'cause the teleprompter told them to

[Bill_B]

Can anyone here post links to web-places on which the non-FIRST community discuss this event? That is, are there any BEP fan blog postings? I'm curious to read of what the "outside" world has to say about this.

[Sam Lipscomb]

First of all, some excellent points have been made by thefro526, sanddrag and of course libbyk. You guys definitely hit a lot of nails on the head.

I'd like to encourage you all to think of all the time, effort, planning and dedication that went into this event. Many many hands went into the making of the FIRST Championship Event and almost all of them have gone unrecognized.

Rather than complaining about choices made, think about celebrating the fact that someone outside of the FIRST community was given the chance to show how much he appreciates what we all do every year between January and April, and beyond. Think about appreciating the fact that FIRST decided to think outside the box and do something new and exciting for everyone, rather than just sticking to what works.

Hasn't that always been the mission of FIRST? Don't settle for what works; strive for what amazes.


And just a quick response to this:

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I seem to be a grumpy voice here. I apologize for coming across like that, but...

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan
"...it did not cause the event to come to any sort of serious grinding halt."

It did halt things. Qualification matches ended an hour earlier than they would have otherwise and the dome was cleared out.

Qualification matches ended at 5pm, and they were scheduled to end at 5pm. While this may have been different from previous years, this was not wrong. There was a hard stop when there might not have otherwise been, but Championship fields are always encouraged to run on time and are not necessarily required to stay late to finish up matches.

The field crews of all of the divisions did an excellent job at keeping to the schedule, as evidenced by the very small number of matches that the pit fields had to play past 5pm and that the dome fields came back to play at 6pm.


This event had its pros and cons, but as apprehensive as we all may have been about the setup, I would 100% agree with the majority of you that the pros vastly outweigh the cons and that our first year in STL was a huge success. For the minority, I would simply ask that you emphasize the constructive part of the criticism and recognize the difference between giving feedback and finding reasons to complain.

[cziggy343]

Originally Posted by thefro526

I'd like to see this sort of show return in the future - but I'd like to see them leave the stage up for Saturday and play the Einstein matches on it.

YES!!! I really hope that they consider this. My friend and I said through the whole concert: "You know, it would be awesome if this was Einstein tomorrow." That would also kill two birds with one stone... you get more floor space in the dome, and you get Einstein on an awesome stage

[fsgond]

The main complaint that I have was seating. Our team was stuck up in the nose bleed section. It was terrible. We could not understand the speeches, and could not tell who was on stage, it could have been 4 of our team members. I know that we are not the only team that feels shorted with these seats, everyone around us made it very clear. I wish FIRST could figure out a way that we could all get at lease reasonable seats.

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I'd venture a guess that with a high-profile event like this, that FIRST made sure the winning team for the Chairman's Award was notified before-hand that their presence would be required.

However, this is just pure speculation, but it seems logical.

Several teams, including the Hawaiian Kids but also several other RCA winners (perhaps all?) were told ahead of time by judges that they ought to plan on attending the concert on Friday night.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Jared341

Several teams, including the Hawaiian Kids but also several other RCA winners (perhaps all?) were told ahead of time by judges that they ought to plan on attending the concert on Friday night.

From what I've gathered, all of the RCA winners that submitted at the CMP were given light blue wristbands to get onto the floor of the concert.

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by thefro526

From what I've gathered, all of the RCA winners that submitted at the CMP were given light blue wristbands to get onto the floor of the concert.

It looked like all RCA winners and HoF teams. However, giving them what was essentially a different ticket is not the same as saying "be there." But it is somewhat comforting to hear that some/all of the RCA-winning teams were encouraged to attend.

[1986titans]

I saw at least a couple people from RCA teams going in that had tickets saying something like "ON FLOOR" under "Section".

The only problems I had with the concert was the fact that the Chairman's Award announcement was most likely not a last minute thing to be put in there - they could have easily told every team. Having the floor of the arena half empty while people were up in the nosebleeds seems kind of strange too.

[DeAnnaC]

I'm glad to see some positive comments about the event - especially from those who thought the concert was a bad idea. It's not my kind of music either, but seeing all of those kids dancing and having a great time together, from all over the world, how can you not smile at that?

Most of St. Louis has no idea that the BEP's were even here, and are so suprised to hear that they played for US!

We are a Chairman's team, and we were given floor tickets and light blue wristbands.. we gave our 'floor tickets' to some much younger attendees (I thought we were unlucky to get floor tickets). We had been doing enough standing, we just wanted to sit for a while.

The bass. It was loud. They may want to get a structural engineer in there to check the foundations..the dome may have moved a few inches. LOL.