FIRST Finale Feedback Thread

[Jared Russell]

So what did you think? I can't decide what was the best part: the 45 minute bus ride, being packed like sardines in the halls of the SLSC, the food, or the price!

[Billfred]

I will say the event felt rather oversold and under-mapped for the crowd on hand.

I was glad mine was comped as a volunteer.

[MARS_James]

I arrived at 6:30 and thought it was great, I then went back in with my team at 8:30 and could not believe how many people were shoved in there. I also could not believe how trashed our people made that museum I understand that garbage cans were overflowing but come on we are all Adults/Young Adults.

Also did anyone else feel that the age of the museum was more appropriate for FLL age participants?

[ayeckley]

I had very low expectations going in, yet was still disappointed. I honestly didn't feel safe trying to escort my 11 year-old around without getting trampled, and I'm no sissy for that kind of thing. They are lucky nobody called the Fire Marshall; I suspect it would have gotten shut down on the spot. I've seen some bad organizing in my day, but this was exceptional.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

I arrived at 6:30 and thought it was great, I then went back in with my team at 8:30 and could not believe how many people were shoved in there. I also could not believe how trashed our people made that museum I understand that garbage cans were overflowing but come on we are all Adults/Young Adults.

Also did anyone else feel that the age of the museum was more appropriate for FLL age participants?

I too felt it seemed more geared towards a younger crowd.

To be honest I had trouble even finding trash cans and consider is insane crowds I'm not surprised they were overflowing.

The place was WAY too packed to the extent you really couldn't enjoy your time there you just felt cornered in.

[MagiChau]

Does anyone feel this over crowding was due to the removal of the city musuem and the arch as FIRST Finale options? Last year the science center was a bit crowded but not seem excessively crowded as everyone is describing here.

P.S. Didn't go to Championship this year

[mmavipc]

When I arrived the crowd was like it was a weekend on a holiday at DisneyLand, and the fireworks just started/ended. When I left, there was NO room between people. We're staying at the residence inn, so we got on the bus at Zone 4. The bus driver didn't even know what residence inn was, so after a circleback to the science center, we got off at union station hotel and took a taxi from there.

The science center is pretty small. Let's be conservative and say there was an average of 10 people per team, even though the number was probably double that. 10*400=4000. FIRST, you tried to pack 4k people into a very small space. If a fire had happened, it would be very hard to get out, and some people might not even be able to. FIRST, next time, consult with the safety award sponsor before and after planning the finale.

Edit: Now, this is my personal opinion, but the science center was very boring to me, and just seemed like it'd be a place elementary schoolers would go to.

[kuyan]

It was really packed and the time that we had after the bus drive wasn't really enough to do much. But the planetarium was pretty cool and there was free food. Then again this is my first time attending both World Championships and the FIRST Finale so I don't have anything else to compare to

[Moriarty]

I noticed that outside the planetarium there was a lot of outdoor stuff set up and some FIRST logos... I'm not sure if this was an unrelated event, but I suspect that a major part of the event that would have alleviated much of the indoor guests was rained out which resulted in the excessive amount of people inside.

[thefro526]

Conceptually the Finale was pretty cool with shuttle buses to and from the Science Center, food at various stations, different activities to keep busy, etc.

The problem seems to lie in the fact that Einstein ran late as usual (not a bad thing) and the Finale had the same 6pm start time. This delay combined with the weather made finding a shuttle and getting on pretty hectic and apparently there's a law restricting the pickup and drop-off points for the shuttle buses which meant waiting in the bus for about 25-30 minutes while it moved forward something like 500'.

Once inside the center, it was obvious that there were just too many people. I'm not sure if the weather played a part in this as well, since I'd imagine that some team members would have ended up outside instead of crammed into the center. I was genuinely concerned for my students safety at some points as it was very apparent that there could/would be issues getting everyone out in an emergency. There were also a handful of occasions where I found myself walking extremely close (goes back to the packed in too tight thing) to some younger FIRSTers, possibly FLL/FTC age and felt that I had to be extremely cautious and make sure that I didn't inadvertently hurt them. (I'm ~6'5", so many FLL/Some FTC kids barely come up to my chest)

Moving forward, it seems like it may be best to either do a series of finale events (as done in the past) or stagger the times for team arrival (FLL goes earlier than FTC and/or FRC) or something of that nature.

Also, I really dislike that one of the yearly decisions seems to be 'Do we watch Einstein and the end of the closing ceremonies or do we go to the finale and arrive early enough to enjoy it?' For some teams the answer is obvious, but to those of us that enjoy watching Einstein or have some vested interest in it, it's not always clear.

[Jim Wilks]

I've been to 3 finales before this one.
The last 2 in Atlanta were awesome.

The first one in St. Louis was a major disappointment.

We didn't attend last year, but heard some good things about it, so we went this year.

I could rant about the terrible bus transportation, the stifling crush of bodies due to overcrowding, the trash everywhere, fireworks while it's raining, but instead I'll summarize it this way:

Finale = Fiasco

[CalTran]

The concept is what made our little 5 person group buy tickets. The food was good, and the venue was great as well. However, the amount of people, was NOT. Goodness, I'm not like a tiny person, but I had fears of being trampled. As well, I think the very close quarters made a few people rather grumpy. The amount of times I got yelled at for "breaking up a group someone was trying to stay with" while I was trying to stay with mine, was kind of startling. What happened to all being one big family?

[FABianchi]

Our team had 47 finale wristbands, but we stayed to watch Einstein finish, and by the time we got our bus loaded, we felt like it was too late to go. We hated to waste the money, but we had a tour lined up at Carnegie Mellon in the morning, and needed to get back to NY by the afternoon. Reading everyone's feedback, it looks like we made the right decision.

[ehochstein]

From what I saw the 2013 finale was not as good as the 2012. The only major difference between the two years in my mind is the venue(s).

This year we only had the St. Louis Science Center, which is basically a HUGE museum that can fit everyone but it cannot fit everyone comfortably or safely. I spent most of my time at the finale in the room under the planetarium, which was very crowded with people trying to get food and drink. The halls are simply too small for a large number of people to fit through which causes havoc and traffic jams.

The above being said the people running the event were simply amazing. I saw paramedics and safety officers patrolling the halls while I was walking around making sure everyone was safe. I also had a chance to talk with some of the employees running the Burrito booth (Qudoba?); they had brought over 6000 burritos cut in half and handed all of them out by 9pm.

Pros:
Food was amazing
Event staff were nice
The dance floor in the planetarium was genius!

Cons:
Only one venue
Crowded because of the above
Arrived late due to Einstein matches

[Alex2614]

Personally, I really enjoyed being screamed at by several security guards at the planetarium and science center. A group of students and I were trying to get back from outside the planetarium to the front entrance to the science center to meet up with the rest of our group and board our bus, when the security staff decided to close it off and not let anybody in or out. As many of you know, the planetarium is across the freeway from the science center, so we needed to figure out how to get back across. However, when we approached the security staff to ask them this question, they literally screamed "Don't ask us anything! It is closed! BACK UP! DON'T ASK US ANYTHING!" They were treating us as if we were about to start a riot or something, and we were honestly afraid of getting sprayed or something. Thank God I was not separated from the group, as I know at least one group next to us was, as that would have left a group of students without a mentor. Finally, one of the security staff looked over to the others, told them to calm down, and said "anybody that needs to get to the other side, follow me," and everything was okay. There were about 50 of us still left outside, and if they would have just let us go through the building before closing it off, it would have been okay. Anyway, we proceeded through the extremely crowded science center with security staff again screaming to exit the building more quickly, which we were honestly trying to do, but there were just so many people.

Once back up with our group in the lobby of the science center, the security staff was again yelling at us to exit the building. We explained to them that we still had a student on his way back to the group, and we will exit when he returns, but were met with harsh screams again.

Once outside, we had no idea which busses to board, as the signs around the lawn were confusing and we had no idea which ones to pay attention to, and where to board. I was also talking to a mentor/parent in the group with a service dog (a lot of you probably saw him in the pits wearing safety glasses), who was met with nothing but rudeness and literal pushing and shoving by not only staff but students and mentors as well.

Comparing Atlanta's finales in Centennial Olympic Park with the past 3 finales in St. Louis quite frankly makes me angry. There was not a single smile on anybody's face at 10:00 at the FIRST finale, but instead, frustration, anger, confusion, and worry. It should not be this way at the FIRST finale. It should be a time of closure, fun, and relaxation. This has not been the case in St. Louis as far as I have seen the past 3 years.

What they should have done is have the busses drop off at the planetarium, where there is the huge lawn, and if people want to see the science center at that point, they could. There is no point in shoving thousands of people through that cramped building when most people's ultimate destination was in the very back, outside (where there was another bus turn-around) to watch the fireworks and participate in the games. Heaven forbid an emergency situation would have happened, there would have been casualties.

Maybe this isn't the place, but while I'm at it, I will talk about before the finale. Back in the dome before the closing ceremonies began, there was an extreme lack of communication resulting in some more screams by security staff on multiple occasions. We proceeded to the upper level after we were told it was open at 2:30, just to be met with screaming security staff members asking us why we were up there (not just us, but the entire mob). They told us to not move, even though just below us was a MOVING escalator with large amounts of people trying to get up (can anybody say disaster?). Then when we found our seats, security proceeded to tell (yell) us that they were only allowing the first 4 rows of the upper level to be open, and that we had to move, even though FIRST takes up much more than that. Mind you, at this point, the first 4 rows of the entire level were already occupied.

I'm sorry, but after all of my experiences of CMP at STL in the past 3 years, I'm just about done with it.