LAS VEGAS REGIONAL... terminated?

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by EricH

See the post above ya. They don't have one that's big enough.

Something that most folks east of the Rockies don't necessarily understand is that many of the high schools on the west coast (Vegas included) don't exactly have the largest gyms or other indoor athletic facilities. If I were told "come up with a list of high schools in your area (L.A.) that could host a 40-team event for three days plus setup", I'd be hard-pressed. I might be able to come up with 4-5, but I'd really have to think about it to get more. The reason: We don't have "weather". We have "climate" with a side of "mild rainy season".

AKA, people actually want to live out here

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by JB987

We have no highschool venue large enough to handle the minimum 40 ish teams we were told we need to serve and cost of bringing in generator we would need brings overall cost to same as current venue we get for dirt cheap thanks to LV Convention Visitors Authority discount.

I think the LV area has upwards of 2 million residents and about forty high schools. If our one high school in a community of about 8 thousand can host a district competition, surely one (or more) of those LV high schools can do it.

Venue rental is not usually the largest cost difference between regionals and district competitions. Professional event management and A/V services make regionals much more expensive to operate than districts.

I served on a regional planning committee for several years, in St. Louis, before moving to Michigan. The regional I helped to plan and run had a budget more than 20 times what my district competition runs on today.

Of course this is not easy -- it takes a small army of dedicated volunteers and some of the best organizers in the FRC community. But surely LV is up to that kind of challenge.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

I think the LV area has upwards of 2 million residents and about forty high schools. If our one high school in a community of about 8 thousand can host a district competition, surely one (or more) of those LV high schools can do it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but of the roughly 50 high schools nearest me, I can only think of 5, max, that would fit the bill, just from space, not even counting schedule. L.A. has a similar population density to some areas of Vegas. You guys are 1/1, we're 1/10 if that. Some of our high schools could probably fit their entire athletic areas, football field gym and all, into the space used by IRI (including theater and possibly the neighboring swim area).

Here's the thing: Out here, high schools are rather space-constrained by neighborhoods. If any given high school (let alone middle/elementary schools) needs to expand, they have only one place to go: straight up. Or straight onto the athletic fields, which are probably about the only open space for a few hundred yards. Bigger gym? Sorry, there goes the X building. Oh, we need that? Guess we've gotta build a taller building for Y so we can eliminate the need for X. Wait, the Z regulation forbids that? Guess we gotta modernize the gym and skip the expansion. You get the picture. And when something does get budgeted for and built, it can take YEARS. (A local high school put a theater in recently. I think it opened up about 3-4 years ago. They started back when I was in middle school, as I recall. Might be off on the times, but it took a very long time to put up.)

In the Midwest, there's a lot of more open land. True, there's a lot of farmland in use. But the point is, there is very little space at a high school to put a facility that can handle a robotics competition out here, and the existing facilities were generally built when high schools were smaller, smaller athletic departments, you get the picture.

If I can only think of 5 high schools that can maybe handle a district from a space standpoint, and one farther out that definitely can, in a much bigger city area than Vegas, then maybe "We can host a district and we're smaller than you in population" isn't the sort of thing that will help the problem. I've heard that one of the issues with going to a district system in CA is the venues, or lack thereof--as a state, we've got more area and more population, and have had more teams at times, then most of the current district areas. Therefore, there must be something else that is keeping us from going to districts, and suitable venues is a likely suspect, though certainly not the only one.

[Uniwersel]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

I think the LV area has upwards of 2 million residents and about forty high schools. If our one high school in a community of about 8 thousand can host a district competition, surely one (or more) of those LV high schools can do it..

I lived in Las Vegas as a freshman, and I can't think of any high school in the area that could support a regional with 50 teams attending. Most of the high schools are based on one of two designs, both of which are similar in size. The high school I went to had a 3 court basketball gym, with a small practice gym attached. There would be space for the field, which would be extremely cramped, but no room for pits.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

I think the LV area has upwards of 2 million residents and about forty high schools. If our one high school in a community of about 8 thousand can host a district competition, surely one (or more) of those LV high schools can do it.

Venue rental is not usually the largest cost difference between regionals and district competitions. Professional event management and A/V services make regionals much more expensive to operate than districts.

I served on a regional planning committee for several years, in St. Louis, before moving to Michigan. The regional I helped to plan and run had a budget more than 20 times what my district competition runs on today.

Of course this is not easy -- it takes a small army of dedicated volunteers and some of the best organizers in the FRC community. But surely LV is up to that kind of challenge.

The LVRPC (which has a strong 987 presence on it) consistently puts on one of the best run regionals in FIRST. If Joe is saying they can't do it, then I believe that they have turned over the rocks required to make that statement with confidence.

254 has greatly enjoyed our three trips to the Las Vegas Regional. We probably would have made Las Vegas our default second regional, if it did not begin to overlap SVR the last few years. It has some of the friendliest event staff, is very smoothly run, and is always a lot of fun for the teams. The Thomas and Mack Center was a very good venue and from what I've heard from 987 the new convention center is even better.

Like Pat, I too wonder why exactly FIRST can't continue to contribute 0.125% of their $24,000,000 war chest to sustain one of the best events in their program.

As others have mentioned, this will have a waterfall effect on surrounding areas. CA is already totally saturated and can barely support the number of plays required for local teams. Some local teams who were using LV as a second play are now going to be looking for slots that don't exist in CA. Yeah, we're adding the new Ventura regional, but doing so is just keeping the dam from overflowing...it's not really expanding capacity, especially when you look at growth in rookie teams.

254 certainly hopes that Las Vegas will continue to have a regional and looks forward to an opportunity to attend again.

[Jon Jack]

Originally Posted by Cory

Some local teams who were using LV as a second play are now going to be looking for slots that don't exist in CA. Yeah, we're adding the new Ventura regional, but doing so is just keeping the dam from overflowing...it's not really expanding capacity, especially when you look at growth in rookie teams.

This.

Adding Ventura and losing Vegas would give western teams the same number of regionals as 2014, but the demand will be higher. Even with 6 regionals it's very difficult for a California team to get a second in-state play. Before this year, our out of state options were:

-Hawaii/Colorado/Utah, which is difficult for most CA teams to pull off financially.
-Arizona, which usually fills very early in registration since it's a smaller event and is filled by Arizona and New Mexico teams.
-Las Vegas which is within driving distance for almost every CA team.
-Oregon/Washington events, which was popular with teams from northern California.

With the formation of the PNW region, we lost the Oregon/Washing events, which made Vegas the best out of state option for many California teams (hence why so many California teams were competing in Vegas this year).

If Vegas closes, that would force most California teams to have to find two events in a state which hasn't been able to support two events for its own teams since the 2010 season. In my opinion, this would be a huge step backwards for FRC.

[tcjinaz]

Originally Posted by seg9585

And here I was thinking how great Vegas would be to hold future FRC Championship events. Vegas has so much hotel capacity, such large convention centers and arenas, and is easily accessible by air from everywhere.

Vegas was our go-to as a second regional because all other SoCal regionals filled up immediately. The Santa Barbara Regional should ease that a little next year, but travel to SB is logistically equivalent at least from where my team is located in Orange County (still need a hotel, etc).
Another reason VEgas was special was it featured so many high-caliber teams. The winners or finalists of the LA, San Diego, Inland Empire, Arizona, and Utah Regionals were all present in Vegas this year!

Vegas is probably not really thrilled about the business generated by FIRST. In my field, the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference is the place to be in June. It used to be in Vegas fairly regularly (my first in 1982), but around 2001 the hotels/casinos started looking at how much "side" (gambling) business was being generated and decided DAC was not profitable enough for them, and it has not been back since.

[tcjinaz]

Originally Posted by N7UJJ

One of the hardest challenges facing the FIRST community is recruiting and sustaining teams on the Native American reservations. The Flagstaff team, 2486, the Coconuts, have made supporting reservation teams a priority. Las Vegas is situated close to the Navajo, Hopi, and many of the Ute nations. Losing LVR will hamper FIRST's goal to reach out to those who can benefit the most.

Time for a regional, certainly eventually a district event, in Flagstaff in the future? The Coconuts has built half a district's worth of teams lately, now it's time for their next challenge.

[mrmummert]

I've been reading this thread on and off and one thing i haven't seen mentioned about the pros and cons of
High School based events and Covention center based events is the mention of events ( a regional or district) held at a local University.

Since i don't live out there i can't speak for you local folks...but back here
in the east we attended the Virginia regional which was held at VCU and the
Chesapeake regional which was held at the University of Maryland for the first time this year.
The DC regional was also held for the first time at George Mason University this year.
I'm sure if i look them up there were others.

VCU's Siegel center is almost right in downtown Richmond....so there
wasn't a lot of room for it when it was built...but it was. Universities
tend to have larger spaces for their uses. The only downside i could see
is a University might turn down a First regional or district if it conflicted
with their Basketball schedule that time of year. Also some Universities
charge more for the use of their venue than others...but in some cases
i think its cheaper than renting a Civic center type venue.

[JB987]

Originally Posted by mrmummert

I've been reading this thread on and off and one thing i haven't seen mentioned about the pros and cons of
High School based events and Covention center based events is the mention of events ( a regional or district) held at a local University.

Since i don't live out there i can't speak for you local folks...but back here
in the east we attended the Virginia regional which was held at VCU and the
Chesapeake regional which was held at the University of Maryland for the first time this year.
The DC regional was also held for the first time at George Mason University this year.
I'm sure if i look them up there were others.

VCU's Siegel center is almost right in downtown Richmond....so there
wasn't a lot of room for it when it was built...but it was. Universities
tend to have larger spaces for their uses. The only downside i could see
is a University might turn down a First regional or district if it conflicted
with their Basketball schedule that time of year. Also some Universities
charge more for the use of their venue than others...but in some cases
i think its cheaper than renting a Civic center type venue.

The regional started at UNLV at the Thomas and Mack Arena 10 years ago and we stayed there until venue rates went over $60k (now at $80k and that is with UNLV discount. We moved to small convention center with rental rate of $6k plus portable stands costing around $14k I believe. Community college facility alternative is no good. We lowered our regional cost significantly over the last 3 years. The problem continues to be difficulty getting the community to contribute more $. We added a professional fund raiser to our board and fund generation prospects look better now, however, FIRST wants a guarantee right now that our regional will be 100% covered by local sponsors. You can't guarantee sponsor pledges will come through as many of you may know...

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

I'm not an accountant, but a quick look at FIRST's financials seem to indicate that the organization is operating at a $2M yearly surplus and is sitting on top of nearly $24M in cash and short-term investments.

Given that for the parent organization funding is apparently not in short supply, is it unreasonable of me to ask why regionals experiencing financial hardship can't retain a larger portion of their own registration fees?

I'm not an accountant either, but to get better insight into FIRST financials, their Form 990 filing provides details for revenues, expenses and compensation for the fiscal year. As a non-profit organization, FIRST's 2011 Form 990 filing is public information and can be found on the web.

An interesting aspect of the filing is the expenses falling under the category of "grants or other assistance to organizations, governments and individuals." Expenditure of grants received by FIRST from donors for specific teams in excess of $5000 are listed in Schedule I (starting on page 35). Basically, team registration fees are considered fair market value for "Kit of parts and program participation."

One might expect a portion of the team's registration fee for events would be applied directly the cost of events the team attends, but this is not the case. This begs the question: for teams registering for than one regional, just what program participation expenses are being paid by the additional $4000 per regional?

Some transparency from FIRST here would also be appreciated.

[scca229]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

If LVR needs a year to recoup funds, couldn't they run a more district-sized event and make back their debts? I feel like teams would accept this to keep the competition and FIRST would do it to break even. Lose the flashy A/V & venue this next year and bring it back after that.

Joe would have to chime in here, but I *think* the "flashy A/V" is actually donated...

Am I right in thinking that Joe?

Also, those saying that the AZ Regional is "smaller" need to look at the registration numbers...both events were set at 51 this year (AZ had 2 no shows, I think LV had 1). They are both the same size registration wise, but LV is a much larger venue. Really curious now what AZ's 2nd regional venue size will be next year since it is at a university.

I am so hoping this doesn't come to pass as I love my mini-vacation in LV even though it is the most exhausting fun I've ever had being the FTAA

Nate
LVR FTAA 2013-2014, AZR FTAA 2013, AZR Robot inspector 2014

[tcjinaz]

Originally Posted by scca229

Joe would have to chime in here, but I *think* the "flashy A/V" is actually donated...

Am I right in thinking that Joe?

Also, those saying that the AZ Regional is "smaller" need to look at the registration numbers...both events were set at 51 this year (AZ had 2 no shows, I think LV had 1). They are both the same size registration wise, but LV is a much larger venue. Really curious now what AZ's 2nd regional venue size will be next year since it is at a university.

I am so hoping this doesn't come to pass as I love my mini-vacation in LV even though it is the most exhausting fun I've ever had being the FTAA

Nate
LVR FTAA 2013-2014, AZR FTAA 2013, AZR Robot inspector 2014

The quick glance at Grand Canyon University's athletics facilities show this: http://www.gculopes.com/sports/2010/...um.aspx?&tab=4
and this:
http://www.gculopes.com/sports/2012/3/5/GCU.aspx?&tab=4

Which probably add up to more space than the AZ Regional gets at Hamilton High School, if FIRST gets all of it.

So you might lose a vacation in Sin City, but gain one in N Phoenix

[OZ_341]

I hope everything works out for the LV Regional.
Its a great regional, run by great people.

* Teams from around the region and around the world.
* High competitive level.
* There are a ton of inexpensive and wholesome activities for kids to do after competition ends. (Red Rock Canyon, Circus Circus, Outdoor Shows, Tiger Habitat....)
* Hotels are very inexpensive
* High Quality volunteer Staff

I really hope that FIRST can look past the financial bumps and supports this regional which serves so many local teams.

If there is anything that 341 can do to support you, please let us know.

[Lil' Lavery]

While it may lose some of the travel appeal, has serious consideration been given to alternative sites in Nevada that may end up being cheaper or have more local support?