Going to Multiple Regionals

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by rebelreyek

The only reason why it could possibly be beneficial to register for Pittsburgh first would be if the fill rate was higher than Buckeye.

Pittsburgh will fill before Buckeye. Money in the bank. Not even a question. It always has and that was before Week 2 became a desolate wasteland for regionals and without the third closest event to Buckeye sharing the same dates. (Pittsburgh<Cincinnati/QCR<Rochester/FLR)

EDIT: The only exception would be a significant sudden increase in teams from the metro Cleveland area (doubly significant since anyone more than 2 hours in any direction will go to another event). I'm not really tapped into FIRST in Ohio so you won't find that out until new numbers start popping up.

Watch for Mark McLeod to post the annual Registration thread. The turbonerds of the board (myself included) love tracking registration.

[bEdhEd]

I would definitely always prioritize registering and locking in your place for your home regional. It's always nice to show up there every year and be a consistent and familiar team. It actually kinda helps with alliance selection if you have a good reputation. I know my team has been picked before for eliminations, even though we didn't do that well. Because we're always at the Sacramento regional, we can get picked since we have a fairly good reputation. But we always hope to be the ones picking, and if not, we want to be picked for our scouted merits, not just for being there every season.

My team generally does two or three regionals a season. On average, it's two. Our budget was in a big deficit after the 2013 season since we went to three regionals, won two of them, thus ending up at champs, for a total of four events in a season, with champs being the huge expense. I wouldn't recommend jumping to three regionals in a season anytime soon until your team knows that they either have enough, or can make it up in sponsorships and fundraising post-season. But two regionals is a good area to get comfortable first with having more than one chance at a win.

I am excited for your team's progress and initiation into the fictional "two regional club!"