Charging for Parking at Regionals.

[AmyPrib]

Quit complaining. It's parking. It's a known cost. It always will be. That's how parking people make their money - on big events. Venues don't have to give FIRST events any special treatment and if they do it's normally because the planning committees worked some magic. I can understand the frustration with some outrageous parking costs, but unfortunately that is how it will be in many cases. Perhaps some extra fundraising can be done to cover it.

There will always be rising costs, there will always be growing pains. I'm not necessarily saying "nothing" can be done and just deal with it, but go see what you can do about it instead of complaining that FIRST isn't doing enough... about parking of all things. From looking at old papers, I believe that the cost of FIRST registration fees has risen about $2k in the last 15yrs...That's pretty good if you ask me.

Boilermaker had free parking in a garage 100yds from the venue. Purdue was nice enough to let us reserve it and a surface lot for bus/trailers free of charge for the 3 days. Most events don't have this luxury. Try to tell the RPCs that they should pay the cost of parking for every team. As a committee member, I would rather spend money on the regional activities and details, as well as scholarships for students, rather than parking costs. Many regionals don't have money to splurge on extra things..

Come up with ideas that are win-win!! Suggest these ideas at team forums at the end of the season. Find out who your regional planning committee is and make suggestions! Those who say something "must be done", well.... what do you suggest? And I mean, besides saying "FIRST or the committees should just pay for it".