Bringing Food into Competition Venues

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Steve W

This is how it works at venues. The venue puts out tenders for concessions. The best bidder (ie the one that pays the most to the venue) wins the tender and has exclusive rights to provide food at the venue. When FIRST goes to rent the venue they have no say with the concessions.

Which is why I find myself never following this rule. It's not FIRST's fault, it just comes with the venue. The food doesn't support FIRST it supports the vendors.

If buying food and bringing it into an arena results in a team saving enough money to actually come and participate in a Regional, then I say do it. Situations might be nice for some teams, but others have to find a way to save money with the entry fees, hotel costs, travel costs, etc. It's hard to cut corners on the other things, so I can easily see this rule being broken in order for a team to have the money to do the rest.

I will never pay three dollars for a bottle of Coke if I can get one down the street for a dollar. 1 buck vs. 3 dollars - seems pretty clear to me.