Information on Hosting Needed

[Ken Leung]

Originally Posted by Kymber

Thank you all this has been very informative, sounds a lot like planning a regional. I know what the budget for a regional is, how does an offseason event compare? Is it much cheaper or is it about the same? I think it will be a bit cheaper since you can get the venue donated, especially if you use a school, but do you have to run electric. Do you do your own scoring or do you have to rent this from FIRST as well? I'm just full of questions I know, I just want to have as much knowledge to pass on as I can. I like to know what I'm talking about when presenting to someone and I try not to pull the, can I get back to you on that if I can avoid it. I'm sure there will be questions I haven't thought of but that always happens, people like to know different things. We don't really have to worry about the tent thing, here in Texas you'd have to be out of your mind to do anything in a tent, if it's not hot and humid it's raining for the most part. Again Thank Y'all, ok I had to get one in, I've already corrected my grammar a few times

From my experience, an offseason event is definitely much cheaper than a regional competition. In the past Cal Game's venue is free to use, except for some minimal custodial fee, and we never went for any fancy lighting setup.

You do have to run electrical, but depending on your venue, it's usually not a big deal. Worse come the worst, you can limit teams on the use of tools in the pit area, because if you don't, you may blow a circuit breaker or two in some cases.

If you are experienced with regional planning, then you know a lot about planning for an off season already. The only difference is, the budget is a lot smaller, and you are counting on a lot more volunteer support than in a regional, where you have money to hire professionals for a lot of the jobs. In an offseason event, if you want to save as much money as possible, virtually all jobs are filled by volunteers. Depending on how many teams are participating, you may that very easy or very hard to do.

As for the field/scoring system, it is of course best to get it from FIRST. You would have to talk to the Engineering department about that since they are in charged of the fields, but the only limitation there is how much fund you have to ship and field/scoring system to and from New Hampshire.